**Tuning for Success: A Journey with the Young Padawan**

As we ventured into the world of motorsports, our team was determined to push the limits and fine-tune every aspect of our truck. We sought advice from experienced hands, who shared their expertise on suspension, steering systems, and more. The first thing Mike noted was that our fuel cell was woefully inadequate, holding only 22 gallons – a critical issue we couldn't ignore.

Next, he pointed out the need to upgrade our steering system. "It's okay as long as we don't drive it too hard," he cautioned, which didn't sit well with us given our racing ambitions. The verdict was clear: we had to address these issues if we wanted to take our truck to the next level.

**The Power of Fine-Tuning**

As Adam, the young Padawan, took the wheel, we could see the excitement in his eyes. He was eager to test the tweaks and make adjustments on the fly. With each pass, he'd modulate the throttle, feeling out the nuances of our truck's performance.

"It looks good," he exclaimed, "and it feels so much better!" The difference was palpable, and we could see the confidence growing in him with every lap. Being in the Power Band made all the difference, allowing Adam to keep the truck semi-steadied as it floated over bumps. But when timing went wrong, the truck would buck hard – a reminder of how crucial fine-tuning was.

**A Few Key Adjustments**

With each tweak, we could see the improvement. A couple clicks and suddenly our truck was more planted and solid. Adam's speed increased immediately, and he felt more comfortable behind the wheel. We were all thrilled with the progress, knowing that these adjustments would only get better as we refined them.

**The Final Push**

As we pushed the limits, we encountered a few hiccups – including a severely bent steering arm after one particularly aggressive maneuver. It was a sobering reminder of our concerns about the steering system, but also a testament to the truck's potential.

Despite this setback, we were still thrilled with the progress made and knew that we had to tackle these issues head-on. Our team's determination and expertise would guide us through this process, ensuring that our truck would be ready for its next challenge – perhaps even the Nora 500.

**A Job Well Done**

As we wrapped up our day of fine-tuning, we couldn't help but feel proud of what we'd accomplished. We had addressed some critical issues, and our truck was now better equipped to take on the demands of motorsports. Our team's hard work and dedication had paid off, and we were eager to see where this journey would take us next.

And as for Adam – well, he was just happy to have a drink after his adrenaline-fueled adventure!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwe bought this Ranger for 500 bucks and after putting $100,000 into it we're almost ready to race it $500 Mi through the Mexican desert in the Nora 500 we fabricated a completely new suspension system we upgraded the wheels the tires in the brakes then we installed a brand new LSX engine we completely revamped the interior with some racing buckets harnesses communication and navigation system for the finishing touches we installed some KC lights and off-road racing body kit and then finished it with this new wrap but is that enough to get us through 500 treacherous miles of the Mexican desert in the North 500 today we're doing all the finishing touches to get this truck ready for race day then we're going to take it out to the desert to dial in our suspension and make sure this Ranger can cross the finish line oh here we go this right here is James he's a volunteer Tech inspector for Nora he's is going to give our truck a once over and make sure that our truck abides by the rule books is safe and desert worthy get it to the Finish is the goal that's right our first hurdle is pass and Tech inspection your safety nets your five-point harness your fuel sill all your check valves Tech inspection is super duper common in racing no matter what organization you're racing with no matter what discipline when you're building a new race car like we are a fresh car have a tech inspector from an organization that you're going to be racing with come out check it out make sure that you're compliant always protect your your coils let's say you guys go through a saltwater Crossing or a mud Crossing you turn or something it's going to spray mud and conductive water all over that coil pack James has got a lot of experience got a lot of tricks got a lot of knowhow and I think he's going to help us get there loose hoses loose cables loose wiring anything you can rattle with your hand that's going to eventually Scar the hose or Scar the electrical and that can put you out we're going to have a tech inspected yet again when we're in enata but it's always a good idea to have it inspected beforehand months before your event make sure that when you get down there you're ready to go and you don't waste a bunch of time hunting down Parts having to do a bunch of work this is going to be your biggest battle racing this truck or these leaf springs really take care of them and maybe carry a spare in your tase truck oh really Poss yeah that's a good thing too one of the things that we need to figure out is also yeah what spares to bring so spare leaf springs that's a whole another list radiator freaking hoses fuel lines there's a lot more stuff in the truck that James suggests we also have besides just being rule compliant including snacks literally duct taping like Power Bars and Cliff Bars to your doors so you have fuel not only for the car but for yourself I want to be as safe as possible and I also want to finish the race take five lug nuts put them on a zip tie put them on your cage sometimes I spray paint them yellow cuz what can happen is you're in Silt that's Farm silt that gets 2 3 ft deep and it's just like talcum powder if you zip your lug nuts off and you drop them oh they're gone g d you're going to be looking for those things for 20 minutes it's that thin that Silk oh yeah it's just like baby powder and it's that deep do you guys get stuck in that often oh yeah and this truck avoid those ruts at all cost like if you got to go through some bushes and Cactus go that rout Jesus Christ it's not like quick sand though like we can't die in there can we you better be a good swimmer Jesus no I'm kidding you can't die with all that said we got a bunch of stuff to do so let's get started shall we James expressed concerns about the coil packs just found some tin laying in the corner I don't know where this came from it's very thin and flimsy