acefuture
Well-known member
- Jun 8, 2021
- 299
- 503
Bringing back trip reports! I've been itching to drive my new to me car since I bought it before summer, but just about everyone in our group was out for halloween. Some of our gecko friends weren't getting in til Friday night or Saturday, and with the winds scheduled for Sunday I wanted to get in on Thursday and out on Saturday. So @Reece Pettersen and I decided to hook up the flatbeds, bring a tent, and go camp in the middle of nowhere. Keep it simple with tons of fuel, hot dogs & pb&j, and dune all day. Reece just finished the build of his new race car and threw a set of paddles on it, so we were both very eager to drive our new cars. We pulled into Gordon's Thursday afternoon and decided to go super deep. We were basically where sand highway meets the canal, and decided to call it home for the weekend. Pitched the tents and went duning. We tore up the virgin dunes from set 4 to test hill and back. Car ran well, but felt like it had some bad gas, so was popping and stuttering. I figured i'd just continue to run through it and I should be good. Had 35 fresh gallons in it and about 5 of older gas it in so thought it would run through. Watched the sunset and did a short night cruise and headed in to lead another buddy in. Deleted several adult soda pops at the fire and retreated to our Marriott accommodations around midnight. It was awesome being out that deep with no one in sight.
Friday we woke up and went to the Diner to meet a buddy in the morning, then packed up for a full day of duning with no intentions to be back at any specific time. Full of 40 gallons of fuel, food and drinks we set out with the intentions of hanging in glamis. Hit the fast line we've done for years that flirts with the west side of the dunes and cooked our way up to the end of the closures on the Glamis side and jumped in once we were in the green zone. Crushed a good amount of great dunes up to RRE and then turned in to head to swing set. Drank a water and kept going. My car started to pop and sputter again so gave it a minute to try and blow through what seemed to be bad fuel, then continued the duning til we ended up at Olds. Once there I decided to pull fuel filters to see if I had something clogging them. Nada, looked perfect. Reece ran to Joe Fabs for me to see if he had a bosch pump, he did but was 4x the cost, and I said i'd rather drive sand highway home popping and sputtering than pay that price. I put it all back together and cruised around the Olds valley and noticed that when it was falling on it's face all of the gauges were dropping. Had to be a voltage issue. My voltmeter was still reading 14.2v so it was a bit confusing, but figured it was a ground problem. Checked all grounds and leads and everything looked great. I mentioned that I had replaced 1 of my two batteries because one of them died over summer, so we switched my battery switch to the good battery only instead of both, and it seemed to immediately solve it. Off we went to dig more trenches in the sand. The car felt like it wasn't getting all the power it wanted, but I was still blown away with the capability of the car. You can drive this thing through a brick wall and the wall would apologize. Ripped up a good section of the big dunes and ended up at the ledge. Hung there for quite some time catching up with some friends until way after sun down. Boogied back down towards RRE, bummed some gas off of @Nickc313 for my buddies car with a 12 gallon tank, and off we went back down south. Popped into the campground to say hello to some friends and ripped the open desert back to camp. Didn't get back to camp until 9:45pm. Spent over 12 hours in the dunes that day. Epic day.
Saturday we woke up and decided to find more virgin dunes in Gordon's. Reece found (knew of) a couple great lines through set 3 and 4 and we ended up at Patton with not a soul there for a good hour. My car once again was popping and sputtering, but after about 5 minutes of run time, it would wake back up and go. So now i'm thinking its a computer voltage issue. It seemed as though the computer wasn't getting the voltage it needed and was "re-learning" mapping and would all of sudden figure it out and the car would run. Frustrating the say the least. Duned a bit more and ran into some friends, so posted up and had lunch with them in one of the valleys. Tore up a handful more dunes and decided that after about 50+ gallons of fuel we had our fill and it was time to head. Drove back to camp, rolled the cars on the trailer and hit the road. Home at 7pm.
