What factors make Off Road Ability?

[Red XS]

And now that you have a rear locker, what would be your next modification ?

Lower low range is what I want most, so that will get a bit of time invested in the future. I've thought about rock sliders, but can't work out anything that would look too over the top for me. Main thing I'm doing now is setting up for a roof top dinghy. RIB needs repair and work out storage for motor. That will open up another step of exploring and I can step foot on some of the islands I've looked at in the distance.

Electric converting the Subi would be awesome, but expensive and range issues...although in Western Australia there are a surprising number of charging stations in towns. I feel like I see more Teslas along the South Coast then I do in Perth.

 

[Ben Up North]

Imagine having all that insta-torque. It would be interesting how manufacturers implement their AWD system in their electric models.

I wonder where Subaru is heading in all of this.. They don't appear to be that interested in electricity at all, only putting out the hybrids out of necessity to stay in the game IMHO.
The biggest downside I see to electric vehicles offroad (apart from the obvious of range) is weight.

 

[scalman]

Well tesla is for city and its allready so capable imagine how off road will be rivian that car with 4 motors on each wheel could do not just control torque on every one but even change direction as they show with tank turn. It will be amazing to see how others will follow that and compete. Imagine in future to have electric off roader that can do almost anything anywhere you put and still be daily driver.
They dont need lock wheel as that very not efficient for battery. They can do much more then just lock wheel.

 

[ABFoz]

Electric converting the Subi would be awesome, but expensive and range issues...although in Western Australia there are a surprising number of charging stations in towns. I feel like I see more Teslas along the South Coast then I do in Perth.

Before the Nissan Leaf went into production, there was huge interest in electric car conversions so I planned on buying an old VW bug, which was popular for enthusiasts, or a Toyota MR-S to convert to electric. Now we have Nissan Leaf on its second chassis type.

Now that I see how manufactured electric cars are confined by the battery technology that they have, converting an ICE car to electric seems viable because of the flexibility in the battery technology used. They're so proprietary. At least, with a converted one, we don't have to bring the car to the dealership all the time just like what most Tesla owners do at the moment. I am not satisfied by how manufacturers treat their customers like Apple smartphone users. I think it's one of the reasons why there are more people converting to electric now than just buying something that's already made, even though an already-made one cheaper. The Leaf, though, is much more serviceable than any of the American ones. Battery disposal is still a problem but, according to EV converters, Nissan's battery design is open for updates so that may be a plat form, although not to the kind of wheeling that we do.

Nissan Beaf for reference:

https://imgur.com/Z1Bhwut

Your post lit a bulb, @Red XS, I will have to revisit my notes from 15 years ago, when we had the highest electric car per capita in the world and 2 of our neighbours converted their Morris Minors to electric. In 2005 it would cost NZD 15,000 to convert to electric and that is just for a 200km range. Hopefully it's cheaper now.

I wonder where Subaru is heading in all of this.. They don't appear to be that interested in electricity at all, only putting out the hybrids out of necessity to stay in the game IMHO.
The biggest downside I see to electric vehicles offroad (apart from the obvious of range) is weight.

This one definitely is heavy. They sure can trim down some more weight.

I am thinking of a jerry can-sized battery top up for remote charging or operation. At the moment, we can only do that with non-proprietary designs.

Well tesla is for city and its allready so capable imagine how off road will be rivian that car with 4 motors on each wheel could do not just control torque on every one but even change direction as they show with tank turn. It will be amazing to see how others will follow that and compete. Imagine in future to have electric off roader that can do almost anything anywhere you put and still be daily driver.
They dont need lock wheel as that very not efficient for battery. They can do much more then just lock wheel.

Hopefully Rivian will be affordable but that most problably will not happen. They said they had to spend 2.9B USD before they get their first dollar revenue. The good thing about their plan is that their chassis will be used by other manufacturers as a base so they may have better sales with those.

 

[scalman]

by the 2030 most subarus and other cars will be electric anyway so just wait little longer .

