Speed UTV

 "do you have a pic of my car at the drags?"

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Needs MOAR Paddle.

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My observation at G was positive with a couple new owners ...I had a great discussion with two new speed owners at the bottom of China wall. Both picked their cars up in Havasu the week and two weeks  before and put over 100 miles on them Both had the usual "nit" issues and had to bring them back a couple times,   but said nothing is better in the desert, one came from a RZR Turbo and the other had a history of sand cars then various SxS's 

Knowledgeable guys but serious RG Fanboys - Speed hats and shirts too on them ands the passengers.  It was their 3rd day at G, Both said they were bottoming out in the dunes with two adults and two smallish children in one case and just two rather large adults in the other case  - we duned around with them a bit  - they said they could not wait for the Speed Key but did not feel underpowered compared to other SxS's  

I asked how the clutch/belt  felt and one of the guys had already made a lot of adjustments to his clutch , apparently thats a big feature and easy to do? - We watched a couple Maverick R's hit china at a good clip while we were sitting and talking, and I asked if they went up it yet,  they both said belts are cheaper the trans and don't trust the DCT's  but them they went up china twice and came down belts intact... but so did the Mav's in basically  1/2 the time 

Cars seemed well planted  and stable to me .. all all took off  with them heading same direction, 2 minutes later one of the rear  "bling wheels" on the Pro-R we were with decided to exit the center hub of the wheel as he was hot tailing it around one of the Speeds, that was fun and remindfed me of why I don't buy china crap for $1000 a wheel ...

I still feel the speed is a desert car with a killer chassis, it just seems to be set up for that purpose and looks the part,  and  I am not ready to make it my Sand car - for that I'll stick to a purpose built High HP Sand Car , but for desert, I really like it  and it made me feel far safer than driving than I get with a RZR or even a Ham 

 
My observation at G was positive with a couple new owners ...I had a great discussion with two new speed owners at the bottom of China wall. Both picked their cars up in Havasu the week and two weeks  before and put over 100 miles on them Both had the usual "nit" issues and had to bring them back a couple times,   but said nothing is better in the desert, one came from a RZR Turbo and the other had a history of sand cars then various SxS's 

Knowledgeable guys but serious RG Fanboys - Speed hats and shirts too on them ands the passengers.  It was their 3rd day at G, Both said they were bottoming out in the dunes with two adults and two smallish children in one case and just two rather large adults in the other case  - we duned around with them a bit  - they said they could not wait for the Speed Key but did not feel underpowered compared to other SxS's  

I asked how the clutch/belt  felt and one of the guys had already made a lot of adjustments to his clutch , apparently thats a big feature and easy to do? - We watched a couple Maverick R's hit china at a good clip while we were sitting and talking, and I asked if they went up it yet,  they both said belts are cheaper the trans and don't trust the DCT's  but them they went up china twice and came down belts intact... but so did the Mav's in basically  1/2 the time 

Cars seemed well planted  and stable to me .. all all took off  with them heading same direction, 2 minutes later one of the rear  "bling wheels" on the Pro-R we were with decided to exit the center hub of the wheel as he was hot tailing it around one of the Speeds, that was fun and remindfed me of why I don't buy china crap for $1000 a wheel ...

I still feel the speed is a desert car with a killer chassis, it just seems to be set up for that purpose and looks the part,  and  I am not ready to make it my Sand car - for that I'll stick to a purpose built High HP Sand Car , but for desert, I really like it  and it made me feel far safer than driving than I get with a RZR or even a Ham 
They try any adjustments to stop the bottoming? I take it suspension bottoming, not casing like an X3…

 
My observation at G was positive with a couple new owners ...I had a great discussion with two new speed owners at the bottom of China wall. Both picked their cars up in Havasu the week and two weeks  before and put over 100 miles on them Both had the usual "nit" issues and had to bring them back a couple times,   but said nothing is better in the desert, one came from a RZR Turbo and the other had a history of sand cars then various SxS's 

Knowledgeable guys but serious RG Fanboys - Speed hats and shirts too on them ands the passengers.  It was their 3rd day at G, Both said they were bottoming out in the dunes with two adults and two smallish children in one case and just two rather large adults in the other case  - we duned around with them a bit  - they said they could not wait for the Speed Key but did not feel underpowered compared to other SxS's  

I asked how the clutch/belt  felt and one of the guys had already made a lot of adjustments to his clutch , apparently thats a big feature and easy to do? - We watched a couple Maverick R's hit china at a good clip while we were sitting and talking, and I asked if they went up it yet,  they both said belts are cheaper the trans and don't trust the DCT's  but them they went up china twice and came down belts intact... but so did the Mav's in basically  1/2 the time 

Cars seemed well planted  and stable to me .. all all took off  with them heading same direction, 2 minutes later one of the rear  "bling wheels" on the Pro-R we were with decided to exit the center hub of the wheel as he was hot tailing it around one of the Speeds, that was fun and remindfed me of why I don't buy china crap for $1000 a wheel ...

