Marfa, TX Raptor Run 20260606

[RRaptorscallion0331]

The videos work perfectly. Man, it sounds so rough

Yea, but this truck is a champ, didn’t even need to get an alignment… but definitely gotta be more meticulous about putting loctite or thread locker on certain stuff… my S&B CAI BOV recycle port screws backed out which caused my intake to be exposed to the dusty environment downstream of the air filter… which resulted in some metallic particles attaching themselves to my oil drain plug

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[Watchdog62]

Great post! I love the Chihuahan dessert between Marfa and Terlingua

 

[Jabberwocky]

@Jabberwocky please tell me about the Ranger Raptor that didn’t survive TRR! What happened?

Great photos and awesome videos! I need to make time to put mine together and post on youtube as well.

The Ranger Raptor that didn't survive was the Exodus truck. He had a matte black wrap, full suspension setup, and gold wheels I believe. First day at the private airport course, he must have taken one of those curves with too much confidence and he rolled/flipped his truck. Fortunately he and his gf/wife were okay and suffered no injuries. The airport course was one of my favorite but the dirt was so loose, and the ruts were getting worse as the hours passed. By the second day some guys were almost losing it on the front straight.

 

[RRaptorscallion0331]

Great photos and awesome videos! I need to make time to put mine together and post on youtube as well.

The Ranger Raptor that didn't survive was the Exodus truck.

no way!! I was talking to Greg Foutz and he was showing me all the work they put into that suspension! Man that sucks! That was my favorite course as well, but my BOV recycle port screws on my S&B CAI backed out over the weekend and I already sucked in so much dusty that I retired the truck. It was fun and it was easy to loose grip in turns, I guess a positive for our low-stance stock suspensions was our CG because there wasn’t much roll compared to the ass end just sliding out which was easier to anticipate and compensate for… glad everyone is okay!

 

[Jabberwocky]

no way!! I was talking to Greg Foutz and he was showing me all the work they put into that suspension! Man that sucks! That was my favorite course as well, but my BOV recycle port screws on my S&B CAI backed out over the weekend and I already sucked in so much dusty that I retired the truck. It was fun and it was easy to loose grip in turns, I guess a positive for our low-stance stock suspensions was our CG because there wasn’t much roll compared to the ass end just sliding out which was easier to anticipate and compensate for… glad everyone is okay!

Yeah it was a beautiful truck, and he had just got it tuned by GooseTuned like 2 hours prior as well! Yes, I think his high center of gravity contributed to the crash, he looked top heavy with the two spares wheels in the back.

Sorry to hear about your truck. Are we talking retired like, truck just needs an oil and filter change, or like, you'll need a motor replacement-retired?

Which reminds me, that Exodus Ranger also had a new motor replaced by Ford with an extended warranty such bad luck

 

[RRaptorscallion0331]

Sorry to hear about your truck. Are we talking retired like, truck just needs an oil and filter change, or like, you'll need a motor replacement-retired?

oh sorry, I meant like in Formula 1 if they have a hint of engine issues they say “retire the car” meaning the race is over for them so they don’t do more damage to it. Yea I changed filter out when I got back and just 200 miles later I changed the oil (saw some metal particles attached to my magnet oil drain plug) but no large pieces so also ordered an oil test kit from blackstone so they can give me an analysis of the Total Suspended Solids (“TSS”) so I can have a baseline and then I’ll change the oil out like 1k miles, then by the time I’m at 2k miles the truck will be close to its warranty and if I still have solids in my oil then I’ll opt for an extended engine warranty if they’ll let me.

 

[Lion77]

The Exodus truck was on portals and 37s I believe. It started out with a lift and 35s, then long travel suspension, then got even more extreme because all that wasnt big enough, so then came the portals and 37s. Probably would been better to stop at 35s and lift, then upgrade to a Bronco Raptor.

Long travel / lift with portals and 37s = bad combination for CG! That is one of the reasons FP made the Bronco Raptor so wide, becuase they calculated the roll forces so the vehicle wont roll over in hard turns with the factory setup. Same thing with F-150 Raptor. The RR is very stable on stock tires and ride height, maybe a 1" lift and 35s would be just fine too (similar to the RR Race truck), but a lift, long travel, portals and 37s....too much up and not enough out!

I saw a lifted Jeep Wrangler on 35s that rolled on the highway just this spring and it was pretty trashed and looked like a serious accident. Coming from the performance car world, im not a big fan of raising the CG except maybe by tires and a mild front lift to help eith fender clearance, that way you maintain stability in hard corners, especially ones that are off camber.

That truck should never have been driven at high speed, at that point it was a rock crawler/tail hero, not a rally truck built for speed. Stability matters!

 

[Lion77]

Here are similar builds also using Weld74 Portals and 37" tires. Thats really a crawler setup, not a high speed setup due to stability limitations.

https://www.therangerstation.com/74weld-ford-ranger-raptor/#gsc.tab=0

So they had long travel suspension and portals and 37s....that just asking for stability issues!