 

[scalman]

no matter how much lifted how good tires are how amazing is your 4x4 at times it will be just 2wd , and wont go forward.

and in older subaru case it will be just 1wd even.

so you need at least one locker or better both and best factory ones.

so its nice that at last someone is making lockers for subaru older wariors. just not all makers make them strong enough sadly , so its not all good there too, you can put locker and in middle of nowhere it can brake apart make your car not driveable at all, its worse then broken axle when all your diff went to shaize.

in some cases subaru traction control system can work pretty well on its own, on light situations though

or even some harder situations

and then when you dont need TC restrictions you can just use full power to spin all wheels on high revs

so its not best but its good thing from both worlds in not too hardcore situations it will even work well. just maybe not with winter tires on slippery mud as there. still made it

and all russian off road masters , old schoolers saying same thing , before going deep air down, first rule allways air down. you can air down most AT tires on not so heavy cars to 1 bar no problem . aired down with MT tires you will get that side protector work as extra grip , and soft tires wont dig up for you grave in mud it will try to climb it . so yh air down. if you cant or dont have tools you shouldnt be there at first place.

but sure they talking about all variants of off road in areas where they live not for other countries, still this one thing works on almost all stuff .

 

[scalman]

in MUD AT tires vs MT vs extreme , and long base vs short , auto vs manual low gears, heavy cars vs light cars, lots power vs less power, prado with those extreme tires felt good on mud where pajero had so much problems even aired down. that good example for me to not go to mud with winter tires haha

and what to do when you heaviest car and you got stuck. problem.
and that narrow extreme tire on prado did much better then wide one on G wagon.

 

[ABFoz]

Looks like they had some fun, as usual.

Many people prefer narrower tyres. They do well on ice, too. It's just that some shops don't stock narrower versions of tyres that much.

Those extreme mud tyres are Silverstones, which are made by a Continental contract manufacturer in Malaysia. They don't have that much in their lineup probably so that they won't compete with Continentals, which design good tyres themselves.

 

[scalman]

Or chinese rip offs or even russian many make that silverstone style. They remolded on top.
Yes worse thing its so hard to find size , specially for subarus, on those large 32' and bigger not so much problem but find something for 16 or 17 rim at 28 size so hard.
That niva had comforser cf3000 they look like agressive tire but in heavy mud it wad not doing so well and i guess you need to clean your tire by spinning it a lot which can be hard for those small engines

 

[scalman]

on the other hands here is UAZ Green patriot rear hard locker front auto locker about 70% on winter tyres going agains other guys on mud tires. Hover on winter tires and no lift at all.

its shame we cant buy their cars here , like those Patriot jeeps they couple years old and with some rust on body goes there so cheap, but they frame 4x4 cars so rusted body no problem. they really very cheap and hard axles jeeps. Green one lifted 10cm i think about half in suspensions and half in body . looks good too and goes on winter tires in mud. he has some videos against Prados or other famous 4x4 cars and maybe because some lighter weight most time it goes better.
that black one on diesel engine and 35 tires. green on petrol both manuals. since this year they start to release auto gearbox too , much better on high speeds and pretty good off road.
like good shape car 2011 year you can buy there for 3-3.5k euros there of course inside russia. and you have real off roader with real axles not much electronics. can be with traction control can be without anything just basic simple car , yes not pretty inside yes hard plastic but it can go very good.

 

[scalman]

they having fun again with lots subarus pajeros and rav4 in deep snow. and lift decides here whos going and whos not as outbacks are not lifted ,they not going much, first you need to have enough ground clearance then you can air down tires and have better traction.
you really need to at least do 5cm lift on outback just then he can like go with foresters, no lift with those low bumpers just no way and low profile tires doesnt help too.
and it doesnt matter how good some cars are in your group , you will allways will be waiting for lowest ones to move forward got stuck and so on. it cn be long day if you know there are low cars in your group.

 

[scalman]

why you never pick Opel Frontera for off road project, i mean just why ? not enough lift, small wheels, everything hangs so low , ground clearance so bad, so for sure you will need winch all time . but why even bother with that car ?

my real questions are can you really keep hi lift jack on roof rack like all time outside on rain , etc ? and if you put it on top on roof rack , i mean its kinda heavy thing so it will add lots swinging momentum off road, that roof rack must be very strong then to handle that weight there. im thinking doing that myself but then im changing my mind next day like im not using it so much or going to off road trips so.

