**Ultra 4: The Ultimate Off-Road Beast**

Behind the driver is the heart of this badlands beast, an ultra 4 powered by a General Motors LS7 surprise - it's the best engine to put in anything, which is the same engine as you guys already know that powers the Corvette. But this one, yeah she's a little bit more extreme.

On top of the engine is a huge eight inch tall, 16 inch round air filter. Cuz out here you need a very good air filter - keep rocks and sand and modern crap from getting into the internals. On top of the other seven is a single plane intake manifold allowing more air to get into the engine as we all know: more air plus more fuel equals more boom, which means power baby, oh how much more power baby.

The tumble valve this thing makes 800 horsepower obviously it takes more than an intake manifold and an air filter to make 800 horsepower out of an LS7 naturally aspirated - I'll remind you but Tom wouldn't tell us everything else he's done to this engine because it's a very competitive class, and that's top secret. But Bob's legal baby.

Here's a little bumper-to-bumper fun fact about this motor: it's mounted backwards. They didn't do this just for gits and shiggles - there are a few crucial reasons why they did it this way. Let's dive in.

The first reason is packaging. Now that the engine is backwards, the transmission is in the center of the car which allows them to shorten the wheelbase - hello yeah, Humphry, do you want a super long car? Lemony remover on the rocks give me this short as possible? Yeah, we might have to make the engine backwards, do whatever you gotta do. Okay, well, uh, thank you very much; then um, I'll talk to you later, bye mom.

The second reason is ground clearance because the engine is backwards - what used to be the front drive shaft now powers the rear. The rear differential is now offset to the passenger side - so when that rear tire goes over a big rock, a pumpkin is lifted higher up into the air giving it more clearance, less bashing, more finishing the race. The rear drive shaft also runs parallel to the rear trailing arm which helps to protect the shaft from rocks and hey, we all know protecting your shaft from rocks will prevent a disastrous breakdown.

The weird spooky engineering doesn't end there. In the front is a Ford 10-inch differential with a low mount pinion gear - it's where the driveshaft mounts of the axle. But in this car, the differential is mounted upside down so the pinion doesn't get in the way of the rocks and it's the same on the back: rule number one, make it fast; rule number two, make sure don't break on rocks.

I was talking to Tom for a while, and I said, "Hey Tom, what's this thing like to drive?" He said James, it's a lot of fun. And you know what I believed in because Tom is a solid guy now normally when I talk about suspension - I'm not standing next to it; this looks like a Neill Blomkamp movie District 9.

See how they even get I'm turning into a bug up top? We got a spare driveshaft in case that breaks just like in a drift car. The radiator is in the back ours is Forsberg who said - "the radiator, the radiator it's one of the most ridiculous exhaust setups I've ever seen." Math is super high apparently 30 ish percent for looks but also to just get those bad gases out of the way which leads us to the fuel tank which has an undisclosed capacity and an undisclosed range.

You don't have to report how much gas you have in it - this is truly a run what you brung event. Nested on top is a spare tire and a jack just in case you need that to build an ultra for can take anywhere from 280 to 300 thousand dollars sometimes more but when you end up with a car that can crawl, jump, and skid on any terrain on earth - that's how you are.

