Bronco R Race Prototype Revealed for Baja 1000!

[Toyhoarder]

The current Ranger Raptor is a Watt's link rear, not 5 link. This isn't the current ranger raptor. It's possible this is the next gen ranger raptor chassis, but I'm still inclined to believe it's a 4 door Bronco underneath.

Didn’t somebody say the R had a 118” wheelbase? I believe that’s the same as a JLU, and presumably a JLU “competitor”, and almost 10” shorter than the Ranger. So just as likely they extended the rear frame of the Bronco as moving the axle of the Ranger.

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[Jalisurr]

Didn’t somebody say the R had a 118” wheelbase? I believe that’s the same as a JLU, and presumably a JLU “competitor”, and almost 10” shorter than the Ranger. So just as likely they extended the rear frame of the Bronco as moving the axle of the Ranger.

Agreed. 4 door bronco with some extra frame on the back to support the spare tire carrier thing is my best bet.

 

[Tslater1989]

The current Ranger Raptor is a Watt's link rear, not 5 link. This isn't the current ranger raptor. It's possible this is the next gen ranger raptor chassis, but I'm still inclined to believe it's a 4 door Bronco underneath.

What I meant by that, was the same frame, but with a 5 link rear. Just to clarify. Had my toddler crawling on me at the time lol. I'll edit it .

 

[JimmyDean]

I’m still not seeing how the second one leads to a higher ride yet. It only looks that way when the arm is at full droop. No mention of changing the frame rails or engine packaging either.

And the first one has absolutely no relation to TTB. The arms don’t cross. No radius arms. No floating diff. None or very little camber change throughout the suspension cycle. Other than the extra weight of the wider arms and axles I don’t see a significant difference in unsprung weight either.

lets to a little critical thinking.

the TTB suffered from major camber change at even partway through travel. this is because you are using a simple lever.

In order to prevent this, you need to use a linkage setup, i.e. control arms. If your control arms are the same length, and both ends are the same vertical distance apart, there will be no camber change throughout range of travel. in order to maximize travel you get the control arms as long as possible and frame mounting as close to center as possible. (Or you go cross body, but then we start having significant issues with side loaded failures because of the bends you would have to run in the arms to cross each other). This is not much of an issue for the lower control arm mounting, as it is typically going to be the lowest point of t he vehicle anyway, other than the arms themselves. the problem is with the upper control arms, especially on a front engine vehicle. Now, as far as your vertical distance between the two arms, you will want this as large as possible to alleviate stresses on the arms and ball joints. But you have limitations of course, like the ground and ground clearance for lower control arm, whereas for leverage you don't want the upper arm to be more than a certain ratio removed from the wheel center lower arm distance. i.e. if the lower arm is 3" below the center of the wheel, you don't want the upper arm more than 7.5" (this would be a 2.5:1 ratio). I do not know the exact numbers here to be honest however, I haven't done suspension engineering in a few years....

So, in order to maximize travel, we have to mount the lowers along the vehicle centerline. Not an issue. to keep camber the same throughout travel, we have to have same length uppers, so also mounted at the center. But wait! there's an engine, and frame rails!. well, you can mount the uppers below the frame rails, but with up travel they'll collide, or you can severely limit their uptravel (thus limiting travel). But this significantly increases ride height. You'd be having to have the uppers mounted a foot or more below the frame rails, that is the uppers. not the lowers, the uppers. the lowers would be 10-12" below that, generally.

Anyways, the ladies and gentlemen who design these things have done years of school to be able to. And there are literally hundreds of considerations and compromises that have to be made. For someone like ford, there are more, as they have a lot of manufacturer requirements they have to meet that aftermarket companies do not, especially in regards to warranty, cafe standards, crash ratings, and just generally being able to market and sell a vehicle than aftermarket companies.

When you see these awesome 20" travel IFS systems by some aftermarket company, you can guarantee there is a very good reason these are not in a production vehicle. And it generally is not costs, as the material costs are negligible, and the engineering costs get washed across tens of thousands of vehicles, and the complexity costs on an automated line are not overly severe.

Yes, these aftermarket suspensions LOOK amazing. But their reality is far worse than the salesperson is saying.

and also, more shit to work right, more shit to break when you need it to not break. There's a reason that solid axles remain king in the heavy truck, crawling, and mudding communities.

 

[Carolina Jim]

Using the image below, I was able to measure a wheel base of 118.5" on the Bronco R which is nearly identical to the 4 door JL. Despite what is certainly a 4 door wheel base, I measured about a foot of frame rail sticking past the rear of the Bronco R body.

Can any of our talented image manipulators shorten this puppy to approximate the 96.8" Wrangler 2-door wheelbase?? Maybe lose the extra rail in the rear? The Ford write-up indicated production vehicle would have a bit more height, but it'd be great to see a rough profile of the 2-door.

 

[PNW_Bronco94]

There's a reason that solid axles remain king in the heavy truck, crawling, and mudding communities.

Jesus, are we still doing the SFA vs. IFS pissing contest? There are pros and cons to each depending on the intended use. I think we've beat that poor horse into an unrecognizable pile of bloody bits.

Can we just start a separate forum category for the die hard SFA/IFS guys so they can jerk each other off there without gumming up Every. Single. Thread with "but muh SFA" and "if you don't run a SFA with 39s and drive over car sized rocks on teh Rubicon Trail, you're not a real off roader and don't deserve a BroncoBronco!!!11!"