thinking I'm just going to use these little nuts right here to hold this guy on I'll put a rivet here just to hold that position but I'm pretty happy with that to be honest went from Fender last video now I'm bending shaping metal look no rocks are going to hit the the uh coils it looks like I know but hey trying here okay hand Cook Tires loves pushing the limit so today I'm going to set the record for the world's longest skid mark I'm going to make a skid mark all the way from dut to New York City and the best part I'm going to do it using a single set of dinoo at2 extremes we are go from long at skid mark on you James on you these bad puppies have unrivaled longevity and are backed by a 70,000 M treadwear warranty James careful you're heading off road guys relax the at2 extremes have multidirectional grooves and sights for better traction across any Terrain what do you suppose that was they're designed for enhanced movement drivability and reduced road noise no utilize the feature my guy I'm on a mission yes I get it and it's all thanks to my can cook Dino Pro at2 extremes if you want a set of tires that Can Go the Distance hit the link below all right time to go home t core support for the radiator needs to be a little bit more secure to avoid cracks in the really thin metal that the chassis is made of so I'm going to weld the core support to the fender support and that'll make it a little bit more rigid keep that radiator from shaking around we're going over those nasty whoops down there it sounds like it's going to be a lot more rough down there than our usual California City Trophy Truck donut Drome test ground that we usually run at this is Untamed Wilderness that we're going to be riding through I mean this thing's tough for sure but uh you have a ways to go before it's tough enough for this race about to flash guys M The Flash it's been a while since I've welded about 10 years hey you know what oh that that's pretty in there dude yeah but now the weak point is back here just don't hit anything dude do that again Watch look we can all be willing to learn and make mistakes and not be afraid to and I think I made some mistakes here in terms of my welding there's some pretty big Globs holding them in not going to lie but you know what I'm great buddy don't look in there don't look oh god look over and this side's better this side's better please please please last time you saw this truck we got everything wired up to drive it and test it technically but uh it's a bit of a Rat's Nest under the dashboard and we brought in Aaron Parker my buddy my love I'm a little bit worried this is going to be very difficult to manage a lot of wires rattling wires and rattling hoses was like a huge thing that he was talking about warning us about and that's what is exclusively in this cab right now it's just I'm stressing out looking at it there is a jumble of wires everywhere and I'm trying to consolidate unpin depin reroute sometimes cutting redoing the wire when needed and then move forward to the next thing cuz there's a ton of things that need to get done on this truck and we really don't have that much time all right so these are our racing helmets they are already wired up for comms thanks to PCI and also ready to go for the PCI radio's race air clean air system so what that is doing is essentially pulling in clean air inside the cab so that we're not breathing in all that crazy dust and stuff while we're driving through the Baja we don't have a windshield right we don't have a dust screen or anything it's all going to be flying right at us and these helmets are going to keep us safe and make sure we're ready for the Long Haul the tube connects from this filtered air box all the way to our helmets and then we get to breathe in fresh awesome air what I need to do is find somewhere inside the cab for this pump and filter to go and then it needs to be wired up to a switch everything's ready to go plug and play there you go buddy so we got our fancy new helmets with our clean air system and our microphones so we're going to do a quick test wa these smell like chemicals that is potent stings in the nostrils yeah let's see if our fresh air cool air system will fix that give me full volume hello Adam oh dude that's so much better than the last one that's good let's hit a trail fresh air system oh oo that's sick I feel it on my eyes it's like air conditioning yeah this is sick it'll unog the visor too dude I'll be right back this is so comfortable and I can still hear you we should just hang out like this I think so this is going to be great for the desert living in luxury one other job we have to do today is put the headers and complete exhaust system back on you know we had the funky out the front born look like El Toro the monster truck a little bit obviously that's not what we're going to do don't want that exhaust spraying in our face for 8 hours so borla hooked us up with a custom set of headers which is super sick these are super nice we grew up a little bit Yeah I think this will be much much nicer I think you're going to have to feed it through the top yeah oh yeah that's not how you do that careful not to scratch the come through maybe got a steeper angle steeper angle yeah so now that we have the headers installed we can install the second back half of our exhaust system and this is our 3-in pipe to our resonator so if you look down this sucker you can see it's got couple of cores in there and this is kind of like a musical instrument as exhaust gases flow through here they're also producing sound waves this resonator Tunes those sound waves some of the sounds that we don't want are pulled out and the ones that we do like are Amplified so we're going to get this put on get our truck sounded sick let me get up under here and bench press this okay there you go keep going yep oh wow that fits up so nice we can go check something off the list exhaust and headers installed let's go currently with the truck we have no indicator as to how much fuel is in the gas tank which is kind of useful information so I'm going to go ahead and try to get into the dash to see if I can set that up there's a little bit of learning to do because all these little programs are different from different manufacturers but I kind of found my way around it most fuel level sensors are built the same there's a little float inside this tube and as you fill the gas it rises and then whatever it reads in that range it displays onto the Dash as a certain fuel percentage so I just got the dash to display our fuel level if I turn this upside down it should basically say that this thing is