Foxtrot Oscar

6 minutes ago, Darren Brooke said:

Brilliant  see you tomorrow

Yaaas! Hee hee 

Drive Report

The air was cool, the night sky was clear, and the opportunity to drive with the windows down at this time of year was very welcome. We started off on the track, as I didn’t want to disturb residents with a  12 strong convoy who lit up the night sky with an array of off-road lights. We reached the sand and started off gently, finding both our night vision and desert wheels as we meandered through Murquab’s dunes.  It was a nice gentle way to become acclimatised. At one point we came across so many gazelles , more than I have ever seen, it was a beautiful sight.

As the drive progressed so did the level and we had the opportunity to side slope and cross over some dunes. We had one or two refusals as we did so , but nothing major. We played around the areas some more and then at the top of the dune just before the sabka we decided to turn off the engines, and lights to gaze at the night stars stretching out before us. It truly was wonderful.

We took the SZR through the small technical patch that led us to the north of Solar Park. Here we found some lovely low-level dunes that allowed us to get on top and do a little ridge riding and crossing. The technical challenge increased ever so slightly as some tight maneuvers were executed with the convoy coping admirably. As the dunes increased in size, we continued to side slope and cross them. Again, we had a couple of refusals and I think just one crest. That said, the convoy was doing exceptionally well considering, for many , this was their first night drive.

As the clock struck midnight and with everyone driving well we had a choice to make, keep going or know when we’ve had enough of a good thing. I decided that , as always with these things, one final push may have been a push too far. We made our way out of the dunes and headed across the Sabka to the tracks and finally the tarmac.

It was a nice , chilled , fun drive and that was made possible by the convoy. @Chris Meir , @Nithin Vaidir and @Richard Franks you all  coped really well with some technical aspects, with just a couple of refusals and I think one stuck, well done. Likewise the guys further back, @Ehab  @luis mantecon, @Anand Nataraj  and @Danish Mohammad  just a couple of easy refusals nothing major.
I might have said yalla, did I say yalla? Haha I pushed you, I know I did, thank you , you really did cope admirably.  

Many thanks to my support team, @Pacific at 2^nd lead who did a great job, @GauravSoni as my CF who was always on hand to assist with refusals and stucks.  Likewise  @Abdul Rahman AKhad the pleasure of helping GS get unstuck , well done and of course @Tbonefor assisting the convoy at the back and keeping us all moving. Great work guys.

Once again thank you all  for accompanying me on this night adventure, for listening to instructions, communicating clearly and driving so well!  I had so much fun!

Until our next adventure 😎

@Darren Brooke You're in, can you still make it?

Current waitlist

 

1. @Darren Brooke

2. @Werno
3. @Thomas Varghese
4. @Xavier Treasurer 
5 @Jack Thomas

14 hours ago, RooRzOn said:

Is this really from 3:30pm till 9pm?

No, it was a typo, we should exit around 7.30pm

Congratulations @WaYan

Well done @Hisham Masaad 👏

Good morning fellow adventurers,

Tomorrow night's drive will see us gather under the trees in Murquab to deflate and prepare ourselves for a night of driving in the moonlight. The forecast is predicting clear skies, and a gentle breeze so lots of star gazing away from the light pollution of the city .

This is a fun area with lots of nice challenges which will present further challenges in the dark. Let's see how we do but the plan is to exit around Solar Park.

We shall use Carnity Channel 2 (two) 446.031

My proposed convoy is as follows:

 

Please let me know asap if , for one reason or another, you are unable to join as we currently have a waitlist.

See you all tomorrow  

Good morning fellow adventurers,

Tomorrow night's drive will see us gather under the trees in Murquab to deflate and prepare ourselves for a night of driving in the moonlight. The forecast is predicting clear skies, and a gentle breeze so lots of star gazing away from the light pollution of the city .

This is a fun area with lots of nice challenges which will present further challenges in the dark. Let's see how we do but the plan is to exit around Solar Park.

We shall use Carnity Channel 2 (two) 446.031

My proposed convoy is as follows:

 

Please let me know asap if , for one reason or another, you are unable to join as we currently have a waitlist.