**Thanks for Watching Bumper-to-Bumper**

It's a news show every Tuesday; up to speed is still every Thursday so check back in on that. Follow me on Instagram at James Humphrey; watch this episode about speed; watch this episode of bumper to bumper. Smash that like button, and subscribe - it really helps us out, I love you.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthat was cool this is what happens when Tom wayes and icon vehicle dynamics do whatever they want and I respect that cuz I do whatever I want check themselves 180 I'm in Johnson Valley California to look at one of the most extreme race cars I have ever seen in my entire life and I've seen it I'm a friggin race car it was built to fly over man sized boulders catch air off of sick jumps and hit top speeds of over 130 miles per on dirt it was built to be the king of the hammers what does that mean well buckle up buckaroo cuz I'm about to show you it's time to go bumper-to-bumper on a freakin ultra for race car Ultra for racing is quickly becoming one of the biggest segments in the off-road world with king of the hammers being its crown jewel what is king of the hammers well back in 2007 some dudes took their trucks out to the desert to see who's the fastest to the trails it was 11 friends and some dude who just happened to be out there at the time but they would eventually call themselves the og 13 because it sounded better than the og 12 these days the race has grown from 12 guys racing for a case of beer to over 300 racers fighting for a $100,000 prize to put that into perspective $100,000 buys you 200 pairs of vans speaking of hundreds competitors have to brave three laps around one of the most treacherous tracks ever devised for a total of 300 miles that's the track as 100 miles long 94 to be exact it features fiendish ravines cliff faces taller than big bro and rock gardens that look like another freaking planet the goal for many racers isn't winning but simply finishing in a short time king of the hammers has earned a reputation as the most demanding single day race in the freaking world so how do you build a car that can win well Tom wayes thinks he's figured it out this is his ultra for race car there are a lot of classes at king of the hammers and this car runs in the top dog class the mightiest of them all lots of other racing series have tons of rules that level the playing field making sure that no competitor has an unfair advantage but the only rule in ultra poor is there are no rules it's like modern-day grumpy besides safety stuff you got to be safe but after that you can do whatever you want let's start with the outside unlike other rock crawlers or desert racers that you guys may have seen this car is completely 100% custom it's not built on an existing chassis he's not a Jeep it's not a Yoda it's not a whatever 100% custom built from chromoly steel that's like the same stuff that they made my BMX bikes Adam shoutout Hoffman as you can see it's a totally twisted net of tubes and lines but as much as there is to take in the reality is there's no excess no extra no weight everything on this car serves a purpose and that purpose is to go fast on King rocks this race happens in the day and at night so to help with the nighttime portion of that are these Baja design XL 80 LED lights and this thing has ten of them I got one two three four five six seven eight nine ten lights on my truck Aloha lights are the first get played on the car they called the egg roller cuz this motor does work the steel on it is the same stuff they use for gun targets so when you're shooting a gun is like ting ting ting ting that's this metal and then right under it it's basically a shock absorber it absorbs a lot of the speaking of rocks it's hard to bounce over them if you don't have good suspension this car is outfitted with custom made icon vehicle dynamics coil overs transistor of a two five coil over setup and a 304 tube bypass shot that's freaking four shocks on the front of the car according to the driver of this car has many inches of suspension travel in the front apparently as a secret having such insane travel is objective number one in off-road racing if you have crappy suspension or limited travel all that abuse is going straight to your frame something's gonna break and some breaks out here you could be on your own for long section eight to nineteen of the ultra four rulebook actually states that every car has to carry enough water food and supplies for the driver and his co-driver to survive for a day in chopper bro this car rolls on 40 inch BF goodrich kr threes they may look like the tires on the Simi Valley Bros bro dosers but these guys are not street-legal these are my people now did I love the desert so these aren't fake beadlock that you get at autozone beads if you don't know what bead buck is all these bolts right here are attached to a plate which literally presses the bead between two pieces of metal so you can running at ultra low pressure without defeating the tire I talk a lot about body panels on this show because that's kind of the point of the show and this car is no different but it's just gonna be a lot shorter because there's a lot less body panels on it now unlike something like the McLaren Center these are not made of cutting paper but