jrbkarter

7.0 kw Onan and the ACs are both 13,500 BTU units. No issues with either or both firing up at once (digital T-Stat does it all) even with lights and TV on.

spg993tt

spent some time on the phone with Dometic who does most RV ac units. they said that initial Kick can be 2,3 times the run wattage of the unit. my Honda is that 7000IS quiet unit, works great. but sometimes that spike causes drama. they recommend a $28 hard start kit. its a little canister you wire inline with the electronics up top and it levers the starting amps, so it takes like 1/3 the watts/amps to get the compressor going s ince that's where my drama comes from. once running, tons of watts. but its that kickon of the compressor. so I'm going to try it. its found all over. they make a generic one and dometic said there is a bit better it was like $29 shipped. said its a 20 minute install and takes away any and all drama.
ill let you know how that plays out.

spg993tt

since this is becomign a pretty good learning experience for me....

what wheel rack do you all use for that alloy trailer? i see pitpal has some nice adjustable 48 adn 64 inch racks. my concern is that they call them 'tire' racks, not wheel racks. photos of them on their site show them without the wheels/rims just the tires. much different weigh i think probably for a set of 4 about 80 to 100lbs difference?
anyone have issues putting full wheelsets on them?
what brand do you all use? what do you like best?
what do you all think about them? useful.

was thinking of a dolly with a 50' pipe coming up to stack them, can roll them about, strap entire stack down during shipping...
thoughts?

lowside67

It's a bit hard to tell, but it looks like when your car is strapped down, you can't access the sunken floor compartment with the trailer spare? If this is the case, might want to make an effort to strap the car back a little to make sure you can get at it - it sure makes changing a flat at roadside a lot less of a pain when you don't have to unload or shift the car...

Otherwise, rockstar trailer!

-Mark

jrbkarter

Yes and no. We've played with the positioning of the car in the trailer some and though no where near as sensitive as any bumper pull we've played with there is some minor change in rig stability with where we place the car. The good news is the spare wheel compartment is hinged towards the back of the trailer so even with the nose hanging over it slightly you can still open it a decent amount. We actually base the car placement much more on being able to open/close the flip up curb side table and rig stability over the low percentage odds we'll need to access the spare compartment.

We had this discussion among ourselves during the layout phase and even saw the "but you'll have terrible access and have to take the car out of the trailer to change a tire" argument regularly online. In reality, and having changed a trailer tire fairly recently hundreds of miles from home, accessing the spare in a hurry is the least of the worries. It's not like changing it is going to be a NASCAR or F1 style process in the first place by the time you access your floor jack, wheel chocks, safety triangles/flares (if on the side of the expressway), breaker bar, gloves, 3 bottles of water as it's going to be in the middle of the summer heat of course, and get the trailer actually in the air. By that point, loosening the front straps of the car, slapping the winch line on the front tow hook for backup tension if needed, and rolling the car back a few inches is going to add minutes to an already hour long ordeal. I'll take that over the more cluttered look and dragging a heavy spare off an 8' trailer wall so its nearly over my head any day.

CN version- It'll be fine; roll the car back a few inches and access to spare granted.

jrbkarter

The inTech 28' has a Pit Posse- craptastic pictures on their website here:

http://pitposse.com/folduptirerack.html

No issues with the weight as we've run two full sets of wheels with tires mounted on it, on the built in ATC, and on the built in inTech. However, in a rare negative to the built in ATC and inTech designs- under panic braking we did manage to break a tie down strap (only had one set of wheels on the rack at the time which gave extra room to shift) that was run through the center bore of each wheel and then to the rack ends of the GN inTech. The broken strap allowed a wheel to come completely off the rack, bounce down out of the bunk and to the floor of the main trailer. Luckily it did not hit the car or any other components of the trailer on the way by and the only damage ended up being minor scuffs on a few wheel spokes.

Moral of the story- the Pit Posse with the adjustable bar setup allows you to run the bar through the center of the wheels and keep them locked in place more securely than an "open" center design and just a tie down strap. I'd only look at similar designs now if I were doing it again and it may be something we retrofit into the big boy trailer rack.

Notenoughtoys

I'm curious, why did you choose using Race Ramps versus the long extended ramps that attach the the back door? Was clearance still an issue?

Hams955

two reasons: 1) I already owned the ramps and 2) the extended ramps on the door add a lot of weight to the door itself. I opted to stay with what I already have that works well. Either option would have been fine but no reason to change honestly.

Chris.

Notenoughtoys

Thanks, I love your trailer design, especially how everything is in cabinets. I'm specing a Intech right now. Which cabinets are the fuel jugs in? In the gooseneck opposite the tires?

Hams955

That is correct. The fuel jugs are on the curb side opposite of the tire rack.

I am making some changes to my stable and I am likely going to sell this trailer. I will be moving up to a toterhome with a stacker.

I love this trailer; it's really an amazing piece of equipment.

- Chris.

ExMB

What about this rack? It allows for additional attachments to the studs via the horizontals (

Hams955

That rack awesome. It really works well to secure wheels. Only downside is that it doesn't quickly fold up when not in use.


Chris.

ExMB

From the looks of it you just have to R&R two pins. What am I missing?

Notenoughtoys

Thanks, well if you go Toter and Stacker that will be quite the upgrade! What do you think about getting the built in gas tank and pump instead of using the gas cans?

jrbkarter

Pondered but ultimately scratched off for one major reason- flexibility. However, that can be broken down into several smaller reasons. First and foremost frequency of use of the trailer and therefore the fuel in it. We have the built in fuel tank for the genset and are running fuel stabilizer in it for the prolonged times that fuel will sit without being used. When it comes to a commercial generator, I'm not too concerned about it the overall fuel quality when it eventually gets burned. However, would I want to worry about exactly what octane that 93 pump that I pumped into the trailer 6 months ago is really at when I run it in my 991 GT3? Not so much.

Second- no guarantee what fuel we'll need for any given event/vehicle/tune. Chris rotates through cars fairly regularly and at any given point there may be a track car that runs only on 100+ unleaded race gas, or a modified street car that's tuned for E85, or any combination in between. Fuel jugs give us the capability to mix/match/rotate as needed.

Third- facilities/parking arrangements/fuel refill rules. Can't always guarantee you'll be able to park the trailer such that you can reach the side with the fuel fill hose with a car- so now you're transferring into jugs anyway. Maybe you're at a place with rental garages so you've rented a garage- but you still need to bring the car back to the trailer to put fuel in it every other session.

Overall, for us, it boiled down to not being the best solution for our scenario. I'm sure for others where they know they're going to be using X car, for Y years, at Z track(s), and there are no shifting variables to that equation, a built in dispenser system makes the most sense.

Funniest part about it is you start out building your trailer and thinking it's going to be a straight forward process, then you realize the amount of thought and planning that goes into every scenario you may or may not encounter, and then prioritizing those needs. Another great example is the lack of built in air-lines/ air compressor on our trailer. It's a semi-common option on higher end trailer builds but we weighed it and realized we use or would use newer style battery powered tools for any compressed air tool instead. So, that left us with this expensive option and another component to maintain (compressor) just to put air in tires... Lot easier to store our faithful small electric compressor in a cabinet and pull it out as needed to fill the tires instead.