A few pics and one vid of my Range Rover Sport Supercharged at Sunday’s American AutoX event. I was co-driving a friend’s 383 LT1 OSP car for the weekend, as well as another buddy’s '67 Camaro (very built 355, TH400, all Global West/Hotchkis susp) on Sunday morning. In the afternoon we got 2 runs each in with the LT1 and the owner was on his 3rd run when his driver’s side window broke. It was the weirdest thing, the window track broke, the window slid forward in the door (windows were down) under braking and it shattered. We didn’t want to finish our runs and risk getting glass on the course so we un-hitched the tow rig and finished our runs with it.
My best runs was about 6 seconds slower than the LT1 (on a course that TTOD was a 37ish, and most cars were in the mid 40s, I ran a 49.8 w/ it), and honestly think there was a bit more in it. It actually worked surprisingly well and beat a pack of kids who were newer to AutoX with some Mustangs ('03 Cobra, '04 Mach1 with an aftermarket supercharger), a LS1 SS and a C6 base.
You could obviously feel the weight, but the active suspension did its job and kept it relatively flat. It would actually rotate nicely with some trail-braking but the computers kept it from putting the power down getting out of the turns (I had everything as turned off as I could figure out). Anyway, here are the pics and vids:
The best part was when we were towing the LT1 back home with the Range my buddy and I were talking about trail-braking the Range and figuring out how to get it to rotate. At that moment I realized that was probably the first, and only, time in the history of the world that 2 guys were having a conversation about trail-braking a Range Rover at an AutoX. Haha.
It towed wonderfully. Zero sway, plenty of power, stopped great (the trailer has brakes on both axles and I hooked up a brake controller in the Range so obviously that helps) and was really comfortable. Obviously if I towed a ton I’d switch to a diesel and a enclosed, but for my use I love this setup.
i would love to trade my srt8 in on one of those sc sports. I rode in one and fell in love with it. Glad to see your having some fun with it. I was in a white one my buddy had in Nc and he took bends pretty quick in it. It handled great. Doesnt it have a porsche suspension on it?
I like the fact your lot is bigger than the entire VDA & parking area we have available at beaverun lol. Nobody have you a hard time about the Rover’s height? Though really it looked decent out there. I’ve seen cars that looked like they were ready to flip over compared to your Range Rover.
They do handle great! No, it doesn’t have a Porsche suspension. The chassis/susp is very similar to the LR3. However, it has auto-leveling air suspension (with 3 selectable heights) which works to combat dive and roll (but obviously you still get some). Further, the Supercharged and very few HSEs that got the “Dynamic” package or something like that also have active roll bars. They use constantly variable electronically controlled hydraulic actuators to combat roll, and are rather effective.
That lot is pretty good, allows for some fast courses. The “good” lot we used to have was about 4x bigger but a company is trying to use it for commercial use so they don’t rent it out (of course the commercial project is tied up in red tape so it’s been a few years we haven’t been able to race there… yet no commercial use).
I’m good friends w/ the folks that run the series so it wasn’t too hard to get approval. The main dude just said he’d watch my first lap and if it was too bad, he’d have to stop it. Obviously there was no issue though, as the RRS SC stayed pretty flat all things considered… and I was beating people. LoL.
You’ll have one too soon 'nough. Get a '10+ w/ the new 500+hp motor.
Oh, and I can’t wait to throw the MT/Rs I have for it (pic below) on and do some 4 wheeling. It should do good with lockers and true low range. Race car, tow rig, 4wheeler, floss cruiser…
They’re built for it. It has a true transfer case w/ low-range (and a very deep 1st gear in the auto trans, so overall a very good crawl ratio), a locking center diff standard, and mine has the optional locking rear diff. The front diff is actually open AFAIK but the computer will use the brakes to slow the spinning wheel up front in lieu of a locker (not ideal but still pretty damn good when the center and rear are fully locked). It also has an extra high setting for the air susp for wheeling. Beyond that it will raise up a little bit further than what you can select yourself if it senses it’s high-centered, sort of a “safety net”. The susp also auto-levels to allow you to take a much steeper side-hill. It also has this whole terrain control thing going on with settings for mud, snow, sand, and even one for rock crawling in addition to the usual on road setting. That system changes settings for the traction control, diffs, power deliver etc. Oh, and lastly there’s hill decent control as well.
Here’s a few clips of RRS’s doing there thing offorad:
Oh I know I meant more from the standpoint that if I slid into a tree in my RR I’d probably be pretty upset. Let me know when you go, if you dont mind Id like to take along in my 4runner.
Yeah, I hear ya there. I’ll be much more conservative than I was with my old 'runner. BTW, I threw the 19s with MT/Rs on it since I leave for Idaho today. Here’s a few pics:
