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End of the Fun BuggyThe Never-Ending Saga Actually Does From the March, 2010 issue of 4Wheel & Off-Road By Fred Williams Photography by 4-Wheel & Off -Road Staff, Fred Williams
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The Fun Buggy is done! It has been built, fixed, raced, fixed, gone on Ultimate Adventure, fixed, and is now settling in as my extreme wheeler of choice. It started out as a pile of tubes on the floor of Poly Performance's fabrication shop and is now both a great wheeling and street-legal machine in the state of California. Getting it ready for Ultimate Adventure 2009 required another round of upgrades and repairs, but it made the 1,000-plus-mile trip without too many issues and is now ready for wheeling anywhere, anytime. In fact, finding time to wheel is the biggest problem I have with the buggy these days. Legalize it!
In California there is a system where you can register a specially constructed vehicle and every year 500 of these applicants can apply for an emissions-free verification known as SB100. This allows the vehicle to be judged on its appearance, not its engine. I got one of these Specially Constructed Sequence Numbers for the Fun Buggy. All that was left was a trip to the state emissions referee to verify that the buggy was indeed street legal. Since the buggy didn't represent any known make, model, or year of vehicle, it only had to pass 1960s emission rules. All this requires is a PCV valve and system. I installed about $20 of valve and hoses, passed the inspection, and was street legal. Find out more at www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/spcns.htm.  Most aftermarket fuel injection...  Most aftermarket fuel injection systems require some sort of user input to get the fuel tables and timing just perfect, so I took the Fun Buggy to Advanced Performance Engineering, where Tom Habryzyk hooked it up and got everything tip-top. No more choking on steep climbs and plenty of mojo when I put the throttle down. When it comes to EFI tuning, taking it to an expert will make your life much easier.  Another item of contention...  Another item of contention with the Fun Buggy was the Axletech Portals we installed in the Aug. '09 issue. I love the 5 inches of additional ground clearance, but the 1.5:1 gearing when mixed with the 5.38 axle gears was too low for any highway cruising, so it was time to upgrade to some West Coast Differential 4.10 gears. West Coast offers both its own line of Sierra gears and factory Spicer parts depending on your application.  To get the new West Coast...  To get the new West Coast gears back in my Dynatrac axles I returned to Dynatrac. These guys have been great to work with and are some of the best gear men in the business. Since we were changing gears across the 4.10/4.56 Dana 60 gear split, I also needed new carriers so chose to upgrade to ARB Air Lockers.  Air Lockers offer a selection...  Air Lockers offer a selection between an open differential and a spool. Open diffs are very helpful in sand, steep loose side hills, and on the street, all areas the Fun Buggy will encounter. Dynatrac is painstakingly precise with its ARB installs down to checking that the seals hold pressure to ensure against trailside frustration.  Like a rolling snowball, changing...  Like a rolling snowball, changing to the 4.10 gears and ARB Air Locker also grew into finding a place for the ARB mini compressor and required new axleshafts. The old Detroit Lockers were made for 13/4-inch 40-spline axleshafts, but the ARB is for 35-spline 11/2-inch shafts. I upgraded all my front axleshafts to Made in the USA Superior Chromoly shafts since they were off-the-shelf lengths, 18.70-inch short side and 34.56-inch long side.  Going to smaller axleshafts...  Going to smaller axleshafts may seem like a downgrade, but the portals actually reduce the stress on the shafts. Rear axle duty was fulfilled with a set of CTM Racing 300M axleshafts, some of the strongest on the market. These 27.17-inch and 26.18-inch heat-treated rear shafts and the front Superior axles are all fitted with CTM Dana 60 U-joints.  The Fabricated aluminum valve...  The Fabricated aluminum valve covers on our ZZ383 never sealed correctly, so I swapped in some basic black steel GM Performance Parts center bolt covers with factory-style poly/rubber gaskets. The leaks stopped.  The underhood temperature...  The underhood temperature was also a problem, and soon the plug wires were cracked and falling apart from the heat. I upgraded to a new set of MSD 8.5mm Super Conductor wires, but now with high-temp plug boots and high=temp sheathing.  Since the axle mounts were...  Since the axle mounts were designed around a straight axle and the portal box put addition stress on the link mounts, the upper front link mount started tearing off the axle truss (arrow). Plus the front axle has only one upper link mount. I reinforced the mount with additional gussets and it survived through the Ultimate Adventure, but either a redesign or a standard four-link suspension layout will be required for the future.  Another legal problem was...  Another legal problem was a parking brake that had to be a separate system from my hydraulic brakes. I worked with Axletech to mount a SSBC brake caliper on the left rear brake rotor in addition to the normal brakes. This is activated by a cable going to a Lokar brake handle on the body panel next to my leg. ...  ...Now I had everything for...  ...Now I had everything for the brake and light inspection: headlights, taillights, turn signals, hazard signals, a high-beam indicator on the dashboard, a parking brake, a windshield with wipers, separate front and rear brake systems (two-chamber master cylinder), and a reverse light.
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