Mil T
Full Access Member
Today the wife and I decided to take a ride north of our home in Payson, Az. in the Raptor to see some of our states interesting places. We headed North up the Hwy 87 towards Winslow. We turned off and took a fun forest dirt road into Long Lake. Then out through Chavez Pass.
The Chavez Pass road drops you down onto private and public grazing lands. The road is wide and fast semi sand and dirt. Easy sustained 90mph road but watch out for the cows that can be on the road.
This road goes right by the famous Meteor Crater attraction off the I-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow. We were on the dirt road that takes you up the back way to the south edge of the Meteor Crater through an old lime plant. Our visit to the meteor crater was free today. They used to bag the lime and send it on it’s way to where ever. Here’s some shots as we spent about an hour in that location.
And of course any old west cabins are always haunted you know and we met this one.
We decided that we needed to get moving on to our chosen destination for the day up through the Hopi Indian Reservation where the Little Colorado River runs and the Grand Falls or Chocolate Falls run.
The roads were mostly wide, dusty and fast but there were a few sections of some rocky road bed. I finally found my Go Pro camera but was not prepared to mount it so I didn’t get any driving road pics but we did get some great stills to look at. Here we are at the Grand Falls. Or as I called it the Ompa Lompa river.
Here’s my best half Christy at the falls.
This picture gives a little perspective to their height. The internet says they are actually taller than the Niagra Falls. I would never have guessed that. They are 185 ft tall.
Here’s a panarama shot looking at the falls and downstream on the Little Colorado River.
We left the area headed over to Flagstaff to grab a bite to eat and fill up gas for the ride home. Thought it would be a 45 minute drive. Well I got on some great ranch roads and just started having fun. Ran up into the Cinder Cone forest and OHV play area.
One of the main reasons I wanted to go out with the truck was to test the suspension, which I finally have completed. Basically it’s an RPG stage 4 with RPG’s tuned Fox 3.0’s. At first try out of the box, I received the standard rear National Springs by mistake but was not aware of it. I ran them and it was just to soft for my driving style so RPG was very accommodating and sent me the HD’s. That was the ticket. With a few twists on the rebound screws on the shocks, I think I have a very good set up and a truck that just works really well. I confident it will be able to tackle any rough terrain that a Ford Raptor was built for with ease. I know it’s not a trophy truck and what we did today with the truck is exactly what I built it for. To tour and have fun on unpredictable roads without the truck hitting the pavement with rattles and suspension that has been trashed and feels it. It worked flawlessly. I could not believe how this suspension just soaked up running through the quad and motorcycle woops that are in the cinder cone OHV area. If you want to find out what a real test for suspension in these trucks is, run your 61 year old wife of 42 years down a road for a couple miles at 70 mph with 1 to 2 foot woops and listen to her say,
“Wow, that seemed really smooth. How fast were you going” all while she is knitting in the passenger seat. Now that’s a true test cause I usually have a sore shoulder on the right side if I had done that with any thing else I have driven that she has been a passenger in.
Hey RPG. Thanks for all the help on a superb Raptor suspension set up.
Now to start some of the other items I need to do, like an OHH SHIT grab bar for the passenger to grab when you know it’s not going to be pretty when you didn’t read the terrain just right.
Mil T
The Chavez Pass road drops you down onto private and public grazing lands. The road is wide and fast semi sand and dirt. Easy sustained 90mph road but watch out for the cows that can be on the road.
This road goes right by the famous Meteor Crater attraction off the I-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow. We were on the dirt road that takes you up the back way to the south edge of the Meteor Crater through an old lime plant. Our visit to the meteor crater was free today. They used to bag the lime and send it on it’s way to where ever. Here’s some shots as we spent about an hour in that location.
And of course any old west cabins are always haunted you know and we met this one.
We decided that we needed to get moving on to our chosen destination for the day up through the Hopi Indian Reservation where the Little Colorado River runs and the Grand Falls or Chocolate Falls run.
The roads were mostly wide, dusty and fast but there were a few sections of some rocky road bed. I finally found my Go Pro camera but was not prepared to mount it so I didn’t get any driving road pics but we did get some great stills to look at. Here we are at the Grand Falls. Or as I called it the Ompa Lompa river.
Here’s my best half Christy at the falls.
This picture gives a little perspective to their height. The internet says they are actually taller than the Niagra Falls. I would never have guessed that. They are 185 ft tall.
Here’s a panarama shot looking at the falls and downstream on the Little Colorado River.
We left the area headed over to Flagstaff to grab a bite to eat and fill up gas for the ride home. Thought it would be a 45 minute drive. Well I got on some great ranch roads and just started having fun. Ran up into the Cinder Cone forest and OHV play area.
One of the main reasons I wanted to go out with the truck was to test the suspension, which I finally have completed. Basically it’s an RPG stage 4 with RPG’s tuned Fox 3.0’s. At first try out of the box, I received the standard rear National Springs by mistake but was not aware of it. I ran them and it was just to soft for my driving style so RPG was very accommodating and sent me the HD’s. That was the ticket. With a few twists on the rebound screws on the shocks, I think I have a very good set up and a truck that just works really well. I confident it will be able to tackle any rough terrain that a Ford Raptor was built for with ease. I know it’s not a trophy truck and what we did today with the truck is exactly what I built it for. To tour and have fun on unpredictable roads without the truck hitting the pavement with rattles and suspension that has been trashed and feels it. It worked flawlessly. I could not believe how this suspension just soaked up running through the quad and motorcycle woops that are in the cinder cone OHV area. If you want to find out what a real test for suspension in these trucks is, run your 61 year old wife of 42 years down a road for a couple miles at 70 mph with 1 to 2 foot woops and listen to her say,
“Wow, that seemed really smooth. How fast were you going” all while she is knitting in the passenger seat. Now that’s a true test cause I usually have a sore shoulder on the right side if I had done that with any thing else I have driven that she has been a passenger in.
Hey RPG. Thanks for all the help on a superb Raptor suspension set up.
Now to start some of the other items I need to do, like an OHH SHIT grab bar for the passenger to grab when you know it’s not going to be pretty when you didn’t read the terrain just right.
Mil T
