In Late 2010 The Torchmate Racing Team pushed the limits and helped progress the growing Ultra4 Racing Series. At the time Torchmate was a premiere sponsor of the marque event in the series "King of the Hammers" and wanted to build a vehicle unlike any other in the series. Using Torchmate products to build the vehicle helped show the off road racing industry how valuable a home based CNC machine could be in the racing industry. We wanted to preserve this build thread and share the process our Torchmate Racing Team implemented to take this exciting vehicle to the starting line and beyond.
The car proved a solid contender and was later driven by Robby Gordon in two KOH races. We hope you enjoy the build.
Torchmate has recently begun construction on it’s in house designed TTB Ultra4car for the 2011 King of the Hammersrace, 2011 Ultra4season, and beyond. This car has been born out of the evolution of the sport over the past few years, drawing on experience from the entire Torchmate Racing team from the Rocks to the Desert. The idea behind the car is to have an extremely capable, yet simple and easy to maintain Ultra 4car to satisfy the teams interest in KOH style racing all the way through to the Baja 1000. Lead Designer and Torchmate employee Jesse Haines will be spearheading the effort from start to finish. From the desert side of the Torchmate Racing program Jesse will be joined by Jake Povey, who is Torchmate’s Desert racing guru and lead prep manager for the Torchmate Class 7 truck and the Torchmate Rock Buggy. Torchmate’s Mike Aiello is contributing the front TTB suspension design and assisting in the general design of the car. On top of this team of highly skilled builders, Torchmate’s Mark Levrett Production Manager and newly appointed Racing General Manager JT Taylor will be providing additional knowledge and support to this build. JT Taylor will also be piloting the new Torchmate TTB car in the 2011 King of the Hammers race with Roger Norman pulling driver and co-driver duties as well! The plan is to get the rig done in time for ample testing before the 2011 race to work out any bugs. We are hopeful that we can pull it off even given the short build time.
Parts have been ordered and are arriving daily, and Jake has been TIG welding the Chromoly sub-frame together to get Jesse’s platform for the new build started. The design and production of this car will be done completely in house at the Torchmate’s production facility where all of our Turnkey CNC cutting machines and water tables are produced from the Torchmate 2x2 to the 12’x40’ Torchmate X water and downdraft tables. All of the plate work for the car will be cut on a combination of the 5'x10' Torchmate X table that we use for all of our production work and a Torchmate 2x2 CNC Prototyping System we keep in the Race Prepportion of the shop to demonstrate the ability and versatility of the Torchmate machine.
As far as actual car specifications are concerned, this was debated upon heavily between all Torchmate Racing team members. The final design that we decided on is a Twin Traction Beam (TTB) front engine 4wd setup for its advantages in the desert over solid axle, and advantages over IFS in the rock crawling sections. The design had already been started by Mike for Dave Schneider’s Ultra 4car many months ago, and now has been picked back up and completed for this build. TTB is a tried and true desert technology that we will be advancing and adapting to work for Rock Racing type applications. There are many modified stock type TTB systems available. However, we felt that in order to make the best use of the technology available in the off road industry today, and to take advantage of our combined knowledge gained in both rock crawling and desert racing, that we would design a custom, 9” based TTB setup. This would offer us a more in terms of strength and reliability in the rocks. Below are the spec's on the car:
1.75 “ Chromoly Chassis
550 HP LS2
TH400Transmission
3.0 Atlas 2speed, with Pro Series Gearsand 300m output shafts
Griffin Radiator, Transmission cooler, and Oil cooler
PRP Seats
Tubeworks 4” Chromoly Rear Housing with Torchmate suspension and Truss
Tubeworks Trophy Truck3rd member, 10” ring gear, 40 spline axles with 40 spline spool, 5.43 ratio
24” rear axle travel
14” travel 2.5” Radflo Coilovers
16” travel 3.0 Radflo Bypass’
Torchmate 9” TTB setup with Mega-Hi9 third, ARB,
Spidertrax pumpkin and Pro Series Knuckles
20” front wheel travel
14” travel 2.5” Radflo Coiloversand 3.0 Bypass’
Solid Axle Spindles and Hubs
CTM 300m Shafts
JE Reel Driveshafts
Allied Wheels
37-40” Goodyear Tires
The car proved a solid contender and was later driven by Robby Gordon in two KOH races. We hope you enjoy the build.