full and as you can hear the float hits the the top right there and if I flip it over it should be zero or no gas so right now looks like yep 2% 98% it's good enough for me I think it works I've been tasked with installing the window net a critical piece of safety equipment keeps your arms from flying out the window in the event of a rollover that means more welding I'm fine with that I'm really stoked this will be the first car we have with a window net So the plan is pretty simple flat bar stock that's going to get mounted here at the bottom this is basically its permanent place and then the top bar up here this is the one that is adjustable to be able to take on and off it's got a latch on there look at this little guy push on and off you need to take it off or you need to wave at somebody just off and it lives like that some of you real race car guys out there might be like hey man that needs to go on the roll cage itself be a lot easier to install it that way I guarantee you but our door bar is diagonal it's not conducive for installing a window hoop and honestly I'm glad our door bars diagonal cuz otherwise it'd be a real pain in the ass to get in and out of this thing especially in the event of an accident and the rules say that we can attach it to the door itself what will end up happening is make room for the tabs and the bar here probably have to chop out some sections of the door frame here just for that to clear no big deal so this is our fuel tank breather hose currently we thought this would be fine right all it has to do is allow the fuel tank to breathe the more fuel you put in it the more air needs to get out of it so we thought this was fine right just put it up high maybe over there and it'll do its job correctly if we go through some water It Won't Suck it in right no no not at all our inspector came in and said no you need about 25 ft of Hose because if we roll over something needs to trap the fuel from coming out and that's why we Loop the heck out of this so that fuel can't go anywhere and it'll still act as a breather hose all right for the Finishing Touch ohito now it breathes a really long tube though oh my goodness you start here you do a loop you go around the tank then you go up the bar and then you make a U-turn and then you come running all the way back down you go back under the tank then you come across and then you Loop to the Finish it's got a little pigtail now look at that a little dongle little dongle dangling there so I just got back from the parts store and I've got a limit strap here that we'll be using as a drive shaft hoop this is basically so that it catches a drive shaft if it ever breaks or hits a rock or something it will act like a p volt sticking to the ground has the potential to jack up the entire rear so this will catch it just in case having a drive shaft poop is actually pretty common in racing but it's usually metal and we've got one that's made out of a limit strap a fabric strap that's okayed by the rule book because there's so much movement in off-road stuff that this is totally fine conveniently enough there's a metal bar that goes across that's part of the frame itself there's two holes there that I'm just simply going to put a nut and bolt through and call it a day pretty happy about how easy that one is the rest of the truck has been quite the challenge that's it it's good enough for safety via the rule book we need a tail light harness this is what came Factory with the ranger and we figured instead of rebuilding it and wasting a bunch of time we can use the factory one that way they can buy Factory bulbs for it and replace them easier the reason we're doing this is so we are somewhat Road compliant we can go on the freeway and people will know when we're slowing down people won't smash into the back of us when we're trying to make a turn or something like that and uh we won't get pulled over by the cops that's it I think we still have the turn signal stock in the car as well so this thing will have turn signals too which is pretty sick look at this just classic low team Aaron wiring stuff me standing here not offering any sort of real help oh I saw a light dude which filament is coming on in that one the bright one I don't know it's really bright Aon it is very bright well come look in this one real close and see if it uh burns your retin no it's bright it's also bright this isn't really the way you should be testing this when do we ever do it the way you should be doing something though I've made a career out of not following the rules at all M you made a fine career for yourself Aaron Anthony Mackey who personally vouched and demanded that Aaron Drive for him I'm not bullshitting you it's real it feels really nice it'sing cool yeah if everything works correctly when we give it ignition power we should have a light right here for the tail lights and then when he hits the brake the brake light will come on okay cars on ignition on yes now break on off on off still on on what the are you sure you're on the brake yeah I'm pretty sure no the relay is not firing I'm just so confused right now cuz I just tested it and it worked here let me see you real quick well I'm not going to blame Nolan for this one it's actually my fault if you want your brake lights to work and you just got done uh wiring up a relay it helps if you plug the relay in all right let's try it again dude power go ahead ignition's on and the brake light yeah there it is oh my god dude so with that we are pretty much all teched up for Nora theoretically yeah let's go next up on the list is just a couple little things to button it up we're going to put the seats back in the fender so it looks good then Baro to go testing with King to get the shocks all dialed in see if we can hit those whoops at full speed and just have a good time with this truck truck that we spent over $100,000 in I mean that's what it took worth it yeah I would say so let's see we're out here in barow California with King shocks at their testing grounds this is the barow racetrack we're at the main straight and we've got one goal for today and that's to dial in the suspension on the ranger the plan is to take the truck as is run up and down the straight through the whoops and see how it does and then assess that and change it King's out here with us they're going to take our shocks apart and revalve them to get them tuned just right for this truck and for these kind of conditions my name is Fabian my name is Michael Cox been doing this for about 4 years now tested and tuned everything Volkswagen b2s trophy trucks what even is tuning what are you guys