Leaderboard

Dear @Hisham Masaad @munkybizness @Aisha S @Abdul Rafay-S @Looper @S Jacob @Naveen Raj, It was a great pleasure to lead the drive with such a nice convoy where everyone performed very well given the challenges of the terrain and the pace. I was expecting and prepared for lots of refusal and stuck which actually did not happen and instead i got most of the refusal and stuck 😜. It was great to see the team spirit and i really like the fact that you were not shy at all to get your shovel and offered to help. I am very thankful to @Hisham Masaad, under his assistance and support all recoveries were done within minutes. It was reassuring having @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ in the drive and thank you for your help. @Naveen Raj had the most challenging job as second lead on this drive which he did successfully by staying focussed all the time and taking necessary action whenever need. Well done and i am even more impressed knowing that your Pajero actually has a 3.0L engine. @munkybizness and @Looper, other than being fantastic drivers and team players, thank you so much for making such a descriptive drive report and statistics covering the trip. I really appreciated it👏.. Looking forward to see you in another drive, take care.

Receiving your report @Anish Snow, reminded me that I did not post any thing about the drive. And after all what said, I have nothing more to add, except thank you very much for the drive, and thank you @Naveen Raj @S Jacob @Aisha S @munkybizness @Abdul Rafay-S @Looper @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQfor joining and supporting. As I mentioned during exiting the drive, all has done a fantastic job, driving and supporting. Look forward to see you again in sand

@munkybizness for the best sound performance , do not forget to add sound deadening material on the inner sides of doors - which inturn make the door compartment in effect a sound box rather than a rattle box Enjoy and have fun

Congrats @Damien Ranjit. Well done

Curved is always better to squeeze flood and spot in one bar.

I've been told the same and have seen already a couple more Y61s with Squadron Pros installed as fog lights. In my case I've used them only while driving on sand, the spread and intensity are just right. The headlamps is another story, the bulbs I installed deliver a clear white light, which I use only as low beam while on the road. Check this chart from Philips https://www.philips.ae/c-e/au/car-lights/headlight-bulbs/led-headlight-bulb. You can find the LED bulbs in any car accessory shop, Philips or any other brand, they will install them on the spot for you.

Hi, for what it helps, this is what I did in my Y61: replaced the stock fog lights with Baja Design Squadron Pro Round, with amber lenses to help cut through dust and fog (https://www.bajadesigns.com/products/squadron-r-pro-led-wide-cornering-amber.asp), and I replaced the headlight bulbs with LED lights. This set up so far provides a good light source whilst driving. I had four X-Vision flood lights mounted in the bumper, but have now removed them as I suspect they were blocking airflow into the cooling systems. Two of those X-Vision were relocated as cornering lights, but I feel amber lights will work better. In future I plan to have installed STP heat shield, which I understand doubles as sound proofing. *** Edit: just added two pictures so you can see the lights. The four smaller white lights in the bumper were removed for the same reason @Gaurav mentioned in his comment.