I still feel the speed is a desert car with a killer chassis, it just seems to be set up for that purpose and looks the part,  and  I am not ready to make it my Sand car - for that I'll stick to a purpose built High HP Sand Car , but for desert, I really like it  and it made me feel far safer than driving than I get with a RZR or even a Ham 
The Speed UTV is 100% a desert SXS.   Soft suspension is set up to eat up the desert.  

If you want to cruise the dunes the Speed UTV will be fine.  If you want to get after it there are much better choices in SXSs for the dunes.    I think the Pro R, X3, and Maverick R are much better for the dunes. 

 
My observation at G was positive with a couple new owners ...I had a great discussion with two new speed owners at the bottom of China wall. Both picked their cars up in Havasu the week and two weeks  before and put over 100 miles on them Both had the usual "nit" issues and had to bring them back a couple times,   but said nothing is better in the desert, one came from a RZR Turbo and the other had a history of sand cars then various SxS's 

Knowledgeable guys but serious RG Fanboys - Speed hats and shirts too on them ands the passengers.  It was their 3rd day at G, Both said they were bottoming out in the dunes with two adults and two smallish children in one case and just two rather large adults in the other case  - we duned around with them a bit  - they said they could not wait for the Speed Key but did not feel underpowered compared to other SxS's  

I asked how the clutch/belt  felt and one of the guys had already made a lot of adjustments to his clutch , apparently thats a big feature and easy to do? - We watched a couple Maverick R's hit china at a good clip while we were sitting and talking, and I asked if they went up it yet,  they both said belts are cheaper the trans and don't trust the DCT's  but them they went up china twice and came down belts intact... but so did the Mav's in basically  1/2 the time 

Cars seemed well planted  and stable to me .. all all took off  with them heading same direction, 2 minutes later one of the rear  "bling wheels" on the Pro-R we were with decided to exit the center hub of the wheel as he was hot tailing it around one of the Speeds, that was fun and remindfed me of why I don't buy china crap for $1000 a wheel ...

I still feel the speed is a desert car with a killer chassis, it just seems to be set up for that purpose and looks the part,  and  I am not ready to make it my Sand car - for that I'll stick to a purpose built High HP Sand Car , but for desert, I really like it  and it made me feel far safer than driving than I get with a RZR or even a Ham 
There you have it gents.  Both cars went up China Wall lol.  But Chupacabra already said for dunes you need to adjust the springs or even better get Eibach... Not a bad car for 1st year release and by this time next season I hope to have my Speed and many aftermarket as well as Speed key will be ready.  I know I'd be just fine with 300 HP and a dune tuned clutch.

 
They try any adjustments to stop the bottoming? I take it suspension bottoming, not casing like an X3…
they played with the compression on the shocks and put a couple turns on the spring which they said was pretty hard to get to.. they said  it helped a little but not a lot 

One thing they both said was that after the 100+ miles in Havasu the ride height was way down and they brought them back and had them adjusted this was a a "nit" to them since Speed took care of it right away ... it did not sound like Speed was using a good quality spring, it seemed top settle a lot 

As much as a lot of people like to quote Chupa Nick said this or that, I still like hearing from other owners 

these guys I bet will be great to catch up with after a couple more trips  and after the Speed Key

 
they played with the compression on the shocks and put a couple turns on the spring which they said was pretty hard to get to.. they said  it helped a little but not a lot 

One thing they both said was that after the 100+ miles in Havasu the ride height was way down and they brought them back and had them adjusted this was a a "nit" to them since Speed took care of it right away ... it did not sound like Speed was using a good quality spring, it seemed top settle a lot 

As much as a lot of people like to quote Chupa Nick said this or that, I still like hearing from other owners 

these guys I bet will be great to catch up with after a couple more trips  and after the Speed Key
Yep. Lots of wagon circling, was waiting to hear the opinion of regular Joe Duner with no skin in the game. 

 
It's crazy to me that all the manufactures have a spring sag issue, but not once have I ever heard of King, Eibach, blue spring, etc... have issues once with sagging. On my XX the factory springs sagged 3 times in 800 miles and I was coil bound, got new springs from Bandit and have not changed ride height in over 2000 miles. How bad is the QC or material choice for all the stock springs?

 
I got my email to setup my final pre-delivery/manufacturing consultation on 29 OCT.  This means my car is going to production soon, not that it has been produced.  I'm Master 630 IIRC, but will be a pretty early UTT aka Diablo.  I'm excited, but also have my doubts/fears given this issues folks have been having.  I ended up keeping my Funco (unless anybody wants to throw me an offer I can't refuse) so the Speed will be a desert car for me... I think it's going to work well for that use case, and as an occasional backup in G. We'll see I guess... 

