[Godfather]

Hi All,

Many members here have already seen my Ford Endeavour ON and OFF the road.

The Endeavour has completed around 60,000 odd kms, Yes, this is my daily drive.

This is the second Endeavour which is being geared up for all Offroad events. the other one is the famous Black Endy which belongs to Vishnu.

The modifications that are added on to the vehicle are as follows

1. Ironman4x4 - 2 inch lift kit.
2. 275/70 x16 inch Maxxis Bighorn MT's
3. Ironman4x4 Winch mount.
4. Rugged Ridge 8500 Pound synthetic winch.
5. Snorkel.
6. a set of 265/70 R16 Geolandar A/T's for City and Highway drives.
7. 9 inch 35W HID Spot lamps.

Here are a couple of pictures from the various Offroad events the vehicle has participated in..

[Godfather]

Some Videos from 2012 Palar Challenge Recce and the Coorg event.

For the Palar challenge Video you will have to login to FB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnaJLTdo8VE

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=...6294366&type=3

Some more pictures.

[rjstyles69]

sumit this thread was long due man and please get a better camera or even better pictures, your Endy deserves that luxury. I keep seeing your Endy pretty often near my place looks monstrous and what fogs are those ?

[Godfather]

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

sumit this thread was long due man and please get a better camera or even better pictures, your Endy deserves that luxury. I keep seeing your Endy pretty often near my place looks monstrous and what fogs are those ?

all pics are taken by other offroad enthusiasts, i think i will take up rudras offer for the photoshoot which is long overdue.

the fogs are from BoltON Concepts, currently still under R&D stage and not launched in the market yet, once all bugs are fixed we will launch them.

[brraj]

Originally Posted by Godfather

1. Ironman4x4 - 2 inch lift kit.
2. 275/70 x16 inch Maxxis Bighorn MT's
3. Ironman4x4 Winch mount.
4. Rugged Ridge 8500 Pound synthetic winch.
5. Snorkel.
6. a set of 265/70 R16 Geolandar A/T's for City and Highway drives.
7. 9 inch 35W HID Spot lamps.

Can you let us know how much it will cost for the above mods for each part to make endy a capable off roader?

[alabjarus]

Originally Posted by Godfather

Hi All,
Many members here have already seen my Ford Endeavour ON and OFF the road.

Good set of snaps. BTW, Godfather, do you stay in Springfields...? Seem to have seen the car a few times.

[Godfather]

Originally Posted by brraj

Can you let us know how much it will cost for the above mods for each part to make endy a capable off roader?

will do as the story unfolds.

Originally Posted by alabjarus

Good set of snaps. BTW, Godfather, do you stay in Springfields...? Seem to have seen the car a few times.

Thankyou, no I do not stay in spring fields, but in Adarsh Palm retreat which
is close to springfields.

[Godfather]

Before I jumped into the 4wd bandwagon i used to drive the humble and modest Tata Safari LX 2wd.

used the safari for almost 4 years (2 years parked in my garage since I was out of country)
came back for a holiday and the safari met with a massive accident while on the way to Bangalore from Goa.

there was a thread on TBHP on this topic where i had the vehicle restored to its former glory as I was completely in love with it.
not sure where the thread is now though.

however mom and dad were not happy with my decision on getting back into a wreck (though it was repaired by concorde motors)
and the pressure to replace the vehicle with a new one started to mount on me.

decisions decisions..!! what vehicle to upgrade to. I knew starting a thread here meant pages and pages of confusion, so started
to scour the market with a budget of around 15L ex showroom.

the only vehicle in the budget was a safari 4x4. booked the vehicle but typical of TATA the vehicle was not delivered for over 3 months,
and even after 3 months i found out through help from certain tbhpiians that my vehicle is not even made yet and tata has no order for an
arctic white 4x4 VX.

cancelled my booking and the search started again.. this time I stared looking at bigger better vehicles, namely the Fortuner.

the test drive was nothing great to talk about and the sales rep response about having to wait indefinately for a fortuner after making the
downpayment was the last nail in the coffin..

Fortuner was clearly Out!!

The hunt started again.. this time my wife stepped in (obviously because i was flooding the house with various brouchers of cars and SUV's which
could be my next vehicle) and asked me to look at the new Endeavour.