For many offroaders, navigation looks like a scary thing, and finding your way in the desert used to be a daunting task with old obsolete maps, navigation with sun or stars, and many other old tricks of crossing the deserts. Until 5-6 years ago, companies like TomTom and Garmin were ruling the world navigation software and hardware, until our phones became smarter and smarter, and nowadays there are tons of free or paid navigation software programs available which are tailored for hiking, off-roading, cycling, or other outdoor activities where you would like to record your tracks. In this post i will give some basic essential advice on how to get started with navigating by using GaiaGPS, which is an amazing app that allows you to: 1) Create routes at home via your desktop/tablet through the GaiaGPS website. 2) Use different types of maps like topographic maps, sattelite maps, to find your perfect route you'd like to explore. 3) Save and manage all your tracks, waypoints, areas. 4) Automatically sync all this data with the GaiaGPS Mobile App that is being used to record your track or follow the route you have created beforehand. 1) Registering for GaiaGPS account https://www.gaiagps.com/membership/ You can choose for a FREE account, which works fine for basic topographic and satellite maps, but will not allow to use them offline. The PREMIUM membership is recommended for around 60USD per year. The Outside+ subscription is useless as this is mostly for US based customers. Their Trailforks Pro App is very similar to Wikiloc. Once you have become a member, you can head over to Gaiagps.com, login with your account name, and have a look at the basic functionalities. I've posted a short video below that gives a small demo on how to use the GaiaGPS website functionalities. As you can see in the screen, there are many tracks i've recorded with my phone that remain saved in the website. You can remove these or hide them. The red zones i have marked are called "areas" where you can identify tricky areas that you would like to avoid. They will appear on your phone app as well so you can easily avoid them. Waypoints Waypoint, or pins, could be points of interest, landmarks, entry and exit points, or any place where you want to mark the location and save for later reference. They will appear as a "pin" on your map. You can assign a color to them as you like. This might be useful as you can categorize them. Next to the classic PIN icon, you can choose different other ones, like fences, skulls, forest, or anything that will help you in identifying the waypoint. Satellite Images Having crisp detail in the satellite images you are looking, is essential so you can create a route which focuses on the nice bigger dunes instead of the small technical or bushy areas. Gaia comes standard with the Mapbox "Sattelite with Labels" Imagery which is not bad, but the best one i have found so far is the ESRI Sattelite Imagery Map. Below you will find some information on how to add custom maps. The map called "WORLD IMAGERY" in the Premium version is the same as the ESRI Sattelite Imagery Map. Which phone ? Gaia GPS will work on any smartphone that has a decent GPS antenna built-in. In my case i purchased a separate dedicated Android phone which is mounted in my car that i solely use for navigation. This allows me to keep using my own phone as backup device. That dedicated phone has the offline maps downloaded on it, so i don't need cellphone coverage (no sim card). App functionality On an Iphone, this is how the app looks like. The buttons like "RECORD" and "PICTURE" are customizable, and by keeping your finger on it you can select something else you would like to see on the home page. The Magnifying Glass allows you to enter coordinates. You can copy them from within Google Maps. this button toggles between full screen or normal screen. The crosshair button is very important. Click on it once and it will appear green and bring you to your live location and follow you while keeping NORTH up. Click on it again and another logo appears, looking like two reversed triangles. This is the mode that keeps your live location but constantly rotates the map based on your direction. You can experiment with both modes to see what suits you best. I like to stick to the first mode because it allows me to see in which compass direction i am heading. The + Button contains all your other useful functionalities, like adding a waypoint, creating a route, download an offline map, or create an area. Once you hit the record button, the app will start recording your track. Once you finish, click again on it and select "Finish Track" It will then be saved. (and also appear on your GaiaGPS website once you have synced). On the bottom, you can see your trip details, open the list of saved tracks, or go to your settings. Note: In the settings you can put your units/distances in miles or kilometers (whatever you prefer). You can also enable or disable the autosync function, but better to keep it on. So as soon as you have Wifi/Internet on your phone it will automatically sync your tracks between the app and your GaiaGPS account (website). These things will take a bit of practice, and i can recommend you use your Gaia mobile app for a while on your daily commute and experiment a bit with the settings until you have tailored it to your own needs. Exporting Maps Most navigation software use .gpx or .kml files which you can import in Google Earth / Maps or any other navigation program. On the GaiaGPS website, and also on the app you can choose to "export" your track. It will create a .GPX file that you can share with fellow offroaders or import in the Relive app Adding Custom Maps Adding a TMS Map Source – Gaia GPS for the GaiaGps app users, the Google Maps like Satellite, Terrain, or Hybrid, are not standard built in, but can easily be added by using the GaiaGps website. This is the procedure to add for example Google Terrain. 1) While logged into Gaiagps.com, add a custom map source via TMS here: https://www.gaiagps.com/mapsource/add/ 2) Fill in this TMS URL to get Google Terrain: https://mt0.google.com/vt/lyrs=p&hl=en&x={x}&y={y}&z={z}&s=Ga 3) Give it the name "Google Terrain" 4) Set the Min and Max Zoom level on 4 and 19. 5) Click on "Add this Map Source" The next time you will login it will appear in your mobile app. Some other map links. To add them, follow the same steps as above: Google Maps: https://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=r&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} Google Satellite:https://www.google.cn/maps/vt?lyrs=s@189&gl=cn&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} Google Satellite Hybrid:https://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=y&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} Google Terrain:https://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=t&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} Google Roads:https://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=h&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} ESRI Sattelite Imagery:https://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Imagery/MapServer/tile/{z}/{y}/{x} Open Topo Maps: https://a.tile.opentopomap.org/{Z}/{X}/{Y}.png Others can be found here: Folder: / (arcgisonline.com) 15 Free Satellite Imagery Data Sources - GIS Geography

Congrats @Damien Ranjit. Well done!!

