Wide Open Design build of an Evolution chassis ( WFO )

[Woodlee]

Well guys it has been a while since I've posted a build thread, and I figured it was time to give every one a few updates of what has been happening around the shop over the past couple of months.

Bj Allen came to me with the idea of wanting to get into some of the new Southern Rock Racing Series action and having a trail rig that would take some abuse that is getting insane here in the south east. Seeing as how I am a huge fan of the series and I have been wanting to build another hill killing buggy for a while I jumped at the chance to do the project. Bj came to us with a good idea of what he was looking for in a buggy that was tough as nails, plenty of power and had to look good as well.

We set out from the start looking to take all the knowledge we learned from racing ULTRA 4 and pour it into the design of this buggy to help this buggy have a competitive edge in the SRRS series; and, make it a better all around rig for trail riding. We decided to build this buggy off of the Evolution chassis platform that is known as our "Hill Killer" chassis. We are changing up a few tubes in it to give it a unique look, but the suspension set up will be the same as any other Evolution.

Bj wanted crazy power out of this thing so he decided to go the route of a Blown LS 3 from Turn Key Engine Supply. When we decided on this motor it kind of set the tune for the rest of the build. We new we had to get our crap together if we were going to build some thing that was going to hold up to 710 hp.

So with the engine in mind we came up with this for the rest of the drive train.

Th 400 transmission
Atlas transfer case with all of the upgrades you can throw at it
Torq 14 bolts front and rear with 40 spline axle shafts
Trail Ready wheels with 43" Super Swamper SX's
PSC steering
Griffin cooling
Twisted Stitch RZR seats that we modified for use in a buggy

But, enough reading lets get to what we all want in any good build thread. PICTURES!!!!

 

[Woodlee]

This engine is a sexy looking beast, but right off the bat I knew the location of the engine accessories was not going to work with the amount of up travel I was shooting for in this buggy. So, I stripped them off and set the motor down into the chassis.

The first thing we did was set the drive train in the buggy and mock it up in place. We held off on building any drive train mounts though. We wanted to get the axles set into place and make sure that the axles and the engine ended up in the right spot. We set the wheel base at 114 in. long and pushed the engine up as far as we could and still get all of the the accessories on the motor. This took a bit of planning because this buggy is running an 8 rib pulley system instead of a 6 rib kit like you normally see, and its getting 2 power steering pumps. And to just make it a little tougher one of the pumps is PSC's trophy truck pump, and that sucker is huge and hungry.

I drew up some trusses for the Torq axle housings that incorporate the ram mounts, link mounts, and truss all in one. I drew them up in CAD, and made sure every thing was going to work. They turned out sick looking in person. As soon as the trusses were on we put on the King shocks. We went with 14 in. travel in the front and 16 in. travel in the rear. We mounted all of the links to the chassis using our lazer cut kit that fits all of the Revolution and Evolution chassis. Then attached the shocks with our shock mount kit that we offer for our chassis. All of the link on this buggy were done in house and the lowers are 2.5" 7075 and the uppers are 2" 7075 with 1.25" QA-1 Rod Ends all the way around.

 

[Woodlee]

The suspension was set to split the shock shaft both front and rear. Then we added 4in travel bump stops to the mix. We went with 4 inch bump stops knowing we may have to shorten them up to 2in travel but we can easily do that if it is needed. I was looking forward to seeing a buggy set up as a hill killer that has some real up travel in the front.

After the suspension work was done we headed right on into getting the seats mounted up.

We decided to go with a set of Twisted Stitch seats that are set up for a rzr and then modified them to have tabs like a regular suspension seat has. They are probably my personal favorite looking set of suspension seats that we have ever used in the shop.

In these pics you can see we put a kick in the dash bar to get over the rear facing throttle body, and it just added a cool attitude to the look of the over all picture.

 

[Woodlee]

We made sure BJ would have enough room to have 3in of head room even with a helmet on. To do this with a seat that had a removable seat cushion in it we decided to put a raised roof in place.

Tyler is pretty close to the same size as BJ so we used him as the test dummy.

 

[Woodlee]

After we finished the seats and roof we moved on to fitting up the interior. We have a kit laser cut to fit our Revolution chassis, so we threw it out on the floor to just see if we could make that work. After a few minutes of looking and measuring the band saw was running and we had the interior in this thing in no time. We had to trim the Revolution kit a pretty good bit to make it fit, but it was way better than starting with nothing.

 

[TBItoy]

What axle C's and knuckles is it getting?

Axle shafts?

 

[96cherokeexj]

Re: Re: Wide Open Design build of an Evolution chassis ( WFO )

Amazing work

 

[Eddyj]

 

[yankster]

Wonder what a pair of those axles, front and rear steer, would run a man... Their website just says "out of stock". Curious about the weight compared to a 14 bolt steering axle built from a stock rear.

 

[bad80cj]

 

[KyTrash]

What axle C's and knuckles is it getting?

Axle shafts?

Good Question, Nick.

 

[Bumpers]

its gunna be flat out nasty

 

[Cole]

What axle C's and knuckles is it getting?

Axle shafts?

I'm sure there will be plenty more detail on those soon. They're badass for sure.

 

[ridered3]

Between that engine and those axles drool drool drool drool drool drool

Really like the raised roof idea and the seats look quite good in there!

When will she be finished up?

 

[halcat]

I think I'll just pull my rig out in the field and burn the sumbitch!

 

[Rik450]

I think I'll just pull my rig out in the field and burn the sumbitch!

LMFAO!!!!

 

[halcat]

Between that engine and those axles drool drool drool drool drool drool

Really like the raised roof idea and the seats look quite good in there!

When will she be finished up?

I rode with perry at GMP in his "hill killer" and I couldn't see nothing but roof bars. I'm somewhat bigger than perry and also like the raised roof.

 

[liv2mx]

damn nice hill killer!

 

[BUG-E J]

Damn Woodlee you got some skills to be somebody that will and with me.

 

[P]

GOT DAMN......