Mall Crawling Racer...... #4410

[REDLYNER]

REDLYNER Racing and Rugged Radios are going global braH. I had a unique opportunity to help support (in a very small way) the Girl Scouts of America- European Program and my good friends at Rugged Radios stepped in with some incredible support. This is part of a communications initiative to help promote safety to the girls of military families serving abroad. So these along with some hair gel are on their way to Italy:

Aight, so let's have a serious conversation about steering:

What has more street cred- a yellow stripe on a steering wheel or a D shaped wheel? Or.... all of the above? Or are buttons coolest? I spent some time going through Race Dezert and saw a lot of guys going to the D-shape wheel. I can understand its use in the desert, but does it make the rocks more awkward to drive through?

 

[BRUISER]

if you are going for bling then these should do it

or

 

[browneye]

Also easier to drive with handcuffs on

 

[REDLYNER]

Level 9 mall crawling, obviously, is about as extreme as it gets. The massive amount of equipment monitoring it takes for a successful 5mph mall crawl through Hammer town is almost parallel to what a Nascar driver experiences.... I would imagine.


I felt like it was an obvious choice for gauges that would function in the craziest environments the 4550 will see. So I went with Auto Meter Elite series. 7 different LED settings should keep me snapping necks from the daycare line to the Birkdale Regal Cinemas drop off. Tweeners be like 'oh my snap, crackle, and pop..... Did your gauges just change from blue to orange to purple?!?!?"


Tim at Liquid Iron Industries had some fun this morning with the mall crawler 4550-

 

[REDLYNER]

Team Dynomax just got a little more................. Handsome'r.








Dynomax has been a huge help working with my time crunch. There's a Ralph Lauren Cologne store opening in Indiana next week and I absolutely HAVE to be there. So Dynomax sounded the alarms, put their fastest looking parts on an airplane and 48 hours later it was at Liquid Iron Industries. Tim pulled a late night and got the Ultra Flo setup mounted up.

 

[shawn]

Have him cut that pipe above the rear axle, put a band clamp on it, and make up a spare piece of pipe that's 2' longer.

For inspections, brah.

Other than that, his exhaust work is a hell of a lot better than mine.

 

[REDLYNER]

One of the last, and possibly most important, pieces to getting the mall crawler back to double parking on the street was the incredibly difficult, I would wish upon no one, job of wiring and tuning.


There's only like 3 things that I'm not good at brah... And wiring is one of them. And the other two are also wiring.



So, fortunately for me, there are sick people out there that not only enjoy wiring, but are actually over the top kick ass at it. Constant communication on what I wanted is what made working with Wayne of 150tunes so great. That, and the fact that the tune and harness came back from him perfectly plug and play. Huge shout out to Wayne, he definitely made the most painful part easy.

So.... Tune is in. Exhaust is in. All that's missing are the halo lights....... Oh wait, they are back in as well . Nothing left for Tim @LII to do but get out and f'n mall crawl.




Tim topping it off:

I heard Robby Gordon was still toying with the idea of getting into Mall Crawling...


You call that a double park brah????

THIS is how you double park.

Latest report Tim had around 50 miles on the new setup. No issues to report so far......

 

[REDLYNER]

Whether it's raining, or just too much sun, no Diva would ever be caught without their umbrella.


Am I right Kim?

So in true form, the 4550 now requires an umbrella or some form of shade if it's ever to be parked outside of a climate controlled environment.

Update on the cooling issue- trans temp down from 240 degrees at speed to 160 degrees. Engine temps down from a consistent 234 now to a 210 at low and high speed. I decided to go to an aluminum line setup with minimal bends and ran it through a 30,000lb rated trans cooler. Local shop here who has built a few pro rally cars that live and die in the heat helped to design the setup. So I would say that issue is resolved.


Next up was addressing a few electrical gremlins. So this turned into a 2 part project: find what keeps causing the ECM to literally blow up wires and also address that buildup of 12 years of stacking mods on top of mods, creating a wiring spider web that was destine to cause issues down the road.

I'm working with a BMW mechanic by me that has done a few LS-to-M3 conversions on some wiring options. We're at 20+ hours in cutting, zip-tie'ing, splicing, adapting, re-routing, and bundling- but it's coming along very cleanly. I bet I've removed 40lbs of old amps, wires, connectors and zip ties. And speaking of zip ties, I have 7 left out of a new 100 pack. By racer standards, zip ties are worth nearly as much as stickers when it comes to performance.

So now the blue tooth radio, heater, LED bar, in-cab winch controller, ARBs, GPS, horns, race radio and intercom are all in sync.






Still battling to get the car on the track though, but it's getting closer. Latest issue is an oil leak. In 19 miles of driving so far, it lost over 4 quarts of oil.....

After a long clean up, we determined that it wasn't the worst of news as originally thought- a bad rear main seal. Looks like the leak is coming from the intake manifold area-




After an all-nighter, nearly all of the oil and build up have been cleaned. New gaskets, seals, etc are ordered and hopefully delivered today.

 

[REDLYNER]

Getting wicked close brah.


Down to the details- Inside basically wired up, engine basically wired up, idler pulley swap, coilovers adjusted for a little more up (I'm at 125/150, probably 125/125).

 

[REDLYNER]

Being that I spend most of my time pretending to be a real racer, the 4550 got a chance to put all of that practice posing to the test. Today the race jeep spent some time on the floor of Chip Ganassi's Nascar shop for a mini photo opp. The mall crawler felt right at home amongst the other pavement queens .

