It’s time to race this thing already! From the chassis builder taking forever, to this becoming a side project due to the sales growth of our product line, it’s taken way too long to get to the fun part: tuning the RZR and getting ready for our first race in October.

It started a long time ago (March 2018), when I sent the shock to Shock therapy, told them it would be for a race car, good luck! Honestly, after putting a good 700-800 miles on the car, they did a pretty good job to start with. The hard part has been for me to play with ride height, and start tuning for a race situation. Driving in in multiple environments (AZ Peace Trail, Sand Hollow, and Geiser Loop) has given me a good enough feel to start playing with ride height, crossover rings, and compression settings.

This video is all about the rear settings, the front has felt good, and hasn’t bottomed. I think the next step is to lower the front, as the “pushing in turns” feeling, and front end traction can be improved, which will also help with the rear.

We tried 3 different adjustments in the rear: raising ride height, lowering the crossover rings, and adjusting the Low Speed Compression. I think we have a much better base setting to work with now, and I think we will test again at Geiser Loop right before our race, with a full tank of gas, ready to rip, and I think we might lower the rear crossovers even more.

We might have another tuner completely change the springs and valving, but for now, we want to race it a few times and do what we can to make it work. It feels like the spring rate is pretty good, and with a few more tweaks we might be in a really good spot.

We hope this helps those of you with stock vehicles consider tuning and adjusting your SxS, to maximize the performance, wherever you ride.

#RZR​ #RZRturbo​ #Shocktherapyst​ #canamx3​ #maverickx3​ #offroadracing​ #utvracing​ #utv​ #polarisrzr

Transcription:

