Worlds Fastest Comanche

The truck is the truck, but the background was photo shopped in. We also used photoshop for the decals. I have to send the entry in today, and they want a picture with it, so we whipped somthing up.

Here is a pic of the truck, What do you think?

The axle under the motor stays in the same place, only the C pieces are moved up and shorter coil springs are used. The suspension connection points and the geometery are all the same as stock. We are using a 4.0L bored and stroked to 5.0L So the engine sits the same as stock.

Hewre are some pics of the front axle modifications

On the roll cage, we copied the one from the 1986 truck, see this post http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13074 I will get some pictures up tonight

Most of the work over the last 6 months have been on the engine, and has been documented pretty well over at http://www.Jeepstrokers.com We are getting pretty serious about the body, the roll cage is pretty much done, and the body was painted last week. (Black) Work this weekend was on the suspension. We need to drop the Comanche 4" at least. We have a 2wd. Actually most of the Comanches built were 2wd. I thought the subject of dropping it would be interest ot some of the other people on the board. Not everybody is into 4wd and massive lift kits. To drop the front, we came up with the idea of keeping the stock axle in the same location, and just raising up the C pieces. I thought of cutting off the C pieces and welding on some kind of machined part that would go inside the tube and fit in the C piece. It turns out the the spring is almost right up against the c piece, so no room to put anything in there. Plan B, Purchase another 2wd axle and cut it about 8" in from the C pieces, just the other side of the spring buckets. The cut off the C pieces and spring buckets form the original axle and stack the tubes. This would make kind of a drop axle. The problem is that the coil springs would be 4" too long. You could cut the stock springs down, but the suspension was way too soft for what we wanted to do, soi purchased some Eibach stock car springs that were 9" long ( 600 ldb rate) the stock springs are around a 200 lb rate. The front axle tube is only 2.5" in diameter, so if you put tube on top of the tube, it would only drop the truck 2.5" , I wanted 4". We also needed a way to align the two tubes. I came up with the idea of using some 2" channel iron that would sit on top of the tube and give me a flat surface. The flat part of the channel was up and the open part of the channel was down straddling the tube. I used about an 8" piece. Now i had a flat surface , and it was about 5/8" above the tube. I was looking for 1.5" to get the total drop to 4" So i inverted another piece of channel on top of the first, and ended up with about 3 3/4" drop. The inverted channel also served to line up the upper tube. it created a nest for it to sit in. Looking from the end, the two pieces f chanel looked like an I beam turned sideways. I will take some pictures tonight so you can see what I am talking about. For the rear we will be using a 4 link with coils overs, but that is another post.

Just checked my rule book, the current record in the C/mmp class is 210.473 mph. That is a long way from his old top speed of 168mph

Well, i guess he does have the worlds fastest comanche right now, but is it really a Comanche if it has a chevy engine in it? He is running in a modified class, Which means that the vehicle had been drasticly modified from it stock configuration. We will be running D ( less than 5L, but more than 4.3L) Production Mid-mini pickup class. We have to run a version of the engine that came in the car. It can be bored and stroked, heads can be ported, things like that. I did drop him an Email, it would be helpfull to know how the comanche handles on the salt, what kind of tires work, things like that. I am suprised he is only running 306 cid, in that class you can run up to 360CID. Jessell ran a 2005 dodge ram in the C Modified pickup ( full size) back in 2006 and went 224 mph. Quite a feat when you consider that the hp requirements go up as a qube ( 10-3 power) of the speed. Jessell ran a nascar motor without a restrictor plate.

Well, i got my number assigned, I tried for 140 like the 1986 truck, but nothing with even 3 digits was available. We ended up with number "1985" we will run the truck under the name "Comanche LSR III " You are limited to 17 characters for the vehicle name. If sombody has a better idea for a name, I have 2 weeks before i send the application in.

So what year did they switch to a unit bearing like the 4wd?

What is the difference between the 2wd 86-87 rotors and the 88 on. The parts books show an "integrted hub" What does that mean? Anybody got pictures? I was wondering of one style might be better for high speed.

Well, if you had looked in the classifieds, you woul have seen that SixPac was selling it. It cam from the Hill dragster team. The Hill dragster is on the front page of the Hesco site.

Tough to say when everything will be togather. Hopefully we will have the engine togather before the end of May, but the car will probably not be ready before the end of June. This is very one of a kind vehicle and many of the parts have to be fabricated. I am hoping we an get some runs in on the back roads before going to Bonnevile.

A quick update, we sent the Comanche off to paint today, should be back next week. the roll cage is in as well as the racing seat. I had to go with a removable steering wheel so you can get in and out. When to comes back we will start on the suspension and fuel system. We tool out the stock gas tank and put a fuel cell into the bed. The engine work is progressing, but slowly. I did manage to score a Hesco gear oil pump/cam drive. You can see a picture of one here if you scroll dow to the bottom of the page, http://www.hesco.us/customergallery.asp?action=form&formID=1725&recordID=90225 I am using shaft roller rockers and a solid roller cam. I am working on a hosting site for the pictures, but i do not want them to go away after a while. As soon as i get that straightened out, I will get the pictures up.

Still working on the Comanche, pulled out the heater box and will loose the AC, anybody want this stuff? We are working on sealing up all the holes in the firewall and construction of the roll cage. We did some engine simulations and they are posted here http://www.jeepstrokers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=739 Looks like close to 500 hp. I was also able to score a timing geat setup that also drives the oil pump. Hesco made them 15 years ago and they are bulletproof. they only made 100 sets.

the suspension has changed again, Making the new C pieces turned into a big project. we finally determined that moving the axle attachment point (in the front) would be eaiser. we will cut down the tabds on the top of the axle and make new longer pieces on the bottom. We are looking to get about 4" lower an the suspension, that combines with 24.7" tires (29 or so is stock) should give us a total drop of about 6" Of course moving the attachment points will not lower anything, you need shorter springs. I did some tests. the stock comanche spring is about 16" fully extended, with the vehicle weight on it, it goes down to 12" the weight is about 1400 lbs on the front end, so 700 lbs per side. the spring went down 4" so this gives a spring rate of about 175lbs/inch. I looked around and found that Eibach makes springs for racing. I can get a 8" long spring with about any rate I want. So at stock height the spring is 12" i need to lower the car 4" so an 8" spring looks ok, but 8" is the height with no load on it. If i get a spring with a 600lb rate, the spring will only compress 1.125" this looks good to me, i will just make up shims to get it back to 8" height. This will give me some room to adjust things. I will go with a 4 link in the back, with springs mounted behind the axle.

We decided not to use airbags on the front, we will use the stock suspension and make special dropped C pieces. It will be kind of like a dropped axle on a hot Rod. The airflow throught the Head and itake is a problem, the head currently flows 249cfm at .6 lift I think a stock head is in the 190 area. The 99+ intake is too restrictive, we will have to make a custom one.

I finally got the head going, originally Heasco did not want to put larger valves into their head. Business must have slowed down, because they finally aggreed to do it. Cost is $2,900.00 and delivery should be around the end of january. When i get it, it will be shipped to Harland sharp for the shaft roller rocker setup to be installed. The ATI Danper arrived, the hub is a little strange, It is too long and sticks out the front of the damper. I think it was originally designed to run a external oil pump via a belt drive. I will post some pictures when i get a chance. The engine ended up with a 4" bore and a 4" Stroke giving about a 302 cid displacment. I amlooking for about 1.5 hp per cubic inch. The engine will have a 12.6:1 CR and will require 118 octane fuel.

What if you don't have $3500 to spend? Maybe instead of putting a 6 speed transmissinn in back of a 4 cylinder motor, you should put a 6 cylinder motor in front of a 5 speed transmission.

A t56 will not bolt in place of a T5 unless you use an adapter plate on the front of the t56. They sell them on ebay if you want to see what one looks like.

OK Here is what he said:

Well look here http://theamcforum.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3544 Since your 2.5 has a GM bolt pattern, yoiu should be ablr to bolt a GM t56 right up.

Correct no supercharges or turbos. As for an update, The engine is at the machine shop, we were able to get a 4" bore out of it. The head will come from Hesco, it will be one of thir aluminum ones. 2.02 intake and 1.060 exhust. Work is progressing on the timing belt drive and the aftermarket ECU. We got the tires in 215/60-15 boy are they small 25" diameter. When the wheather gets better we will start working lowering the suspension.

tryhttp://www.ifsja.org great site for full size stuff.

so no reply from Scott Schramm? I guess he may be busy with this bailout thing. He still has some of the FIA records from 1986. I have to post the press release, just have to find a server to park it on. If anybody is working for JTE ( if it still exists) maybe they could ask around if anybody rembers another member of the crew. I would really liketo know if there was a LSR1