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 TTC's mud pit is just that--a...  TTC's mud pit is just that--a large trench with mud and water in it. It possibly also has abandoned vehicles. In the mud pit, the midwest pickups rule. Or maybe not. That the Quagmire Chevy longbed nabbed the first place in the bog for 1998 was nearly a given. After all, although its fit and finish were superb, the nitrous'd thing was built for mud. In 1997, a big, tired Blazer beat the field, and the prior year was won by an F-350 on 44s. Fouling the big formula for success in the mud pit were the first three years' winners: two CJ-5s and an FJ-40. What is more certain is that it takes good mud tires and much motor, unless, of course, you run mere 33s on a Samurai and more or less float across to a good finish. |
 The Mini Rubicon is a man-made...  The Mini Rubicon is a man-made collection of rock and boulders made to be just this side of passable. You'd think it would be best conquered with a svelte rockcrawler a la Arizona. That actually happened once, except with a longer-than-long Scrambler. A CJ-6, which isn't exactly short and nimble either, did the best one year, following a (suspensionwise) modestly modified CJ-5. A fullsize Blazer (that had never even been subjected to rocks before) won in 1997. Last year, a Scout grabbed First. Is there a sure-fire Mini Rubicon setup? If so, we don't know about it. So far the Mini Rub' hasn't been brand-loyal and certainly doesn't seem to require a trick suspension setup. |
 Excelling in the Tank Trap...  Excelling in the Tank Trap would require a healthy (preferably also waterproof) engine and really good mud tires for starters. Since it's basically an uphill mud bog consisting of a series of pits within a relatively steep mini-canyon, the midwest-mud-mobiles should shine here (but maybe not literally afterward). In actuality, a 6x6 CJ-6, a normal CJ-6, a CJ-7, and the Scorpion aren't exactly what we'd call mud boggers, but each indeed got its spot in the slime light. So did, less surprisingly, a K-5 Blazer and an F-350, both sporting the mandatory 44-inch tires. And then there's the four-banger Toyota show (no, really) pickup that tied for First in 1993. These days, a good winch is a near must to win the Tank Trap, and since you need a winch to enter TTC anyway, it may as well be a good one. |
 Hollister's Five Finger Hillclimb...  Hollister's Five Finger Hillclimb is a long, steep, and dry hill made even better through 'dozer work. A series of small hills built onto the already impressive slope calls for a good breakover angle, which is achieved with short or tall (or both) vehicles. Jeep CJs of the 5, 6, 7, and 8 variety have done well, as have Willys products. Except for the 5 and the 6 (which were 6x6s), none were particularly short on wheelbase, but the F-350 that won the Hillclimb last year was definitely tall enough. |
 A Top Truck should do everything...  A Top Truck should do everything well, and towing ability is part of that. The vehicles you should hang with if yours breaks down can pull a loaded dump truck up a small dirt hill from a dead stop. We never know just how much that dump truck weighs, but it's a lot. And the Tow Test hill may be short, but it sure is steep. Defying gravity such as this would logically favor a heavy vehicle with much torque and contact pressure (narrow and/or aggressive tires), and it indeed does. The heavy-hitters here have been an M715 Kaiser, a Quagmire, a Hummer, and a pair of F-350s. Still, the little ones have done amazingly well too. |
 Picture the rough parts of...  Picture the rough parts of a good trail all compressed into a man-made section some 70 feet long. There are rocks, twisties, water, and logs in the Frame Twister. The hard part is the perpendicular logs, strategically placed to coincide with most any wheelbase and with a slathering of mud between them. Logs are pretty much cake when dry, but during TTC they're not. Successful setups for the Twister span the spectrum: a CJ-7, a 4Runner, a CJ-6, a Unimog, a TJ, a Samurai, a Bronco, an F-350, and a Scorpion. Much like the Tire Pit (a mud bog except it's full of tires), the Frame Twister doesn't favor any particular type of vehicle. |
 Don't think we judges limit...  Don't think we judges limit our stuck and stupid acts to after dark. Here's proof in the form of Ned Bacon's Killer Bee stuck on the barriers by the Mud Pit in broad daylight. There have been many other incidents, but we're usually laughing too hard to get any photos. |
 It's not on purpose (guess...  It's not on purpose (guess the rest of us get unstuck before the cameras come out), but here's famed Mr. Bacon and his Wanna Bee again. This time he's in the Tank Trap accompanied by Four Wheeler editor (at the time) John Stewart posed on the tire. John was merely along for the ride to shoot some video, but it was he who got to wade through the knee-deep mud with the winch cable. Go figure. |
With six years of Top Truck Challenge now in the history books, we can start looking back at past events and winners in an effort to find trends, if any, that are the hot ticket for doing well at TTC. So far, for an overall win it appears that a Jeep--or something that started as or at least looks like one--is a safe bet. Even last year's winner, the Scorpion, started life with a Jeep transfer case.