-TJ

 
Cracking turbo's?  This is the first I have heard of it.  Is this a widespread issue?

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Cracking turbo's?  This is the first I have heard of it.  Is this a widespread issue?

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So, here's the thing... watch this vid:


You can see that the "boost" readout on the dash is most likely not boost, but Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP).  Arguably that is a mistake, or at least the display shouldn't be labeled as "boost." 

Boost is commonly agreed to be the difference in manifold pressure as compared to current atmospheric pressure.  I really don't think the thing is making 11.9psi of actual boost just putting around before he makes the pull (at about 12 seconds into the vid), it's probably 11.9psi MAP.  What we're probably seeing is atmosphere (~14.7psi at sea level) minus some engine vacuum.  Let's say at cruise like that it's pulling ~6 inHg, that's ~3 psi, so if he's around sea level the 11.9 displayed adds up (aka, something like 14.7psi of atmosphere minus 3psi of engine vacuum the manifold absolute pressure is around high 11s).  

When he gets on it you see it goes to ~30psi, I'm pretty confident these things aren't running 30+ psi of actual boost stock, on 91 octane.  To fully understand the screen cap above we need more data.  They mention out first they were seeing 30 psi of boost, now 26... well I content that's MAP.  And whether it is truly boost, or MAP I'm not sure how they get that a change from 30psi to 26psi is 8-10psi lost? 

The other question is how the Speed controls boost.  If they run a mechanical wastegate that is referenced to atmosphere a 4psi difference in atmospheric pressure (aka, change in altitude) would manifest as a 4psi change in MAP (what I believe is shown on the dash).  So that could explain the change from 30psi to 26psi noted by RiverDave. 

Now, I *ass*ume they actually use the ECU for boost (WG) control in which case I'd expect it to actually be indexed on MAP.  With electronic boost (WG) control the ECU would be setup with MAP targets, not boost targets.  If 30psi MAP is the WOT target at sea level the turbo only has to add ~15psi of "boost" to achieve that target, but at high altitude it would require more boost. Obviously there's a reasonable limit where the turbo will be too far out of its efficiency range and can't make up for extreme altitude.  For example, the peak of Mount Everest still has ~4.5psi of atmospheric pressure, meaning the turbo would "only" have to make an "extra 10psi" to reach 30psi MAP as compared to sea level.  I don't think anybody is taking a Speed to Mount Everest, so I imagine they have enough turbo to make up for any elevation they'd actually see.

FWIW my Turbo RZRs electronically controlled boost (as do X3s and I believe all factory turbo SxS/UTVs in general) and I saw exactly what I described going between Glamis and the Idaho Dunes: MAP at WOT was consistent which meant boost was higher in ID. 

Now, the other intersecting thing from this video is the clutching.  Note it's only pulling ~7,900 RPM at WOT for most of the pull.  That seems low to me.  My Turbo RZRs sure liked to pull more like mid-high 8ks for peak power, and I'd be surprised if the Speed doesn't as well.  What I'm guessing is the clutching is setup for the Speed Key, which means they're leaving a lot on the table with the 91 setup.  Still, TBH it gets up to 93 MPH pretty quickly.  I've done ~85 in my last XPT which was a much lighter machine ('18 Fox edition 2 seat on only a 30" tire, not even the wider/heavier S model) and was modded/tuned and the Speed seemed to put on... well, speed just as quickly.  I imagine tuning the clutch to optimize for 91 would make it a good bit quicker, but of course would have to be adjusted back for the Speed key. 

Finally, WRT cracked turbos, honestly it doesn't shock me with an all new engine/turbo setup and the integrated manifold/exhaust housing.  If it is a common problem I hope they get it sorted quickly and make the replacements easy to get for owners. 

-TJ

 
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7 minutes ago, tjZ06 said:

So, here's the thing... watch this vid:

Good info, FWIW, that Big Pine guy is up in some altitude, He's a ways away from sea level. My car, at almost sea level, reads 14.5.

Edit: He's in Fairview, UT, and it looks like thats at 5900 ft. according to google.

 
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Good info, FWIW, that Big Pine guy is up in some altitude, He's a ways away from sea level. My car, at almost sea level, reads 14.5.

Edit: He's in Fairview, UT, and it looks like thats at 5900 ft. according to google.
So 11.9 might just be straight up atmosphere for him... kinda curious that cruising a couple MPH at ~2500 RPM the MAP would just be straight up atmosphere.  Unless that display is a calculated value of atmosphere + (but only plus) boost.  Of course, I watched it again more closely and right when he cracks the throttle you see the display dip to 11.5 before it begins climbing:

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So, how are you liking the car?

-TJ

 
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