Even with the Thanksgiving holiday quickly approaching, we managed to put in a few solid days of forward progress.  The mockup King quadruple bypass shocks did arrive on Monday which allowed us to begin work on the front and rear shock hoops.  It’s crazy to think with just four shocks you can spend days making brackets, checking fits, making more brackets, and re-checking fits.  The reward is worth it though, for the first time we get to play with suspension travel. The video above shows the front axle at full articulation with the wheel turned 50 degrees.

When it comes to suspension travel, the motto “if it works don’t fix it” comes immediately to mind.  Tracy has more rock crawling championships under his belt then we care to count, so it’s no surprise he is calling the shots on this one. The Rock Bug will be a dual purpose vehicle, competing in both the King of the Hammers and W.E.Rock, so the suspension will be set up as follows:

For Racing: 19” belly clearance, 6” bump, 10” droop (Compromise)

For Crawling: 17” belly clearance, 4” bump, 12” droop (Ideal)

The compromise here to make both work is with the Racing dimensions. Ideally we all would like more bump, but this would not be possible running the same 16” travel shock between racing and crawling.

Over the holiday weekend, we will continue working on the shocks.  From there, our focus will shift in mounting everything under the hood.  This way we can get the Scat motor back in the hands of Powerhouse Motorsports for some final assembly.  Until next time, have a great Thanksgiving!

Today we spent a little time manufacturing some trick clevis mounts for the Rock Bug’s PSC double ended steering ram.  These clevis mounts are almost identical to the mild steel ones we currently sell on our website (part #: CLV-001).  Biggest difference here is, like everything else on the buggy, they are manufactured from 4130 chromoly steel.  The connecting link between the ram and steering arm will consist of one chromoly clevis mount, one chromoly threaded insert, and a small piece of 1.25” x 0.095” wall 4130 tube.  After the connecting links are all tig welded, they will be heat treated to carry a final yield strength just over 170,000 psi.

We’re having fun today wrapping up the Rock Bugs ultra compact, ultra light weight front winch mount.  I was going to upload some pictures and video without a follow-up blog post.  Then I realized nowhere have I mentioned that nearly 100% of every steel component on this buggy is made from chromoly.  If your browsing through the Rock Bug pictures, especially of this extremely light weight winch mount, it’s important to know this up front, otherwise you may think we have lost our ever-loving engineering minds!

The entire chassis is made from a well blended mixture of 0.120”, 0.095”, and 0.065” wall 4130 chromoly tube.  The winch mount shown here is all 0.095” thick 4130 chromoly plate.  The Spider 9 housings are constructed of 0.188” thick 4130 chromoly tube and plate and will also be fully heat treated after all welding is complete.  The same goes for the suspension control links where the lowers are 2” x 0.120” wall and the uppers are 1.25” x 0.095” wall 4130 chromoly with heat treatment after welding.  All of this to save weight without a compromise to strength, the underlying theme of the Rock Bug.

Rock Bug as of 20-Nov-2008
Originally uploaded by Spidertrax

Another week goes by and like many projects we seem to be waiting on other parts to arrive for progress to continue. The custom Scat engine plate we setup to machine on Monday the 17th and has yet to start due namely to a missing MSD tone ring. For those with a good eye, you may have also noticed we are missing a large portion of finished chassis work in the front of the bug. This section is waiting for some quadruple bi-pass shocks (you read it correctly, not triple bi-pass but quadruple). Good news here is mock-up shocks from King are scheduled to arrive at our shop on Monday. Keep your fingers crossed!

Despite any negative vibes above, the week wasn’t a total loss by any measure. We have managed to finish up the chassis welding which allowed us to move the buggy off the jig and onto free stands. From here, we were able to position the front and rear knuckles, cycle the suspension, and check for max steering. Max steering angle is set to 50 degrees, achievable only with our Ultimate 60 Knuckles. All looks perfect which is a good way to end the week.

That does it for this weekday update. Be sure to follow along on Flickr too where we are posting pictures and video daily.

Say hello to who?!?! You read it correctly, the all new Rock Bug. What exactly is a Rock Bug? The Rock Bug is an all new buggy design straight from the labs of Spidertrax. Get ready, what we are developing here goes way beyond your typical chassis build.

The goal of the Rock Bug is to create a whole new platform for aggressively testing the working limits of ultra high strength, ultra light weight product designs. When we say working limits, we aren’t talking just about show and shine either. The Rock Bug is set to debut at the 2009 King of the Hammers competition, driven by its proud owner, rock crawling champion Tracy Jordan.

We just got started so sit back, relax, hit refresh on your browser a million times, and enjoy the progress. We will be posting updates here, as they happen, and will make a point to highlight all the new innovations the Rock Bug brings. Be sure to check out our Flickr photo & video set too at http://www.flickr.com/photos/spidertrax/sets/72157609473800091/. Till next time!