going to do you're controlling the dampening Force going through the shock absorber my way of like changing valving to let more or less fluid through so it moves quicker or slower yes you want the car to stay level just imagine the roof of the truck you want that to stay level with the Horizon right and you want the wheels to fall out and move up and down flatter the truck stays the better and so that's the trick is just slight tweaks to make the wheel fall out faster at the last third of the travel or or the middle of the travel or vice versa so you want to find that fine line kind of nice and comfortable along with being able to smash whoops and go fast so I guess what's the first step here we're in a low truck right now A Truck you might be familiar with quite and we're basically going to go scope out the whoops we're going to be driving over today just to kind of give ourselves a point of reference this is a good truck it's a great truck it can do a lot of stuff yeah but can it drive over 4T humps at 80 mph I doubt let's find out yeah we're going about 25 mph through here which feels too quick in this truck that's freaking okay now it's getting a little worse man these are the little ones boys hold on okay all right sorry boy and I can't stress enough how slow We 15 miles an hour oh my God we're going over these whoops dang there got W whip Wick lash it's rough and you think about trophy trucks they're going over these at like 80 M hour you know it's crazy I don't know why we even built the ranger I think L trucks got it yeah you're good I'll tell you what my biggest concern is and that's my spine for real though yeah uh just after a few minutes in the Bronco my back was hurting I don't really have back problems but those slams one after another and then you're trying to a brace for it I'm a little concerned about doing this for hours on end now that we know how low truck handles these whoops time to see how the ranger handles this Terrain in its current configuration no tuning it's going to be a fun day so we're excited to watch you guys drive so who's driving first yeah oh our race car guy it seems like the process is pretty simple uh we're just going to drive the truck as it is they're going to look at it we're going to get some footage so we can see it in slow motion they'll review that footage and just get a sense of how the truck's acting they'll make some changes that they think will make it Act a little bit better and then we'll drive it again and then it'll probably need some more tweaks they'll make some more tweaks and then we'll just keep doing that until the truck is perfectly stable over these whoops I'll use the brake to set the front uh to gain some front bite or even compress the shocks into the hole and then gas off okay I got you don't be scared to ride the brake the entire time you're driving you'll smoke a set of pads in a race wow that's normal yeah got honestly like a little nervous now everyone's watching and we're like really going for it now so I'm going to go out there take it easy and just build up from there there's no need to to show off or go crazy hey it's Justin here for some donut merch news I'm here in our studio and apparently we've been hit with some severe winds in extreme situations like this or this our new off-road windbreaker jacket will protect you from the elements because you never know what crazy daddy nature will throw at you all right I'm getting out of here that was crazy I don't know what's going on you ready Justin I'm ready bu let's go oh what do you notice so far right now it looks a little soft rear looks like it might pack a little bit packing up is when the wheels hang in too much so we want to get them to come back out faster woo that was fun woo that thing bucks like crazy though we had more air time than we did on the ground yeah that's for sure the front the reservoir there has a knob on the top yes so we have a compression adjuster three to five clicks you can feel the difference every time we're going to add a little compression in the front a little bit in the rear and maybe pull out a little rebound get the wheels to fall out a little faster get some more traction and keep those Wheels on the ground at all times right cool yeah so I've been picking the guys brains about things outside of suspension because they have a lot of experience with this kind of racing I just wanted to see what they thought of the truck overall and if there were any glaring issues that we needed to address the first thing that Mike noted was that our fuel cell is way too small at I think 22 gallons oh oh oh that was exciting oh yeah and beyond that our steering system it's okay as long as we don't drive it too hard which you know we might we're going to have to consider potentially upgrading the steering system so cool dude when they woo got some Clash on that one huh you can hear him modulating the throttle a lot on that last pass nice job Adam The Young Padawan is learning yes yeah now that's cool that is so much better it looks good that feels so much better and you being in the Power Band probably helps car it does for sure cuz I was able to keep it semi ated it'll kind of like float over it but if you get the timing wrong it's over like it bucked pretty hard one of the time oh yeah it's crazy what a couple clicks will do I mean it is immediately noticeable it is far more planted and solid and I'm sure it's only going to get better but yeah you were faster right away nervous I was like oh maybe I won't feel it but it's very obvious and that's just two turns yeah that's cool million dooll set of tools all you need how fast you you think you were going the fastest we went was 75 77 that's pretty good that's money that's yeah that's Prett spring truck that is R not too bad for a bunch of idiots putting something together it's beautiful should we pull the springs or shocks are you guys happy with it looks good good I might add a little bit more compression just to get the nose to pick up just a tiny bit okay and then take it for another rip try faster okay he said faster he said faster dude oh boy this is fun this is fun this is fun this is fun oh no you broken it you're broken it is it broken yeah yeah you push it to the very limit brother this guy yeah I think it's bent it's cambered in so we made one last little tweak and then Adam went out and uh it was a good thing it was the last tweak because I don't think we're going out again after that it looks like he came down a little hard in the front and that steering arm is now pretty severely bent the tires are like this our concerns about the steering