Chupacabra off-road back in the desert this time we’re doing some suspension tuning Chupacabra off-road back in the desert par-5 race razor and that’s the part I’m awaiting for will get it tuned the suspension I’m a suspension geek I love that most pile with any feature on these vehicles you probably won’t see many vlogs or me talking about car audio but suspension I’m a nerd right here and guys are loop in my backyard but to go back in the story as you guys know if you’ve been following the car build taking this car on a couple trips so I’ve kind of already cheated a little got a little bit of feedback and experience in the car before we’ve come out here and really started playing with some of the tuning characteristics of the suspension so to back it up we got the car running wrote it a couple times out here but my first big ride was the Arizona Peace Trail the car felt stiff as you could imagine partially because I had my air pressure at 22 psi and the tires it was a slower pace ride rocky and technical not what this car was designed for but my first thought when building this car is out use it for everything most importantly we’re gonna set the car up for how it works out here in geyser loop in a race situation took it on the trip car worked well like I said it was stiff we got the ride height set up about 18 inches in the front 17 and a half in the rear pretty high higher than your normal side-by-side vehicle that comes with 32 inch tires like a stock turbo s is about 16 inches in the front a little bit lower in the rear so I want to talk about the ride height setup because for me as I’m learning this new vehicle it’s quite a bit different than a four seater that’s probably the most important characteristic I’ve been trying to feel and trying to adjust for for these first C rides so in terms of the chassis the seats are moved back quite a bit compared to a 4 C razor the frame rails are based off of a four seat razor chassis which is 117 inch wheelbase this is 119 wheelbase only because you get the extra 2 inch from the Lone Star long travel kit so as you can see with my Walker Evans wheels I’m about 74 inches wide 119 wheelbase with the car setup with the chassis the seats are moved back a good eight to ten inches from where a stock location and a four seat raiser is so you add that with the bigger 25 gallon fuel cell right behind me there’s no radiator intercooler in the front we got a big combo radiator intercooler in the rear there’s very little weight on the front of the car so during the Arizona piece trail and then right after I took it to Parker racecourse you can definitely tell there’s a lot less weight in the front end of the vehicle which definitely is a lot different than what I have experienced the first time I had a raise of the front end bottom quite a bit back in 2014 also we did a tuning video of my 2018 razor for turbo we’ll link in the description so you can check that out what I learned a lot all over the years of the vehicles I’ve owned I’ve spent a lot of time in 4c raisers a lot of time and to see razors a little bit of time in a to see back string a little bit before sit next to me but this definitely has a unique feel because of how the weight shifted in the vehicle ride height is higher than all these saw vehicles the main reason being I’ve heard a lot of the race car teams run a little bit higher than normal because they’re in really rough terrain if it’s a really rugged course something like the mint 400 most of your best in the desert races particularly if you’re going after the bigger tire open class vehicles they want for more ground clearance and that’s kind of my initial thought so starting off with 18 in the front right now we’re about 17 and 1/2 in the front 17 in the rear that’s felt pretty good from there recently just did a trip to Sand Hollow Sand Hollow had all different types of terrain it was a really good environment to see how those car feels we had some sand dunes some big whoops that worse and oops as well as hardpack whoops some fast slippery wash stuff kind of add a little ocotillo Wells kind of vibe amazing amount of different terrain within a couple hours of riding so the car fell pretty good keep in mind these she rides is all more of a typical leisurely pace type ride but now that we’re back in geyser we’re gonna push the car harder and I’m assuming it’s gonna be a little bit on the soft side probably and probably have to slow down for some of the big G outs out here and hopefully the car feels really supple over the bumps and the harsh baby head rocks out here but we’re gonna go jump in the car we’re gonna go take it for a loop and come back with our first initial impression we just completed one full loop here out at the geyser loop and my suspicions were correct the car was really soft with this particular car like I was mentioning because the weight shifted back you definitely have a lot more strain or the rear shocks are doing a lot more work so I’ve had challenges of just kind of raising the rent I’ve had a couple of vehicles with these internal bypass shocks the razor turbo and when the car is running low definitely rides a lot harsher it’s in this different compression zone and you couple that with all the way being shifted back in the vehicle how much faster we’re going I really had to make sure we’re at least 17 in the rear load it down with two guys you know full of fuel all that adds to a lot of weight in the back of the car so as I anticipated we hit some of these G odds we’re bottoming I’m really having to let off the gas not been able to drive pretty hard because it’s too soft so I think what we’re gonna do with the right height is get the back of the car up a little bit I’m gonna go one complete revolution which should bump the back of the car up about a half of an inch and for the reason of leveling out the car a little more I think compared to a stock razor we might not need to have that half inch in the front I think more level is better because of the weight bias this last loop we had our compression clickers all the way open and the fully soft setting I really like to see how the car feels I love that suppleness but I’m going to go up a few more clicks in the rear and then another thing I’m going to do is we’re gonna go ahead and lower the crossover rings because I want to get on that stiffer spring sooner so to talk about the shocks for just a little bit these are their stock internal bypass 32.0 rear 2.5 front they come on your stock razor turbo and with Lowe’s our long travel kit we needed to have them re– sprung and rebalance I sent these shocks to shock therapy they did their full respring with a revolve kit and basically I told him I’ve got a race car I was I had these shocks tuned before the car is even built so right out of the box I’m pretty happy like I mentioned this loop was soft but I haven’t even played with the crossover rings yet or the compression clickers so as a whole I’ve been happy with what they were able to do we’ve got comfortable compliant ride the small bump sensitivity over some shocks that are not three valve is his night and day it’s a really good so I’m not sponsored by them didn’t get a discount on any of their stuff just saying I think because these guys have a lot of data they’ve sprung and found a lot of race cars a lot of loans are suspended cars that’s why I chose them they’re 20 minutes away and they ride