If there's something to be learned from this, we think Willys Overland described it quite well by naming the first civilian model (the CJ2A) Jeep Universal. See, the secret to winning TTC is to do well overall, more so than to excel in certain areas. Jim Piatt's CJ-5 proved that at the inaugural event.
Short Wheelbase Rules, Or Does It?
On average the winning vehicle's wheelbase has been around 100 inches with the trend going toward longer. Just as people are finding that certain obstacles at Moab are easier to traverse with a longer wheelbase, many of the courses at TTC can be too. About the only event in which long wheelbase can be a real hindrance is at the obstacle course, and that's only if the vehicle doesn't have enough beans to hang the rear end out around the corners.
Then again, like life itself, long wheelbase is also a compromise. While extra inches between the axles can allow for much better suspension travel (with the driveshafts still functional), it also requires a taller vehicle in order to maintain a decent breakover angle, and that extra height isn't always a plus. Sure, it's great to have when the vehicle is measured for ground clearance, and tallness is a superb way to keep your pants dry in the Mud Pit and Tank Trap. However, height is also a contributing factor to soiling said pants when the trail is off camber. What we do know for a fact is that a virtually stock crew cab's 164.5-inch wheelbase is too long for TTC.
Events that favor certain vehicles
To win the acceleration, you need much motor and/or little weight. To get top honors in braking requires great binders. Maxing the ramp is accomplished with incredible articulation. Getting top numbers in approach, departure, and breakover angles is basically achieved by building a vehicle to score well in those areas. For getting the engineering judges to fall in lust, leave off the fluff and do what's there really well and cleanly--function first, basically. Show and shine judges are naturally impressed with sparkly things, even if they may not do squat for trail prowess. (If you're good, you'll go easy on the misplaced chrome and nonoperational accessories, thus impressing both groups of judges.) OK, that was the easy part--any four-by can be made to win the above mentioned categories--but what about the other events?
As you'll see in the captions for this story, there doesn't seem to be a definite answer to what kind of vehicle is best for winning TTC. Except, of course, it must be multitalented. But perhaps that's all a moot point, since it doesn't seem all that important to the contestants to win anyway. They are usually quite content with being part of the fun (although, like a good, long trail ride, it may not feel like fun at all times) that automatically goes with attending Top Truck Challenge no matter what they're driving.
The War Wagon
Talk about a famous 4x4, Soni Honneger's outrageous Dodge M880A1-C ended up on two Four Wheeler covers during the early '90s. And if that weren't enough, we brought Soni all the way out from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to drool over the beast during our first Top Truck Challenge. The War Wagon is actually a heavily modified '76 Dodge Ramcharger with a 520hp 426 Hemi sending juice to a super-built TorqueFlite 727 and NP 203. Power splits to a Dana 60 front axle and Corporate 14-bolt rear housing 4.56:1 gears and Detroits. This 8,520-pound (empty) beast rides on a custom-built frame and employs a custom leaf spring/airbag rear suspension that utilizes Lakewood ladder bars joined in the center of the chassis. Each bumper doubles as a lift and houses dual 12,000-pound winches. Many of the parts were scavenged from a (get this) Peterbilt 18-wheeler, including the steering box, tie rods, and interior. All the hardware contributes to the 54-inch fording depth, 60/50-degree approach and departure angles, 350-mile range and 3,480-pound payload.
Soni's talented driving equaled his fabrication skills, because he placed Fourth overall that year. And lucky for us, TTC didn't require the use of the Browning 0.50 caliber machine gun mounted to the roof. It would take several pages to tell the whole story on this incredible rig, and like Soni's other ground-breaking invention, the Scorpion MK1, the War Wagon has gone down in history as one of the most innovative 4x4s ever built.
Pinky
This was one of the pioneering vehicles that started the whole rock buggy trend back in 1995. Although later Pinkys had full-tube frames, this first one started with a Jeep frame extended 13 inches over stock to which 1.75x1.20-inch tubing was flange-mounted to create the full rollcage. This vehicle (to the best of our knowledge) was also the first to use the 3/4-eliptic or buggy spring-over rear suspension for extreme articulation. Flex in front comes from a more traditional Wrangler spring-over with single Doetsch Tech prerunners providing damping duties at each corner.