All in all it was an incredible way to start the season. Really fun going back to simple camping with the guys, no frills, no worries. Weather was warm during the day and perfect at night. Glamis was packed at the main sights and sounds, but the dunes were pretty much empty. PLENTY of virgin dunes out there. Dumped 70 gallons into the car and burned at least 2/3rds of it if not more. Although the car didn't perform the way i'd hoped, it was an absolute blast to be able to get to drive a car like this one with the capabilities it has. Truly mind blowing how well this car is built. Reeces new race car didn't have a single hiccup all weekend, and neither did our buddies Raw car. Can't wait to get the car dialed in and back in the sand box soon.
Friday we woke up and went to the Diner to meet a buddy in the morning, then packed up for a full day of duning with no intentions to be back at any specific time. Full of 40 gallons of fuel, food and drinks we set out with the intentions of hanging in glamis. Hit the fast line we've done for years that flirts with the west side of the dunes and cooked our way up to the end of the closures on the Glamis side and jumped in once we were in the green zone. Crushed a good amount of great dunes up to RRE and then turned in to head to swing set. Drank a water and kept going. My car started to pop and sputter again so gave it a minute to try and blow through what seemed to be bad fuel, then continued the duning til we ended up at Olds. Once there I decided to pull fuel filters to see if I had something clogging them. Nada, looked perfect. Reece ran to Joe Fabs for me to see if he had a bosch pump, he did but was 4x the cost, and I said i'd rather drive sand highway home popping and sputtering than pay that price. I put it all back together and cruised around the Olds valley and noticed that when it was falling on it's face all of the gauges were dropping. Had to be a voltage issue. My voltmeter was still reading 14.2v so it was a bit confusing, but figured it was a ground problem. Checked all grounds and leads and everything looked great. I mentioned that I had replaced 1 of my two batteries because one of them died over summer, so we switched my battery switch to the good battery only instead of both, and it seemed to immediately solve it. Off we went to dig more trenches in the sand. The car felt like it wasn't getting all the power it wanted, but I was still blown away with the capability of the car. You can drive this thing through a brick wall and the wall would apologize. Ripped up a good section of the big dunes and ended up at the ledge. Hung there for quite some time catching up with some friends until way after sun down. Boogied back down towards RRE, bummed some gas off of @Nickc313 for my buddies car with a 12 gallon tank, and off we went back down south. Popped into the campground to say hello to some friends and ripped the open desert back to camp. Didn't get back to camp until 9:45pm. Spent over 12 hours in the dunes that day. Epic day.
Saturday we woke up and decided to find more virgin dunes in Gordon's. Reece found (knew of) a couple great lines through set 3 and 4 and we ended up at Patton with not a soul there for a good hour. My car once again was popping and sputtering, but after about 5 minutes of run time, it would wake back up and go. So now i'm thinking its a computer voltage issue. It seemed as though the computer wasn't getting the voltage it needed and was "re-learning" mapping and would all of sudden figure it out and the car would run. Frustrating the say the least. Duned a bit more and ran into some friends, so posted up and had lunch with them in one of the valleys. Tore up a handful more dunes and decided that after about 50+ gallons of fuel we had our fill and it was time to head. Drove back to camp, rolled the cars on the trailer and hit the road. Home at 7pm.
All in all it was an incredible way to start the season. Really fun going back to simple camping with the guys, no frills, no worries. Weather was warm during the day and perfect at night. Glamis was packed at the main sights and sounds, but the dunes were pretty much empty. PLENTY of virgin dunes out there. Dumped 70 gallons into the car and burned at least 2/3rds of it if not more. Although the car didn't perform the way i'd hoped, it was an absolute blast to be able to get to drive a car like this one with the capabilities it has. Truly mind blowing how well this car is built. Reeces new race car didn't have a single hiccup all weekend, and neither did our buddies Raw car. Can't wait to get the car dialed in and back in the sand box soon.
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