Big suburban or small jeep

[Tulok]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Haha! Dually noted

Originally Posted by The Other Andy

From everything I've heard regarding GM trucks (based on the 4.3 anyway, which is what my vans had), swapping your belt driven fan for an electric fan will probably be your best bang for the buck.

Actually, swapping out the Suburban with an AWD Astro or Safari might not be a bad idea. You'd have tons of interior room, with a more compact package. They aren't all that frugal, but I was routinely getting 23-24mpg out of a 200,000 mile, 2wd Safari well before I knew of hypermiling. The AWD vans can hold their own out in the wild too.

That would be good, I do have an electric fan just haven't installed it yet. I usually collect everything then do it at once cause I hate dragging projects out!

The safari with the v6 would definitely be better on gas, but I am going to need all the off-road capability I can get! The whoops at Barstow and the hot tubs in Moab are insane lol.

If I can get mine to be able to be about like this pic, (it's on bigger tires than I will be) but 2" lower on the highway and 1" higher in the dirt. I think that would be sufficient. I certainly don't want to be a redneck riding high on 44's and a 12 inch lift.

[MobilOne]

Is that a 6 by 6 in the picture?

[freebeard]

I know that will murder my MPG. But I was thinking of a way to use a winch strung under the vehicle with some snatch blocks to lower the vehicle for long drives.

It might murder you, if the chassis is under tension from the winch and it fails in transit.

Suburban, van or Jeep—do this:



It could be good for a maybe 10% gas mileage increase.

Frank Lee -- That's pretty much perfect.

[aardvarcus]

Is yours an automatic transmission or a manual? I had a 1991 K2500LD (6 lug) and I saw a 3+ MPG increase just from swapping from a 4L60 (similar to 700R4) to a NV4500. It is actually posted on here somewhere if you search. I had that truck up to 18MPG with no real serious mods, just the transmission swap and air dam replacement.

Keep the Suburban versus swapping to a truck body or a jeep, having the four real doors is nice. I would probably still be driving my aforementioned K2500 if it had four real doors.

On to off-road ability, you mention you need 35s and a lift. My biggest beef with 35s isn’t the 35” diameter; it is that you are usually only able to find them in fairly wide widths. In addition to additional aerodynamic drag, this also increases the weight of the tire. I would suggest looking at 34” tires, such as the BFG KO2 in 34x10.5R17 or the almost 34 255/85R16 tire size, such as the Cooper ST Maxx. (I have 255/85r16 on my Tacoma) These tires offer lots of ground clearance without excessive width or weight. To make up the difference between the 34’s and the 35’s shave your differentials. Shaving the differentials 1” while on 34s would be like having 36s. Look at military vehicles, their tires are tall and skinny, and some vehicles (HMMWW) are sitting on portal axles to give extra clearance at the differentials.

Also don’t go full on mud terrain on your tires, try to stick to ATs as they handle so much better on the roads and in fact some of their features (sipes) help you offroad more than you might think. Match your air pressures in your tires to the conditions.

Put air deflectors in front of your tires. Make them out of conveyor belt. Also make a conveyor belt air dam. You can drag it offroad and you won’t tear it up, but it will improve your fuel economy and improve your onroad handling. It doesn’t matter how great your truck would have been offroad if it ends up in a ditch on the way there.

I would suggest not putting a lift kit on your truck. All this does is raise your COG without offering you any real ground clearance at the axles. Instead, make skid plates to protect your underbody if you do drag it. These could also have aerodynamic benefits if you make them like a belly pan. Trim or roll your fenders if you have to to fit the tires. Remember lift kits alone don’t keep you from rubbing they just change how often you rub because unless you limit your up travel your tires can still cycle all the way up, and in fact on solid axles with one side in full droop and the other side in full compression taller springs can actually make you rub worse.

If you want lift, put air bags under the truck with valves you can access from the cab, but don’t inflate them when offroad (as this often limits your flexibility and would raise your COG) until you actually encounter a situation you really need the belly clearance (e.g. high centered on your belly or about to go through deep water).

Use close to stock height flexible springs to make sure the truck can flex and keep the tires in contact with the ground. Also get selectable lockers, electric or air operated. This would be a better offroading improvement than anything else listed.

You mentioned an axle swap. If you wanted more strength without going all the way to tons, I would look for a 14 Bolt semi-float 6 lug rear axle from early 90s heavy duty 1500s or light duty 2500s. This would be a definite improvement over a normal 10 or 12 bolt, let you keep your six lug wheels.

Run stock alloy wheels (to reduce weight) with the appropriate offset so you don’t stress your wheel bearings. Respect the hub or lug centric nature of your axle, have a machine shop turn the wheel hub seat if you want to run newer factory alloys with the smaller hub diameter. Have a matching full size spare, used is ok but a dry rotted 30" street tire is not.

Have enough tools to reasonably be able to fix an issue or get yourself unstuck, but don’t bring the kitchen sink. A powerful come along, jack with cribbing, straps, shackes, shovel, etcetera matter a lot more when you are stuck than a lift or bigger tires. Try to watch how much weight you add and where you add it. Wheel easy, don’t just slam and power through obstacles, drive carefully and with purpose. Go slow and enjoy the fact you are outside enjoying a technical challenge of driving through the terrain. Why rush through everything so you can go back home? Engage your brain at all times, as offroading is inherently dangerous, but focus on your surroundings is required. Wheel with another vehicle if at all possible, making sure they have the same goals for the trip as you.

If you haven’t already look at the expedition portal site. They have lots of examples of purpose built vehicles that have the modifications that matter to get them places, however the mall crawlers have started to infiltrate the site so you have to wade through that now to find the meat.

[freebeard]

That was a good read.

Put air deflectors in front of your tires. Make them out of conveyor belt. Also make a conveyor belt air dam. You can drag it offroad and you won’t tear it up, but it will improve your fuel economy and improve your onroad handling.

Not only for off-road, but also for highway speeds, cinch that air dam down really tight.



This example is inflexible, for a different environment; but look at the dozen screws (under pan washers) holding that on. Granted they are at higher speeds, but (seriously) it's a Beetle—how fast could it go?

They said they had to take it off to get the car on a trailer.

If the conveyor belting is held with L-brackets, make each one a little quarter-elliptic spring, stiff enough to resist the air at speed, but flexible to take abuse off-road.

[kach22i]

Like others have said Diesel in the Suburban or get something smaller.

You can get a rust free Geo/Chevy Tracker (good on gas) for under $3,000 in Arizona.

Maybe shoot in between real big and real small and get a clean Isuzu VehiCross for about $6,000.

Both the Tracker and the VehiCross have been known to better Jeeps off road and have that rareness factor.

[freebeard]

Go with the Geo Tracker. Did you know both it and the Geo Metro were based on a car called Cultus? How cool is that?

Put a boat tail on it built to the spec that Redneck used on his Metro. Plus you get that laundelette body style. The only thing cooler than a Subaru Brat with the T-top. It would accept a pickup truck style aerolid.

[Frank Lee]

Granted they are at higher speeds, but (seriously) it's a Beetle—how fast could it go?

How fast did it go?

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

How fast did it go?

I'm not sure about the Bugs,but a Karmann Ghia ran 150-mph.A first!

[freebeard]

The McAllister Boys at Blackline Racing, Dick Landy blower atop a 2332, running above 130mph, trying to get into the 150club. After seizing up the blower, driving back to SLC, repairing the wounded huffer by turning the damaged rotors in a lathe, reassembling it, and running STRONG the following day... I don't think they broke the 150 barrier, but that thing sounded healthy, had that supercharged 'crack' exhaust note!

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