Race Prep for FL400R
 

Started this project a few months back, had a nice thread going on another Pilot forum but a certain admin decided to ban me and the fabricator I have doing the work...So I'm re-posting all my build information over to here to share with everyone...

Here is the starting point and the original plan...This is a photo of it as it sits at the previous owners.

Plan right now is to prep it to race in the IATVHHS. I have to add a few safety features.

1) fire extinguisher
2) 5 point harness
3) window nets
4) nerf bars
5) EG gauges
6) Trail Tech Voyager

With that said, I'm looking for resources for window nets and nerf bars. Anyone have any links to these two items?

I'm going to leave the motor stock for now however it will be getting a full nut and bolt tear down by RPC out of Palo Ia. While they have the motor, I'll have Dan do his magic on the head. He's done some some work for me in the past on a 250 KTM EXC...

After doing some research on suspension, I decided to go with a LT front end...Kits for this are not cheap so AJ from AJ's Off Road Armor and I decided to make our own. I wanted to go with parts anyone could find on Ebay, plus use some parts I had sitting on my selves...Elka shocks. As it turned out, we were able to do a LT front end for around $600...not including the shocks. I used front A-Arms from a Kawasaki KFX700...This would allow me to run the hubs and brakes too...ended up with a disc brake conversion...I also raced a KFX700 for years so I have all sorts of tire and rim set ups...again a huge cost savings since I wouldn't have to purchase rims and tires for different set ups...

Before I get ahead of myself, here are a few more details and what we decided to fab in...

Got it home and into the shop this afternoon and started looking at what we are going to do...

Radiator...relocating to the inside of the down tubes to get it away from the exhaust and motor, plus have it more direct line of airflow.
adding doors instead of nets...
pre-runner front bumper with 2 lights...
rear bumper
metal floor pans going full length including under the driver seat
racing seat
seat belts-5 point
EX400 front a-arms, brakes, Elka front suspension
pull the rear shocks and have them rebuilt
larger air intake hose and new upper airbox
fiber glass fenders
roof light bar...4 lights
new roof pan...
nerf bars...

Started taking the Pilot down to the frame... Found a few repairs made by the previous owner but so far everything looks good and solid.

1) Nets removed, plan is to relocate the radiator to the roll bar behind the driver's head...in clean air and away from the heat of the motor/exhaust.

Overflow and fuel tank...Plan is to relocate the overflow and remove the fuel tank and drop in a custom tank that will hold more. Originally I was thinking a cylinder tank like I have seen a few of you here using but after talking with AJ, we want to keep the weight low so we might go verticle with the tank, tap it high and low to add a view tube so we can quickly check the fuel level.

Rear suspension, drivetrain and frame looked pretty good...going to clean this up, fresh powder, add a new bumper, pull rope and rebuild the rear shocks...

Seeing this scared the crap out of AJ and me... The only thing between my butt and tree stump or large rock is that stock seat...that my friends is a NO-GO! Plan here is to run a full length skid plate, change the stock seat to an aluminum pan racing seat. We're also going to add some type of firewall...AJ thinks we can move the seat back just a bit and pan around the exhaust...I have to admit, he's got some good ideas.

Hello and welcome. Most of the buggies also have nothing but air between the seat and ground. Fixed that one on mine pretty quickly.

DK if the window nets need certification for the series you race in. If nothing's made for the pilots, LFS or Christensen Net works out of WA can custom make bordered netting for decent pricing. It's basically UV-resistant nylon thread trawler netting also used for driving range and batting cages.

My brother had a local race shop bend up nerf bars for his FL250s, cost him less than $100 per machine including tubing.

There is a lot more to this story to follow...eventually we dropped the window nets and went with a full aluminum body. :drive:

Found a big ding...we'll replace this with a fresh tube...add a skid plate and it's good as new. This had to be a good size hit but we found nothing else bent in the frame alignment...

Over the weekend I purchased a set of front A-arms that are heavier, well built for the abuse I'll be putting this machine through...This will also allow me to bolt in a set of Elkas/remote rez that I had sitting on the shelf.

Not 100% sure about the rear set up yet...right looking at staying stock and looking at a way to do some sort of lift for the clearance I want...
__________________

Priority to the work is going by what we have to install for safety first...

Here is the seat that is going in, takes up less space than the stocker seat, thus giving me a couple of more inches of room...

I have extra space between the exhaust, motor and the back of the seat...Plan is to drop in a fire wall to keep me cool from the heat of the motor and pipe...

The seat pan doesn't sit as low as the stock seat so the plan now is to skid plate a full length floor from front to rear...plenty of protection on the backside...

We're going to rotate the seat back to more of a reclined position...more comfort. To do this we're going to remove the straight cross bar and replace it with a curved one.

