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@munkybizness with terms of modification there are many options available in the market. Speaking about shocks mainly I have seen on Y61 installed with kings shocks with remote reservoir. You can definitely do some jumps with it. But that is if you want to do extreme drives like you see on Instagram reels then I would suggest you to go for Kings. Otherwise Lift and spacers will be economical. The battery system should be your priority and also install a fridge so we enjoy the drives when your in the convoy . You have already removed the 3rd row and i think Cabin drawer will be good specially as you are a support now. I have Beadlocks but than again you will have to change your tires. yes there is a sense of safety in the desert driving at low PSI. But there is maintenance for it also with retorquing every 6 months. Do you know in the US Beadloacks are not approved by department of transportation and considered illegal which means tires shops do not even do the balancing of the wheels. The issue is with all the Offroaders. Once you touch your vehicle with a Mod you go on spending on it. There is a lot of stuff that can be done. But the main question we need to ask oneself is do we really require it? can I still enjoy the drive without modifying? what difference will it bring to the drive if I do the changes? I got one of the best suspensions in the market with Dual bypass and stuff which i had never heard before and let me tell you in the desert its sheer bliss to drive the car. But on road just like what Hamilton is currently going through in his car i am facing with the same challenge. I need to go and have tuning done but its like every 6 months. y When I started Offroading i was introduced to extreme drives with other group which made me go for premium suspensions and beadlocks. If i would have joined carnity at the initial stage i would have not gone so crazy with the mods. With my experience, I would say individual should drive their car stock. With modifications does it mean you will not have a refusal? I doubt it. Yes there is piece of mind when the terrain is challenging. I have seen guys having modified every single part of their car but they do crest and have refusals. Finally I would like to say one thing "it is not the car but the driver". And another suggestion to guys who are planning to modify the cars. Go to newbie drives and get used to the modification for at least 3-4 drives. Better safe than sorry.

