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Can a 1943 Jeep Survive This? Check out AMSOIL Expedition Colorado

Written by Charleen

Can a 1943 Jeep Survive This? Check out AMSOIL Expedition Colorado

Lindsay Premo|

For brothers Brad and Roger Lovell, adventure is always around the next turn, literally. Brad typically finds adventure behind the wheel of his off-road racing truck on a TORC Series track. Roger finds it during grueling Ultra 4 events. Sometimes the brothers even find adventure together, like when winning the Smittybilt Every Man Challenge during King of the Hammers week.

This summer, the Lovell brothers decided to take a different type of adventure.

Armed only with what they could pack into their three pre-2000 off-road vehicles, the Lovells, their sons, mechanic Jake Arbitter and AMSOIL video producer/photographer Wyatt Gruben scaled rock ledges and drove through heavy downpours to complete the 550-mile trek from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Moab, Utah.

Brad recently sat down with us to answer a few questions about AMSOIL Expedition Colorado.

AMSOIL: What was the purpose of this trip?

Lovell: The purpose of this trip was simply to see if it could be done. We grew up in the Rocky Mountains and, rather than turning around to go home after the weekend, we wanted to see what adventure lay on the other side of the ridge line. By using older vehicles, we wanted the experience of our forefathers and to pass it on to our children. Overall, we were looking to find authentic adventure in our backyard, and we definitely succeeded in that.

AMSOIL: Who went with you?

Lovell: There has been a lot of interest in AMSOIL Expedition Colorado from friends and associates. A lot of people wanted to go, but we needed to keep it simple and small to prove the concept. In the end it was myself and my 11-year-old boys (Adam and Byam), my brother Roger and his son (Parker), plus Jake Arbitter, who works for the team, and Wyatt Gruben to capture some great images.

AMSOIL: Is this the first time you have done this?

Lovell: Yes. The idea came about to see if the West was really still wild. Just like there was a time in history when cattle drives were drowned out by fences, we wanted to see if we could still cross 550 miles of the Rocky Mountains on only dirt trails. The answer? Well, we were thwarted by snow, road construction and large landowners locking gates on what appeared to be private roads. We made it, but with more pavement miles than I had hoped. With this experience, planning and a little luck, we will develop a better route.

AMSOIL: What are the makes/models of the cars that you drove?

Lovell: This is an adventure and we wanted to make it difficult. My brother and I grew up on similar adventures and, in all reality, this was equally a chance to pass the same experiences on to our children. We drove the following:

  • 1943 Willys MB (Brad) – we originally bought this as a pit-support vehicle and my kids took a great interest in rebuilding it. They helped me redo the engine, brakes, wiring, etc. before the trip.
  • 1986 Ford Bronco II (Roger) – this was Roger’s first vehicle when he turned 16. It has been through a half dozen builds over the last 28 years and has solid axles, a 5.0L V-8, linked rear suspension and has been narrowed 6 inches.
  • 1996 Ford Ranger (Jake) þ Jake built this Ranger while attending UNOH [University of Northern Ohio] and it sports solid axles front and rear and a lot of suspension work. It should be noted that this is Jake’s daily driver, and he drove all the way back to Colorado Springs from Moab.

AMSOIL: Where did the expedition start/stop and what is the distance between those two?

Lovell: We started in downtown Colorado Springs in front of the Antlers Hotel. It is a historic hotel located on the zero/zero block of Colorado Springs. We ended the trip overlooking the town of Moab on the Hell’s Revenge Trail. It seemed more fitting than the center of town because everyone goes to Moab for the trails and wilderness, not the town itself. The total distance was 550 miles, which we mapped on Google Earth and tracked during the expedition on an iPad.

AMSOIL: So, why are you wearing a garbage bag?

Ha! We had all kinds of weather on the trip. We were in a thunderstorm above timberline, which is not a good place to be. The head gasket in the Willys had just gone sour and we were all freezing cold. My “breathable” rain gear proved to not be waterproof and I was really cold. The only waterproof thing left was a trash bag. It felt GREAT to get some dry clothes on and stay dry!

To see what products the Lovell’s use, check them out here.

To sign up to see future installments of AMSOIL Signature Series, sign up here.

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World’s Most Powerful Outboard Motors Rely on AMSOIL

Written by Charleen

World’s Most Powerful Outboard Motors Rely on AMSOIL

Seven Marine, maker of the world’s most powerful outboard motors, has a saying: We move the people who move the world. The Germantown, Wis. company designs, builds and sells outboard motors that produce up to an astonishing 627 hp and power some of the fastest and most impressive watercraft in the world.