I knew about the rear leafsprings et all. rejected the idea on the spot but she insisted (and all married men will understand the meaning when I say Insisted)

So, took a TD of the new Endeavour and I loved it, good road, Bad roads it behaved well except for the occasional jump on road humps over 30 kmph.
i could live with that.

PS> I will not bore you guys with the TD story, I am sure Samurai has covered all aspects of the endeavour TD here on the forum.

Booked the vehicle and i got the delivery of my "White Elephant" in less than 2 weeks. (they had stock of this vehicle in chennai)


NEXT UP - Offroad.

[Godfather]

Now having procured a 4wd vehicle (a first for me) it was time to take it offroad.

a quick call to a couple of friends and a mini OTR was organized.

this was my first time offroad. the person i went offroad with has a couple of OTR's successfully completed under his belt.

so we drive to a dried lakebed on sarjapur road and before we entered the spot i was given my first instruction while offroad.

HE - "thumbs outside the steering wheel" he said.
ME - hmm. why?
HE - if you want your thumbs to be intact while offroad please follow it.
ME - huh!!

HE - while offroad your wheel's may turn suddenly based on the terrain. if thumbs are inside the steering wheel then chances are you might break them.
ME - oh!! ok.. thumbs off the steering wheel.. check.
ME - what else?
HE - accelerate slow and let the vehicle crawl.
ME - crawl??
HE - never mind. lets start and you will learn.
HE - do you have a tow rope? just in case?
ME - umm. no.
HE - stay out of slush and water bodies for now.
ME - whats the fun in that? this is offroad right?
HE - you are running HT tyres.. you wont have any traction, you could get stuck.
ME - HT what.
HE - just follow me and stay out of water or slush.
ME - Fine.. :(

The vehicle had done only around 500 kms till date and it was already offroad its first one and mine too!!

Couple of pics from that event.

[14000rpm]

Hey sumit, nice to see this thread. You finally found some time to get posting eh?

[Godfather]

After the 1st OTR, i was not happy atall.

something was amiss.. the Endeavour with its 380nm torque just did not feel right while offroad.

this was narrowed down to its suspension setup and the MRF HT tyres.

something had to be done about it.

however installing MT was clearly not an option, for the following reasons.

1. you cannot install an MT on a stock suspension simply because it would touch while turns.
2. this is my daily drive and I just cannot come to the fact of driving an MT everyday especially rains.
3. the tyres are expensive.

also to fit the MT i will need a kit, body lift was out of the question so my search for a good lift kit started.

Search on the web and there are not many lift kits available for the endeavour, even for the ford everest.
the only options were
1. ARB
2. Ironman4x4.

ARB was close to my workplace, so drove down one day and met the owner. (no names)
he looked at my vehicle and said that nothing is available for this model.
Me - hmm. i did see the bumpers and lift kit on the website.
nope.. nothing available.

the hunt stopped with that because i was not aware of an Ironman dealer in Bangalore.

a couple of months passed by and a couple of small OTR were organized where the endeavour did not feel the need for any MT's
or lift kit. these were all around the sarjapur and whitefield area. some were so easy that even a 2wd safari joined in and
completed the event.

A few pics from those initial events.

[benbsb29]

Sumit, we have passed each other at the Decathlon raily crossing on Sarjapur road a few times. I was on my Scorpio. I didnt know this Endeavour was yours.

[Godfather]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Sumit, we have passed each other at the Decathlon raily crossing on Sarjapur road a few times. I was on my Scorpio. I didnt know this Endeavour was yours.

next time just flag me down. its been a long time since we met.

[MAS]

Thanks a million for this thread Suman.

I have been waiting to hear from you about your off-roading experience and get a proper look at your Endeavour.

I was following you on other forums and this thread here is a big bonus

[acetrump]

Hey Godfather
It's been long I've been following your thread (The other being Vishnu R). Haven't really done off-roading as exclusively as you but now I've decided to test this humble elephant of mine.

A few questions about modifications (Would love to modify my endy as mentioned in post #1 above.)

1. Fuel Efficiency: I drive to work. How much FE you think I would get after the above mods esp. the lifts?

2. Ride Quality: What happens to the ride quality after the mods? As such the endy is terrible in the second row. Are there any mods that will make the ride smooth?

3. Cost? How much have you spent of the above mods? Are they available in Mumbai?


Kindly help me out.

Thanks
Vivek Jha