Mud Truck Part V - Recap and Dirty Payoff

When we were kids, there was nothing more fun than getting muddy as adults playing in the mud is still fun. It's just a lot more expensive today on Xtreme 4x4 judgment day for our mud.

Boer Can, Chris and Ian Tame 900 ft pounds of fury or will they wash out?

You know, you might think because every project here at Xtreme 4x4 starts life as either a complete four wheel drive truck or at least all the parts and pieces that we need to build a complete four wheel drive truck. Well, that might limit us with what we can do with these vehicles once we get done, put them together. Well, if you think that you're wrong,

the cool thing about four wheel drive trucks is how versatile they really are.

You can build a four by four to go trail riding

or even competitive rock crawling.

You can build one to drive every day

and just go off road on the weekends. Heck, you can even build one that will never see anything but pavement

and I guess that's cool too.

You can even build a full on race truck whether it be short course off road or a full on desert racer

or even a rock racer capable of doing both.

And yes, we've built trucks to handle all those types of things. But there's one area that we have yet to tackle that is mud bugs. That's messy. It's certainly slippery and it's definitely sloppy. But I'll tell you it is a pile of fun and it's why we built this truck right here.

Whether you're racing the clock in a drag race style track

or pounding through deep sloppy mud holes.

We're even racing side by side mud soap track.

There is no question that mud racing requires an Xtreme 4x4 truck.

Now, when we first decided to take on this aspect of our sport, we went out and we picked up this 1987 Chevrolet three quarter ton pickup had definitely seen better days and like any good race car, we started our planning under the hood with a killer power plant.

Originally, this truck had a 400 small block in it and we planned to have the horsepower shop just freshen it up a bit.

But when they offered us a killer 588 big block, we'd be stupid to turn that down.

It all started with a Merlin tall

block Eagle specialties. 4340 cranch and srp pistons hung on eagle H beam rods.

Aluna

billet roller camshaft controls the Jessel Rockers that open the valves inside the

Victor series heads

to finish it up. An aluminum race oil pan from steps and a Super Victor Junior manifold from Edelbrock,

some extra tall valve covers for world products and a monster B LP car

to pour in the fuel.

Now, this engine came off their

dyno at 820 horsepower and just a shade under 900 ft pounds of torque.

Now, with an engine that serious, we knew that we had some drive train upgrades to take care of. So in the back, we built a killer nine inch started with a spider tracks housing for additional clearance and then built a super tough center section with a bunch of parts from Randy's ring opinion and we're spinning both wheels with a spool. Now the front axle, we honestly thought we were gonna be able to leave the 10 bolt in there that came from the factory.

But after seeing the

dyno

sheet, we knew it would not last long. So a matching nine inch was put together for the front with the same components in the third member as the rear

and CT M axle joints

in the 300

shafts.

We always knew that the drive train of this truck was going to outlive this cab. So we didn't want to spend a lot of time or money in here. Simply installed a B and M shifter to control our automatic and a painless wiring switch controller to control all of our accessories couple auto meter gauges to keep an eye on our big block, a simple polly bucket seat and a small roll cage. It kind of looks like a funny car cage just enough to protect the driver.

Mud racing is divided up into classes and the class you run often depends on what type of suspension you have.

We opted to leave our truck, leave springs all the way around and then put together a track bar to limit rear axle wrap during hard acceleration.

Now, our tire package is truly old school mud racer with Interco boggs in the back and super swampers up front.

Now, the Boers, they'll dig into the mud like a set of paddle tires giving us maximum traction.

The super swampers up front will be more of a steering tire. They will still give us traction

but not so much that we won't be able to steer the truck

later, our truck hits the track but up next inside the crazy world of competitive mud racing. Stay tuned.

All right. So here we are the guys at Golden Mountain carved out 100 ft test track for our beast. But before we throw all patches into the slop, it's time for you guys to get a feel of some hardcore competition. Now, you've heard the saying sir is a heart attack. Well, in the south, it's all about hitting the hole

down in Louisiana. They take their mud racing very seriously

all about ego. It's all about bragging rights. And down here in Louisiana. We're all about bragging rights and anything that we do to become a champion in one of the four pro classes. Every research

looking for that edge. Every winter,

we go back to the drawing board and make improvements based off experience the previous season and the previous year it's nonstop. It's nonstop thing.

It's just like any kind of racing

you're trying to get faster. Steve Clampett competes against 30 other drivers in the stock class. It's very competitive when designing his racer X machine, Steve focused on the mud hole. You gotta try to get across that water best you can, you know, his solution wasn't to tinker under the hood or adjust the suspension.

Instead, Steve redesigned the skid plate. I tried to make it kind of like a boat but kind of skidding across the water is what we're trying to do with that since the opening race. This piece of hardware has been a work in progress since the first of the season. I've kind of just uh cut the sides off of it and kind of open it up and that way it still does its job. It's easier to clean out

this way. The old way we had it was you get a lot of mud inside of it, you're gaining a lot of weight there. So we're dropping the weight as much as we can

with a third place finish in the points. His very unsexy modification

was a winner. Thumbs up you work with the best you can just to make it faster. It's, you know, tinkering the little things is what counts.

Blasting over 1000 horses. Richard Richardson's modified is already fast.

You just mash the gas and hang on. Every racer knows that power is useless if they can't stay on the track, man, that can see,

can win.

The man that can't see is gonna get in trouble if you don't live.

That's the bottom line. And out here Richard wins races

when I'm blacked out, this is gonna be the first place I can see because I've got two streams

of water coming

at about 2025 P si

hitting right there. It'd be hard to try to do anything more to get the mud off the windshield where you can see, he doesn't just depend on the hardware to stay out front. I wouldn't run without a spotter

in professional mud racing.

