Built Badlands with 40's (non SAS) vs built Jeep Wrangler on the rocks

[DANGL3]

Idk if anyone else's OCD is twitching, but mine is with the decal saying BroncBuster instead of BroncoBuster...

Sponsored

 

[Ryuk]

To that sticker maker
You had 1 Job.

But I guess the owner has no regerts.


That was a fun video

@TFLtruck Your Move.

 

[JeepersCreepers]

Badlands non Sas with a 2" suspension lift and 3 inch body lift with 40's taking to the rocks. Didn't complete though due to a failed rack. Watch to the end as they go through the suspension changes on the Bronco including custom tie rod ends.

Being the hardcore modified TJ owner who also has a brand new Bronco Badlands w/ 2.7L and Lux I'm always torn, but have generally until now sided with the Jeep faction as the Bronco crowd is largely comprised of brand new owners who really have no clue about off-roading. THAT SAID... this particular video was actually quite balanced.

• If you drop 40s on a Wrangler with stock suspension, axles and steering you're going to end up with similar results to the Bronco.
• The Bronco actually did have a lot of mods but had some "achilles heel" type weak points which are due in large part to the immaturity of the aftermarket at this point in time.
• The Bronco mod "team" had a great outlook and it was clear this is an early stab at what the Bronco can eventually be, to keep up with the Jeep.

Now, before we get too excited about the future, let's remember this: the Wrangler is a plug and play upgrade vehicle due to many years of aftermarket mfgrs building, tweaking and improving products to support the platform. JK to JL has been an incremental upgrade so it's very easy for the modern or even "classic" Wrangler owner to do a little research and EASILY upgrade his or her Wrangler to do what "Lite Brite" (I hate the name for their channel, by the way) can do with minimal breakage over time.

Let's be realistic, the Bronco has a long way to go to catch up to the Wrangler community's progress here. In this video it was the steering rack which failed. And sure, maybe next year there will be better options available. But if it's not that it'll be something else. It's a moving target. Technology marches on. So does stock vehicle development.

It's going to be 5-10 years before the Bronco will reach plug and play status like the Jeep, and for that reason, my takeaway is that the Jeep actually won this comparison fairly handily. Not because of where the Bronco is at this point in time... but because of how many years it will take to have a fully fleshed out aftermarket with years of customer data informing the development process.

Jeep won this round, and they'll win the next 5-10 rounds, but eventually... Bronco will compete.

 

[Ryuk]

The upgraded Steering Racks can not come out soon enough

That seems to be the Achilles heal of Bronco Big Tire upgrades.

 

[mike8675309]

The upgraded Steering Racks can not come out soon enough

That seems to be the Achilles heal of Bronco Big Tire upgrades.

I don't know if I'm ready to say that. Have you seen other steering rack failures?
It's possible that the suspension modifications done by this team resulted in very high stress that if it was better designed, may not occur. For example, they had already broken very large welded tie rod ends they had created due to issues with the positioning of the bushings in the rod end. This indicates to me that they were overstressing things in the steering due to their design, more than anything inherent in the large tires they used.

I know Toyota Tacoma has rack and pinion steering and IFS. What have been their weak points?

 

[Ryuk]

I thought I read about a couple of breaks on here. Just looking at the design, the parts are small. I have no idea about other IFS vehicles.

I wheel SFA and always upgrade the track bars, steering components, Axles and Driveshafts.
In fact, I tend to eliminate the rear trac bar and triangulate the upper rear for better articulation and strength.

 

[King Luis]

i wheel SFA and always upgrade the track bars, steering components, Axles and Driveshafts.
In fact, I tend to eliminate the rear trac bar and triangulate the upper rear for better articulation and strength.

and i think thats the point people are forgetting. a lot of these off road jeeps already has mods done to them that aren't necessarily mentioned that strengthen the steering, axles, etc.

 

[Ryuk]

I have a 2004 TJ, The stock steering is tiny, but the vehicle was only delivered with 31" tires.

