boxster and gravel roads

[extanker]

four letters .....J.....E.....E....P

[The Radium King]

ha - everywhere else in the world, 'jeep' is spelled .....N.....I.....S......S.....A....N, which is what i've got for the real work (fronty crew 4x4).

the town i'm returning to has 100 miles of relatively good gravel road, followed by 750 miles of unpoliced rough pavement to the closest city. great fun for a properly prepared vehicle. probably more 911 territory (964 or 993 C4S ... drool ...) but i love my boxster and was wondering if i could make it work for the application.

trk.

[mikefocke]

so that option is out.

From your description, I'd want whatever 4WD was most repairable/maintainable in the area you are moving to. Subaru?

[Lobo1186]

that should do the trick!

[Lobo1186]

OH side note. your boxster will have a tough time off-road without some kind of differential seeing as yours is probably open this is a big no no off-road.

[JTP]

When I was living back home on Maui there was a guy who had a 914 with a Chevy 327 in it and it was set up like a rally car. He used to drive it on the beach all the time and never got stuck. A Boxster might be able to be setup like that too. You'll propably have to do alot of custom work though.

[Topless]

Anything can be done with enough $$ but do you really want to?? There are a lot of tender spots on the underside that will need protection, the engine bay cooling comes from underneath bringing up all the dust and dirt. You will want to raise the car 6" or so for better clearance. The air intake is behind the front wheels so it should be relocated for clean air. Take a look at some of the Targa Newfoundland builds to get ideas:
http://www.targanewfoundland.com/drivers/cars/

Before you break out the cutting torch and diamond plate:

Drive a Cayenne. Amazing car on and off road.
Drive a Toureg. Down market Cayenne with VW badge.
Drive a Subaru. A lot of car hidden in that vanilla sled exterior.

[jbs986]

Originally Posted by extanker

four letters .....J.....E.....E....P

Sorry but, Nissans suck! Get a jeep wrangler in 4 door or 2 door and it will take you anywhere you need to go.

You can leave it stock or ad mods, I only wish are boxsters were as reliable as my jeep wrangler is.

[Lobo1186]

Jeep wranglers are one of the few SUV models that retain value quite well.

[litteng]

where are you moving to???

[The Radium King]

Fort Smith, NT from Ucluelet, BC.

[litteng]

i'd be tempted to suck on the barrel before heading north again (to fort smith)... how long are you planning on staying ?

fort smith is probably not a great choice if driving the boxster is important to ya, but you already know that.

i spent enough time in northern SASK, that i know the beauty of the north and the sacrifices needed in life style to survive. my family stayed in saskatoon. i commuted to site by air (points north landing)

we beat the everlovin snot out of every truck they handed to us at Mxxxxxn lake, 3 years was a good life for a vehicle in the north.

sell the boxster or store it, no sense in even thinking about anything nice or fancy north of 60. i've got a bmw f650 dakar for roads like that

post pictures when you get there, safe travel

[The Radium King]

too cool - you a uranium miner? i did my stint at diavik mining diamonds. i was in yellowknife for 10 years, followed by 10 years in fort smith. tried to get out and live the good life on the coast (bought a porsche for the twisty mountain roads and the whole bit) but i'm going back. once the north gets in your blood ...

ran a saab 900 turbo up north for a while - the roads blew a shock right through the mount once. had my muffler knocked off early one trip (where trips are 1000kms); by the time i got to a mechanic the lack of back pressure caused the engine to blow a dime-sized piece of valve right through the turbo.

got 250k kms and 10 years on my nissan frontier and it's still going strong. clean air, clean oil, clean fuel and you can't go wrong.