Now this is a legit pre-runner built for speed:

35" tires, stock shocks, no lift, only perch collars up front to adjust ride height and limit straps for shock reliability with additional preload. This was in part due to class rules, so they sacrificed some travel for ride height adjustment and to clear 35s along with some fender trimming.

There are plenty of photos and videos of them taking corners pretty hard, no roll overs.

If I ever do 35s, im gonna do custom fender mods to avoid needing a lift. Rear will actually take 35s with very little trimming and no lift, its the front that needs more trimming to clear 35s, but for quite a while im sticking to 33s, at least til its well out of warranty.

 

[RRaptorscallion0331]

If I ever do 35s, im gonna do custom fender mods to avoid needing a lift. Rear will actually take 35s with very little trimming and no lift, its the front that needs more trimming to clear 35s, but for quite a while im sticking to 33s, at least til its well out of warranty.

yea I thought the point of the portals was you don’t have to bother with suspension because you’re gaining something like 4” of offset (not in the wheel centerline sense) from the axle to the hub?

I have been following your posts @Lion77 and I think we are thinking similarly on how to gain ground clearance without sacrificing CG. This tragic news has swayed me from even getting GOATs recommended lift products (for now, since I’ve not been able to witness a RR with different levels of their lift perform against stock height). Next time I get my tires rotated and balanced at discount tire, I’m going to remove the front crash bars and front fender liner(s) and ask them what they can squeeze in there, then take photos of where clearance will be an issue (I’m hoping they can oblige and use a floor jack to simulate compression). That will give me an idea of what can be removed or relocated without jeopardizing the structural integrity of the body surrounding the engine bay.
Like I’ve said before, the suspension that came from the factory did everything I asked for it to do… and I would personally like to ease into any modifications to be able to have my own experience with how the vehicle can handle whoops as well as corners as I get more comfortable with the truck. I was going 60 mph on the straights and didn’t feel in complete control, how these pros like Menzies top out at over twice that speed is other worldly to me!

 

[Lion77]

The three best mods for the RR is Pro Cal, Pirelli XTM AT tires and TriboTEX DLC coatings for powertrain. Next best three mods are GOAT fab 20 degree sliders, tonneau cover and L-track in the bed for cargo managment.

Id suggest staying stock size for a while on tires and just learn the truck and really exploit its stock suspension first. Just upgrade to XTMs when the KO3s are needing replaced.

Im not opposed to bigger tires down the line MAYBE. But yah, ill take more of the RR Race truck approach than sky high lifts etc. Trimming the fenders may really be the safest option for bigger tires.

Now of your turning the RR into a ZR2 Bison equivalent, aka a lifted 4x4 optimized for clearing large obstacles at slow speeds, lifts are fine, but dont go driving it like a rally truck then...just asking for trouble!

Thats why performance cars go down lol. Roll center and CG matter a lot in corners at speed.

 

[saf1]

Just upgrade to XTMs when the KO3s are needing replaced.

Are the stock KO3's that bad or are the Pirelli's that much better?

I understand that the brand may be ok and certain tires not but I sure did not like the Pirelli's that came on my 2015 Mustang GT/PP. Even after coming up to temp. On the other hand the Pirelli's are doing fine on our Explorer Sport.

Would not have been a tire I would have considered on my Raptor - although they are a long ways off since I just purchased it.

 

[RRaptorscallion0331]

Are the stock KO3's that bad or are the Pirelli's that much better?

@Lion77 is in agreement with a tire review in which a YouTuber who has spent much more time behind the wheel than most pitted a bunch of all terrain tires against each other in a bunch of different scenarios and the pirelli best out the BFG. No one that I know of has put the pirellis on their personal RR and weighed in.
I went to discount but the kids there were in no mood to accommodate me and I was in a rush so I didn’t have the front or rear liners removed anyways. The tread life on my stock KO3s is like the second notch down from brand new so I’m also in no rush to purchase but the question remains… if I could buy a pirelli All terrain in time for the next Raptor run, would I or would I try something else (I’m still partial to the KO2s, theyre battle tested and have been for at least a decade)….

 

[Jabberwocky]

I need to find some more info on the pre-runner Raptor. that's the setup I would like to go for

 

[Lion77]

Are the stock KO3's that bad or are the Pirelli's that much better?

I understand that the brand may be ok and certain tires not but I sure did not like the Pirelli's that came on my 2015 Mustang GT/PP. Even after coming up to temp. On the other hand the Pirelli's are doing fine on our Explorer Sport.

Would not have been a tire I would have considered on my Raptor - although they are a long ways off since I just purchased it.

I have no significant issues with my KO3's, they are good tires, probably some of the best OE tires I have had on any of my vehicles. Although the Pirelli's on my 2016 GT were pretty good, what most people didn't realize is they had a long warm-up, once they were up to temp they would stick pretty good in high-g corners, at least mine did, but yes, the Pilot Sport 4S were a notch above the OE Pirelli's on the GT.