custom aluminium and this isn't paint this is a vinyl wrap probably costs $4.00 it's very short quality though these panels really only exist to protect the driver from rocks and debris oh good job panels let's see if I can fit in this thing a lot of car media types myself included love calling performance interiors Spartan this is a race car and nothing in here serves any other purpose than keeping the driver safe and operating this race car these seats are Cobra Suzuka a seat use around the world in all kinds of races the biggest thing I noticed is that there's no friggin windshield your helmet is your windshield there's no gauges like a normal car the main thing you see is your GPS unit then directly so right of that is your motek unit which allows you to pay attention to what's happened back here tons of switches there's a siren an engine and oil a gear upper lights lower lights pit lights fuel pump one fuel pump two lots of light stuff also in the cabin is a fire extinguisher and a fire suppression system in case things get hot I've been told not to pull it according to the rules another fire extinguisher must be stored outside of the car so officials or fellow racers or fans can lead you in the situation of your car being on fire also there are air and hydration systems to keep you breathing and drinking in the hottest desert as much as this car is about conquering no-man's land it really gives you the scent of a life support system which gives the term lived erase an entirely new meaning behind the driver is the heart of this badlands beast this ultra 4 is powered by a General Motors ls7 surprise surprise it's the best engine to put in anything which is the same engine as you guys already know that powers the Corvette but this one yeah she's a little bit more extreme on top of the engine is a huge eight inch tall 16 inch round air filter cuz out here you need a very good air filter keep rocks and sand and modern crap from getting into the internals on top of the other seven is a single plane intake manifold allowing more air to get into the engine as we all know more air plus more fuel equals more boom which means power baby oh how much more power baby tumble valve this thing makes 800 horsepower obviously it takes more than an intake manifold and an air filter to make 800 horsepower out of an ls7 naturally aspirated I'll remind you but Tom wouldn't tell us everything else he's done to this engine because it's a very competitive class and that's top secret but Bob's legal baby and here's a little bumper-to-bumper fun fact about this motor it's mounted backwards they didn't do this just for gits and shiggles there are a few crucial reasons why they did it this way let's dive in the first reason is packaging now that the engine is backwards the transmission is in the center of the car which allows them to shorten the wheelbase hello yeah Humphry do you want a super long car Lemony removers on the rocks give me this short as possible yeah we might have to make the engine backwards do whatever you gotta do okay well uh thank you very much then um I'll talk to you later bye mom the second reason is ground clearance because the engine is backwards what used to be the front drive shaft now powers the rear the rear differential is now offset to the passenger side so when that rear tire goes over a big rock a pumpkin is lifted higher up into the air giving it more clearance less bashing more finishing the race the rear drive shaft also runs parallel to the rear trailing arm which helps to protect the shaft from rocks and hey we all know protecting your shaft from rocks will prevent a disastrous breakdown the weird spooky engineering doesn't end there in the front is a Ford 10-inch differential with a low mount pinion gear it's where the driveshaft mounts of the axle but in this car the differential is mounted upside down so the pinion doesn't get in the way of the rocks and it's the same on the back rule number one make it fast rule number two make sure don't break on rocks I was talking to Tom for a while and I said hey Tom what's this thing like to drive and he said James it's a lot of fun and you know what I believed in because tom is a solid guy now normally when I talk about suspension I'm not standing next to it this looks like a Neill Blomkamp movie district 9 see how they even get I'm turning into a bug up top we got a spare driveshaft in case that breaks just like in a drift car the radiator is in the back ours is forsberg who said the radiator the radiator it's one of the most ridiculous exhaust setups I've ever seen math is super high apparently 30 ish percent for looks but also to just get those bad gases out of the way which leads us to the fuel tank which has an undisclosed capacity and an undisclosed range you don't have to report how much gas you have in it this is truly a run what you brung event and nestled on top is a spare tire and a jack just in case you need that to build an ultra for can take anywhere from 280 to 300 thousand dollars sometimes more but when you end up with a car that can crawl jump and skid on any terrain on earth that's how you are thanks for watching bumper-to-bumper it's a news show every Tuesday up to speed is still every Thursday so check back in on that follow dona media on instagram at