Our forums are rife with people discussing modifications that they are either doing or intending to do. There are clearly two camps: the modders and the purists. And there are those sitting on the fence. Neither camp is incorrect. And I don't think we should be trying to resolve the tension between the two. That's what makes the conversations here so darn interesting So when @Rob S called me out for pushing the "stock car" camp in drives, it forced me to rethink if I really have a true purist's machine. Having just completed a year at Carnity and owning my car, I've driven roughly 3,400 km off-road (thanks Gaia) in that time. And this coupled with Rob's shoutout, I felt like it made a good moment to reflect on what I've added to the car in that time, and answer the question - "is my car still stock?" To help bring some gradation to this, I'm going to employ the SAMR Model. The model is designed to study technology integration in the classroom, but the core strategic construct can be applied to vehicle upgrades too. After all, everything we do is integrating technology in various ways. Broadly speaking, technology integration is broken into two pillars - Enhancement looks to find direct substitutes or add-ons that don't fundamentally alter the core technology being used. For example, adding offroad lighting in any place that was not a light before, is augmenting a new use out of a previously unused area. Similarly, if you swapped out a Philips H4 Halogen bulb with an Osram one, or an LED one, you haven't physically altered the bulb housing or the reflector/projector setup. Transformation changes the design and/or definition of the part being used. For example, if you use an All/Terrain (A/T) tyre instead of a Highway/Terrain (H/T), you have fundamentally altered the part beyond it's core design. Therefore, an A/T tire is a modification. For our purpose, I will be using "Augmentation" to refer to Enhancement, and "Modification" to refer to Transformation. Here are all of the changes I've made over the past year of owning my Nissan Patrol (Y61) Long Wheelbase "Super Safari". *The priority coding is intended for you, and not for me. I can tell you for certain that the speaker upgrade was the single greatest thing I did. With this lexicon, it is clear that I've made four (4) modifications to car in the past year: A/T Tires, Fog Lights, Entertainment Head Unit, and Speaker System The truth is that the only true purist who can say they are driving their car as is would be somebody who has only installed a bash plate and is still running the H/T tires the car shipped with. Beyond that, almost every car has been modified from its original state in some way. And therefore, I'm not really driving a stock car anymore. But what long-term purists are constantly trying to help the modders avoid sinking their money into upgrades that are masquerading as significant incremental performance, but are instead purely aesthetic. And aesthetics are deeply personal. What looks good to you may not appeal to me, and vice versa. And secondly, pragmatic purists are trying to help modders stop and reflect about what is a true performance gain. Gaining 30bhp on a 250bhp car is a 12% performance gain. Your real, at-the-wheel bhp figures will be even lower. For example, if your car weighs 2,950kg and produces 271bhp; a 10bhp incremental lift will deliver a 3.7% gain in Power-to-Weight Ratio (PWR). But if you carry an additional human being weighing 50kg, this gain will go down by 2% to 1.7%. A half-empty fuel tank of 60L is already ~22 kgs lighter. So performance gains are notoriously difficult to get right unless you make the associated weight savings as well. And manufacture rated horsepower numbers are never the real at-wheel delivered power. And lastly, seasoned off-roaders (who actually care) are trying to ensure that anybody investing in a modification is "investing" in an upgrade that they know will fix a continued and replicated gap. Not being able to climb one or two times is not enough reason to tune your engine and get suspension upgrades. But, understanding the concepts of rebound and compression, and isolating how they affect your driving control when you try to negotiate steep or uneven climbs is. A seasoned offroader is just trying to impress upon you to invest the time and experience it takes to isolate where the real gain will emerge from. So, with these caveats and voices in my head, what might then, be further upgrades that I'm looking at in the future, you may ask: Aftermarket Shocks + Longer Springs (High) This will be my single biggest modification to the car, and I'm doing a ton of research to get it as close to right as possible. And I still may not do it for another year. The only real time I have felt the need for better shocks are when trying to build enough momentum over uneven dunes. In places like Iftar Bowl, when you climb from the right-hand side, there are a few humps in the get-go that my stock suspension just rebounds too much over. This leads to a lack in control and a fear that the bouncing front will rub the nose as I try to climb. If I take my ego out of the picture for not doing the climb, I don't actually really need the fancy Remote Reservoir or Dual-Shock setups. I can then instead look to make a suspension upgrade that will give me the ability to significantly increase my payload, increase comfort over rocky trails and corrugations, and account for additional weight in the front to prevent any nosediving. Cabin Drawer System (Medium) is a "redefinition" because it requires removing the third row of seats, and physically altering the space For all the things I want to stow away, and not have to constantly ratchet down. Dual-battery system (High) If you see above, I have a ton of lights If I add any more, and a fridge, and a rig to power any devices while camping, I will need an additional battery. One of the things that most of us never do when we add extra lights is to check for the current draw. Please do that, whenever you add additional electronics. This includes your entertainment head unit as well. And what are upgrades, I don't think I will be getting any time soon or at all: Beadlock Rims: I may even downgrade to the classic silver Nissan Rims on the Safari. The true benefit of using beadlocks is so far lost on me. If I was to truly upgrade my rims, I would go for forged wheels to reduce weight while increasing strength, than prioritise bead grip. Roof-rack: I don't currently see the full value in installing a roof-rack. I will only do this when I've exhausted the internal cabin space. The roofs of cars are not rated to carry the enormous loads that we subject on them. Furthermore, if weight distribution is not done correctly on the roof, it will significantly alter the center of gravity of my car. Exhaust Mods: As I live with a sportscar that is plenty loud to wake up the neighborhood, and is being tuned for the track, I prefer the "sleeper" silence of the Patrol. I've also gone to extreme lengths to deaden the internal cabin to hear music at the levels I like so getting louder outside seems counter-productive. Will this kick off another debate? I sure hope so. Like I said, that's what makes these forums so darn interesting. [ 🐵 ]

This is quite true. Most often the pop outs are due to the way one drives the car rather than the tires or the wheels. As an offroad driver, one needs to give a little more time to get familiar with your car than you think. When I upgraded my tires, I thought that I had a need to upgrade tires at that time. I was let down by a lot of refusals & crests while crisscrossing, and the general advice was slightly wider tires will help. On hindsight I can tell that with a little more patience & practice, I could have overcome that problem. The Pareto rule applies here as well. You reach your 80% potential with 20% effort but that last 20% of the potential takes 80% effort and we tend to throw money at it hoping it resolves the problem. Of course, money helps mitigate the issue, but you could always try a little more to achieve the same potential but with time. While I am at heart a purist, and don't like to make modifications that alter the look of the car - I love the way 285s look nice on my car.

