Rallycross UTV/SxS rules are out, along with some bonus tire changes.

do want

real bad

probably next rally car, and run snow events in snowmobile gear for the fun of it. 

In reply to dps214 :

Sweet!

they are silly amounts of fun!  I'm generally competing for the overall win at most events and have taken several of them.  

Seeing your SXS reminds me of back in the late 80's when I started short course off road racing. We used to do wheel to wheel but also on Saturday mornings we ran what was called obstacle. It was single car against the clock on the short course track. Tons of fun and you got to learn the track. SXS might be a great way to get into rallycross 

In reply to Iusedtobefast :

A great way to get into rallycross would be to get anything with four wheels that stay on the car, a helmet, and an SCCA membership.  They don't seem to be "fast" on open courses and they don't look like they will handle tight corners well.

I'm not convinced that side by sides are super awesome for rallycross (you can buy an STI or Evo for what those things cost, and not need to trailer it everywhere!) but if it gets entries from people who already have them, okay.  If they start rolling all the time, then I'll change my opinion.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There are definitely a variety of different sxs's out there, some better suited for rallyx than others. This yxz cost me $8k and I've put a few more into it. It performs amazing on tight courses and even better on open courses. It's fast!  I recently won a NASA rally sprint (overall) with it that consisted of over an hour of rally stages up into the 65/70 mph range.  But YMMV.  There are certainly cheaper ways to get into rallyx. 
 

Lof8 - Andy said:

There are certainly cheaper ways to get into rallyx. 

Up front cost, sure. We're banking on long term cost being pretty low because these things have pretty good resale value and rallycross should be about the easiest thing you can do with it. Also we're expecting maintenance and repairs to be effectively non-existent. We've already established that bumps and potholes that are borderline terminal to a car at 30mph basically go unnoticed in the SxS at 50+. Basically other than tires and maybe an occasional cvt belt, operating cost should be zero, and unlike a car it won't shake itself apart every three months.

In reply to dps214 :

That's a very good point. These machines are purpose-built for activities that are much more demanding than rallyx.  

Lof8 - Andy said:

In reply to dps214 :

That's a very good point. These machines are purpose-built for activities that are much more demanding than rallyx.  

Are they?  The suspensions look like golf cart parts, on a vehicle as heavy as a car.

I'm not sure what they are purpose bullt for, but we held a rallycross on a side by side course and it was the most undemanding course ever as far as vehicle stress was concerned.  Zero bumps or ruts.  I plan on running with my lowered all wheel drive car there this year, if I ever get it finished.

I don't know what SxSs you've been looking at. They're designed to handle decently sized jumps and have like 20" of suspension travel. Like I said bumps that make a car feel like the wheels are going to fall off are unnoticeable at twice the speed. And fwiw they weigh half as much as most cars.

In reply to dps214 :

Jumps are expressly not allowed in rallycross, so all that suspension travel becomes a liability.  Plus, the rules specifically state that courses must be passable by street stock cars.

The issue that rallycross courses have is in crossing old sections of course, or that the courses tend to be ad-hoc across virgin soil so they tend to be soft.  A talented course designer will make the tight sections open on the outside, so people aren't forced into the same chute, so ruts never form in the first place.  This also places a high priority on course reading over pure car control, which makes things more fun.

Right...jumps are much harder on stuff than anything you'll find on a rallycross course. So if they're designed for that, rallycross is basically a walk in the park in comparison.

I feel like all you ever see online is UTVs with broken control arms and broken ball joints after a couple trips, or reports that they have completely worn out bushings and joints after a couple thousand miles. But, as you say, rallycross should be a little less punishing than the off-road 4x4 antics some guys put these through.

I would seriously consider a real roll cage (aftermarket bolt-on or custom built) for that Can Am, the stocker is basically decorative, they fold up spectacularly if you actually roll the thing.

dps214 said:

Right...jumps are much harder on stuff than anything you'll find on a rallycross course. So if they're designed for that, rallycross is basically a walk in the park in comparison.

The biggest issue is slidng into a rut.  That debeads tires and punishes the suspension from lateral forces.  (And causes rolls)  I'm averaging about three events per set of axle bearings on the 9" in my car and you can see where flex is causing the rotors to rub on thr caliper housings.

I'm not saying cars are superior, I just don't see how UTVs would be.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

dps214 said:

Right...jumps are much harder on stuff than anything you'll find on a rallycross course. So if they're designed for that, rallycross is basically a walk in the park in comparison.

The biggest issue is slidng into a rut.  That debeads tires and punishes the suspension from lateral forces.  (And causes rolls)  I'm averaging about three events per set of axle bearings on the 9" in my car and you can see where flex is causing the rotors to rub on thr caliper housings.

 

I'm not saying cars are superior, I just don't see how UTVs would be.