system were warranted very much so now we got to do something about it but boy that thing takes those whops nice if it's only one thing major that we really need to that's not bad yeah so I think today was a huge success we've got some things to do back at the shop but the next time you see this truck those things will be done and we're going to be at the Nora 500 hopefully at the start line bye here we come and maybe eventually at the Finish Line some champagne yeah or some Baja Blast baj blast all right boys good work thank you that's a wrap hey I'll be right there I just got to whz real quick the hell was that oh that's a guy holy crap dude are you okay wao I need some water all right yeah I got just a thing for you all right here drink this okay uh what is that drink some more it's cream it's cream why that's what I had in my truck all right here here here's electrolytes oh my god there you go bro please don't worry don't worry it's just like my grandma used to give me here's something to eat here you go thank you for saving my life yeah open up need energy it might be a little dry but it's exactly what your body needs okay you need to wash it down drink this drink this drink it drink it drink it all right you look like a million bucks thank you so much yeah no problem bro how am I ever going to repay you do you like cars yeah okay get up God you're handier than thoughtwe bought this Ranger for 500 bucks and after putting $100,000 into it we're almost ready to race it $500 Mi through the Mexican desert in the Nora 500 we fabricated a completely new suspension system we upgraded the wheels the tires in the brakes then we installed a brand new LSX engine we completely revamped the interior with some racing buckets harnesses communication and navigation system for the finishing touches we installed some KC lights and off-road racing body kit and then finished it with this new wrap but is that enough to get us through 500 treacherous miles of the Mexican desert in the North 500 today we're doing all the finishing touches to get this truck ready for race day then we're going to take it out to the desert to dial in our suspension and make sure this Ranger can cross the finish line oh here we go this right here is James he's a volunteer Tech inspector for Nora he's is going to give our truck a once over and make sure that our truck abides by the rule books is safe and desert worthy get it to the Finish is the goal that's right our first hurdle is pass and Tech inspection your safety nets your five-point harness your fuel sill all your check valves Tech inspection is super duper common in racing no matter what organization you're racing with no matter what discipline when you're building a new race car like we are a fresh car have a tech inspector from an organization that you're going to be racing with come out check it out make sure that you're compliant always protect your your coils let's say you guys go through a saltwater Crossing or a mud Crossing you turn or something it's going to spray mud and conductive water all over that coil pack James has got a lot of experience got a lot of tricks got a lot of knowhow and I think he's going to help us get there loose hoses loose cables loose wiring anything you can rattle with your hand that's going to eventually Scar the hose or Scar the electrical and that can put you out we're going to have a tech inspected yet again when we're in enata but it's always a good idea to have it inspected beforehand months before your event make sure that when you get down there you're ready to go and you don't waste a bunch of time hunting down Parts having to do a bunch of work this is going to be your biggest battle racing this truck or these leaf springs really take care of them and maybe carry a spare in your tase truck oh really Poss yeah that's a good thing too one of the things that we need to figure out is also yeah what spares to bring so spare leaf springs that's a whole another list radiator freaking hoses fuel lines there's a lot more stuff in the truck that James suggests we also have besides just being rule compliant including snacks literally duct taping like Power Bars and Cliff Bars to your doors so you have fuel not only for the car but for yourself I want to be as safe as possible and I also want to finish the race take five lug nuts put them on a zip tie put them on your cage sometimes I spray paint them yellow cuz what can happen is you're in Silt that's Farm silt that gets 2 3 ft deep and it's just like talcum powder if you zip your lug nuts off and you drop them oh they're gone g d you're going to be looking for those things for 20 minutes it's that thin that Silk oh yeah it's just like baby powder and it's that deep do you guys get stuck in that often oh yeah and this truck avoid those ruts at all cost like if you got to go through some bushes and Cactus go that rout Jesus Christ it's not like quick sand though like we can't die in there can we you better be a good swimmer Jesus no I'm kidding you can't die with all that said we got a bunch of stuff to do so let's get started shall we James expressed concerns about the coil packs just found some tin laying in the corner I don't know where this came from it's very thin and flimsy thinking I'm just going to use these little nuts right here to hold this guy on I'll put a rivet here just to hold that position but I'm pretty happy with that to be honest went from Fender last video now I'm bending shaping metal look no rocks are going to hit the the uh coils it looks like I know but hey trying here okay hand Cook Tires loves pushing the limit so today I'm going to set the record for the world's longest skid mark I'm going to make a skid mark all the way from dut to New York City and the best part I'm going to do it using a single set of dinoo at2 extremes we are go from long at skid mark on you James on you these bad puppies have unrivaled longevity and are backed by a 70,000 M treadwear warranty James careful you're heading off road guys relax the at2 extremes have multidirectional grooves and sights for better traction across any Terrain what do you suppose that was they're designed for enhanced movement drivability and reduced road noise no utilize the feature my guy I'm on a mission yes I get it and it's all thanks to my can cook Dino Pro at2 extremes if you want a set of tires that Can Go the Distance hit the link below all right time to go home t core support for the radiator needs to be a little bit more secure to avoid cracks in the really thin metal that the chassis is made of so I'm going to weld the core support to the fender support and that'll