Rally-raid Jimny (G'Luck Racing)

Hi All,

Wanted to share my project before buzzing the forum with my questions :woohoo:

I've bought new 1.3 AT Jimny 1.5 in September'12 and almost immediately joined our russian Jimny club. Therefore the Jimny had no chance to stay stock and some trophy-related changes were done - custom transfer gearbox, trailing arms mounting points protection, front and rear steel protection, winch plate and winch itself, 215/75 R15 MT tyres, TrailMaster +50 Sport lift, custom longer and stronger front trailing arms for castor correction, custom hardened Panhard rods. At that time my car was something like that:

This is from my last year expedition in Crimea. Also participated in some club trophy raids.

But after some time, I understood that I prefer to drive fast on mild offroad then move 10 meters per hour in deep mud and decided to ready the car for Russian rally-raids cup...
Below is the link to my racing team group in russian facebook alternative (mostly in Russian, but there is a full gallery there):
G'Luck Racing Team

I've installed the safety cage per FIA regulations, the car insides were rebuilt (mostly by removing everything unimportant and placing safety and rally-related stuff). There were also some minor works on suspension - extended spring stops, front axle is being strengthened now to survive jumps... Unfortunately had to remove the winch - it is not allowed...
In future - I'll make an engine swap to M18A and install racing shocks, don't think that trailmaster will survive for long enough (but who knows...). Additional FIA gas tank will be installed, two spare wheels instead of one etc

Some photos from the group link above:




First test race will be held on 2nd May near Ulianovsk in lowest level competitions, but still official. Next step - to enter Russian Cup after work on all the issues spotted will be done (most probably in August)

serious looking build!

welcome aboard buddy

Thanks for sharing, looks like you got the bug for sure ............. :laugh:

That looks good and rally raid sounds fun, is that like rallying?

Rally-raids (is often called cross-country rally too) is similar to WRC rally, but with some differences.
It has a long distance (200km minimum for Cup races and up to several thousands kms in long marathons like Dakar or Africa Eco Race).
Because of that - cars are much heavier and more durable then normal rally, roadmap covers only important turns etc. In result - sometimes slow car wins if it survives the race and other cars don't

Jimny is not the best car for this type of races, but I am inspired by an example of Ikuo Hanava (may be inaccurate), who has built several cars based on Jimny's and participated in US Baja races (and scored some wins). Unfortunately do not have links in english about his cars, but there are some photos in this russian publication:
www.off-road-drive.ru/archive/91/Bystryy_i_yarostnyy (you may translate it with google)

Definitely my kind of Jimny!

nice jimny

mlines wrote: Definitely my kind of Jimny!

That's the mutts nuts

Sounds like a real demanding race. Sounds awesome. Welcome aboard

Had a first official rally-raid race - 'Russian Hills 2014. Race 1', took 8th place out of 17th and 6 out of 8 in my class (4x4 - sport).

anyone know what shocks these are?? they look like Bilstein 5156's......

Jimny_Aus wrote: anyone know what shocks these are?? they look like Bilstein 5156's......

You mean Bilstein 5165's right?

On the IFS Jimny?