For power, Shannon used a balanced and blueprinted Chevy 400 V-8 running a Holley Pro-Jection TBI fuel injection. A TH-350 and Dana 300 handle gear changes while full-width axles, an ARB'd Corporate 10-bolt in front, and a spooled Dana 60 in the rear are loaded with 3.73:1 gears and turn 35-inch Boggers. The combination of light weight, strong drivetrain, power, and extreme articulation allowed this Jeep to do well in most of the events at TTC 1996, where it scored at or near the top in nearly everything, winning the whole enchilada with room to spare.
Scorpion MK1
Maybe even more famous than the War Wagon is last year's Top Truck, the Scorpion MK1. From the fertile mind of fabricator Soni Honneger and owner Heath Biggs came this military-esque creation to make everyone rethink how 4x4s are supposed to be built. Our gray matter is still trying to figure out how that suspension really works, and there's not a photo in the world that'll show how well it's fabricated. The Scorpion runs a plain-jane throttle body 350 connected to a built TH-700R4 and an Atlas II 'case that sends power to an ARB'd Dana 44 front and Detroited Dana 60 rear. Yet the neato factor comes in the form of suspension. Soni built the airbag suspension and links to equally distribute forces to each wheel, regardless of terrain. And all the 1.5- and 2-inch 0.120-inch-wall DOM tubing for the chassis was hand-bent by Soni.
It's not surprising all this stuff makes for a pretty capable 4x4. It scored a 951 on our 30-degree Top Truck Ramp, averaged 110.75 degrees on the Approach/Departure scoring, won Best Engineered, conquered the Tank Trap, and won the whole shebang to boot. It's unlikely we'll see a 4x4 as incredible as the Scorpion again--but that's what we thought about the War Wagon.
Six-Wheel Wonder
For Top Truck 1995, our third attempt to find the best 4x4s in the country, we had a late cancellation and needed to find a 10th contestant. Our feature editors had seen an amazing Samurai crawling the rock trails of the southwest and invited Tim Hardy to join our party. As far as Samurai builders go, it's tough to top Tim. Although the motor remains stock, Tim built his own 4.6:1 Rock Lobster transfer case and unique 3:1 underdrive that combined with the 5.12:1 axle gears to give him 90:1 gearing. Now, to the naked eye, the axles on Tim's ride seem like stock Suzi parts. However, in an effort to create the ultimate in durability, Tim used everything from Mustang 5.0 axleshafts and Subaru Birfields to (and we're not making this up) his own cable locker for both diffs to build his axles. At the Engineering judging, we marveled at Tim's front-wheel center caps that locked his hubs with one twist. They're also waterproof. To get an idea of how meticulous Tim is with his buildups, consider that his front-axle skidplate is 53 pieces of aluminum welded together and polished on both sides. A spring-over using a combination of Samurai springs and Nitro Cell shocks provide elevation for the 35-inch Yoko Mud Diggers. Just in case you're wondering, Tim towed that trailer (equipped with hydraulic disc brakes) through every event at TTC that year and ended up coming in Second Place overall.
It's Pronounced Pay-Way
Yep, we actually knew him before he became famous. Those of you who read Petersen's 4-Wheel & Offroad should recognize Rick Pewe's name as the other half of the dynamic duo that ran that magazine from 1995 to 1997. Now Ricky-Poo runs our sister magazine Jp and is happy being all Jeeps all the time.
But back in 1993, Rick was running Republic Offroad in Tempe, Arizona, and selling parts to future Four Wheeler road-test editors. At Top Truck that year, we got our first taste of this true-grit Southwest rockcrawling guru. Rick's Jeep (actually a '45 Ford GPW) runs a Buick 455 V-8 connected to a GM SM420 granny-low grind box. A Spicer 18 handles splitting duties, while vintage Warn overdrive help highway chores. The Dana 44s front and rear are loaded with 5.89:1 gears and Air Lockers and send the power to 35-inch Big O XTs. But it wasn't the drivetrain that made this flat fender stand out that year. To the best of our knowledge, Rick was the first to use a reverse-shackle spring-over with Wrangler leaf springs and Rancho RS 9000 shocks. This suspension setup is now a trail favorite among rockcrawlers all over the southwest. Rick's setup was flexy enough to ramp a perfect 1,000--ground-breaking for the early '90s.
Although Rick didn't have his 8274 installed for the event, he still came in Second Place.