All that power places tremendous stress on their sophisticated motors, which is why they turned to AMSOIL synthetic lubricants as their factory- and service-fill lubricants after having previously used Mobil* products. We sat down with Eric Davis, Seven Marine Vice President, to get the story.

AMSOIL Magazine: What makes Seven Marine unlike any other manufacturer of marine motors?

Eric Davis: We build the most powerful outboards available on the market today. We use a completely different technological approach than any other outboard manufacturer by using the small-block supercharged V-8 out of the Cadillac* CTS V and applying that in its normal horizontal configuration under the cowl. And that really makes Seven Marine unique because all other outboard motors are vertically oriented. That means we can use the performance, quality and emissions advancements that are central to automotive engines and apply that to outboard motors for the first time. In addition, we pair the engine to a ZF* marine wet-disc-clutch transmission. We’re the only outboard that uses a transmission. Because of that, our motors don’t shift in the lower unit.

AMSOIL Magazine: What performance advantages does that design provide?

Davis: It allows us to optimize the lower unit with a twin-pinion, race-inspired design that’s smaller in diameter. That benefits us in high-speed-cruise fuel economy and top-speed capability. A twin-pinion also gives you a tremendous amount of durability.

So, when you use a horizontal crankshaft engine, go with a wet-disc-clutch transmission and finish with a twin-pinion lower unit, you really get an outboard that’s built completely different, which is how we’re able to deliver the amount of power and torque to the propeller that sets us apart from everyone else.

AMSOIL Magazine: Your most powerful motor produces 627 hp. On what type of watercraft are people using your outboards?

Davis: The vast majority of our applications are multi-engine, and the trend lately has been more quads than anything [using four engines simultaneously]. We address the market that’s called the ‘super consoles,’ so we’re talking about 40-plus-foot, centerconsole, off-shore boats. Four engines can be done using a boat as short as 43 feet and as long as 61 feet.

AMSOIL Magazine: Who’s buying your outboards?

Davis: By the time you find out what they’ve done or what they do, they’ve touched your life in some way, shape or form. We use as a corporate tag line, ‘The Power to Move Those Who Move the World,’ and that really came from the fact that our customers are exactly those people, whether it’s the northern hemisphere’s largest onion farmer or the family that owns the third-largest grain distributor in the world – all kinds of people like that. They have truly amazing stories.

AMSOIL Magazine: How do they use your outboard motors?

Davis: It varies a lot. In general, they use them for transportation. They’re moving great distances, and what makes the applications unique for Seven Marine is that they’re trying to traverse those distances at high-speed cruise. They use the applications for everything from island-hopping to poker runs to deep-sea fishing. We have customers in the Gulf of Mexico who are running 150 miles to fish the rigs, so they’re cruising three hours at 50 mph to get out there and fish. We have people in Alaska 150 miles from civilization. Generally speaking, they’re covering great distances at pretty good clips.

AMSOIL Magazine: Why did you choose AMSOIL synthetic lubricants for your engines and transmissions?

Davis: When you’re trying to deliver the most luxurious experience for the customer and deliver the most performance at this level of power, you really have to have the best of everything to make sure it works properly. And you have to be confident that you have the best lubricants to ensure you’ve got the ultimate in durability. AMSOIL, on the engine and transmission side, has been the best products we can find. That allows us to be confident that when we do a factory-fill and recommended servicefill with AMSOIL, that you’re going to get that same factory performance day-in and day-out.

AMSOIL Magazine: What did your own test results tell you about AMSOIL products?

Davis: When we started doing oil sampling from dyno testing and looking at the performance of the oil and its degradation, the AMSOIL results were superior than what we were using before [Mobil products]. We’re endeavoring to build the absolute best world-class products we can and innovate in the marine industry, so we prefer to have an oil that we feel is as innovative and technologically advanced as the engines that it’s going into, and that leaves us with AMSOIL

In Sioux Falls review our marine 10W-30 and 10W-40 4-stroke oil for the big blocks, the new Mercury 25W-20 and several 2-stroke oils for injection units both OEM and our famous HP Injector formula and the 45 year old 100:1 outboard pre-mix.

And our best seller – the highly stable and water resistant Marine Gear Lube 75W-90.

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