make it a little bit more rigid keep that radiator from shaking around we're going over those nasty whoops down there it sounds like it's going to be a lot more rough down there than our usual California City Trophy Truck donut Drome test ground that we usually run at this is Untamed Wilderness that we're going to be riding through I mean this thing's tough for sure but uh you have a ways to go before it's tough enough for this race about to flash guys M The Flash it's been a while since I've welded about 10 years hey you know what oh that that's pretty in there dude yeah but now the weak point is back here just don't hit anything dude do that again Watch look we can all be willing to learn and make mistakes and not be afraid to and I think I made some mistakes here in terms of my welding there's some pretty big Globs holding them in not going to lie but you know what I'm great buddy don't look in there don't look oh god look over and this side's better this side's better please please please last time you saw this truck we got everything wired up to drive it and test it technically but uh it's a bit of a Rat's Nest under the dashboard and we brought in Aaron Parker my buddy my love I'm a little bit worried this is going to be very difficult to manage a lot of wires rattling wires and rattling hoses was like a huge thing that he was talking about warning us about and that's what is exclusively in this cab right now it's just I'm stressing out looking at it there is a jumble of wires everywhere and I'm trying to consolidate unpin depin reroute sometimes cutting redoing the wire when needed and then move forward to the next thing cuz there's a ton of things that need to get done on this truck and we really don't have that much time all right so these are our racing helmets they are already wired up for comms thanks to PCI and also ready to go for the PCI radio's race air clean air system so what that is doing is essentially pulling in clean air inside the cab so that we're not breathing in all that crazy dust and stuff while we're driving through the Baja we don't have a windshield right we don't have a dust screen or anything it's all going to be flying right at us and these helmets are going to keep us safe and make sure we're ready for the Long Haul the tube connects from this filtered air box all the way to our helmets and then we get to breathe in fresh awesome air what I need to do is find somewhere inside the cab for this pump and filter to go and then it needs to be wired up to a switch everything's ready to go plug and play there you go buddy so we got our fancy new helmets with our clean air system and our microphones so we're going to do a quick test wa these smell like chemicals that is potent stings in the nostrils yeah let's see if our fresh air cool air system will fix that give me full volume hello Adam oh dude that's so much better than the last one that's good let's hit a trail fresh air system oh oo that's sick I feel it on my eyes it's like air conditioning yeah this is sick it'll unog the visor too dude I'll be right back this is so comfortable and I can still hear you we should just hang out like this I think so this is going to be great for the desert living in luxury one other job we have to do today is put the headers and complete exhaust system back on you know we had the funky out the front born look like El Toro the monster truck a little bit obviously that's not what we're going to do don't want that exhaust spraying in our face for 8 hours so borla hooked us up with a custom set of headers which is super sick these are super nice we grew up a little bit Yeah I think this will be much much nicer I think you're going to have to feed it through the top yeah oh yeah that's not how you do that careful not to scratch the come through maybe got a steeper angle steeper angle yeah so now that we have the headers installed we can install the second back half of our exhaust system and this is our 3-in pipe to our resonator so if you look down this sucker you can see it's got couple of cores in there and this is kind of like a musical instrument as exhaust gases flow through here they're also producing sound waves this resonator Tunes those sound waves some of the sounds that we don't want are pulled out and the ones that we do like are Amplified so we're going to get this put on get our truck sounded sick let me get up under here and bench press this okay there you go keep going yep oh wow that fits up so nice we can go check something off the list exhaust and headers installed let's go currently with the truck we have no indicator as to how much fuel is in the gas tank which is kind of useful information so I'm going to go ahead and try to get into the dash to see if I can set that up there's a little bit of learning to do because all these little programs are different from different manufacturers but I kind of found my way around it most fuel level sensors are built the same there's a little float inside this tube and as you fill the gas it rises and then whatever it reads in that range it displays onto the Dash as a certain fuel percentage so I just got the dash to display our fuel level if I turn this upside down it should basically say that this thing is full and as you can hear the float hits the the top right there and if I flip it over it should be zero or no gas so right now looks like yep 2% 98% it's good enough for me I think it works I've been tasked with installing the window net a critical piece of safety equipment keeps your arms from flying out the window in the event of a rollover that means more welding I'm fine with that I'm really stoked this will be the first car we have with a window net So the plan is pretty simple flat bar stock that's going to get mounted here at the bottom this is basically its permanent place and then the top bar up here this is the one that is adjustable to be able to take on and off it's got a latch on there look at this little guy push on and off you need to take it off or you need to wave at somebody just off and it lives like that some of you real race car guys out there might be like hey man that needs to go on the roll cage itself be a lot easier to install it that way I guarantee you but our door bar is diagonal it's not conducive for installing a window hoop and honestly I'm glad our door bars diagonal cuz otherwise it'd be a real pain in the ass to get in and out of this thing especially in the event of an accident and the rules say that we can attach it to the door itself what will end up happening is make room for the tabs and the bar here probably have to chop out some