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First offroad with the newly lifted Pat

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25K views 107 replies 37 participants last post by  Tony1911  
#1 · (Edited)
First offroad with the newly lifted Pat - lot's of pictures and offroad here!

So, a buddy and I took the girls up a mountain. He's driving a '89 or so F-150 with 31" tires, adjustable air suspension that he can lift a couple inches when needed and a monster engine that guzzled twice as much gas as my FDII.

I recently lifted the FDII, and this was the first time out. We chose a couple logging roads in Squamish, BC that head quite high onto Cloudburst mountain. Luckily, the clouds didn't burst.

Here's the poser shot. I like to use depth of vision to alter reality when it comes to size. :banana:

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Here's the F-150 being eaten by a waterbar. These water bars were the biggest challenge of the road, but the lifted Pat did fine. The rear bumper of the Ford scraped more ground than my 2" hitch.

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This is one of the smaller waterbars at the bottom of the road.

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Here's a view from near the top. We started down by the river. Whoever says the Pat has trouble climbing hills doesn't have an FDII with low gear.

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Speaking of hills, I thought this one might cause trouble. More to come on video.... I surprised my buddy when the Pat made it up this. He crawled up in the F-150, and there's a big water bar in the middle.

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#2 ·
I really like the short wheelbase and the nicely raised bumpers. I was a little nervous watching the front end drop down into some deep holes, but nothing ever touched ground.

Sure, it's not a Rubicon, and these aren't extreme trails, but that's not what I bought the Pat for.

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#3 · (Edited)
The end goal. A lake within 20 minutes of Whistler with only 2 other guys camping on it on Labour Day Weekend.

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Could you ask for better accomodations? With a twin sized air mattress and the passenger seat folded down, it's quite a comfortable bed for two. I'm 5'8" and she's 5'4".

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#5 ·
#21 ·
#8 ·
Great job on the pics and vids. Glad your lift worked out. Now you know how important it was to increasing your entry and exit angles, great demonstration on those clearances.
Beautiful mountain country up there in BC, you couldn't be any further away from SoFLA and still be on the same planet. LOL :carryflag:
 
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#11 ·
yeah, I'm quite used to dragging the hitch through waterbars. Now it only touches ground occasionally, and only on the deepest short waterbars, whereas before the lift it would scrape coming down something a little bigger than a curb. ;)

Here's a video which really shows the new approach/clearance/departure angles with the lift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TvdG_4iebQ&feature=user
 
#12 ·
I'll have to show my wife your Pat camper.
 
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#15 ·
Bryan,

Never having driven an FDI offroad, I don't know.

I was in Low gear most of the way up, so I'm not confident a FDI would have made it up the steeper parts. Definitely not an FDI with a CVT, but a 5 speed may have been able to follow. I tried putting it in D instead of L a couple times, and it just wasn't pretty. It might have made it, but it was definitely overstressing the Jeep in D.

I did experience the torque limiting problem on one of the steep hills that was a couple hundred feet long. The rpm's just wouldn't go above 2500 rpm, no matter what I did with the gas pedal. The Pat slowly churned its way up this hill, and it sounded like I was trying to kill it. This was going from a dead stop half way up this hill.

The next hill I took with some speed all the way up, and the rev's stayed nice and high with lots of power to make it up no problem.

bottom line - if you plan do drive up hills offroad, get an FDII.
 
#19 ·
great pics and vids. i sleep in the jeep with my girl too when we go camping...

I chuckled when I saw that last pic of your sleeping quarters. Does your girl know that you posted pictures of her bra on the internet! LOL
 
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#22 ·
and here's a boring 16 seconds of the F-150 crawling up the hill, just below the waterbar. Maybe this gives it some perspective. He was in 4 Low as well, but he's also a pretty gentle driver with the wife in the passenger seat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSzscO5Qg3Q
 
#24 ·
I used premium a couple weeks ago on Vedder, but regular this time. I didn't really notice any difference.

I do notice that the way the engine runs changes when you drop it into Low no matter what fuel you use.
 
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#27 ·
Jealous, Jealous, Jealous, Jealous. We don't have anything like that here in the flatlands of Oklahoma where the joke is you can stand in Oklahoma City and see the Kansas border. Beautiful scenery and amazing pics of your Riot showing Ford how it's done.:smiley_thumbs_up:
 
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