Good Lord I never realized how weak rx7 bearings are. I think I replaced the front wheel bearings in the E30 about four times over 100 or so rallycrosses and 10 stage rallies, and the rears maybe twice.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

It's not an RX-7 bearing, it's a Ford 9" "Big Torino" bearing.  Much larger   I ran out of Mazda rearends to pretzel a while back and the supply of them dried up, so went for a big mammajamma.

Single roller, though, which is inherently weaker than the double rollers you have all around in your car.  Shoulda went for the full floating axles, but I was trying to be cheap.

You must be giving that 9" some serious abuse.  The c-clip and single roller bearing D44a in the back of my ZJ has held up fine to the rallycross abuse I was giving it for a while.  Never took out a front bearing either.  Honestly, I don't think rallycross was ever directly responsible for breaking something on the Jeep.  But I did tend to avoid sliding it sideways into ruts. 

In reply to rslifkin :

Well, if I continue with the car, it's getting a clutch diff, because I think I broke the Locker that is in it.   Certainly the shock loads from the locker have seriously affected transmission life.

Our home site is pretty rough with a lot of elevation change and tight corners, which is where a lot of my trepidation where it comes to side by sides comes from.  We all speak from where our experiences are, you know?

Oddly enough, Detroit has some of the smoothest and most forviging sites I run on regularly, and they have a strict no side by sides or SUVs of any type (even lowered) rule.

Lof8 - Andy said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There are definitely a variety of different sxs's out there, some better suited for rallyx than others. This yxz cost me $8k and I've put a few more into it.  
 

 

Where did you find a YXZ for $8,000?
What was wrong with it?

Scott_H said:

Lof8 - Andy said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There are definitely a variety of different sxs's out there, some better suited for rallyx than others. This yxz cost me $8k and I've put a few more into it.  
 

 

 

Where did you find a YXZ for $8,000?
What was wrong with it?

I had to drive from Florida to Mississippi to get it. But there was nothing wrong with it. A guy needed quick cash for his business.  

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Lof8 - Andy said:

In reply to dps214 :

That's a very good point. These machines are purpose-built for activities that are much more demanding than rallyx.  

Are they?  The suspensions look like golf cart parts, on a vehicle as heavy as a car.

 

I'm not sure what they are purpose bullt for, but we held a rallycross on a side by side course and it was the most undemanding course ever as far as vehicle stress was concerned.  Zero bumps or ruts.  I plan on running with my lowered all wheel drive car there this year, if I ever get it finished.

There are definitely some sxs's that are more golf-kart-like, but those aren't the ones we're talking about for rallyx. The machines were using and describing here have serious suspension.  

 

whatever sxs course you ran on sounds like it was for beginners or something. Check out this video. These are the courses real sxs are designed for:

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

Looks similar.  Real smooth.  I'm not seeing much suspension travel or cars getting popped up into the air (except for the jumps, obviously)

That's one of the benefits of competing on a prepped track vs. something set up in a field where the first 40-50 cars to go through have to burn the grass off, and the course crosses over ruts left behind from the previous event or three, causing all sorts of mayhem.  (But better to cross over them instead of turn with them... bad news there!)

Well I'm not here to change your mind about SXSs. But I've been very successful rallycrossing mine. And I've only owned it 8 months or so.  I freakin love it.  

Lof8 - Andy said:

Scott_H said:

Lof8 - Andy said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There are definitely a variety of different sxs's out there, some better suited for rallyx than others. This yxz cost me $8k and I've put a few more into it.  
 

 

 

Where did you find a YXZ for $8,000?
What was wrong with it?

I had to drive from Florida to Mississippi to get it. But there was nothing wrong with it. A guy needed quick cash for his business.  

Wow.  I would do that in a second.Was it on CL or somewhere else?

Here in AZ there are a ton of these everywhere and they can be made street legal without too much difficulty.  The biggest problem with them are those who have no regard for the desert or others and go ripping around with dirt and rocks flying tearing up the trails and a million lumens of LED lights blinding oncoming traffic..  Up where I am they have closed one whole section to all off road traffic because of the over use of the SxS's.  Just last night I went 4 wheeling in my 4Runner and was sitting on top of this decent hill that takes some effort to climb. Steep enough I need to lock my diff to get up.  All of the vehicles usually go 2-4MPH up it.   I was up there letting my dog run around and watching the sun set.  Up comes a RZR full throttle with all three of the passengers with beer bottle in their hands and sideways.  Good thing I had just loaded the dog up as they could have easily run her over as fast they were going.  The trail closures are just moving them up to the next open area.  Sad that these awesome machines are pissing off a lot of the locals by their users. 

In reply to Scott_H :

In my experience, Craigslist is almost dead. Facebook Marketplace is where everything gets listed nowadays.