[ex670c]

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

[*]Competition Winches: There will be situations where vehicle power alone will not take you through the obstacle. For that purpose you need winch in your vehicle to pull you through the obstacle. In recreational off-road, using a winch is a sign of defeat and one likes to do the obstacle on their own. However in competitive off-road, winch is a tool you use to go forward -- like any other tool in the vehicle.
So, forget the cheap Chinese Runawa etc winches -- your regular WARN will also not cut it. Competitive winches are not only designed to pull weight but also pull in/out faster -- having great speeds in both free-spool & load pulling. Most competitive offroad vehicles will have two set of winches – one in front and one in rear. These are further modified to have light weight (yet strong) synthetic ropes instead of steel cables. These winches can cost upwards of 1.75 - 2.5+ Lakh rupees each.
RFC 2015 saw Comeup blazer winch being used in addition to Warn 8274 competition winch. Comeup seems to have a faster free spool speed compared to WARN but WARN has better load speed. Choose your poison :-)

Originally Posted by arshjeet singh

the COME UP winch equipped on 5 competition vehicles @ RFC'15 had a free spool feature that none of the competitors utilized.
if you give a 120-PSi compressed air input at the free-spool valve, the winch cable spools right out, thus saves you a lot of time and effort.

Hi Shahnawaz,

The biggest advantage of the Competition Winch is their Brake (Winch Drum 1:1) Which is a positive engagement brake and can hold the vehicle load on steep slopes.

This Feature is not available on other Electric and PTO Winches.

Regards,

Arka

[Tejas@perioimpl]

OT: If you have a worm gear instead of planetary gear, then any winch can hold loads. Infact worm gear winches are the only ones that can safely let you lower the loads as well. Only disadvantage is that they are slow.

[dhanushs]

Amazing Thread. And, just in time!

With the scene changing so rapidly, it was time we had a platform to discuss these rapid changes a.k.a competitive offroading.

I would like to add "Lighting" as part of the major modifications. You need low power but high output LED lighting, for those night stages. IIRC, almost all the vehicles had good LED bars and lights.

And, one more very very important thing towards a successful competitive event is - your TEAM. . Considering the all the modifications and the track through which you go through, you need a technically sound and physically fit co-driver, and a proper workshop team with you, anywhere you go.

Success in competitive offroading wont happen overnight. You need to build your vehicle, tune it to your needs, you and your co-driver need to work on your coordination, and service/support team, needs to get a hang of repairing/doing stuff not from the workshop, but on the trail.

You need to build for your success.

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Also, how does one go about actual fitting or modifying? Are there people in India that know what has to be done or skilled to make these builds? Or is it just trial and error?

What I'm trying to say is anyone can buy a 2 lakh audio system. Making that system sound like it's supposed to and installing everything is where the expertise comes in.

Viddy, I've spent the last two years doing and undoing stuff on my Jeep. Eg: I've rebuilt my turbo 3-4 times over the last two years, due to various reasons.

Well, to build a vehicle that is in tune to you, you need a lot of time, and involvement from the driver as well. Otherwise, you can give it to professional builders and get it done. But, you will have to be content with what they give you, and you will have to tune yourself to the vehicle, and not vice versa. Like I mentioned above.

Originally Posted by arshjeet singh

the COME UP winch equipped on 5 competition vehicles @ RFC'15 had a free spool feature that none of the competitors utilized.
if you give a 120-PSi compressed air input at the free-spool valve, the winch cable spools right out, thus saves you a lot of time and effort.

Hi,

The way I saw it, spooling out faster means tangling the rope. You needed to have something that freely spools out the rope as per the co-drivers pulling capacity.

[Geo_Ipe]

Question from a layman's point of view:

Hypothetically if I was to build a Jeep/Gypsy from scratch for RFC '16, how much of Vitamin M are we looking at?

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Question from a layman's point of view:

Hypothetically if I was to build a Jeep/Gypsy from scratch for RFC '16, how much of Vitamin M are we looking at?

~12-15 lacks, excluding cost of base vehicle.

[dieselhead]

Great thread and comprehensively covered. As a 4x4 nut and restorer I am really excited to see worldclass equipments and options are available. We could only dream of lockers and winches where the final drive options for jeep were a meagre 3-4 and that for gypies were none. If we wanted the alter tranny ratios we would scout around for second hand foreign boxes and transfer cases/combo. Now that all these goodies and more are just a mouse click away really makes a case for hardcore offroading in this country.
The only challenge seems to me is skillset, manufacturing process and equipment. I have faced a lot of them in my experience and always looked for work around without the availability.
Lastly with more competitive events we would see more enthusiasts entering the frey with more teams and manufacturers alike. Even mild jamborees would help in certain ways.