The Only One
Geby Wager's incredible Jeep from Top Truck 1997 rivals just about any TTC entrant for weird, cutting-edge, and capable. Like the War Wagon and Scorpion, there's not a component on this vehicle that isn't innovative. Under the fiberglass '86 CJ-7 body rumbles a built 514ci Caddy motor. Power flows to a modified Ford T-18 tranny, while an NP 205 splits power to modified 2.5-ton Gamma Goat independent front and rear axles loaded with 5.57:1 gears and Powr-Loks. And as if those stout differentials didn't make this big Marshmallow neat enough, Geby built a unique in-cab adjustable air-over hydraulic strut suspension with extra damping from Fox remote reservoir shocks. All four 15x14-inch beadlocked steel wheels can steer, are mounted to the axles with NASCAR wide-five hubs, and hold 44-inch Boggers.
This thing set new records at Top Truck with 19.6 inches of ground clearance, a 1,396 on the ramp (remember its four-wheel independent), and an average Approach/Departure angle of 91 degrees. It won Acceleration and came in Second in Engineering and Third in the Mud Pit, Mini Rubicon, Obstacle Course, and Tow Test. When all was said and done, Geby won TTC 1997 quite handily.
Quagmire
Cutting-edge fullsize trucks are rare. And Mike Neibuhr's Quagmire is probably the most famous of these. Mike's goal was to build a truck that looked good enough for trophies but could handle the deepest mud Wisconsin could offer. He started with a '75 K-30 Chevy and developed front and rear airbag suspension that could handle serious abuse. The front Dana 60 has 35 splines knuckle to knuckle and houses 4.56:1 gears and a Detroit to turn 40-inch Paddle Hawgs.
Yet the real trick stuff resides behind the TH-400 and NP-205. Mike had blown up four Dana 60 ring-and-pinions trying to turn those 48-inch Firestones, so in went a narrowed 5-ton Rockwell rearend housing 5.86:1 gears and a Detroit. And as if this weren't unique enough, Mike attached the super trick cantilevered bellcrank in-cab adjustable airbag suspension to this Rockwell, making for one of the sturdiest and soft-riding rear suspensions we've come across. Yes, gearing, locked axles, and a stout driveline will help at Top Truck, but for the serious mud and sandblasting action this truck sees, nothing short of what a nitrous'd and fuel-injected big-block 454 would do. Mike bored the block 0.06-inch over and stuffed the holes with 10.5:1 TRW slugs. Brodix aluminum heads along with a Crower cam combine with the Force Engineering port fuel injection to produce somewhere around 500 horses from the now 468ci big-block.
As one may suspect, this good-looking setup scored high with the Engineering judges. In fact, Mike scored well in every event at TTC 1998, his consistency garnering him Third Place overall.
Just an S-10
Yeah, right! Doug Major's '91 Chevy S-10 still stands out as one of the best-engineered mud trucks we've ever run across. Back in 1993, when Doug hauled this little monster out from Indiana, the S-10 was only 2 years old. In that time, Doug was able to complete a solid axle swap (way before this procedure became fashionable) with 1-ton Dana 60s and a super-clean link coilover suspension. The Danas are loaded with 5.89:1 gears with a Powr-Lok providing traction to the front and a Detroit handling go-power to the rear. The
Carrera coilovers are height-adjustable and provide the appropriate weight transfer for the mud racing Doug likes to do. They also provide more flex than any IFS S-10 can imagine.
Mud racing demands big power. And this S-10 delivers with a four-bolt main Chevy 350 bored 0.03-inch over and loaded with Edelbrock aluminum heads, a Tuned Port EFI, and a lumpy Erson 280-degree cam. The power is channeled to a Muncie M-21 close-ratio four-speed and an NP 205 that was modified for 2 or 4 Hi or Lo. This combo easily turns the 44-inch Super Swamper TSLs mounted on 16.5-inch Clement steel wheels. As if all this stuff weren't neat enough, Doug also ran rack-and-pinion steering to keep the big 44s in check.
Although Doug's S-10 only finished Ninth overall, it easily ranks as one of the most thoroughly engineered building concepts to ever compete in Top Truck.
Six Buy
Top Truck Challenge 1994 was our second thrash test and with it came several unique 4x4s. Probably the most innovative though was Kevin Cooper's '81 Scrambler 6x6. Kevin ran a Jeep 4L Six backed by a four-speed automatic and Dana 300 and sent power to three axles. The front axle was the stock Dana 30, but the stock AMC 20 rear was scrapped to fit Dual Dana 44s. All three axles housed ARB Air Lockers and 4.56:1 gears and turned 33x12.50 tires.
But the coolest part of Cooper's ride was the Firestone airbag rear suspension. This was a big innovation back in 1994, and it even stands up today as one of the trickest rearend treatments we've ever seen. And it worked well back in 1994, garnering Kevin a Second Place overall win in trail performance. Today the rig is painted green and can be seen 'wheeling on everything from Moab's famous slickrock to the deep and ominous mud of Foster Lake, Oregon. FW