Torchmate has recently begun construction on it’s in house designed TTB Ultra4car for the 2011 King of the Hammersrace, 2011 Ultra4season, and beyond. This car has been born out of the evolution of the sport over the past few years, drawing on experience from the entire Torchmate Racing team from the Rocks to the Desert. The idea behind the car is to have an extremely capable, yet simple and easy to maintain Ultra 4car to satisfy the teams interest in KOH style racing all the way through to the Baja 1000. Lead Designer and Torchmate employee Jesse Haines will be spearheading the effort from start to finish. From the desert side of the Torchmate Racing program Jesse will be joined by Jake Povey, who is Torchmate’s Desert racing guru and lead prep manager for the Torchmate Class 7 truck and the Torchmate Rock Buggy. Torchmate’s Mike Aiello is contributing the front TTB suspension design and assisting in the general design of the car. On top of this team of highly skilled builders, Torchmate’s Mark Levrett Production Manager and newly appointed Racing General Manager JT Taylor will be providing additional knowledge and support to this build. JT Taylor will also be piloting the new Torchmate TTB car in the 2011 King of the Hammers race with Roger Norman pulling driver and co-driver duties as well! The plan is to get the rig done in time for ample testing before the 2011 race to work out any bugs. We are hopeful that we can pull it off even given the short build time.
Parts have been ordered and are arriving daily, and Jake has been TIG welding the Chromoly sub-frame together to get Jesse’s platform for the new build started. The design and production of this car will be done completely in house at the Torchmate’s production facility where all of our Turnkey CNC cutting machines and water tables are produced from the Torchmate 2x2 to the 12’x40’ Torchmate X water and downdraft tables. All of the plate work for the car will be cut on a combination of the 5'x10' Torchmate X table that we use for all of our production work and a Torchmate 2x2 CNC Prototyping System we keep in the Race Prepportion of the shop to demonstrate the ability and versatility of the Torchmate machine.
As far as actual car specifications are concerned, this was debated upon heavily between all Torchmate Racing team members. The final design that we decided on is a Twin Traction Beam (TTB) front engine 4wd setup for its advantages in the desert over solid axle, and advantages over IFS in the rock crawling sections. The design had already been started by Mike for Dave Schneider’s Ultra 4car many months ago, and now has been picked back up and completed for this build. TTB is a tried and true desert technology that we will be advancing and adapting to work for Rock Racing type applications. There are many modified stock type TTB systems available. However, we felt that in order to make the best use of the technology available in the off road industry today, and to take advantage of our combined knowledge gained in both rock crawling and desert racing, that we would design a custom, 9” based TTB setup. This would offer us a more in terms of strength and reliability in the rocks. Below are the spec's on the car:
1.75 “ Chromoly Chassis
550 HP LS2
TH400Transmission
3.0 Atlas 2speed, with Pro Series Gearsand 300m output shafts
Griffin Radiator, Transmission cooler, and Oil cooler
PRP Seats
Tubeworks 4” Chromoly Rear Housing with Torchmate suspension and Truss
Tubeworks Trophy Truck3rd member, 10” ring gear, 40 spline axles with 40 spline spool, 5.43 ratio
24” rear axle travel
14” travel 2.5” Radflo Coilovers
16” travel 3.0 Radflo Bypass’
Torchmate 9” TTB setup with Mega-Hi9 third, ARB,
Spidertrax pumpkin and Pro Series Knuckles
20” front wheel travel
14” travel 2.5” Radflo Coiloversand 3.0 Bypass’
Solid Axle Spindles and Hubs
CTM 300m Shafts
JE Reel Driveshafts
Allied Wheels
37-40” Goodyear Tires
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