Thankyou @munkybizness for bringing up this one. We started off-roading more or less at the same time and this might be a good time to consider this subject even though I would like to believe that I fall in to the category of so called 'purists' in terms of mods. I bought my Jeep mainly for off-roading (its not my daily driver), but I got it in stock form and tried to keep it the same. As of now the only thing I have done is 1- 80Amp Amaron battery as @Gaurav mentioned when my old one died. 2- I had my first pop out on my 53rd drive and until then I had kept the HT tyres came with the car when I bought it. Now I have changed to LT/AT tyre but with the stock measures of 245/75/R16. I had a presumption that changing to a bigger tyre will give me more traction but @Frederic advised me to keep it in stock size and I am glad that I did not change the size. Also to be honest I do not feel much of an improvement in performance by changing my HT tyre to AT (It looks great through!). But I feel the following mods are inevitable for me and hopefully can be accommodated in the next year's budget. 1. Head lights: changing the head lights (I have the stock Neon / Yellow ones and it does not even give me enough illumination on road let alone during a night drive. But I want that retro look and still have not managed to find a retro looking bright head light). 2. Suspension: I have stock suspensions/ shocks which gives me real trouble on bumpy climbs as it is very easy to loose momentum. I eventually want to go with a stiffer suspension. Many people have advised me to get a 2" lift along with the suspension (which apparently will improve my ridge riding abilities 😁) but I am still considering only about a stiffer suspension. 3. A roof rack: A Rhino / equal rack may be a good addition if I want to roam around with family during winter. Bonus will be the looks. Really like what @Ranjan Das got now.

This being one of the reasons why I ditched bead locks and went back to stock wheels. I am now forcing myself to drive differently and avoid pop-outs, as much as possible 😅. I also got a good car jack for those situations. Tires, according to the Y61 owner's manual you can move within the diameter range of 30.6" to 32.4", I compiled the information in a table and is shared below in case it helps anyone owning a Nissan Patrol Y61 ... items 8 and 9 are not stock, those are what I have installed.

@Simon Dawood @Chinthaka Ruwan please dont leave the drive 😭, I think the minimum is 4 cars?

Welcome to the drive @Ashok chaturvedi. See you later.

All I wanted to say @Gaurav is a better amp battery will prolong the death of a battery when its not charged properly by a competent alternator. The OEM battery is enough if you have an alternator which can power up the battery as per demand. But ultimately the battery will die if the alternator cannot cope with the power demands you subject the car. Light mods are taken lightly until you end up in the middle of no where with a dead battery

General Info This drive is organized in full compliance with the COVID19 guidelines. We expect every member that joins this drive to go through below information and and strictly follow these guidelines in order not to jeopardize someone's health, and to ensure we can keep organizing these drives safely. MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: COVID19 Precautions Mandatory Safety Requirements Ban from Carnity Off-road Club Two Way Radio Guidelines Drive Details Level: Fewbie and above When: 09 July 2022, Saturday Meeting time: 5:15 AM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: - https://goo.gl/maps/dmvrVEahLQhQyzyP6 Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 8-10 inches of ground clearance. What to bring along: Loads of water, snacks (for yourself), smiles, face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Approximate finish time: 09:15 AM P.S. Only join if you have a compressor to inflate your tires after the drive. LIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE: Limited to 10 cars only. RSVP will close on Friday - 2 PM. If the RSVP is full and you wish to join, please mention your name on the drive thread to add on the waiting list. Latecomers will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Members without RSVP will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Please withdraw your RSVP, if you aren't joining, so your spot can be taken by others. Repeated no-show members after RSVP will have their account suspended for a month. PLEASE RSVP ON THE BELOW CALENDAR EVENT

General Info This drive is organized in full compliance with the COVID19 guidelines. We expect every member that joins this drive to go through the below information and strictly follow these guidelines in order not to jeopardize someone's health, and to ensure we can keep organizing these drives safely. MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: COVID19 Precautions Mandatory Safety Requirements Ban from Carnity Off-road Club Two Way Radio Guidelines Drive Details Level: Newbie and above When: 9 July 2022, Saturday. Meeting time:(SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 8-10 inches of ground clearance. What to bring along: Loads of water, snacks (for yourself), face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Approximate finish time: 10:00 PM P.S. Only join if you have a compressor to inflate your tires after the drive. LIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE Limited to 10 cars only. RSVP will close on Friday 2 pm. If the RSVP is full and you wish to join, please mention your name on the drive thread to add on the waiting list. Latecomers will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Members without RSVP will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Please withdraw your RSVP, if you aren't joining, so your spot can be taken by others. Repeated no-show members after RSVP will have their account suspended for a month. PLEASE RSVP ON THE CALENDAR

Sorry, running late shall be with you in 15 minutes.