Thanks @Islam Soliman looking good for the weekend, not long now!!

Awesome! I love the purity of your Y61 🤩

My instagram is Abu_Tizou the pics will be on there once it’s done I’m sure and the suspension is on. . Feel free to follow

@munkybiznessthey fit I’m getting them put in Thursday with a couple of Baja design spots also

@Adam James congratulations !!

This is the one I am looking for be it day or night drive . It’s possible when you have a lead like @Anish S and a sweep looping when in need like @Looper 😄

wow - you will genuinely make the most of this investment knowing you are holding a library in true lossless quality. The ground Zero Amp with DSP is awesome and i just wish i went that route (it wasn't available in the store so guess what - they didn't even mention it as an option). Ground Zero was sourced locally (drop me a whatsapp and i'll share the supplier 0551092859). That said, it is painfully obvious in the UAE you only get advice and info on what they have ready to sell you... so this store is back to holding Rockford and Hertz so are pushing that (all are great however reinforces the value of you doing your own research!) My opinion - please wait for the headunit that you genuinely want... even if its 6 months on the stock feeding the amp etc... its better to just get it right vs changing multiple times or having any regrets, especially seeing the care you take to go lossless and research the right setup. @Frederic is genuinely the audio guru with competition grade setups in his youth so once he's back from holidays def catch some time with him to go through specs/designs. ps. for my sins i was a student in the late 90s so trance and apache indian is in my library but i can longer move as fast so tastes have changed to match my pace!

@munkybizness this is my cell 0554045278 feel free to what’s app me so I can send a short night clip so you can see how lights work in the dark , but there will be no strobing 🤣

@topgear I purchased the H4 size pro5000 there is an even brighter set, the pro9000k however I couldn’t find out if these are street legal in UAE so didn’t gamble. If they are, these would be a better option. 100% you will benefit from these when doing a night drive … all the advice given by the marshalls was spot on, in that if you are mid convoy you really don’t need additional lights … bumping up the weak stock headlights works perfect!

Thanks @Gaurav for bringing me into this conversation…. I now have stereo envy … Hey @munkybizness I have to say you are making the best first mods … audio! We spend longer on tarmac than the dunes and being able to enjoy our music makes every journey better! Apache Indian and trance music… I am personally grateful I am not your passenger 🤣 but that’s for a different thread (the Spotify play list discussion). I went the path of Ground Zero products (speakers and amp). These are not in the same pedigree of Hertz … and that’s why I have envy! You have put together a great set of options and the fact you have a sensible budget for sound deadening is testimony to good research! The y61 is basic by design and the sound deadening is critical! I decided against a subwoofer even though I love bass! So I went with the largest mid range component set up that would fit the door so put in 8” in the fronts and was only able to fit 4” in the rear! If you likewise will not have a sub, do consider sizing a pair of your speakers slightly larger to offer a nice level of bass. Also a 4 channel amp is ideal as if you add a sub later on a seperate amp is easy and recommended. a seperate GPS module is potentially overkill but not an expensive add and I have one in the FJ! That said I use the phone via CarPlay to run Gaia and never have lost signal … I don’t use it to navigate yet as am just following the car in front and blindly trust the marshalls 🤣 .. so if you are genuinely navigating yourself then I would add the gps module from garmin! Headunits, I wouldn’t have previously classed pioneer above alpine/kenwood/Sony for headunits .. I have typically considered them equals. However I didn’t spend time researching actual headunit as stuck with the built in unit (not out of choice). Wireless Apple CarPlay is desirable but if not an option a 500aed add on achieves the same (avoid Amazon options and I will share details if you need that later). I would avoid a headunit that project out of the dash for exactly what @Gaurav warned about - sand etc! When the weather improves and we drive with the window down, sand will get everywhere and it’s impact is real to our electronics etc.. I like your midrange option above- top end is wasted for our desert cruisers in my opinion. If you consider a larger component setup for the fronts to bring you a decent amount of bass without a sub! You have an enviable setup! As for lights … I personally decided to wait even longer and just changed the weak standard bulbs to some high powered philips ones and get a decent spread when in the middle of the convoy! I sneak in behind or in front of @Alex Raptor or @Lakshmi Narasimhan in any convoy and you are not short of light pollution … they both throw out 20-30k of lumins for fun!