sections of the door frame here just for that to clear no big deal so this is our fuel tank breather hose currently we thought this would be fine right all it has to do is allow the fuel tank to breathe the more fuel you put in it the more air needs to get out of it so we thought this was fine right just put it up high maybe over there and it'll do its job correctly if we go through some water It Won't Suck it in right no no not at all our inspector came in and said no you need about 25 ft of Hose because if we roll over something needs to trap the fuel from coming out and that's why we Loop the heck out of this so that fuel can't go anywhere and it'll still act as a breather hose all right for the Finishing Touch ohito now it breathes a really long tube though oh my goodness you start here you do a loop you go around the tank then you go up the bar and then you make a U-turn and then you come running all the way back down you go back under the tank then you come across and then you Loop to the Finish it's got a little pigtail now look at that a little dongle little dongle dangling there so I just got back from the parts store and I've got a limit strap here that we'll be using as a drive shaft hoop this is basically so that it catches a drive shaft if it ever breaks or hits a rock or something it will act like a p volt sticking to the ground has the potential to jack up the entire rear so this will catch it just in case having a drive shaft poop is actually pretty common in racing but it's usually metal and we've got one that's made out of a limit strap a fabric strap that's okayed by the rule book because there's so much movement in off-road stuff that this is totally fine conveniently enough there's a metal bar that goes across that's part of the frame itself there's two holes there that I'm just simply going to put a nut and bolt through and call it a day pretty happy about how easy that one is the rest of the truck has been quite the challenge that's it it's good enough for safety via the rule book we need a tail light harness this is what came Factory with the ranger and we figured instead of rebuilding it and wasting a bunch of time we can use the factory one that way they can buy Factory bulbs for it and replace them easier the reason we're doing this is so we are somewhat Road compliant we can go on the freeway and people will know when we're slowing down people won't smash into the back of us when we're trying to make a turn or something like that and uh we won't get pulled over by the cops that's it I think we still have the turn signal stock in the car as well so this thing will have turn signals too which is pretty sick look at this just classic low team Aaron wiring stuff me standing here not offering any sort of real help oh I saw a light dude which filament is coming on in that one the bright one I don't know it's really bright Aon it is very bright well come look in this one real close and see if it uh burns your retin no it's bright it's also bright this isn't really the way you should be testing this when do we ever do it the way you should be doing something though I've made a career out of not following the rules at all M you made a fine career for yourself Aaron Anthony Mackey who personally vouched and demanded that Aaron Drive for him I'm not bullshitting you it's real it feels really nice it'sing cool yeah if everything works correctly when we give it ignition power we should have a light right here for the tail lights and then when he hits the brake the brake light will come on okay cars on ignition on yes now break on off on off still on on what the are you sure you're on the brake yeah I'm pretty sure no the relay is not firing I'm just so confused right now cuz I just tested it and it worked here let me see you real quick well I'm not going to blame Nolan for this one it's actually my fault if you want your brake lights to work and you just got done uh wiring up a relay it helps if you plug the relay in all right let's try it again dude power go ahead ignition's on and the brake light yeah there it is oh my god dude so with that we are pretty much all teched up for Nora theoretically yeah let's go next up on the list is just a couple little things to button it up we're going to put the seats back in the fender so it looks good then Baro to go testing with King to get the shocks all dialed in see if we can hit those whoops at full speed and just have a good time with this truck truck that we spent over $100,000 in I mean that's what it took worth it yeah I would say so let's see we're out here in barow California with King shocks at their testing grounds this is the barow racetrack we're at the main straight and we've got one goal for today and that's to dial in the suspension on the ranger the plan is to take the truck as is run up and down the straight through the whoops and see how it does and then assess that and change it King's out here with us they're going to take our shocks apart and revalve them to get them tuned just right for this truck and for these kind of conditions my name is Fabian my name is Michael Cox been doing this for about 4 years now tested and tuned everything Volkswagen b2s trophy trucks what even is tuning what are you guys going to do you're controlling the dampening Force going through the shock absorber my way of like changing valving to let more or less fluid through so it moves quicker or slower yes you want the car to stay level just imagine the roof of the truck you want that to stay level with the Horizon right and you want the wheels to fall out and move up and down flatter the truck stays the better and so that's the trick is just slight tweaks to make the wheel fall out faster at the last third of the travel or or the middle of the travel or vice versa so you want to find that fine line kind of nice and comfortable along with being able to smash whoops and go fast so I guess what's the first step here we're in a low truck right now A Truck you might be familiar with quite and we're basically going to go scope out the whoops we're going to be driving over today just to kind of give ourselves a point of reference this is a good truck it's a great truck it can do a lot of stuff yeah but can it drive over 4T humps at 80 mph I doubt let's find out yeah we're going about 25 mph through here which feels too quick in this truck that's freaking okay now it's getting a little worse man these are the little ones boys hold on okay all right sorry boy and I can't stress enough how slow We 15 miles an hour oh my God we're going over these whoops dang there got W whip Wick lash it's rough and