See you all tomorrow  

2 hours ago, Jack Thomas said:

Hi @Foxtrot Oscar

This would be my first weekend drive can I be put on the reserve list.

 

Cheers

Jack

Sure thing

Amazing! Well done @Islam Soliman

1 minute ago, Wade Pat2 said:

Speaking as someone who purchased a car just to spend money , rebuild and mod as a hobby.

If you want to lift and start down the modding road because it's fun..go for it. 

Rebuilding and conservatively modding is my favourite part of off-road. I fix, research, buy, search for and swap parts and mods way more than I actuall drive. Haha

One day  i hope to have the skills to do just that, but as of now I window shop, buy and pay someone else 😄

52 minutes ago, Chaitanya D said:

Some more pics  and links added for your interest.  Please analyze thoroughly before you decide on one. 

You know, it just looks like the lift mod brings a heap of issues. For the X at least. 

As I said to @Wade Pat2so far my stock ReBelle X has managed all level of drives, including Extreme, so I really don't need it

29 minutes ago, Wade Pat2 said:

I vote "NO LIFT" . Only because for me as a beginner seeing marshals and expert driver in stock or mostly stock vehicles helps to build confidence. Similar to "I can make it because the car in front of me made it". 

Seeing modified vehicles gives all us newbies the thought of.  Well, If I had "that modified car" I could do those things. Seeing the many marshals and expert drivers at Carnity promoting only the mods you "need" for your vehicle is great and one reason why I am here and not with another club. 

If you want a lift just because you like it, that's different. Buy the best one in your budget and enjoy  

Just my opinions of course.. Its also way more cool to drive at your level without big mods so all of the crazy dune bashing big mod groups watch in amazement when you drive past them effortlessly.

Yes, of course! And I have led and taken part in Intermediate and Extreme drives in my 'stock X' with no issues. Therefore,  I don't really need it, I just like to spend money haha. 

Thank you for helping me make up my mind . 

4 hours ago, Zixuan Huang said:

I put on a 50cm suspension spacer lift to my pathfinder last week. Everything is good, no gravity issue no rubbing against any parts. My tyre size is 265 70 r16 (Stock), I believe this should be the same to Xterra if the tyre size matches

I did the lift purely to improve pathfinder's poor clearance and angles, and ofc the cost isnt as much as swapping the suspensions, 500 AED for the 4 spacers + labor cost.

Oh , I’ll research it for the X 

6 hours ago, Chaitanya D said:

Disclaimer - most of my information is gathered by reading from the xterra forums www.newx.org and the tons of discussions on the xterra group in Dubai. I felt the crux being for off road models, the stiffer Bilstein 5100 is good enough sans the lift .

2 to 2.5 inch lift (not with spacer to level but with stiffer coil struts in front and leafs at back) would be useful 

     1. For better off road clearance 

     2. Slightly better performance off road with better suspension travels 

Yes the COG is affected , and hence it can be negated to some extent with 35 to 38 mm spacers . (Within the RTA allowed limits which I believe is upto 2 inches . Anything more and your car might not pass the annual clearing). Other option being to go for more expensive offset rims which are again like finding hens teeth, very limited options.

Spacers cause rubbing of your wheels against the inner wheel liner , which needs a "melt mod" . Basically pushing in the bumpy plastic liner parts after softening with a heat gun. Only if you go for a tire upsize (potentially decreasing the power you need on sand)you will need more adjustments in terms of fender cuts and bumper cuts. Another minor issue being the long travel would potentially cause  hitting at the top, which can be minimised by changing the bump stops to a thicker ones (Change the X bump stops to the FJ ones )

Why there is so much confusion with the lifts/suspension on X (especially in Dubai) is

1. Options available are limited unlike the jeeps or FJ - few actually understand the correct mechanics involved and the adjustments to be made.

2. Wierd placement options for the oil reservoirs (if you opt for ones with remote reservoirs which are a bit more expensive ) , which may not serve the optimal function as intended to be or claimed .

