I totally forgot to mention, the narrowed front worked great! There were lots of times I would have been digging it into rock walls if it was still full width.
As further follow up on the trip. My biggest fear going in to the trip was that I'd have cooling issues in that 100° heat in the Sand Hollow area. However, there were no issues. The only time the engine or trans topped 200° was running in the sand. I think the highest engine temp I saw was 205°, and the trans might have hit 220° on a long run in the sand. But again we were in air temps at or near 100° most of the time.
The crew cab stinks in the sand, by the way. I probably coulda lowered tire pressure to help, but without beadlocks I didn't want to run lower in the rocks.
Another concern I expressed earlier in the thread was transmission control. The Terminator X doesn't offer the ability to compensate for different transfer case ratios. You can write in a switch to ground that puts the trans in manual mode which I did. This worked great for anytime we had one of the cases in low range. The only time I would have liked having normal automatic shifting was running higher speed in the dunes. Manually running the gears and engaging the torque converter clutch (TCC) by a switch was cumbersome. I can improve that by putting the TCC switch up by my leg instead of on the dash.
The other thing I noticed about the more powerful engine is that running low range with just the NP205 pulled better. With the old engine it felt a little weak. This was nice when we were running the sandy areas between trails.
In general, this engine just pulls better. Definitely a seat of the pants improvement. Even after a week of trail running, I'm still marveling at how much better I like the exhaust tone.
Here's the fix it list I have now:
1) Right valve cover leak.
2) Oil cooler fitting leak at the block.
3) Rear wheel seal. This actually started on the Rubicon but it was minor enough I forgot about it. It's worse now. But I'm pretty sure they are the original 1979 seals.
4) The 2 rear hood pins are bent and I'm sure near breaking. They are aluminum.
5) Put TCC switch on console by my leg.
6) Build new sliders. I bent the driver side slide up into the doors again. They need to be totally remade. I have a design in mind to tie them to the frame.
7) Add rear wheel spacers. I should have made the bed a little narrower so the tires would stick out just a bit. I get into the "fenders" often and having the tires out, even just an inch, would help. Or I start a go-fund-me to get bigger tires...
As further follow up on the trip. My biggest fear going in to the trip was that I'd have cooling issues in that 100° heat in the Sand Hollow area. However, there were no issues. The only time the engine or trans topped 200° was running in the sand. I think the highest engine temp I saw was 205°, and the trans might have hit 220° on a long run in the sand. But again we were in air temps at or near 100° most of the time.
The crew cab stinks in the sand, by the way. I probably coulda lowered tire pressure to help, but without beadlocks I didn't want to run lower in the rocks.
Another concern I expressed earlier in the thread was transmission control. The Terminator X doesn't offer the ability to compensate for different transfer case ratios. You can write in a switch to ground that puts the trans in manual mode which I did. This worked great for anytime we had one of the cases in low range. The only time I would have liked having normal automatic shifting was running higher speed in the dunes. Manually running the gears and engaging the torque converter clutch (TCC) by a switch was cumbersome. I can improve that by putting the TCC switch up by my leg instead of on the dash.
The other thing I noticed about the more powerful engine is that running low range with just the NP205 pulled better. With the old engine it felt a little weak. This was nice when we were running the sandy areas between trails.
In general, this engine just pulls better. Definitely a seat of the pants improvement. Even after a week of trail running, I'm still marveling at how much better I like the exhaust tone.
Here's the fix it list I have now:
1) Right valve cover leak.
2) Oil cooler fitting leak at the block.
3) Rear wheel seal. This actually started on the Rubicon but it was minor enough I forgot about it. It's worse now. But I'm pretty sure they are the original 1979 seals.
4) The 2 rear hood pins are bent and I'm sure near breaking. They are aluminum.
5) Put TCC switch on console by my leg.
6) Build new sliders. I bent the driver side slide up into the doors again. They need to be totally remade. I have a design in mind to tie them to the frame.
7) Add rear wheel spacers. I should have made the bed a little narrower so the tires would stick out just a bit. I get into the "fenders" often and having the tires out, even just an inch, would help. Or I start a go-fund-me to get bigger tires...