I try to stay away from the "brand loyalty" mindset. Sure, I love it when American brands succeed and set the performance bar, they often do. But sometimes foreign brands do as well, Pirelli is a pretty well know tire manufacturer with a lot of experience and sometimes brands that break into new markets re-think the design and come up with something that sets a new bar. They are new to the off-road focused AT tire scene.

The Scorpion XTM's seem to really set the bar in off-road focused AT tires not so much by improving off-road performance dramatically (although it does improve), but by improving on-road performance without losing anything in off-road uses, especially wet traction, steering input and breakaway.

Their previous AT tires were on-road focused AT tires, and they seemed pretty good but so were a bunch of other on-road AT tires which mad them "just another choice" in a sea of look-alikes, and they didn't really have an off-road focused AT tire before the XTM. They clearly benchmarked it against the KO3 and likely AT4W. This time they did a great job in surpassing the others in areas where they were weak, while not giving up ground in areas the other two excelled. Plus I would argue the one area they did improve off-road performance over the KO3 a bit is in steering / breakaway. Even off-road, they improved both over the KO3. I believe from everything I have seen, the XTM is THE benchmark in high-performance off-roading tires, aka off-road tires designed for precision and speed, not for rock crawling or mud pits. Also something that does pretty good on-road too.

The KO3's are some of the best performing off-road AT tires on the market for performance off-road driving, hence their popularity on Jeeps and other off-road vehicles. Tire Racks testing showed that, the KO3's did very well in a variety of off-road terrain, the timed track tests also showed that, BFG's race tires are also used on the RR Race truck, F-150 Race truck and many other top factory race vehicles like the Ford T1. So, my top two tire choices are the KO3's and XTM's, but established benchmarks can be broken!

That being said, the KO3's do have some weaknesses, like I said their brake away characteristics are NOT predictable, they grip until they don't and you can't quite tell where the edge is, then they have poor recovery once the break grip. Once they let go, you can't steer back into traction off throttle, all you can do is just let momentum bleed off until they start gripping again = not good at higher speeds, especially with cliffs, ditches or large rocks you might slide into / off of!

That makes them harder to exploit at the limits. On-road, they were one of the few off-road AT tires that could NOT consistently complete emergency maneuver on-road = not good. They definitely have some flaws. Anyone who does track with performance cars knows how important breakaway characteristics are and the XTM's deliver a lot better in that area than the KO3's even if their absolute limit is close to the same as the KO3.

Then there's the wet grip, KO3's are decent, but nothing special, XTM's have much better wet grip on-road which matters for the driving a lot of RR's see, which is on-road, especially up in the mountains with winding roads and a variety of weather. Last is steering input, the KO3's have a vague steering input with a delay, the vehicle doesn't really start to turn until fractions of a second after you start turning the wheel, again, making high-performance driving harder. You can learn the tires like I have, but that doesn't mean I want them to behave like that, and I could drive with better precision with a better tire, I could push the truck more in corners if it was more predictable and safely enjoy more of what the chassis can offer.

I bought my RR as a performance UTV, not to turn it into a trail hero / rock crawler. I also want to avoid losing any of its stock utility since I use it for a wide variety of applications, so for me, keeping it's more rally-like nature and enhancing that without losing its stock off-road capability is important to me.

The XTM's are like the Pilot Sport 4S of off-road. Like others however, I'm not going to waste my KO3's, I paid for them when I bought the truck and they are good tires, once they are worn out though I'm getting the XTM's in factory size as the replacement and upgrade. The truck will slowly get better the longer I own it, plus at that point, I can really appreciate the differences having had many miles on the KO3, so lots of time with them to really see the differences.

I'm willing to tollerate a tad harsher ride, I would trade that off for the "oscillatory" damping of the KO3 in terms of ride quality, so that is fine for me.

 

[RRaptorscallion0331]

I have no significant issues with my KO3's,

The Scorpion XTM's seem to really set the bar in off-road focused AT tires not so much by improving off-road performance dramatically (although it does improve), but by improving on-road performance without losing anything in off-road uses, especially wet traction, steering input and breakaway.

, BFG's race tires are also used on the RR Race truck,

Lion, I appreciate you clarifying your position, all valid points, especially given your first hand experience with the tire brand
the only experience I’ve had with pirellis are that they were expensive (run flats) on my ex-wife’s X5
I’ve run KO2s on 3 of the last 4 vehicles I’ve owned, so I’m liable to have a little “brand loyalty” myself
I was rewatching the “tough as Finke” YouTube series last night, I think it’s important to note that the RR Race Truck runs the BFG KO2s (in 35” variety) according to the video although I’m sure it could and probably does have characteristics that set it apart from the KO2s available to the general public considering they were on method 107s that methods website says are “still in development “

I’d welcome anyone who ends up running the pirelli XTMs to give as much feedback as possible, the more data the better in this instance.

Also, @Lion77
If a miracle happened and anyone could get next day delivery on the Fox 3.2s, would you consider it?

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