Last week did the final positioning of the seat and decided to relocate the radiator on the angled down tubes of the roll bar... Hoping to run it to the powder coater in 2 weeks.

Update...Radiator is now mounted. AJ built the crossbar behind the seat which has threaded inserts welded in for the shoulder harness and the seat mount tabs in place. He'll be doing the under seat cross bars tomorrow so I'll post up pics of both then.

Mocked up the radiator mounts, used part of the stock piece on the lower side with the bushings. We'll extend the wiring for the temp sender and be using clear hose for the coolant lines.

another picture of the radiator mounting.

Last one for tonight...

Here is the new front suspension getting ready to be bolted in this week...

The A arms are ready, so AJ focused on the front lower frame. We noticed it was tweeked a little and he replaced the damage front lower tube. While checking this area close, he noticed some spots that seemed a little weak from either the age of the metal or moisture inside the tube...replaced everything not 100%.

Here's some before and after pics of the front end....

KEEERUNCH!!!!

One of the upper arms was a real custom unit, AJ tried to talke me into into keeping it because "custom" work like this isn't easy to come by....especially the high end sockets for ends.

Chop!!

The tubing size is close to 1.25" but the wall thickness was a bit goofy in spots with some burn through in the joint. AJ wanted to do the splice where it could be reinforced and keep it stronger than the existing area. Installed some slugs and used 1-1/4 tubing...

Slugs were 3/16" wall, welded the seam and plug welds of course. It's very handy how these stand up on end to work on.

Tacked in place, AJ spent a good half hour tweaking it until it finally burned it in...

Hasn't been cleaned up in this pic yet... AJ also duplicated the factory tube gussets to further reinforce the joint where he did the repair at.

And then came the fun....with so many things to consider...camber, castor, bumpsteer and keeping all of these within limits along the arc of travel. And the fact that these arms are not designed for use on this frame...A LOT of fitting, measuring, re-fit, measure, check angles...re-fit...... All the while keeping it within 61" width...AJ shot for no more than 60".

Since the stock metal is thinner on the upper a-arm mounts AJ used some .090 tubing cut in half to beef up the frame in the area he was going to put the mounts.

Tacked in place, cycled it through it's limits and neither castor or camber changed much at all. There will be reinforcement plates over the mounts as well.

Tomorrow AJ will get the shocks mounted up. Will take the measured length of travel of the shocks and find the optimum position so it's using the full length of travel and keep the ride height close to stock.

Now we are putting on a few finishing touches, moving a few attachment points for various little things...Once it's all done, we'll strip it down to the frame and off to the powder coater...

Eddies Rod and Customs fabbed up an aluminum body for it...This was taken during a test and tune race. We had a couple of the panels off to check on some parts we fabbed in.

so is this work ongoing or are these older pics? looks good.

I'm almost complete with the project. We are waiting on a couple of small items and it's getting a skin put on the body with the new colors, logos...etc...of my sponsors.

Updated picture...waiting to drop the motor in.

Been about a year and this project is finally finished...put the finishing touches on it yesterday. Now it's off to the sign shop for a new skin in my sponsor's colors...:banana:

It looks good. What class are you running in the series? I didn't realize they had a single seat class for buggies.

That just looks mean as HELL!!!, hope you have alot of sucess with it!

They run me in the stock UTV class... It's really too fast for that class but I'm not arguing. I have been hoping they would start an open wheel class...run whatever you have, single seat open wheel...see some crazy fast and crazy suspension machines...:biggthumpup:

I cant believe they could think of that as a utv!!! now theres a good use for your hoser definition!!! p.s. #2

oddys and now mini buggies really don't fit into any of the traditional off road race classes. for years up here the oddys ran with the quads until the rzrs showed up wanting to race. at that point--about 2 years ago, they added a UTV class which is now the catch-all for razrs, oddys and mini buggys. this year is the first that they giving the class a season points standing and share of the prize money at season's end.

It's the same here....The promotor is willing to work with me if we can get a few more and we'll have our own open wheel class... Last season I did a couple of test and tune days at a couple of races. My first run with it, didn't even have all the body work on, had some over heating issues and had to shut down for 4-5 mins per lap...I still was only a 3 mins behind the fastest stock machine on lap times so this year with it all dialed in, I'm sure they will probably bump me up in classes just to find a place where my times match up close and make it fun...

If anyone is in the midwest and looking for a good series to run in... www.iatvhss.com has all the info. We race all over Iowa.

Here is a shot with all the body work completed...

Your gonna have to get us some onboard race vids of that little monster, if possible!!!

Plan to... We made some cam mounts when we modified the frame...:cheers: