Mall Crawling Racer...... #4410

[REDLYNER]

I was planning a trip over to South Park Mall (they are running a sale on wax-as-you-dry and armor all) and since I have some free time, I thought I would swing by Johnson Valley on my way and race in the King of the Hammers EMC. So I sent in my check and Ultra4 KOH 2013 application and will spend the next 8 weeks dialing in the rig for a better shopping experience. Some of the mods and tuning will transfer over in helping me be faster in the desert and rocks, but this build will primarily be focused on enhancing my mall crawling experience and increasing my parking lot cred.

Abercrombie will never know what hit them.....






This is my daily driver, this is my mall crawler, this is my race car. Build thread to commence:

I have been fortunate to work with several shops here in NC and can't post anything before saying what a good job they have done tolerating me and my requests. A huge thanks goes out to Carolina Truggies, Right Side Performance, Schwabe Offroad, Rides, and Marsfab. My jeep has been a constant project for over 7 years and I have thousands of pictures taken of the build process, this thread is more dedicated to the final preparations that got me through Black Friday shopping and getting ready for the desert.

Going from a rock crawler to a full blown mall crawler is not as easy as I thought. A perfect example was my Fox 2.0 coilovers were fine for the trails, but everyone knows if you don't have blue springs and reservoirs, you aren't jack at the meet-n-greets. Same thing for wheels- yeah black steelies are practical, but someone told me 4 Wheel Parts called and wanted their "I sell these to every freaking TJ owner in the US" wheels back and the only way to roll is Racelines, so again, another huge change had to be made. Below is the parts pile that will make my next super tight t-shirt buying experience smooth sailing. Some of the mods may cross over and help in my detour through the desert as well.


Collecting parts:

Kings (thanks Trent Fab!) Fist pump blue.

Door skins (thanks Poison Spyder Customs!) Gotta be seen by the ladies.

Racelines (thanks SAVVY!) Members only level

37" MTR/Ks. Apparently my grippier Pitbull Rockers aren't clique status in the West. So even though Pitbulls are probably a better South Eastern tire (I'm in NC), you can't be in the desert clique if you can't say Kevlar 5 times when describing your rig.

Hi-line tube fenders (thanks Sinister Fab!). Well this should be obvious... if tube fenders are cool, hi-lines are loco fresca.

Aluminum. Period. I'm all in when it comes to getting light:
AL Bumper by way of Barnes 4WD

AL Rear corners via Sniper Fab

AL tie rod by way of Ironman4x4 Fab

AL tc skid and engine skid thanks to Undercover Fab

AL tube fender cut outs hand crafted by Sinister Fab

More parts collecting and building to follow....

 

[untchabl]

No one will be able to beat you to a parking spot at the mall after you're done. Nice pile of parts you've got there for sure.

 

[zman2day]

lookin good...

 

[khwrx]

How thick are those door skins ? Subbed !!!!

 

[RenegadeT]

sweet, good luck, this will be fun to follow.

 

[REDLYNER]

Keeping in mind this was our rock crawler, some parts were already installed. Stretched wheelbase, anti-rock, winch, etc., however, while the jeep was starting to look the part parked outside of the local AMC 24 movie theater, it just wasn't handling the mph control system like it should. With the addition of 3 new AMC theater speed bumps, something on the jeep had to be done. So we gussetted the outer Cs and added a small truss to try and keep the axle straight.

Marsfab helping out:

The fit is looking pretty good:

Ready for high speed parking lot jumps:

Not bending the axle is one thing, but when you are trying to make the 7:20pm Avengers showing, and you know full well that you will do at least 2 hot laps by the ticket line, you must be able to handle the speed bumps faster. So we talked to Profender and picked up their 4" airbumps (then had Alex cut them down to 2").

Carolina Truggies was able to lend some welding help:

Most important picture I have learned, if you really want to look like you know what you are doing, is that you post a full bump picture:

Painted up and ready for the early crowd at IHOP:

 

[95yjjeep]

Marsfab helping out:

Looks awesome! Keep the pics coming. And will you tell Chris to put on some safety glasses!

 

[khwrx]

Yeah safety glasses you can replace , cant replace your eyes ! Only took two trips to the hospital to convince me .

 

[userbmx1315]

Haha last time i went, the hospital couldnt help me. Had go go to summit eye. Took me twice also.