in these environments like me so pretty happy with it out of the box we’re gonna go ahead and raise the back of the car a little bump up the compression clickers and then we’re gonna drop the rear crossover rings right now the bottom of the crossover ring is about 10 inches I want to drop it at least an inch and see how it feels we’re gonna go do a loop and come back and see how it goes from there all right so the first thing we’re gonna try are lowering the crossover rings about an inch got them loosened up with shock therapy I’ve got this little o-ring which makes it pretty easy to figure out where you want to be so I’m gonna go ahead and thread these down we’re gonna go take it for a quick spin the back end was going through most all to travel pretty easy out here we didn’t bottom harsh because I kind of let off the gas but I think this is the first adjustment that’s gonna be the most impactful because I can raise the rear but still it’s gonna be soft and we need to get on that stiffer spring sooner so let’s try this first and then we’re gonna come back and I’ll probably bump the low-speed compression about four kliks and then we’ll see how that feels and then from there we’ll kind of come back and see if we need to raise the back of the car all right so get a loop with the crossover rings down felt good one variable that totally changed the feel the car was not having another co-writer in it definitely to tune this car with another rider in so still felt a little soft I’m gonna go ahead and bump this up but gonna have my co-writer jump back in and go with me what I’m doing here is I’m gonna go from fully soft up for clip I’m just gonna do the rear for right now because I’m still not feeling the front bottoming like I said all the action is happening in the rear with all the way to the car that’s how we’re bottoming out all those bottoming less that time definitely an improvement I can see probably wanting to go down a little bit more on the crossover rings but can I have my co-writer jump back in and we’re gonna go ahead and do another quick little loop and see how this goes so definite improvement by bumping up the compression clickers that was just a little bit of an improvement much more drastic drop in the crossover rings if you also check our YouTube channel we just did a review on some of a spring kit and one reason why I’m such a big fan of spring kits is because even if you have a base level shock like what I have on this car giving you that adjustment it’s such a big deal so you can control bottoming out and control how the car feels so that was good I’m gonna now raise the back of the car up we’re gonna go one full revolution on the rear it’s gonna bring it up like I said a little bit maybe around half of an inch I think this is gonna work well because right now we only have a half a tank of fuel you know I think it’s gonna need to go up a little bit but one thing I’m kind of curious on to be mindful of is as you raise the car it tends to sway a little so we’re going to take some footage outside and see if we can capture what I’m feeling can’t really capture that with the GoPro footage but as we go higher of course the car is gonna sway a little bit more we’re gonna do a future video we’re playing with the sway bar but because I don’t have high and low speed compression and rebound control with the shock adjustments I’ve got pretty much plain Jane’s setup we’re trying to get it as plush as I can resist bottoming but also think about sway so I really don’t like turning up the compression I want it to be as plush as possible but that also helps mitigate a little that side-to-side we’re not using a front sway bar on this vehicle we just got the Lonestar heavy-duty rear sway bar right now we’ve got an a’ stiffest setting so it will so basically there’s always gonna be this balancing rope right I’m probably the type of guy who’s gonna want to have the car move around a little for the sake of it being flush and we’re gonna learn as we race you know if I’m gonna go with something stiffer that can hit stuff harder but is a little bit less plush you always want to have your cake and eat it too you want to be really plush and supple so the wheels are hooking up you’re getting traction and not bottom but inevitably I’m gonna feel like we might make a compromise of a little bit of the plushness to get this thing to prevent bottoming when we’re talking four ways Aysen not have to let off we’re headed Vic G Alex we keep a momentum going and move forward on the racecourse and I get back okay so let’s bump the car up really quick so I got the car up in the air I’m gonna go ahead and knock the top preload ring off spray these down with some wd-40 makes life a lot easier do you see it but what I always do is I make a little mark I use like a little sharpie always keeps my toolbox I’m gonna go ahead and spin this clockwise one full revolution till I see this mark so we raise the rear of the car up it feels even better I think it’s gonna work really well as we’ve got a full tank of fuel didn’t feel squirrely in the back like I was anticipating it just feels good I think we made some improvements today I definitely learned I had it set up softer for more of a leisurely riding pace which is what worked well and didn’t hardly bottom but when you’re out here pushing it in a real rocky setting the game changes quite a bit so even though most people don’t own a race car I hope this added value I hope that encourages you to kind of think about what your car feels like and how you can make some improvements a couple quick tips I think if you’re new to this if you haven’t really played up your suspension there’s a lot of adjustments you guys can make at home for free that gonna increase the performance before you start spending money so first off my suggestion when you’re going on a ride play with your clickers almost every side by side has some level of a compression adjustment in between your ride bump it up a few clicks bump it down and try to get that feeling I think that’s most important is to kind of think about how your side by side feels and what you might want to do improve it make it feel better tip number two is check your right hand I see a lot of people out there they add a lot of accessories that most people saw their stock Springs the vehicles lower than it should be and particularly when you’ve got some internal bypass shocks you’re really losing a lot of small bump performance when the car the vehicle is riding too low so check with the recommended manufacturer settings fox release settings for all of you can mmx3 owners they’re too low from the factory the razor is pretty well published make sure you kind of calibrate that for what your tire size is again we’re going to link below in the description for my shock tuning video of my 2018 razor turbo for that we did some tuning with with some 32 inch tires which is obviously a popular set up here in the southwest and hopefully this helps you guys make some positive changes get more out of your ride for free one other tip if you can find a riding spot like this where you can test the same setting all the time it’s get real help you develop that feel so you’re gonna have a better idea of what your side-by-side is doing so when you start making these adjustments you’ll really feel them and I suggest a really rough environment like this thanks guys we’ll see you next time.