My trip to the Baja 500

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mike.s

mike.s

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I was almost going to say it could be that cab dampers I've seen some pretty rusted up ones on here, were did you have the mic placed.

I stuck the microphone between the cab and the bed. Unfortunately, I didn't secure it very well and it ended up falling to the ground and getting disconnected. It's now sitting somewhere on the Baja 500 race track.
 

MTF

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I betcha it's one or both of the rear cab dampeners, and it's probably normal.
You could carefully get three guys to stand on the rockers one side at a time (not the side step) on each side a try to get the cab to articulate.
 
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mike.s

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Looks like the noise was my Deaver leaf springs. Outlaw threw some stocks springs on my truck and the noise is gone. They are sending my springs to Deaver for a rebuild.
 

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Glad they figured it out.

I think Deavers finally got the wheel hop under control with the second set they built for me.
Top three leafs are now thicker, and without ride comfort being harsh, still as smooth as before.
I can now launch with the one wheel wonder without wheel hop.
I still need to let them settle some more and torque them one more time before doing a posi burnout.
 
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stewwalker

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This was the first year I took my raptor to Baja as well. We stayed all week at the hotel in Valley T and based our operations out of there. Personally I LOVE Valley T. Its out of Ensenada and away from all the "trouble" and every BIG race team stops there for fuel, tacos and occasionally stays at the same hotel. We always end up befriending the locals and they tend to look after us during our yearly visits, as long as we have ample ammounts of steekers and do plenty of wheelies. The racecourse usually stays near Valley T so its always a prime spot to stay. I cant say enough about the trucks performance. I was the support truck for two bikes but ended up prerunning a lot of the course. I see you went left onto the compadre trail, while I went right and stayed on the racecourse. Don't do that, It was an extremely narrow, rocky, and dusty ride with the occasional half a million dollar prerunner showing up out of now where in my rear view mirror. Fortunately the truck performed flawlessly and only sustained minor body scratching (exterior B pillars, fender flairs, and black plastic trim) and I think I overheated the power steering fluid. You got to love a "prerunner" with a warranty. I'll be back next year chasing bikes again and tackling what part of the course I can.

As for the post Baja squeaks, I still cant stop them. All of mine are from silt working its way into the weatherstripping and causing some of the most annoying rubber on rubber squeaks I have ever heard (it was 1,300 miles home), but nothing a good detail wont fix.

If Treypal isn't racing next year, I think he should put together another Baja run.
 
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mike.s

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This was the first year I took my raptor to Baja as well. We stayed all week at the hotel in Valley T and based our operations out of there. Personally I LOVE Valley T. Its out of Ensenada and away from all the "trouble" and every BIG race team stops there for fuel, tacos and occasionally stays at the same hotel. We always end up befriending the locals and they tend to look after us during our yearly visits, as long as we have ample ammounts of steekers and do plenty of wheelies. The racecourse usually stays near Valley T so its always a prime spot to stay. I cant say enough about the trucks performance. I was the support truck for two bikes but ended up prerunning a lot of the course. I see you went left onto the compadre trail, while I went right and stayed on the racecourse. Don't do that, It was an extremely narrow, rocky, and dusty ride with the occasional half a million dollar prerunner showing up out of now where in my rear view mirror. Fortunately the truck performed flawlessly and only sustained minor body scratching (exterior B pillars, fender flairs, and black plastic trim) and I think I overheated the power steering fluid. You got to love a "prerunner" with a warranty. I'll be back next year chasing bikes again and tackling what part of the course I can.

As for the post Baja squeaks, I still cant stop them. All of mine are from silt working its way into the weatherstripping and causing some of the most annoying rubber on rubber squeaks I have ever heard (it was 1,300 miles home), but nothing a good detail wont fix.

If Treypal isn't racing next year, I think he should put together another Baja run.

Hey Stewwalker, which part of the video are you talking about where we went on the compadre trail? AFAIK, we went to mile 60 of the race course. At one spot, we did miss a right turn and went straight. After a mile or two we realized we were off course and turned around.
 

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At RM65 the course made a sharp right hand off the Compadre trail. If you didn't go past RM60 you missed it. Did yall backtrack from RM60, or go all the way to Rumorosa via Compadre.

Did you run the actual race course from Ojos to RM60, or take Compadre trail to RM56(ish) then jump back onto the course? I ran the race course from Ojos to RM56 on bikes and it seemed like there was some stuff a raptor would have hell/couldn't getting up.

The sharpie lines on your map are the compadre trail.
 
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mike.s

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At RM65 the course made a sharp right hand off the Compadre trail. If you didn't go past RM60 you missed it. Did yall backtrack from RM60, or go all the way to Rumorosa via Compadre.

Did you run the actual race course from Ojos to RM60, or take Compadre trail to RM56(ish) then jump back onto the course? I ran the race course from Ojos to RM56 on bikes and it seemed like there was some stuff a raptor would have hell/couldn't getting up.

The sharpie lines on your map are the compadre trail.

We did run the race course from the start, at least I'm pretty sure we did. We basically just followed the orange flags. I know we veered off course once or twice but we found our way back. I had just installed my Lowrance but didn't have time to load the course. But it did record our tracks. Here's what I got:

IMG_20150622_211449989_zpsbdhy6oqo.jpg


IMG_20150622_211637118_zpsvrpoxopv.jpg


Looks like we didn't quite make it to RM60. We met up with some photographers around RM55 and they gave us directions to head back to Highway 3. We definitely ran into some tough spots between RM45 and RM55. I was surprised we made it through some of those spots without any damage. Next year I hope to go even further.
 

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Between what I went through in my truck and what you went through on the first 55 miles, I am astonished at a Raptors performance in tight "rock crawling" areas. I cant believe you made it through the first 55. We came across a buggy that sheared its motor mounts and two fully built 4x4 Bronco prerunners that couldn't make it up a climb around RM50.
 

treypal

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If Treypal isn't racing next year, I think he should put together another Baja run.


It's in the works, but I'd like to go further down. Baja gets way better for Raptors the further south you go. It would have to be a week long trip to make it fun.
 
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