Shinwari on hai! plan deferred to the weekend of the 23rd tho... while i agree with the "teer, kamaan and seena" business i just noticed that i have a spare teer :P. A critical evaluation followed our cholistan misadventure... the surf has one big, let me rephrase "HUGE" enemy....weight. As Mukesh Chawla crossed, i said "ok i have a reference now... lemme stick behind this guy"...guess what! i just couldn't... no issues in the power department. The guys rear was hopping on the terrain in true "jimny" style... i had 3 or 4 nasty landings on bumps and consciously decided to drop my pace and wait for the faster section to claw back some time...didnt know what fate had in store for me on that section... mind you i'd fish tailed a couple of kms before the rollover as well... didnt care it was my section to claw back some time
I hate saying this but the surf is a compromise... its a great platform but it cant be a daily driver and a rally vehicle. Its neither a horse nor a donkey... Some points to ponder..
The weight: Needs to be much lower. Simple physics, when a 2.5ton vehicle turns sideways it will take some effort to bring it back. the gopro shows me making a immediate steering correction when it goes sideways... doesnt help one bit. Also what goes up must come down...and 2.5tons coming down is again too much... the gap between qasim and the fastest jimny is around 9mins.. give the jimny a little more grunt and see what happens....heck a handful of jimnys were faster than both 2nd and 3rd cat A cars... theres a limit to the what kind of diet the surf can go on...and it doesnt remain a daily runner post that.
The stance: ....was always a compromise it should have atleast been level... "rear up front down" = asking for trouble (Yes qasim you pointed that out :). What i needed was a set of aftermarket upper control arms to correct the castor issue... they're about a 100K and the project account had dried up... so i had to lower the front to fix the castor issue....
The Power: was great! nothing lacking in that department...however considering the overall package and the objective of "finishing in one piece" ... the chip should have maybe come off for the race... (yeah yeah i should have been more conservative on that part )...
Now picture this, the mark iii and iv single cabin daala is only 1.5tons.. remove the daala, the glass, the hood, the cast iron 3L or 5L.. and it probably falls down to a ton or below...put in a 1uz VVti, spring under axle at the rear, vigo rear diff, long travel susp at front and you have a sub 1.5ton toy that can do this...
btw, 2012 ka bonus aa gaya hai! aur KC bechara "recovery duty" par relegate ho gaya hai!... and oh btw, the Ghani khan bit at the end.... spot on!!! .. za khabar wum, kho khpal "gut" against laram...