Thanks for the concern guys. Wifes absolutely fine, its the car that needs my attention😅. Its a small dent on the side but had taken some time from work so only time to sort out police report and insurance. Hope you all have fun

@ASAD. wish her all the best. See you next time,

I can answer this. Dobinson is a brand leader in offroading stuff. If they are selling something it must be good. Price is good. I can afford it. Let me have it. If I really need it I will know once I subject it to test. If it works I'm happy. If not consider this as a hobby and learning experience.

@Rob S guess you forgot to mention how you got convinced of those dobinsons?? 😂😂

Let me share you my experience. I have aux fans installed which someone suggested will cool the engine. Now fact is they don't. In fact they disrupt the air flow drawn in by the main fan and makes the engine run hotter when switched on. The only time they help is when you are idling in a traffic bottleneck. It helps the AC condenser to cool better and give you better temperature control inside the car when you are at snail pace. Due to the summer I use them often and forget to switch them off sometimes and end result is when I come out of a 2 hr meeting I find a dead car. Thankfully I have the good jumper cables being an offroader and I can even get a micra car owner to convince him to jump start my car. The proud look on his face after my car springs to life is really funny. Its because the jumper cables are so good and can really draw all the power from his battery to power a bigger car like mine. In that sense my better jumper cables is also a mod.

Where do I start with a reply on this one @munkybizness! and how do I keep a reply short . . . let me try! Part of the joy in being in a "car" club and seeing members every few weeks is to see how they have individually adapted/modified/personalized their "pride and joy". I smile when you say stock, because every time I join you on a drive a notice something a little different about your car . . . . . . I like your description and split of modifications but I am going to politely disagree with you on the subject of those monster front lights! I've seen them in the light and the dark, definitely not an augmentation, definitely a significant change and modification haha For me I look at anything as a change from "stock" as a modification (a bit like the UK insurance firms do!), and put these into 3 (though I sub-divide 1 into to parts). Need, Want, and Waste. its also important to note that it also depends on how much of a dedicated off road vehicle you have, and what you bought before you got the bug! 1. Need - if you have a car with 4 low and decent HP then there are only 3 (edited 4) things that falls into the category. Decent flag Mount, so you cant attach a proper flag! BashPlate to save the radiator / bumper and for those with newer 4x4s that follow the trend for bigger wheels and lower profile tyres, Some new Rims and Larger profile tyres. (edited - 4th, decent tow hooks if you dont have.) 2.a Want (sensible) - For confidence and/or less hassle. A/T Tyres with bigger profile if you own an older car, Auxiliary fan for transmission cooler in the summer if you car is susceptible. Kill switch for ABS / traction control. The Bumper cut I did on my prado was the single best thing I did. I no longer caught the bumper edges and it stopped my hesitation and over cautious driving. Along with the bashplate this change gave me much confidence and completely transformed how I enjoyed my time in the desert. Ive ended up fitting a Snorkel because I'm fed up of vacuuming out the airbox every weekend in the middle of the apartment parking! 2.b Want (less sensible)- To make time in the desert more enjoyable, or just for fun, or maybe just for looks, or because you have always wanted it! Some of us always wanted to have that loud exhaust, that remap, those fancy lights, the Wide wheel track, the lifted jeep. Many of us in UAE are here for a defined or limited period, the cost of modifications and labour, along with insurance rules mean for many of us this is the only time and place to do it! 3. Waste - For those new to the desert and 4x4 life, this list will depend on where you sit on the above. Reserved for Mods that are likely to make our cars worse. . . . . Lift springs without matched damper on a car with sufficient ground clearances, or maybe Beadlocks wheels, maybe a pedal commander, Open "oil based" air filter kit. PS - I was never going to be in the "1. Need" camp and moved quickly to "2.a Want (sensible)" and now probably in "2.b Want (less sensible)"

Thanks @Srikumarfor this short movie trailer which had my skid plates off the hook 😅! Wondering what will happen after full drive 😂….. hope you fixed your dhanno ! 😊🚗….. thanks everyone for joining the quick night drive !