3. Bilstein 5100 stock on off road models is good enough for abuse , and pretty pocket friendly.

4. Rear sway bar rubs against thicker shocks when you change them to stiffer (thick ) ones .(controversial - different opinions)

5. With stiffer lifts - and off road revving engine /gear mounts are prone to break more frequently - which are inherently bit weaker in the X (controversial- different opinions).

6. With stiffer leafs at the back combined with stiffer shocks you will need angle correction  shims - else you will have vibrations at higher speeds.

7. Stiffer struts at the front tend to squeak probably due to sand sticking in some washers /bushes ,  so potentially both front and back could squeak.  Not sure if this happens with all brands. And hence you will need a music system upgrade to better speakers, amp etc etc to nullify it🤣🤣.

8. Widening the stance with spacers or offset rims potentially reduces the wheel bearing life span causing them to wear and tear at a faster rate than stock.

1 to 8 is as much I understood reading all the information available,  but since I am not an expert i would like to improve on that if there is anything more clear.

I hope you could find an answer,  or now have more questions 🤣🤣🤣

 

 

 

Amazing ! Thank you , you’ve put me right off 🤣

We all love the X for its ready to use off-road prowess but recently I've been toying with getting it lifted, 2 inches or so. I feel it would offer me better off road performance, but then some say the centre of gravity is thrown but spacers would sort that. Would I need to change the wheels? (stock at present)

I'm not sure, I guess with a body lift you'd need to cut the bumper? And what about a suspension lift? Any advice X guys and gals?





I want!!! Oh , just clocked the snorkel (clearly right hand drive haha)

I think they are mostly fabricated , but AOR do one that fits. 

It looks too extreme to me, leaving too much exposed .

I've seen the bottom corners shaved off , looks better

49 minutes ago, Niki said:

Coming back here as being inspired by the Molle solutions, I had a local fabricator copy an online set of baskets I had seen, with thick enough aluminum to secure items in the future and use the space above the wheel wells more effectively.   

Just sharing here as this thread had a lot of contributors plus inspiration for me and will set up a mirror of this on the FJ forum as hijacking the ‘X’ forum, though fun, isn’t fair  

 

Very cool

16 hours ago, Srikumar said:

Another technique, which I am still practicing is to keep the engine revs constant during the gear shift, that means I am trying to hold the gas steady. .

I read that and thought you meant you were attempting float shifting on hill climbs  🤯 Was gonna ask how your gearbox was surviving.

I've only ever done it in extreme emergency situations, like my clutch went in France and had to drive all the way back to Scotland double dipping and float shifting ....the joys hahaha

Waitlist 

1. @Humayun Ghias
2. @Darren Brooke

3. @Werno
4. @Thomas Varghese

2 minutes ago, Humayun Ghias said:

Please waitlist me for the drive. So bummed I got late 

You are top of the waitlist 

5 minutes ago, Ranjan Das said:

Hi Angela @Foxtrot Oscarplease put me on WL. 2nd drive over the weekend

Hi @Foxtrot Oscarthis drive’s on Jun 3rd which is a Thursday.

Indeed it is , Thursday night, let's get our drive on haha

@Arman @Rory AshmanI knew this topic would be covered somewhere.

Perhaps our other manual drivers can offer some hints and tips?

5 hours ago, Arman said:

Looked like a fun drive that slowly ramped up in intensity as everyone got more comfortable with their cars, was nice to see @Rory Ashman get into a good rhythm after a couple stucks at the beginning, it might be worth a try to drive with some of the manual car owners in carnity although they are sparce like @Srikumar and @Jeepie, im sure they'll have some great insights about driving stick in the desert, particularly around trying not to burn your clutch as that's a very common issue here.

I was MEGA excited about that popped out 🤣 the moment i felt the distinct rumbling and pull of a pop out the little boy in me had a moment of pure joy! So much so that i jumped out of the car an celebrated. This is a great thing to experience early in your drives as getting your first pop out much later would've mad for a harsher learning experience.

Also @Desert Dweller you may or may not still have my spare radio😅

I have your spare radio haha