Sand air down pressure?

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puddle hunter

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I've always wondered this myself... but not just for sand. Desert high speed? rock crawling? mud? Could be helpful info for taking our trucks to the max.

I know when I did Peavine Road north of Reno, a relatively maintained gravel access road, I aired down to 30psi. and made that mountain my own personal Pikes Peak. This was on the stock BFG's.
 
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Raptorguy21

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I've always wonder this myself... but not just for sand. Desert high speed? rock crawling? mud? Could be helpful info for taking our trucks to the max.

I know when I did Peavine Road north of Reno, a relatively maintained gravel access road, I aired down to 30psi. and made that mountain my own personal Pikes Peak. This was on the stock BFG's.

Well with my Raptor (KMC Beadlocks) I was able to air down to 15PSI and still dune run hard without a problem......with non-beadlocks I wouldn't go down past 20PSI if you plan on running it hard.

Rock crawling is a different animal, but yet you have the same worry about the bead coming off the wheel. You could get away with 15PSI rock crawling on stock wheels as long as there was too much "side-ways motion" or real tight rock spaces.

As for mud......well that has always been offroading's biggest mystery. What works for one guy/truck doesn't work for another, not to mention the different types of mud there are.....with mud you're really on your own with trial and error. However, one thing to keep in mind is to keep the tread clean and not clogged and usually that required lots of wheel speed especially with all terrains.....hope this helps
 

mictouch

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I have raced Baja many times and we would never run a BFG below 30psi. But if for some reason we got stuck out on the beach we would air them down to 10psi. Just long enough to get out of the sand and then drive carefully to the next pit to air back up. If you really want to crawl up sand dunes I have gone as low as 6psi. Just no throwing the Raptor sideways! Might do damage to the sidewall or peal it off the rim. Then what?
 

Atticus

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I live on an island and do a lot of soft sand beach driving, and I have the stock BFG's. I've found that 20-22 Psi is just about right. I run my raptor in 4x4 ORM with the nannies off and the rear differentials locked. I've played around with most, if not all, of the options and this seems to work the best.
 

RaptorAddict.com

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I can tell you this. With the stock wheels and BFG's, I have aired down many time to 17-20 lbs and never had a problem. Even driving down steeper sand hills and making hard turns, I haven't had any issue. Maybe I was lucky. Don't know. But I have done it many times, so my thoughts on it are ok from my experience. But if you try it and something happens, just don't come after me. :)
 
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