I did not expect that to hold up to 35 or 37" tires.

the JK and JL Wranglers have seriously bigger components are good, IMHO, for 35" tires
Reliability with bigger tires can depend on driving style.

In the video, Brittany and Kevin made a very key statement.
***********************
The majority of the upgrades they have done have not significantly altered what their jeep can do offroad.
What those upgrades have done, has added strength to components, that prior to those upgrades, may have left them stranded in the middle of nowhere.

 

[JediMcMuffin]

Glad the more hardcore folks can figure this out for us.

 

[RLW]

Wanted to post the update/redo they just did
He somehow fixed the weak point in the steering and they went back at it just a few days later.

 

[Virtual-Chris]

Wanted to post the update/redo they just did
He somehow fixed the weak point in the steering and they went back at it just a few days later.

Looks like they got the steering sorted. Although it's not clear what the weak point was or what they fixed.

I think one thing that needs to be said is that Kevin is an excellent driver. Poise, finesse, throttle control, line choice, etc. Perhaps he has a lower crawl ratio than many others I've watched do the same obstacles which also helps but every major obstacle I've seen him do he makes it look super easy where so many others struggle.

 

[Flourman]

It looked really good and I take back my comment on suspension from an earlier post. The bronco looked to handle quite a bit. I think this really shows where automatics shine. The manual was a bit of a handicap in a few areas where you could tell the driver was keeping throttle up to keep the vehicle from dying.

 

[Ryuk]

To eliminate the manual handicap, I have one of these in my Jeep for those times when you need to have 1 foot on the clutch and 1 on the brake but then realize you don't have a third foot.

My drive by wire, is an actual Wire. LOL
In order from top to bottom
Gas Pedal
Hand Throttle
Cruise Control

I will say, the Bronco redeemed itself. Did very well on round 2. Not a fan of those tires, but it does look just like that RC Car. LOL

I am real curious to see what he did to fix his steering. Sounded like he machined his own custom part which is pretty bad @$$

 

[Tex]

I know Toyota Tacoma has rack and pinion steering and IFS. What have been their weak points?

The rack and tie rods both are weak points in the taco. That's the first thing that goes LOL Pretty common to see the more serious rigs upgraded to tundra steering components if not fully custom racks and tie rods. I'm running 37's on my LT taco, and after bending three tie rods and stripping gears off the pinion, I upgraded to tundra components and haven't had trouble since. Looking at my bronco, it appears to have the same diameter or perhaps smaller tie rods than a stock taco, and it's for that reason I won't be getting bigger tires or doing any hard wheeling until there's some beefier steering options on the market.

Can't speak for the 4WD half of that equation, as my taco is a 2WD desert truck. Unless you really screw up, the a-arms and spindles on a taco, as well as most any other truck, are more than strong enough to handle whatever you can dish out. Plus, if you're serious about getting the most out of your suspension, upgraded a-arms are going to be part of it, so really that only leaves the front drive components.

Trophy trucks have tried 4WD IFS, the axleshafts and CV's just aren't strong enough no matter what you do, no matter how big you make the CV's and no matter what kind of super alloy you cut the axleshafts from...with one possible exception. Adding portal hubs to the spindles will reduce the torque load on the CV's and axleshafts, basically instead of running a 4.88 in your diff you'll run a 2.44 and have a 2:1 portal hub gearing, halving the torque load on your weakest links but maintaining identical final drive ratio (those are arbitrary numbers for the sake of an example). One team is investigating this strategy currently, and things look promising. You lose a little bit of travel due to the CV's not being as flexy as the other parts of a LT setup, but the advantages of 4WD in dirt being able to put down more of that 1,000HP will likely make up for the few inches of travel it lost. It's been said by many knowledgeable people that no other type of offroad environment stresses the drivetrain more than high speed desert racing...so if it survives there, then it'll survive pretty much anywhere offroad. What it means to people like us who want to crawl with IFS is that there may be an avenue open to us in the future to bulletproof the front drive components if it catches on in the Baja world. Between that and Ultra4, things are looking up for IFS as a serious contender in environments that it was never considered for.

Sponsored