<< back to main build-up page

PART 10

CHUNKY!

Remember those awesome Goodyear Wrangler MTRs that were worn by Stimpy the Monster Jimny? Well, little brother Oscar will be getting those as a hand-me-down quite simply because they are such a bloody good set of tyres, that I have no need to go looking for anything better!

Being so light, the Jimny had issues with getting the best out of any tyre that didn’t have plenty of give in the sidewalls, but we needed something that was still tough enough to take whatever was handed out. The boys at Beaurepaires Silverwater recommended the MTRs as not only are they a nice aggressive tyre, but their onroad manners are pretty good as well.

The X-90 needed something that would take being a daily driver, but would still allow me to get out and have some fun on the weekends. Oscar is also a lightweight... call it “girly-weight’ if you like... so the obvious choice was to stick with the MTRs.

Stimpy also handed down his nice Fondmetal 15x7 alloys, boy have these things taken a beating! They have been on various Suzuki’s owned by both myself and my other half, so have proven themselves to be tough enough to handle just about anything that we’ve thrown at them.

Luffy over at Mannells rebalanced the rims and tyres for me... yep, Mannell’s do that too!... and popped them onto Oscar. Talk about Cinderella going to the ball, they looked awesome! The boys then did another wheel alignment and camber check to make sure everything was sitting square... or is that round? Even after Ben over at Ajay’s Smash Repairs trimmed up the guards, on full lock we still had a little scrubbing going on around the front, so Luffy trimmed a bit off so I didn’t end up running over my own self-detached front bumper!

With the rubber on, we are now sitting pretty damn high, and after a few measurements Nick’s official verdict is that Oscar is simply too big. After looking at CV and driveline angles, we are going to have to make a few changes further down the line... so as mentioned before, we’ll come back to the suspension later on in the piece. As is always the case when trying something new, you rarely get it perfect on the first stab... it’s a case of fiddling and adjusting until it all works 100%.

We had a little play on the back ramp here at the office and the MTRs were biting well even at full air... not bad at all!

At least Oscar is now starting to look the goods, but pushing the 31s in low range is going to be an absolute bugger. After a quick belt around the block, he appears to be handling the bigger rubber in high, but the auto-box sounds like she’s labouring a bit on upchange... may have to have a closer look at that further on with improved diff ratios. But in regards to low range... I’m thinking that the Calmini Rock Crawler Transfer Case Gearset is going to have to go in quicksmart!