 

[snappy]

I was gonna say a hat... The baldness is blinding us!!!

 

[khwrx]

well all the hospital did do was an xray and then sent me to greystone eye center to have it looked at .

 

[REDLYNER]

One of the nagging issues I ran into over the summer was discovered every time I went through the Starbucks drive through. The full doors didn't allow for enough room to grab my Vanilla Ice Tall Cinnamon Frappucinos, so I needed an upgrade that gave a little more reaching room. Marsfab helped me weld up some Poison Spyder door skins to my current soft doors-

Sealed up

3 layers of Stone White paint:

 

[khwrx]

WOW thats nice!

 

[ncsutj]

That's awesome Jay. Hope you go out there and kick some ass.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[98jeeptj]

Awesome thread, I'll be watcing on here as well as on JF. So when is the test and tune?

 

[REDLYNER]

Well...... I was just severely humbled after my recent trip to Minnesota. As you are aware, this is the home of The Mall of America (or "The Show" as us Mall Crawlers like to call it). Wow, do I have a ways to go. First up was addressing my hyperventilating at the thought of 3 different Macys in one location! Three!

So we hooked up with Poly Performance and got a Parker Pumper, y-adaptor, and two sections of hose. Install will come during the cage build.

 

[MarsFab]

Looks awesome! Keep the pics coming. And will you tell Chris to put on some safety glasses!

I got polycarbonate implants last year so I don't need safety glasses anymore.


Sent from the MarsFab Off Road mobile response unit.

 

[ABadJeeper]

Looking awesome. Can't wait to see it all done. I need to go sell some body parts or something. Lol

 

[95yjjeep]

Is MarsFab building the roll cage?? What are the plans? Any ideas yet?

 

[khwrx]

The dinosaur likes the new parts looks like too !

 

[Stuntman Autoworks]

Very cool you'll be the envy of every flatbill hat wearing guy at pac sun.

 

[REDLYNER]

REDLYNER Racing, a driver's interview-

 

[Bigben75ford]

hahaha and so this is the guy going to KOH this year with Michael?? I might go now LOL!!

 

[REDLYNER]

Over the summer we noticed a fairly consistent problem- Every time we took the rig to Harris Teeter for groceries, we would be fine. The parking lot there is mostly flat with a few rolling sections that don't cause very many handling problems. But, the new Wal-Mart Super Center was almost built from the ground up to challenge even the most experienced grocery getters. Probably 1000 parking spaces to navigate, wild shopping carts roaming without any fear, and let's not forget "the people of Walmart" as well. It can make your heart speed up just thinking about a grocery trip.

To make my Saturday morning milk, eggs, and bread run a little easier, I decided to lighten up the rig with the aluminum gear posted earlier, but more importantly, we needed a better poser color change. Too many guys are running black fenders, armor, etc, so we needed to take some action.

We started here, roughly 4,250lbs:

Then went with Sinister Fab hi-lines and Sniper Fab aluminum comp corners:

Drilling out accessory holes, sanding off rust:

Smoothing down the sliders (amazing how many door dings you get just picking up take out):

Paint booth:

Test fitting:

Prepping the grill inserts. This was important because while yes aluminum shines, I needed mall crawler bling, so I hit them up with three layers of clear coat:

Between swapping out our tires from heavy Pitbulls to light weight MTR/Ks and going to mostly aluminum accessories, I dropped down to 3,900lbs and cut 4.5 seconds off of the 0-to-60mph time. I literally shaved 1:47 off of the travel time from my house pit station to the Walmart garden center.
Post paint:

 

[REDLYNER]

Recently back from an intense day of test and tuning. Three malls, two Walmarts, Lowes, and a Best Buy- the jeep was running flawlessly.

But it was all too good to be true. We started having heat soak before we could get to Old Navy, so I had to shut it down. That will need to be addressed- collecting parts to push the fuel through a little better:

In an attemp to pass a Chevy Trailblazer who had become a trail plug between Off Broadway Shoes and Buckle, I clipped a curb and launched the rig clear up into the air. The landing was so hard it knocked my designer sunglasses off and spilled my Vanilla frappuccino. Major mall crawler party foul. So another call to Profender Suspension and they sent out some 3" airbumps for the rear to match the ones up front.