Testing has begun for Ultra4 Arkansas, I'm being incredibly cautious making sure everything is communicating the way it is supposed to. Starting to open it up just a little on the test track-

 

[REDLYNER]

Like most A-listers, we find ourselves the target of cyber hackers and their malicious intent to spam. Usually my accounts are locked solid, but as we've seen, even Miley Cyrus can be hacked. The irony of my accounts being broken into, and this part I can't make up, is that it was by a fashion designer who immediately started posting about the latest trends hahaha.

Once my biggest issue was resolved (getting Twitter back under control), it was time to face a few problems the race jeep has been giving me. First minor issue- it won't run......


Seems to be fuel related, so I checked the plugs and the pumps and found this:

Anything look off?



So, I went ahead and put new plugs in, new wires, new filters, and new Walbro pumps. The car is running pretty strong now and is actually a little quieter coming from the fuel cell (due to new pumps).







Heat.... It's the constant burn brah. It's a killer. Even Tom Cruise couldn't Mission Impossibler his way out of it-

But the mall crawler is working on it. Part 1 of a two stage heat relief is getting the coilover reservoirs off of the motor. I came up with what I'm calling the batmobile machine gun option and reached out to Marsfab to help me with the cutting:

I'll get some new blingier stickers to correct the current scratched up ones (and right side them).

 

[spectac]

The reservoir placement is awesome!

 

[TheViking]

When you gonna get this thing in a Florida Georgia Line video.

 

[spectac]

If you break any shocks, can you cut the reservoirs off and send them to me so I can look that cool when I mall crawl?

 

[REDLYNER]

So Meeshell and I were hitting up Legs day at the gym (and by legs day I mean we were doing bicep curls) and he was all like-

"Bruh- what's with the wheezing? Too many Zimas last night?"

And I was all like-

"Bro- don't be counting my Zimas. And don't be talking during my super set."

Meeshell, in true bro fashion, wasn't about to let me off that easy. He was all like-

"Listen, you're Handsome Jay, I get it brah. But I think we need to have a serious energy drink cool down and discuss this wheezing. You gotta get some air in brah!"

I paused..... Meeshell was right. Breathing had become an issue.

So I called up Marsfab and had him lazer me out some Marsfabulous goodness to help the 4550 breath (keeps the filter from contacting the belt).

However, it's hard to breath when you don't run. The mall crawler has been down graded to an incredibly good looking paper weight the last few days. Engine won't idle, and 90% of the time won't even turn over. I've had a few LS cars in the past and went over the usual suspects, but couldn't find what was jacking it up so bad. Fortunately, my good friends at S.L. Customs said they would clear a bay ASAP to try and diagnose.

Information came back fast and furious- O2 sensors were shot. New plugs had some cracks in them, but the big issue was a busted internal fuel line.

Kyle @S.L. Customs had the parts ordered, delivered, and installed within 24 hours. The car is running as strong as a glass of pre-workout mixed with an XXL Red Bull.



Some maintenance was overdue, and as much as I hate getting dirty, I decided to put on my two pairs of rubber gloves and change some fluids and inspect my rotating things. A couple of minor tweaks (replaced some studs), but most everything looked solid.

 

[REDLYNER]

I'm feeling some Barbecue brah.



I'm talking 'bout some serious, fall off the bone, spicy BBQ. I'm hearing good things about the smoke pits in Arkansas, thinking about taking a road trip.

Anything else worth doing while I'm in Arkansas this weekend? Salon? Outlets? U4 race?

Speaking of Barbeque, I know when I BBQ and want the hottest burning charcoal, I choose Royal Oak.

The 4550 is pretty much set. A few minor adjustments this afternoon (tire shine, wax, coil springs) and it's ready for the trailer.



Finishing up a splash guard for the ECM with Marsfab-

 

[REDLYNER]

I've gained 7lbs and haven't even made it to Arkansas yet....

#ribs

 

[REDLYNER]

The circus has arrived in Hot Springs . Since Eric Miller isn't here this weekend (I've finished 2nd behind him 3 times in the most handsome driver contest), we registered for 4400 to chase a KOH golden ticket.

So Friday went as well as it could have. Being that this was my first time to even put the 4550 in 4lo (I had to google instructions), the car felt solid and was definitely much faster than version 1.0.



Pre running: the course is longer than years past, so Ultra4 changed it to 4 laps in 5 hours. It's like 9 miles of solid rocks and one mile of fast track. Not many passing lanes.




Qualifying, aside from one stupid driver error that cost me a minute or so, it went great. I thought the qualifying course was 5x harder than anything on the actual race track, so we're glad the mall crawler made it through fairly undamaged. The wrong line mistake puts us around 24th off the line for today's race.


The biggest negative is that my tire shine won't impede other cars until lap 2 or so. Either way, it should be fun. Looking forward to opening up the car.

Follow live (11am Central Green flag): www.ultra4racing.com/live

 

[ORV design and fab]

Let us know how it goes

 

[REDLYNER]

3 busted tires
2 broken body mounts
1 busted wheel
1 broken Atlas yoke
1 broken drive shaft
1 broken winch line
1 KOH golden ticket


I thought it was tougher than Hammers. We passed several 4400 cars, was passed by a few, then all things went to hell with the breakage. But, it was just enough. Now comes the biggest challenge I've ever had off-roading, and will need lots of help to get there.

 

[Mulishajoe]

You got this Jay. Just another lap at the mall.

 

[cgm147]

I'm sure the fun over ways the the hurt in the pocket!! Way to go Jay! The won't know what's coming this yr in the desert.

 

[ORV design and fab]

Pics or it did't happen!

 

[Infamous1]

Congrats on the golden ticket brah!!!!

 

[REDLYNER]

Pics or it did't happen!

This one was posted to the REDLYNER Racing Facebook page-