Great topic @munkybizness. I would argue that there is no such thing as purists in off-roading, every offroader has had to in your words either had to augment or modify depending on his/ her or the cars needs. Therefore the judgement on whether someones driving stock will also depend what the other person thinks is essential for offroading and that stems out of mainly 2 things: tyres and suspension. I will come to these later. Another factor that I believe plays significantly is the state of your car. E.g. like yourself, many members in our club have bought new cars and how much they can tamper with the stock car depends on how much modification does the agency allow for it to still cover warranty. This i believe plays a big part in decision making. For others like me, who are driving older cars can go crazy with any modification possible or pick and choose as they like without thinking much of how you will deal with the agency. I started offroading with my 10+ year old car and having already clocked +250K Kms. Even then, i wanted to keep my car stock for as long as possible. The 8mm bash plate and flag mount were the first enhancements i got done, i would call them essentials even if you like to hit the dunes occasionally with light offroading. For me, after the essentials came the bumper trim. The essentials hardly altered the look of the car so I tried to maintain my stock bumper look and front skirt for as long as possible thinking it would be ok if i was careful. And up until my fewbie drives, it was perfectly fine but as the pace went up so did the risk of hitting the bumper. It came to a point where i was more worried about damaging my bumper than enjoying the drive and thats when i decided to have the bumper trim. The bumper trim opened the flood gates for me 😝. Once the car lost its family looks, i could basically do whatever i wanted with it. I did get the some offroad lights with the bumper trim. My next upgrade were the wheels, this was only triggered after a few pop-outs. I went on to get the method beadgrips just for this purpose. Though if i were to redo this, i wouldnt have changed my wheels in the first place, i bought them out of only frustration of having pop-outs, a couple of them only btw but they were enough for me to think the problem was the wheels rather than the way i was driving. My last upgrade was the suspension and safe to say the most satisfying one. I wont go into details as this is the most widely discussed topic in offroading communities as well as in carnity, the choice of whether a suspension upgrade is required or which one suits you or your car is very subjective and depends on how much you can or want to spend . But all i can say is that it has given me the confidence to push the car more and not worry about it bouncing everywhere, so in a way it has added to its protection.

Well done @varunmehndirattacongratulations , look forward to be following you...

Congrats @varunmehndiratta Well done. Hope to join one of your convoys soon. Love your trip posts and briefs😊

I'm available, if the drive is not full by Thursday. On waitlist. 0507080314

Lisaili to Qudra: The Hot Stuff - Drive Report "Most people will not change when they see the light. They change when they feel the heat." - Rumi I did not have this Rumi quote in mind when organizing the drive. Nonetheless, perhaps the drive managed to "change", hopefully for the better, some of the members' driving habits, especially referring to hot whether conditions on soft sand. As @Sunil Mathew, @Joseph Sebastian, and @Paolo Pellegrini have already reported, all members interpreted the spirit of the drive to perfection, rising to the challenge posed by the heat of the later summer morning departure. The terrain selected for the drive went from quite technical at the very beginning, on the short and packed dunes left of Lisaili's camel track, to more open long range dunes, for most of the Lisaili plateau. Actually, having entered much closer to the camel track than usually, that is more to the north-east, the track proved ideal to cross mostly untouched dunes, in a southern direction, heading toward the sabkhas between Lisaili and Murqaab. This area was perfect for practicing side sloping, ridge riding and criss-crossing, with an uninterrupted drive, until a double pop-out stopped the convoy for a short while. The situation provided the opportunity to demonstrate the need for proper tools, such as a sturdy board and e hydraulic jack (2 tons min.), which I would recommend to any Fewbie and above, just for these kind of easily encountered occurrences. After resuming the drive, all went as well as expected, with a few detours from the usual track, and a minimum number of stops to solve some refusals and stucks (nothing out of the ordinary). Having reached the Solar Park area in good time, we all agreed to prolong the drive to Qudra's Last Exit. The new access to Qudra from the end of Lisaili's pylon track proved a bit tricky: the loose sand from the abundant road works, as well a a very bushy area led to a couple of complicated refusals, within a few meters from the tarmac. After solving them, we managed to enter Qudra's southern quadrant, driving shortly along the bike track, and then through the very long and open dunes, dotted with some nice bowls, between the bike track and the pylons. From there it took no time to zip north toward the Last Exit. @Sunil Mathew, which I thank very much for both his role as Anchor, has already been very explicative in his report of the drive's main takeaways report, so I will not linger with any further recommendations. I thank @Andrew McCarthy for his clean Second Lead, @TT_Dubai for his Sweep, and @Joseph Sebastian, @Imran Kashif, @Paolo Pellegrini, @Federico Galbieri, @Gurcharan Mehta, and @Gerrit Bus for joining and bearing the heat of the drive. As intended, the heat did not take anything away from the drive. The itinerary covered 80 Km. in 2:46 hr of driving (out of total of 4:23 hr), moving at a very brisk (better...hot) average speed of 29 Km./hr. See you all soon in the desert.

@Ale Vallecchi wife had a small accident, will have to sort it out and wont be able to make it on time for drive unfortunately. My apologies.