Well ladies and gents...its dead for the time being.

[Riff Raff]

As Brian said, Nerve Gas probable cut his losses and took the money and ran. My question is this. Is there a lesson in this for us?

ROWHARD, you asked if there was a lesson in this for us from the NERVE GAS incident??? You're damn right there is!!! It's called excessive "unsprung weight" in tires!!!

I just did a quick tire weight analysis of the huge NERVE GAS tires, and they weigh nearly 100 lbs each. Remember, our sporty and nimble VX's had OEM tires that weighed only 33--34 lbs each. NERVE GAS put on extremely heavy tires weighing nearly 70 lbs more over OEM or a whopping 280 lbs of extra unsprung weight (tire fat) for all four(4) tires. To further aggravate things, NERVE GAS made absolutely NO modifications to his OEM brakes (according to his list of modifications). Thus, when NERVE GAS asked his poor little VX to stop those big hefty tires in a panic emergency brake stop with the small OEM VX brakes; his VX politely replied "not today, soldier".

After all of those expensive modifications NERVE GAS made to make his VX "look good", it was actually the main cause of its demise. His highly modified VX wouldn't stop for *****, it wouldn't steer for *****; it was only good for hittin' *****.

The NERVE GAS incident is an clear cut example of why I keep harping on not installing excessively heavy tires with high "unsprung weight" on the light-n-nimble VX which has very small OEM brakes. Any aftermarket tire should not way more than 10 lbs over the OEM stock tire weight-- or 44 lbs maximum, if the VX is to be safely used on public roads. Any tire weighing more than 44 lbs on the VX puts your VX at risk, your life at risk, and the lives of the other drivers on the road at risk.

So, when shopping for new tires-- try to keep your maximum individual tire weight at no greater than 44 lbs each per tire and focus on tires that are "P-series" (aka: P-Metric). If you don't, you could easily end up exactly like NERVE GAS did (or worse, with someone being injured).

Excellent examples of lightweight All-Terrain "P-series" tires weighing 44 lbs or less are:

A: PRO-COMP - ALL TERRAIN in P285/60R18 (31.3" O.D./43 lbs).
B: GENERAL - GRABBER AT2 in P275/65R18 (32" O.D./44 lbs).

The lightest weight "Mud-Terrain" tires made are the YOKOHAMA - GEOLANDAR+, although these are not available in the 18" rim size. Riff Raff

[Ldub]

ROWHARD, you asked if there was a lesson in this for us from the NERVE GAS incident??? You're damn right there is!!! It's called excessive "unsprung weight" in tires!!!

I just did a quick tire weight analysis of the huge NERVE GAS tires, and they weigh nearly 100 lbs each. Remember, our sporty and nimble VX's had OEM tires that weighed only 33--34 lbs each. NERVE GAS put on extremely heavy tires weighing nearly 70 lbs more over OEM or a whopping 280 lbs of extra unsprung weight (tire fat) for all four(4) tires. To further aggravate things, NERVE GAS made absolutely NO modifications to his OEM brakes (according to his list of modifications). Thus, when NERVE GAS asked his poor little VX to stop those big hefty tires in a panic emergency brake stop with the small OEM VX brakes; his VX politely replied "not today, soldier".

After all of those expensive modifications NERVE GAS made to make his VX "look good", it was actually the main cause of its demise. His highly modified VX wouldn't stop for *****, it wouldn't steer for *****; it was only good for hittin' *****.

The NERVE GAS incident is an clear cut example of why I keep harping on not installing excessively heavy tires with high "unsprung weight" on the light-n-nimble VX which has very small OEM brakes. Any aftermarket tire should not way more than 10 lbs over the OEM stock tire weight-- or 44 lbs maximum, if the VX is to be safely used on public roads. Any tire weighing more than 44 lbs on the VX puts your VX at risk, your life at risk, and the lives of the other drivers on the road at risk.

So, when shopping for new tires-- try to keep your maximum individual tire weight at no greater than 44 lbs each per tire and focus on tires that are "P-series" (aka: P-Metric). If you don't, you could easily end up exactly like NERVE GAS did (or worse, with someone being injured).

Excellent examples of lightweight All-Terrain "P-series" tires weighing 44 lbs or less are:

A: PRO-COMP - ALL TERRAIN in P285/60R18 (31.3" O.D./43 lbs).
B: GENERAL - GRABBER AT2 in P275/65R18 (32" O.D./44 lbs).

The lightest weight "Mud-Terrain" tires made are the YOKOHAMA - GEOLANDAR+, although these are not available in the 18" rim size. Riff Raff

So when are you gonna start the church of "less unsprung weight general grabber"?...

We,ve all read it about a million times already, next time, save some bandwidth & post a link to this current rant...

[LittleBeast]

Dude Riff Raff come on lighten up this thread is certainly not the place for this kind of bashing Nerve Gas just got into an accident because a lady was making an illegal u-turn; if you read the original post his passenger front quarter panel hit her driver’s side door. In my opinion it is extremely ignorant and unfounded for you to assume that a normally equipped VX would have avoided this accident all together. Were you there? Do you know the exact circumstances? NO! So don't start preaching about "Blah, blah, blah, I am jealous of someone's awesome VX so I am going to call it unsafe", especially on possibly his last thread here with us. I for one hope this is not his last thread here and welcome him back to the VX family huge tires and all, does having larger tires on there increase his braking distance? Yes, but I guarantee you it is still better than many registered and inspected cars on the road, why don't you do us all a favor and leave the inspection sticker to better hands than an internet forum, and leave your jaded opinions to a different thread where we are not trying to respect a fellow member who has just had a lot of frustration and grief thrown into his life?

Oh and you are last in line for his parts when he buys it back and sells stuff here But then again I guess you don't care it probably isn't carbon fiber or made out of space age weightless material so I guess it wouldn't be your style.

[Nerve_Gas]

And now its time for my response...
I fully understand what riff raff is saying and agree with him. Though in the given situation its not the case. I'm trained to operate a vehical tactically which involves avoiding other cars and such. Also that involves a large variety of vehicles from a tiny camry to HMMWV or hummvee (hummer). Yes if I had larger brakes it would have helped but it wouldn't have changed the outcome. By the time I began course correction and braking it was far to late. It all happened so fast that there was absolutely nothing I could do to change the outcome. So my instinct reaction was to put the quarter into her car to avoid more damage. A 3 foot tire can take more hit than the engine.

As for the beast, she sits quietly. I have absolutely no intention of getting rid of her. More than likely she's going to be taken off of the road and will begin the transformation in a trailor queen. Body damage first then axle swap and larger lift, brakes, power up grade, a real transfer case, and armor. Larger tires will be in there somewhere. But first I need to get a reliable truck that I won't mess with. I'm looking at quad cab tacomas.

[Riff Raff]

NERVE GAS--- I am so sorry for your mishap, but thankful you weren't injured. It totally sucks to have "any" VX hurt. We here at Vehicross.Info truly feel your sorrow and are saddened in our hearts. My previous banter was not to intentionally slander you personally; but rather to illuminate the element of physics, and to possibly prevent other VX's from suffering as your VX has. I wish you only the very best and look forward to the day your VX is repaired. Welcome back and thank you for your response to this thread. Riff Raff

[tom4bren]

Good to hear from you Nerve Gas. Lemme know if you need to get a 'fix' on driving a VX. I'm only 45 min North of you.

[Nerve_Gas]

Thanks everyone for your support. I'm still going to be around and will get the beast back up and running in time. Money is a little tight these days but things are getting better. In time you will see my beast get bigger and a lot more bad a--.