Most drivers rely on an extra pair of hands and eyes to get them through. Having a spotter in your truck is very important. I have to focus on nothing but driving. My copilot actually does all the shifting

turns on the water, watches all the gauges. I do nothing but mash the gas and

the spotters is, is crucial to me and very important to me. I've got to have somebody in that truck

with me together.

Spotter and driver need to roll as one. You gotta have somebody in that seat that knows what you're gonna do before you do. It, knows what to look for, knows how to handle a truck as well as you

and knows what the truck is doing as well as you mean, you pretty much drive these things by feel and he needs to feel what I feel in any partnership. It all comes down to the big c,

you gotta have good communication in there. They gotta know what you're talking about as far as truck links. If I'm one truck length ahead, I get a one or a two or three, depending on how many truck lengths I'm ahead. I get a number. If I need to go. Right. He'll do this, get this to slow down in the event. The guy blew up behind me. He'll slap me in the chest and do like this with me. Shut it down or sometimes it's like what happened, you know, what did we do?

Whether it's a skid plate or clearing the glass, their equipment is constantly evolving,

but it's the men and women working the right seat that will guide these racers to victory. I probably would not be as far as I am today,

um, without a spot or I still be sitting at the starting line, I guess, trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go.

All right, Chris, no spot are needed here. Yep. We got the timing system set up and the fastest one through is the goal

the fastest time.

All right. Well, so you guys are here to keep you safe, keep us alive.

Are you worried about a fire with all this snow around? No, you're worried about

a,

all we've got set up right here is 100 and 50 ft track.

Got electronic timers and we're gonna send the cars down here one at a time.

And, uh, just as in the case of any other mud race, fastest of the finish is our winner.

We have a start beam at this end and at the finish line as well, we'll actually stage the trucks about a foot short of the beam

and uh we'll give them a signal that it's good to go and

they'll actually start their own time as they break the start beam,

ready to go racing.

Let's go mud racing.

It's dirt.

If you're probably looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of about 3.5 seconds is gonna be a really good time.

Uh About a 32 would be really fast.

Not bad for a first run.

Sharing the slop. Today are two guys we invited up from the Red River mud bog in Texarkana,

John Michael Fleming the raging Cajun

and Eric Brock with his famous purple monkey.

These guys run an outlaw class which typically means an enclosed cab and high horsepower. Usually sporting some nitrous

I'm known as uh never lifting for one thing.

Uh rather truck go upside down or not if you don't lift, you know, of course, if you lift you.

All right, man. So what did it start out life as

this truck start off as a 98 s 10. Just two wheel drive your basic everyday driving truck.

Now, it's a mud monster sitting on 40 fours in the rear sporting a Lexan Wrap 565 Chevy big block on Nitrous.

But have all the parts stayed inside.

They have.

Then you've got to beat

Eric's purple. Monkey represents the driver's 401k since that's what he cashed in to build. This one began life as a 76 Ford F 150.

Now. Sport and spoo dana sixties front and rear and Boers as propellers. When we're in a deep hit, we just want to be on top of the mud that's skimming across the top

and once it starts to sink, do you just, you just give

us

all he'll say about the power plant is that it's north of 600.

What is the weak link in a truck like this?

Oh, man, I would have to say the weak link would be the front end.

Eric chose the wrong end of his truck as the weak link when the ring and Pinion sheared when he stepped into the throttle.

Now,

a mud bog truck is kind of like a pro stock car. Then this is like a top field dragster.

But in the dirt, Tyler Curtis commands this class for mud rail out of mcminnville, Tennessee. He and his father Joe race every weekend. March through October all for about 2.5 seconds of back

and glory.

Just be sure not to blame.

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We're back on extreme and I'm back in the truck trying to better my time of 5.2 seconds.

Now it's Chris's turn

and Chris, this is kind of like when you see a bear in the woods. So you don't need to be faster than the bear.

You just need to be faster than who everybody that you're with. So you don't need to be faster than these trucks.

You just gotta be faster than me. Got it. Got it. But I don't want you to be faster than me. You do realize if you're faster than me, I'm going again.

Fair enough. Fair enough.

What are you doing?

Oh, great. No, it's got spo

in it. So it's not locked up right now.

Uh

Hold it to the floor.

You broke the truck.

Are you holding to the floor?

I

didn't get to the track.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm holding it

a

neutral.

What is with you in? Driving in Golden Mountain Park? You hit trees.

You can't get on the mud. I'm trying.

It's not cool.

I'm pretty,

can't get a break.

Come on.

That's about 20 bucks worth of gas coming out of there. You know that? Right.

Don't stop what?

That's so flooded now,

I

can't get a break.

I can't get a break. Don't worry, Chris, there's only 5 million people watching you do this. Yeah. Yeah. No pressure does somebody else wanna go while we fix this truck?

I need to get a brick

and just lean in there and throw it on the gas bar.

I just need a cement block on there.

Now, when you get it fired up, put it in gear,

hold on the floor until parts fly. Sounds good.

Well, with a real sloppy track, we knew this truck wouldn't get any faster. Just enough time left to throw our junk in a sloppy hole.

FF,

I think it's full of water.

I'm getting the end of this mud hole one way or another baby.

Yeah.

Time that press feed that.

Well, we got our first taste of mud racing. I have to say, I think we're hooked. Once we get that truck out of the pit, we're going back to the extreme. We'll clean it up, it's coming apart

and I'm gonna build one of those pro stock looking things because

they're cooler than what we own.