Got it! Would a straight lightbar be enough, or is it better to put in a curved bar to follow the curvature of the bumper?

I did the same but for me there was no cutting involved. There was number plate bracket i removed it completely and stick number plate to the bumper. this is the switch panel. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BLB7F3G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thank you Thank you

Congrats @Damien Ranjit, another R51 on sands!

Congrats @Adam James

@Damien RanjitCongratulations!

Congrats @Damien Ranjit

Thanks mate

Congrats @Damien Ranjit

Congratulations @Damien Ranjit! You're going to be amazing in the Fewbie drives. See you there

Thanks @Anish S and @Hisham Masaad for another exciting drive today morning… Though I missed the high dunes and the play areas from our last week’s drive, this terrain threw in different set of challenges with inconsistent soft n hard patches and the vegetation (got the opportunity to field test my new bash plate)… the drive was a different learning experience.. @munkybizness: Excellent drive writeup… @Looper yes.. even i felt i shud hv steered it better and had better throttle control to avoid digging in, as I thought about it later.. anyways now hv a better hang of it, lesson learned for my next refusal opportunity….the SWB definitely offered the advantage of better pwr to weight ratio..

As I spend more time in my Y61 SS LWB, a few things are beginning to ramp up on the modification list. My intention is to leave most elements as stock as I don't believe I'm nearly good enough yet to be exploiting the full range of this car's capabilities. So far, I've only added a front skid plate and recovery points. Furthermore, I am building my car up to be an overlander - part of the reason why I bought a LWB. With that in mind, I'm not touching suspension or tires at this time. These will definitely come when my wadi crawling become more continuous. My current two areas for upgrades are the Lighting and Head Unit + Sound System. LIGHTING For the Lighting, after listening to a a roof-mounted light bar on the highway (pretty much every road in Dubai), I'm steering towards putting in to two (2) x Spotlights on the front bumper. Ideally, 7inch maximum as I find the 9inch units to be too big for the front fascia. On the A-pillar, I'm looking to mount one spot+flood combo light each. So here comes the first question - would you folks recommend going for Amber lights in both or White lights with Amber covers? I see the value of Ambers for dusty driving but so far in my night drives, I've only seen very dusty conditions when covering flat patches. Otherwise, the sand seems to settle very quickly after being flung about by the cars in front. The last area that I'm struggling to pin down is if I want rocker switches or an sPOD. The shops tell me that I can program multiple levels of the lights across low beam, high beam + strobe (for that trance party I will be hosting in Liwa). But wanted to get a view on what the consensus is around running On/Off switches vs a programmable pod? HEAD UNIT + SOUND The current Clarion Head Unit in the Patrol comes out of Malaysia but no matter how hard I look, I can't find firmware updates for it. The system settings say that its BT version is 0.9 which is quite literally Gen 1 and head units today are pushing BT 5.0. This head unit has a notorious skipping problem with BT where I feel like a wannabe DJ... Has anybody here done upgrades on their head units? Do you have recommendations? I would like to install a double DIN unit and not bigger than 7 inches so it's not floating out of the space. Furthermore, with the semiconductor chip shortages, finding Pioneer head units in the market has been extremely challenging. I've found similar units in the US. Are these universal and can I just have it shipped over and install it here? The second reason I would like to use an upgraded head unit is to use CarPlay and run Gaia on the larger screen than my mounted phone. Here, I'm also planning to add a Garmin GLO or a Dual XGPS160 to augment the GPS/GLONASS signals coming in. Is this overkill, or have your phones + offline maps been reliable enough? For the sound system, there are quite a few upgrades available in the market across the spectrum with Kenwoods & Alpines at the lower end to Hertz & Focal at the higher end. The latter also require increased dampening, and an additional amplifier. I have sourced an internal A-pillar with a tweeter cutout so building a component here is ideally the way forward for me.

