How road worthy is a stock WJ? How much lateral G can it produce? On a skid pad, will it break away or rollover first?

In my younger years, I threw around my Chevy K10 a bit and was surprized at how much abuse it would take being as it was a monster. I actually slid it sideways on dry pavement once and I thought I was going to die, but it stayed upright. I DID have to change my pants, though!

Anybody have tales to tell? The double live axle setup seems pretty solid for stability at moderate speeds, but I wonder what happens when you push the limits.

 

It would most likely do more on a skid pad than I'm willing to try. I think a 2wd WJ that has been lowered would look pretty cool and handle pretty good.

 

ive slid my ZJ around corners and it felt solid, and ive got a BB. id imagine a stock one would handle even better. i know not a WJ but similar

 

I know my question sounds strange when talking about Jeeps, but I have a history of rallying and autocross with a 67 Camero. My goal was to be competitive with Corvettes and I did pretty well. But that was when I was young and foolish. I had my Camero in a flat spin at 70 mph and that put the fear of death in me. Never again!

Since going to 4X4 trucks and Jeeps, I know their CG is way too high and the fear of rollover is too great to push the limits. I was just curious if anyone else had done the unthinkable.

After all, having fun is the name of the game, isn't it?

 

in the right hands (not mine) my 95 YZ has seen some mind bending speeds in tarmac corners....they handle massively well though nothing approaching a .95g turn or anything like that. But roll over or slide I can't say. with the screech I would expect a slide would start before tipping. Definitely faster than you would expect for it not to roll. this was pure stock with standard all season shoes.

so on the dusties I would expect it would be quite a good time if not lifted.

 

If you "reached the screech" with radials, you were about at the limit before break-away. The problem with radials is once they break away, there's not much chance of catching it. That's what happened with my Camero. When she broke away, she spun 3 times before bleeding off enough speed to grab again. Luckily, I was on an aircraft parking area and had plenty of room without hitting anything. 5 acres of blacktop with nothing on it except me.

 

I think with enough horsepower you might be able to even drift Grand But having that high of a center of gravity on a skidpad I'm just not sure if the tires would break loose before it rolled or not. Good question though.

My son showed it to me. It's a little off subject. I you want to see a video of something lifted with 34 inches of travel breaking the tires loose & sideways on dry pavement do a search on you tube " Monster Energy Ballistic B.J. Baldwin #Recoil " It's pretty wild.

 

I once saw a video of teenage shieks in Saudi Arabia, with nothing better to do, trying to drift Lincoln and Mersedes SUVs and basically destroying them for fun. I wish I had the link, but it was a long time ago. It must be nice to burn up daddy's money and laugh about it!

 

heyzeus cristy





so yeah, you can drift a ZJ....

 

supposedly a lot of the expensive cars over there are stolen. I read some article about stolen high end cars and the one line I remember was "within 24 hours they're on a shipping container headed overseas."

Considering all the carnage in those videos, it's amazing there are always new ones on youtube/liveleak with spectators getting smashed or passengers thrown 50 feet from the car. you'd think at least the spectators would learn.

 

I had a 04 wj with the 4.7. Before I put the 2" lift on it, it handled very very well! Even after I put the lift on it, she did well just a lil more body roll. But it would drift on dry pavement spinning all 4 tires. I pushed it pretty far and she took every bit of it.

 

Okay guys. I'm impressed. I guess I could run away from the cops, right? lol.

I guess my mature mind is too old for that crap. Sure looks like fun, though.

Actually, the double live axle setup is probably the most stable platform for cornering, although not very sophisticated. It puts a lot of mass close to the road. Heavy is not good for high performance racing.

A friend of mine said about my Chev K10 with leaf springs up front. "Rides like a bronco, corners like a couch."

That video was not the one I saw. That one was at night with guys in white robes. Navigators, Escalades, and Mercs.

 

There's a lot you can do to the 4.7 to crank out some awesome horsepower!

 

I'm not so sure I'd want to trounce on a 4.7. It seems like a fragile motor to me, but that's just my opinion. That looks awesome though!

 

I had no problems with mine. Just when they get high miles 170k+ the timing chain guide falls apart. Same though with the 3.7 and 5.7.