 

[ABFoz]

That is an Isuzu Mu in Japan and Amigo in the US. It's pretty popular here as a weekend off-road vehicle. That sample above has unusual geometries. Most tuned ones here have tires that come out of the fender (with a fender liner, of course) instead of coming in, like the one above.

Regarding the Hi-lift jack, there are kits that are being sold to mount them on roof baskets or trays and I am not a fan of those. When I used to have one, I always placed them at the back of the vehicle by the tyre carrier.

 

[Kevin]

keep hi lift jack on roof rack like all time outside on rain , etc

I keep my hi-lift in a canvas bag. I will usually only carry it if I'm by myself or on an extended trip if no one else has one.

 

[scalman]

can you go into mud with new Q8 or X6 ? looks like you can. with air suspension at least in highest possition they can do some stuff in mud even on street tires.
i mean that mud on 6:30 i dont think i would go there with my lifted outback if being alone on street tires at least.

i look how they can put torque to wheels even being stuck there to spin wheels, and i look at my car when wheels got stuck somehwere VDC just whines there doing nothing, and reverse its even worse , and they on auto gearboxes too, so why we had this stuff on subarus where no matter how much power you have there it just dies on you and kills engine no matter TC on or off.
would be nice do some custom adjustmenst there with VDC computer to change how it would reacts on some situations.


i mean that red touareg there on 33' wheels with lift and air suspension looks just monster on those extreme tires.

those city cars can do off road pretty good.
that guy on red touareg said he lifted his air suspension with just simple strut spacers i think same as we do for normal struts. i mean why not just put spacer under your air shock and it will lift too. yes i know all people saying that air suspension not for off road at least not hardcore one. but its so cool to have car lower on roads and then higher for short period time on off road.

 

[scalman]

i mean what is this ? 180kw where ? TC off , 1st gear fixed and it wont even spin wheels

there must be some mode or something that would turn off vdc maybe completelly there because it kills all fun.

 

[ABFoz]

I think the part where the wheels won't spin that much is when the torque converter (TqC - You used TC for traction control.) is about to reach the stall speed. In your other runs, the torque converter clutch (TCC) is able to lockup giving you as much wheel spin as possible. When the car started a bit slower, it didn't lockup so the TqC went as close to stall speed as possible as it needed more speed before TCC lockup is allowed.

This is just a minor limitation of having a TqC and without low range. Without the low range, the transmission uses fluid drive only. With the low range, the TqC locks up, allowing the engine to run the same speed as the input shaft. Cheers.

 

[scalman]

was much better on petrol fuel instead LPG there. i think LPG makes some too rich fuel mix and it just not drives as good now on lw revs, thats my main problem. i wonder if someone knoes what eles could be problems there for those engines ? spark plugs ? maybe some other stuff can be clogged there so its engines makes problems and not VDC so much then.
much more wheel spin now

i still think subaru with manual even dual range couldnt do that better or even same as this did. as manual and wheel spin you would just dig down lot more and faster there, my VDC there was still carefull not digging wheels too much . with manual i would sit there all wheels in sand , am i wrong ? you cant go slow on manual and do any climbing at all or slow wheel spinning.

 

[jf1sf5]

Dedman and his "new" red 5mt dual range Forester is able to do amazing up hill climbs. He also had a 4eat for a little while but came back to 5mt dual range. I too have a 5mt dual range and would'nt swap it for a 4eat. If there were no dual range 5mt gearboxes like in the US, then I would probably go 4eat....

 

[scalman]

Combine that 5mt dual range with ez30 and it would be best thing.
Russians have those monster forries there with 4' lifts too and huge tires.
As we dont have here anything to climb to hard like rocks and such so most things we handle here on off road is mud. If you didint sinked yourself in mud here it doesnt count as off road lol
Our forester guys going for cheap and simple as possible to maintain and some capable car so they go for old fories, i asked so you not afraid to go deep water without snorkles ? They just said that sure bad things can happe but our engine would cost like 100 euros to buy another and change, where my engine would be like 1000 euros with work. So yh stuff that cost much to replace or change or fix thats not good for mud or water because it goes damaged easy in those conditions. So yh for me to go with them i need to be here higher and larger to be safer to not damage my car so much.