Baystate Jeepers

After lots of reading, I think I'm going to have a bit of a change in the plans. I'd been pretty set on running coilover shocks, gotta say though the math involved in producing the desired ride height via spring rates is mind boggling. That's almost secondary though....ultimately, who in New England really needs a triple bypass remote reservoir coilover? Pretty much the guys that load their junk on a trailer, drive out west and run KOH. Another fairly undesirable characteristic of coilovers is the unloading aspect.

So i started looking into air struts. One of the things that initially had me put off about air struts is it's been said a lot that they're not very good for all day riding, more for short competition rock crawling runs. The problem being the nitrogen would get too hot and expand leaving you with a stiff strut. Most of this is referencing the Coilover Bible on Pirate. Well, after getting outside that source and hearing what some end users have said, that's really not the case anymore. The ORI ST's definitely had a problem overheating, they now have an STX model which plenty of rigs are now running at KOH and beating the piss out of and not having any overheating problems. So it looks like I'll be moving to a set of ORI's. Very simple tuning, no complex math to set them up initially, and significantly cheaper than the remote reservoir King/Fox/Rock Krawler coilovers I've been shopping, those things can approach $1k per shock

Other good news is Rodney at Performance One in VT is a dealer. Happens to be the same guy I sold my NP241OR to. He's given me a pretty sweet deal on them to boot.

Progress has been almost nonexistent last two weeks, hoping to be able to get back in the garage next week and tackle the electrical issues and fuel system.

Rodney is a good guy to work with.

I had a few hours to work yesterday so I got the front axle, suspension, and steering out and got the frame on to jack stands. Great news also is National Grid finally came out and hooked up the electrical...no meter base yet for some reason but I'm hooked up now

Not a whole lot of work going on the last two weeks, had the flu kicking ****** and I've had some welding to get done on my 44's for the guy buying them. The Treps did arrive, had them drop shipped to a local tire shop, they said they'd mount them for $30 a wheel...sold!



I'm heading out to Utah Friday morning, Dad is taking me to Powder Mountain for my upcoming 30th bday. Axles should be here when I get back so it'll be nose to the grind stone time.

My god , those look sweeeeet ! FjR68

Only 8 weeks past original delivery date but here they are, 900 pounds of pure sex appeal!







Huge thanks to Kurt for giving me a place to ship and being available to help load!!!

Now get wrenching!

8 weeks!!! I hope they compensated you in some way. I would be pissed.

To be honest, as annoyed as I was about the late delivery, Matt @ Solid was pretty up front about not being able to meet the deadline. He was about a month behind on work and then RCV sent him the wrong length on the inner passenger's side shaft, set him back about 3 more weeks. Didn't want to press the issue with them other than express I wanted them here ASAP.

Solid is a small business, only 2 or 3 employees i think, and I saved about 20% ordering through them rather than Currie or Dynatrac. The casting is one Matt developed himself, and it's definitely an excellent design; nice smooth and think casting on the bottom portion of the diff, definitely built for someone who likes to play in the rocks. I spoke to Matt several times during the build and he was very apologetic about not meeting the deadline but expressed that he was not willing to sacrifice on quality for the sake of speed. I can appreciate that, and the finished product is pretty damn impressive.

Damnnnnnnnn....................... hey if you need a hand turning a wrench, I'm still here and being the wintah, I don't have a lot going on during the weekends. Just sayin

I guess ultimately if you are ok / happy with how things went that is still good business.

I would have just made him donate stuff to the Rally. hehe

Carl, I'll be there all day tomorrow and monday, give me a holler if you want to ride down

Nothing glamerous today, plasma cutter and grinder are getting a good workout though. Lots of brackets to hack off, hooefully I'll start setting the axles by next weekend.

Did you go 300M on the inners or are they only Chromo?

Only ? FjR68