you think about trophy trucks they're going over these at like 80 M hour you know it's crazy I don't know why we even built the ranger I think L trucks got it yeah you're good I'll tell you what my biggest concern is and that's my spine for real though yeah uh just after a few minutes in the Bronco my back was hurting I don't really have back problems but those slams one after another and then you're trying to a brace for it I'm a little concerned about doing this for hours on end now that we know how low truck handles these whoops time to see how the ranger handles this Terrain in its current configuration no tuning it's going to be a fun day so we're excited to watch you guys drive so who's driving first yeah oh our race car guy it seems like the process is pretty simple uh we're just going to drive the truck as it is they're going to look at it we're going to get some footage so we can see it in slow motion they'll review that footage and just get a sense of how the truck's acting they'll make some changes that they think will make it Act a little bit better and then we'll drive it again and then it'll probably need some more tweaks they'll make some more tweaks and then we'll just keep doing that until the truck is perfectly stable over these whoops I'll use the brake to set the front uh to gain some front bite or even compress the shocks into the hole and then gas off okay I got you don't be scared to ride the brake the entire time you're driving you'll smoke a set of pads in a race wow that's normal yeah got honestly like a little nervous now everyone's watching and we're like really going for it now so I'm going to go out there take it easy and just build up from there there's no need to to show off or go crazy hey it's Justin here for some donut merch news I'm here in our studio and apparently we've been hit with some severe winds in extreme situations like this or this our new off-road windbreaker jacket will protect you from the elements because you never know what crazy daddy nature will throw at you all right I'm getting out of here that was crazy I don't know what's going on you ready Justin I'm ready bu let's go oh what do you notice so far right now it looks a little soft rear looks like it might pack a little bit packing up is when the wheels hang in too much so we want to get them to come back out faster woo that was fun woo that thing bucks like crazy though we had more air time than we did on the ground yeah that's for sure the front the reservoir there has a knob on the top yes so we have a compression adjuster three to five clicks you can feel the difference every time we're going to add a little compression in the front a little bit in the rear and maybe pull out a little rebound get the wheels to fall out a little faster get some more traction and keep those Wheels on the ground at all times right cool yeah so I've been picking the guys brains about things outside of suspension because they have a lot of experience with this kind of racing I just wanted to see what they thought of the truck overall and if there were any glaring issues that we needed to address the first thing that Mike noted was that our fuel cell is way too small at I think 22 gallons oh oh oh that was exciting oh yeah and beyond that our steering system it's okay as long as we don't drive it too hard which you know we might we're going to have to consider potentially upgrading the steering system so cool dude when they woo got some Clash on that one huh you can hear him modulating the throttle a lot on that last pass nice job Adam The Young Padawan is learning yes yeah now that's cool that is so much better it looks good that feels so much better and you being in the Power Band probably helps car it does for sure cuz I was able to keep it semi ated it'll kind of like float over it but if you get the timing wrong it's over like it bucked pretty hard one of the time oh yeah it's crazy what a couple clicks will do I mean it is immediately noticeable it is far more planted and solid and I'm sure it's only going to get better but yeah you were faster right away nervous I was like oh maybe I won't feel it but it's very obvious and that's just two turns yeah that's cool million dooll set of tools all you need how fast you you think you were going the fastest we went was 75 77 that's pretty good that's money that's yeah that's Prett spring truck that is R not too bad for a bunch of idiots putting something together it's beautiful should we pull the springs or shocks are you guys happy with it looks good good I might add a little bit more compression just to get the nose to pick up just a tiny bit okay and then take it for another rip try faster okay he said faster he said faster dude oh boy this is fun this is fun this is fun this is fun oh no you broken it you're broken it is it broken yeah yeah you push it to the very limit brother this guy yeah I think it's bent it's cambered in so we made one last little tweak and then Adam went out and uh it was a good thing it was the last tweak because I don't think we're going out again after that it looks like he came down a little hard in the front and that steering arm is now pretty severely bent the tires are like this our concerns about the steering system were warranted very much so now we got to do something about it but boy that thing takes those whops nice if it's only one thing major that we really need to that's not bad yeah so I think today was a huge success we've got some things to do back at the shop but the next time you see this truck those things will be done and we're going to be at the Nora 500 hopefully at the start line bye here we come and maybe eventually at the Finish Line some champagne yeah or some Baja Blast baj blast all right boys good work thank you that's a wrap hey I'll be right there I just got to whz real quick the hell was that oh that's a guy holy crap dude are you okay wao I need some water all right yeah I got just a thing for you all right here drink this okay uh what is that drink some more it's cream it's cream why that's what I had in my truck all right here here here's electrolytes oh my god there you go bro please don't worry don't worry it's just like my grandma used to give me here's something to eat here you go thank you for saving my life yeah open up need energy it might be a little dry but it's exactly what your body needs okay you need to wash it down drink this drink this drink it drink it drink it all right you look like a million bucks thank you so much yeah no problem bro how am I ever going to repay you do you like cars yeah okay get up God you're handier than thought