Congrats @Adam James. Well done !!

Ops.. just realized it’s still Tuesday 😩.. obviously I miss the sand too much 🤣

@Santoso Marjuki thanks for signing up to the drive, however, it looks to me like you did not yet complete an absolute newbie drive that is a prerequisite to being able to sign up to any other drive. Here is a link to that drive this week. If you sign up to this I look forward to seeing you on future drives. I will as a result sign you out of this drive.

The topic keeps getting interesting - @munkybizness look to the right of the switch to turn on the coolbox, there is a USB port where you can attach a USB drive, I use it to play lossless audio files (e.g.: 192Khz - 24bit) without a problem, though output quality is of course not the same as through an audiophile system. Do you think that installing a DAC, instead of changing the head unit, and of course upgrade the speakers would be another option to consider? I researched and found this DAC: https://apogeedigital.com/blog/blog-how-to/listen-audiophile-quality-music-car-apogee-one-ios-device; There are quite a few shops in Dubai that seem to specialize in "Car Entertainment Upgrade & Installation" ...time to do some more research 🧐

Thank you for directing me to the source! Will look these up. I think the Whitevision Ultras seem to be the clear white light for the Patrol. Will enquire about them or similar profiles.

I would say mount it on top of bumper, as small opening in bumper is mostly needed to cool radiator or air cooled tranny cooler. These slim LED bars can perfectly sit above and also little more far away from impact zone.

hey @munkybizness The most powerful light i have it is on my front bumper. its 21 inch latest LED laser technology by Tobies its much slimmer than the older version and its much brighter as well. also i have installed 2 amber lights inside front grill with some modification and 2 side shooters on the hood and 1 small light at rear roof. These are not expensive lights, but it does the job and im happy with performance.

Got scared when accidentally did this on the highway 🤭 luckily no cups were around 🤪🤣

Hi I personally chosen the option of bumper LED bar and side shooters mixed white spot and amber at the periphery ( see my profile pict 😄) also like that 👇 ( pict curtesy @Anish S ) so far I am so happy with it on night drives and no sounds on high ways both I purchased it via Amazon

Thank you! I'm definitely going to get an additional amp because my speakers aren't even doing my lo-fi Apache Indian any justice right now 😛 I was totally unaware of the IP67 ratings for the seals on the units. I will definitely look into that. This weekend, I put the windows down and there was sand everywhere... so getting it into buttons and jamming them is definitely something I need to watch out for. I've pulled some quotes from three different shops - two in Al Quoz, and one in Sharjah (Kenwood). The Head Unit really pumps up the prices so am trying to maximize as much return as I can get from the unit in the car. For the lightbar vs spotlights, I'm a little torn because I don't like the lightbar aesthetic but I completely see your point, and having seen yours and @Rizwanm2 in action, I am sold on the output & versatility.

You know it... 😎😎😎

Hi @Wrangeld, is the drive of Thursday or Friday?

@Adam JamesCongratulations!

Congratulations Adam @Adam James

Congrats @Adam James!

With all pleasure 😀

@Frederic I totally agree with you. Was wondering if we can have a training /demo on how to use the Gaia maps . I am sorry if my request is very naive but it would be great to learn from someone who has already mastered it.

Great - I learned my map navigation in the army, about a 1000 years before GPS was invented (I think the first compass just came out!). So love topo maps. With my premium account I try to overlay Topo on top of Sat, but visibility is crap. Maybe I will glue a 52” screen to my Xterra dashboard and pair it with my phone?

Absolutely Fantastic efforts put together by @Frederic, this is real gold mine for many offroaders here. Especially to our new leaders in making, please invest some time and get familiar with this app, as MotionX (my fav) is slowly fading off and on the verge of getting discontinued. @sertac @Chaitanya D @Kalahari @Tbone @Brette @Vanessa8580 start using this app and start getting familiar, as from second leaders lead drive you will be required to do planning and leading with navigation app or stand alone satnav (if you prefer). Feel free to post your questions here, so that everyone can learn together.