jonah media follow me on instagram at james humphrey watch this episode about speed watch this episode of bumper to bumper smash that like button subscribe it really helps us out i love youthat was cool this is what happens when Tom wayes and icon vehicle dynamics do whatever they want and I respect that cuz I do whatever I want check themselves 180 I'm in Johnson Valley California to look at one of the most extreme race cars I have ever seen in my entire life and I've seen it I'm a friggin race car it was built to fly over man sized boulders catch air off of sick jumps and hit top speeds of over 130 miles per on dirt it was built to be the king of the hammers what does that mean well buckle up buckaroo cuz I'm about to show you it's time to go bumper-to-bumper on a freakin ultra for race car Ultra for racing is quickly becoming one of the biggest segments in the off-road world with king of the hammers being its crown jewel what is king of the hammers well back in 2007 some dudes took their trucks out to the desert to see who's the fastest to the trails it was 11 friends and some dude who just happened to be out there at the time but they would eventually call themselves the og 13 because it sounded better than the og 12 these days the race has grown from 12 guys racing for a case of beer to over 300 racers fighting for a $100,000 prize to put that into perspective $100,000 buys you 200 pairs of vans speaking of hundreds competitors have to brave three laps around one of the most treacherous tracks ever devised for a total of 300 miles that's the track as 100 miles long 94 to be exact it features fiendish ravines cliff faces taller than big bro and rock gardens that look like another freaking planet the goal for many racers isn't winning but simply finishing in a short time king of the hammers has earned a reputation as the most demanding single day race in the freaking world so how do you build a car that can win well Tom wayes thinks he's figured it out this is his ultra for race car there are a lot of classes at king of the hammers and this car runs in the top dog class the mightiest of them all lots of other racing series have tons of rules that level the playing field making sure that no competitor has an unfair advantage but the only rule in ultra poor is there are no rules it's like modern-day grumpy besides safety stuff you got to be safe but after that you can do whatever you want let's start with the outside unlike other rock crawlers or desert racers that you guys may have seen this car is completely 100% custom it's not built on an existing chassis he's not a Jeep it's not a Yoda it's not a whatever 100% custom built from chromoly steel that's like the same stuff that they made my BMX bikes Adam shoutout Hoffman as you can see it's a totally twisted net of tubes and lines but as much as there is to take in the reality is there's no excess no extra no weight everything on this car serves a purpose and that purpose is to go fast on King rocks this race happens in the day and at night so to help with the nighttime portion of that are these Baja design XL 80 LED lights and this thing has ten of them I got one two three four five six seven eight nine ten lights on my truck Aloha lights are the first get played on the car they called the egg roller cuz this motor does work the steel on it is the same stuff they use for gun targets so when you're shooting a gun is like ting ting ting ting that's this metal and then right under it it's basically a shock absorber it absorbs a lot of the speaking of rocks it's hard to bounce over them if you don't have good suspension this car is outfitted with custom made icon vehicle dynamics coil overs transistor of a two five coil over setup and a 304 tube bypass shot that's freaking four shocks on the front of the car according to the driver of this car has many inches of suspension travel in the front apparently as a secret having such insane travel is objective number one in off-road racing if you have crappy suspension or limited travel all that abuse is going straight to your frame something's gonna break and some breaks out here you could be on your own for long section eight to nineteen of the ultra four rulebook actually states that every car has to carry enough water food and supplies for the driver and his co-driver to survive for a day in chopper bro this car rolls on 40 inch BF goodrich kr threes they may look like the tires on the Simi Valley Bros bro dosers but these guys are not street-legal these are my people now did I love the desert so these aren't fake beadlock that you get at autozone beads if you don't know what bead buck is all these bolts right here are attached to a plate which literally presses the bead between two pieces of metal so you can running at ultra low pressure without defeating the tire I talk a lot about body panels on this show because that's kind of the point of the show and this car is no different but it's just gonna be a lot shorter because there's a lot less body panels on it now unlike something like the McLaren Center these are not made of cutting paper but custom aluminium and this isn't paint this is a vinyl wrap probably costs $4.00 it's very short quality though these panels really only exist to protect the driver from rocks and debris oh