 

[Tslater1989]

Can any of our talented image manipulators shorten this puppy to approximate the 96.8" Wrangler 2-door wheelbase?? Maybe lose the extra rail in the rear? The Ford write-up indicated production vehicle would have a bit more height, but it'd be great to see a rough profile of the 2-door.

like this kinda?

 

[Tslater1989]

Agreed. 4 door bronco with some extra frame on the back to support the spare tire carrier thing is my best bet.

Its anybody's guess at this point. lol i think its time i step away from bronco updates... at least for a day or two. Falling down the rabbit hole.

 

[Nickp]

Jesus, are we still doing the SFA vs. IFS pissing contest? There are pros and cons to each depending on the intended use. I think we've beat that poor horse into an unrecognizable pile of bloody bits.

Can we just start a separate forum category for the die hard SFA/IFS guys so they can jerk each other off there without gumming up Every. Single. Thread with "but muh SFA" and "if you don't run a SFA with 39s and drive over car sized rocks on teh Rubicon Trail, you're not a real off roader and don't deserve a BroncoBronco!!!11!"

nah man anything with a SFA is guaranteed to be an amazing rock crawler way better than the Bronco will be. Example A:

 

[JimmyDean]

Jesus, are we still doing the SFA vs. IFS pissing contest? There are pros and cons to each depending on the intended use. I think we've beat that poor horse into an unrecognizable pile of bloody bits.

Can we just start a separate forum category for the die hard SFA/IFS guys so they can jerk each other off there without gumming up Every. Single. Thread with "but muh SFA" and "if you don't run a SFA with 39s and drive over car sized rocks on teh Rubicon Trail, you're not a real off roader and don't deserve a BroncoBronco!!!11!"

PNW, you read a bit more into that statement there than what I was saying. that was about the simple fact that they are stronger. Not better, just stronger. There are plenty of viable reasons to want IFS besides just road manners.
(had to edit, starting confuse myself now....long day at work)

 

[TeocaliMG]

like this kinda?

That thing looks hilarious, in a good way!

 

[Jalisurr]

like this kinda?

Aw yeah. This is what I want. That looks awesome

 

[Toyhoarder]

lets to a little critical thinking.

the TTB suffered from major camber change at even partway through travel. this is because you are using a simple lever.

In order to prevent this, you need to use a linkage setup, i.e. control arms. If your control arms are the same length, and both ends are the same vertical distance apart, there will be no camber change throughout range of travel. in order to maximize travel you get the control arms as long as possible and frame mounting as close to center as possible. (Or you go cross body, but then we start having significant issues with side loaded failures because of the bends you would have to run in the arms to cross each other). This is not much of an issue for the lower control arm mounting, as it is typically going to be the lowest point of t he vehicle anyway, other than the arms themselves. the problem is with the upper control arms, especially on a front engine vehicle. Now, as far as your vertical distance between the two arms, you will want this as large as possible to alleviate stresses on the arms and ball joints. But you have limitations of course, like the ground and ground clearance for lower control arm, whereas for leverage you don't want the upper arm to be more than a certain ratio removed from the wheel center lower arm distance. i.e. if the lower arm is 3" below the center of the wheel, you don't want the upper arm more than 7.5" (this would be a 2.5:1 ratio). I do not know the exact numbers here to be honest however, I haven't done suspension engineering in a few years....

So, in order to maximize travel, we have to mount the lowers along the vehicle centerline. Not an issue. to keep camber the same throughout travel, we have to have same length uppers, so also mounted at the center. But wait! there's an engine, and frame rails!. well, you can mount the uppers below the frame rails, but with up travel they'll collide, or you can severely limit their uptravel (thus limiting travel). But this significantly increases ride height. You'd be having to have the uppers mounted a foot or more below the frame rails, that is the uppers. not the lowers, the uppers. the lowers would be 10-12" below that, generally.

Anyways, the ladies and gentlemen who design these things have done years of school to be able to. And there are literally hundreds of considerations and compromises that have to be made. For someone like ford, there are more, as they have a lot of manufacturer requirements they have to meet that aftermarket companies do not, especially in regards to warranty, cafe standards, crash ratings, and just generally being able to market and sell a vehicle than aftermarket companies.

When you see these awesome 20" travel IFS systems by some aftermarket company, you can guarantee there is a very good reason these are not in a production vehicle. And it generally is not costs, as the material costs are negligible, and the engineering costs get washed across tens of thousands of vehicles, and the complexity costs on an automated line are not overly severe.

Yes, these aftermarket suspensions LOOK amazing. But their reality is far worse than the salesperson is saying.

and also, more shit to work right, more shit to break when you need it to not break. There's a reason that solid axles remain king in the heavy truck, crawling, and mudding communities.

Not sure what point you’re trying to make. Obviously a SFA would be my first choice but if it can’t be that I refuse to believe Ford can’t come up with something better than conventional IFS. I’ve never suggested that a TTB would be a good idea for a vehicle today.

Ford has done quite well at stepping outside the box lately. Although maybe not their invention, things like flat plane V-8s, watts link rear ends, reverse flow Diesel engines, port/DI combo injection, and small displacement turbo DI engines come to mind. Of course a true long travel IFS would be a challenge, but I refuse to believe Ford can’t pull it off. If they don’t it’s not because they couldn’t, it’s because they wouldn’t.

 

[Carolina Jim]

like this kinda?

You Da'Man!!

 

[Toyhoarder]

nah man anything with a SFA is guaranteed to be an amazing rock crawler way better than the Bronco will be. Example A:

Where are the videos of Ford sponsoring a Rubicon trip?

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