East coast vs West coast wheeling

Public vs. Private land is a big difference between East Coast and West Coast wheelin', and it touches a bit on your point Mike.

Out here these days, with few exceptions just about all wheelin' is confined to private off road parks. In my area they tend to be in the + or - 1000 acre size, so you can get by without haulin' ass to traverse the park. But, places like Tellico (god rest her soul) and Windrock are large by East Coast Standards (think 50-150,000 acres), and if you can't haul ass comfortably you are definitely into lengthy trips between obstacles. Places like Moab, Colorado and (I assume) JV - long treks are par for the course. For me, those long treks on the trail are what I enjoy most - but your rig does need to be able to suck them up to make it enjoyable.

That said, I think any decently built rig should be able to handle moderate speed on bumpy roads without requiring a subsequent trip the dentist...

We measure in acres. Out west they measure in Square miles. 640 acres is a square mile.

All the people I wheel with don't wheel if it is sloppy. The hills drain pretty good, but usually the access roads end up with mud holes.
 
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Places like Moab, Colorado and (I assume) JV - long treks are par for the course. For me, those long treks on the trail are what I enjoy most - but your rig does need to be able to suck them up to make it enjoyable.
Depends on the trail in JV. Backdoor is close, not much needed to get there in 10 minutes or so. Run out to Outer Limits, Spooners, it will take awhile and nothing is smooth. Washboard would be awesome, but most of the roads out there and there are 100's, have been raced on by everyone and are various levels of whooped out. The pic below is zoomed out to put the area in perspective using Hammertown on the lakebed as a reference.
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When you zoom in, more roads start showing up and they each were mostly at one time just a single 2 track out to the other areas. Over time those get whooped out and traffic moves over to a smoother section, it gets whooped out, rinse and repeat.
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If you go the long way around to Sunbonnet so you don't get lost, it is a hike.

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For sort of a perspective it is about 5 miles from the lake bed to the beginning of Lower Big Johnson. About a third of the distance to Sunbonnet would be terrain that most folks would consider a wheeling trail, it isn't, it is just the road to Sunbonnet.
 
We measure in acres. Out west they measure in Square miles. 640 acres is a square mile.

All the people I wheel with don't wheel if it is sloppy. The hills drain pretty good, but usually the access roads end up with mud holes.

We still measure in acres, we just add lots more zeroes. JV was at one time 85,000 acres. We like the sound of that better than 130 square miles.
 
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Like the geography, the west is (FYI, I have never wheeled in the west just walked it with a ruck) more raw than the east. Rocks are sharper, mountains are steeper and more angled, there's less big trees. Harsher on man and equipment.

I'm nowhere near an expert, but by your profile the driver will be the limited factor out here. No offense toward you, that's a nice ride.
 
It seems like east and pnw end up needing to carry more speed through an obstacle, since there's not enough traction to get part way up and hold and check/adjust your line and start moving again. I think good antisquat is good in either, but I can imagine having a magic knob that allowed you to adjust the balance of CG vs roll center and uptravel, or basically ride height, but without messing up the AS, could tune a rig to perform better in one and worse in the other. I suspect the same could be true of shocks tuning. Lower crawl ratio is probably more advantageous out west.

But since the east isn't 100% rock bouncing and west isn't 100% crawling then pursuing that magic knob is probably a fools errand and for most of us it just makes sense to build a jack of all trades instead of a master of one (to borrow a turn of phrase already used in the thread).
 
Suspension wise what would be the difference when setting up a rig for Johnson Valley vs a Tennessee build? Are there any?
 
2 very similar builds. Similar wheelbase, similar tire size, similar geometry, similar travel, similar axles, similar weight.

East vs West.

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Suspension wise what would be the difference when setting up a rig for Johnson Valley vs a Tennessee build? Are there any?

Assuming OK is close enough to TN, and Sand Hollow is close enough to JV, looking at the 2 above set up near identically suspension wise, what bad habits do you see in either location?
 
Assuming OK is close enough to TN, and Sand Hollow is close enough to JV, looking at the 2 above set up near identically suspension wise, what bad habits do you see in either location?

I don’t think the two are comparable enough to make much of an assessment on anything except the driving style.

As Blaine said big tires hide a lot of problems until they wheel with a better setup. I’m curious what the focus difference would be if any.
 
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As Blaine said big tires hide a lot of problems until they wheel with a better setup.

You've seen that same suspension (minus an inch of travel, Duratracs, and less wheelbase) on Mrs. Tox's Jeep with 34.8s. What problems did you see that you would like improved upon? You won't offend me by pointing any out.
 
I don’t think the two are comparable enough to make much of an assessment on anything except the driving style.

As Blaine said big tires hide a lot of problems until they wheel with a better setup. I’m curious what the focus difference would be if any.

i may be wrong but I feel like driving style is more of a function of the environment. I think the second jeep could have done exactly the same thing as the first in that location.
 
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You've seen that same suspension (minus an inch of travel, Duratracs, and less wheelbase) on Mrs. Tox's Jeep with 34.8s. What problems did you see that you would like improved upon? You won't offend me by pointing any out.

You’re missing the point. You can watch a rig wheel and not notice any issues until you watch it wheel with a better setup. Nitpicking your build doesn’t answer the question I asked. Since I don’t know what I don’t know I’m asking specifically and maybe @mrblaine is the only one that can answer it, would you setup the suspension differently when building a JV build vs a TN or Washington build? If so what is the difference?
 
You can watch a rig wheel and not notice any issues until you watch it wheel with a better setup.

I'd wager a guess that it's because "it's the master until the master comes".

Put another way, we don't know what we don't know, but what we are experiencing is that it's the best right now in all of those locations for Jeeps.

(If you're wanting to build something that ISN'T a Jeep, there's different answers along with different pros and cons. But I'm assuming we're talking Jeeps because of where this thread is posted.)
 
You’re missing the point. You can watch a rig wheel and not notice any issues until you watch it wheel with a better setup. Nitpicking your build doesn’t answer the question I asked. Since I don’t know what I don’t know I’m asking specifically and maybe @mrblaine is the only one that can answer it, would you setup the suspension differently when building a JV build vs a TN or Washington build? If so what is the difference?

You do understand I have no way to answer that question that is reasonably safe from far too many confrontational contrarian responses, right?
 
You do understand I have way to answer that question that is reasonably safe from far too many confrontational contrarian responses, right?

Unfortunately I do realize that.

From what you’ve said it seems there would be some differences.