good job panels let's see if I can fit in this thing a lot of car media types myself included love calling performance interiors Spartan this is a race car and nothing in here serves any other purpose than keeping the driver safe and operating this race car these seats are Cobra Suzuka a seat use around the world in all kinds of races the biggest thing I noticed is that there's no friggin windshield your helmet is your windshield there's no gauges like a normal car the main thing you see is your GPS unit then directly so right of that is your motek unit which allows you to pay attention to what's happened back here tons of switches there's a siren an engine and oil a gear upper lights lower lights pit lights fuel pump one fuel pump two lots of light stuff also in the cabin is a fire extinguisher and a fire suppression system in case things get hot I've been told not to pull it according to the rules another fire extinguisher must be stored outside of the car so officials or fellow racers or fans can lead you in the situation of your car being on fire also there are air and hydration systems to keep you breathing and drinking in the hottest desert as much as this car is about conquering no-man's land it really gives you the scent of a life support system which gives the term lived erase an entirely new meaning behind the driver is the heart of this badlands beast this ultra 4 is powered by a General Motors ls7 surprise surprise it's the best engine to put in anything which is the same engine as you guys already know that powers the Corvette but this one yeah she's a little bit more extreme on top of the engine is a huge eight inch tall 16 inch round air filter cuz out here you need a very good air filter keep rocks and sand and modern crap from getting into the internals on top of the other seven is a single plane intake manifold allowing more air to get into the engine as we all know more air plus more fuel equals more boom which means power baby oh how much more power baby tumble valve this thing makes 800 horsepower obviously it takes more than an intake manifold and an air filter to make 800 horsepower out of an ls7 naturally aspirated I'll remind you but Tom wouldn't tell us everything else he's done to this engine because it's a very competitive class and that's top secret but Bob's legal baby and here's a little bumper-to-bumper fun fact about this motor it's mounted backwards they didn't do this just for gits and shiggles there are a few crucial reasons why they did it this way let's dive in the first reason is packaging now that the engine is backwards the transmission is in the center of the car which allows them to shorten the wheelbase hello yeah Humphry do you want a super long car Lemony removers on the rocks give me this short as possible yeah we might have to make the engine backwards do whatever you gotta do okay well uh thank you very much then um I'll talk to you later bye mom the second reason is ground clearance because the engine is backwards what used to be the front drive shaft now powers the rear the rear differential is now offset to the passenger side so when that rear tire goes over a big rock a pumpkin is lifted higher up into the air giving it more clearance less bashing more finishing the race the rear drive shaft also runs parallel to the rear trailing arm which helps to protect the shaft from rocks and hey we all know protecting your shaft from rocks will prevent a disastrous breakdown the weird spooky engineering doesn't end there in the front is a Ford 10-inch differential with a low mount pinion gear it's where the driveshaft mounts of the axle but in this car the differential is mounted upside down so the pinion doesn't get in the way of the rocks and it's the same on the back rule number one make it fast rule number two make sure don't break on rocks I was talking to Tom for a while and I said hey Tom what's this thing like to drive and he said James it's a lot of fun and you know what I believed in because tom is a solid guy now normally when I talk about suspension I'm not standing next to it this looks like a Neill Blomkamp movie district 9 see how they even get I'm turning into a bug up top we got a spare driveshaft in case that breaks just like in a drift car the radiator is in the back ours is forsberg who said the radiator the radiator it's one of the most ridiculous exhaust setups I've ever seen math is super high apparently 30 ish percent for looks but also to just get those bad gases out of the way which leads us to the fuel tank which has an undisclosed capacity and an undisclosed range you don't have to report how much gas you have in it this is truly a run what you brung event and nestled on top is a spare tire and a jack just in case you need that to build an ultra for can take anywhere from 280 to 300 thousand dollars sometimes more but when you end up with a car that can crawl jump and skid on any terrain on earth that's how you are thanks for watching bumper-to-bumper it's a news show every Tuesday up to speed is still every Thursday so check back in on that follow dona media on instagram at jonah media follow me on instagram at james humphrey watch this episode about speed watch this episode of bumper to bumper smash that like button subscribe it really helps us out i love you