Cool Down your XJ and MJ!

We just designed and developed Side Hood Vents for you Jeep Cherokee XJ and Comanche MJ.

Absolutely essential for cooling off the under hood heat in your ride.  Check out the video and see how easy they are to install!

Daystar Products Hood Cowl: A Customer Shows Us The Awesome

It's one thing for us to talk about how awesome Daystar's Hood Cowl is -- that's part of our job description - but when a customer sends us pictures showing us how awesome it is, then that speaks louder than any words we can use.

One of our customers who identified himself as "Dave" sent us these pictures for use on our Facebook page.  We think Dave has an incredibly sleek ride and we like how he integrated the Hood Cowl into his look.  Check it out and tell us what you think. While you're at it please join us on Facebook for more fantastic Jeep stuff like this or you can check out our Youtube Channel filled with "views you can use."  

Dave - thanks for choosing not only our Hood Cowl, but our Hood Wranglers, and Lower Dash Panels to max out your ride.

With Daystar It's Always An Event!

Today we thought we'd catch you up on some of the awesome Offroad Events we've attended recently.  It's always great to get out and meet the folks who use our products and keep us working hard to design and develop new ones to meet the demands of the offroad.

Here are some of the wonderful places we've been to and people we've met in recent months:

RALLY VENTURE:  Reno, NV  July 16th
Kelly and Mark just competed in the 1st ever Rally Venture at the Silver State Jamboree in Reno, NV.  The field was full of industry people, Top Ultra 4 racers, and Offroad racers.  Many of the rigs were Ultra 4 built vehicles.  After 16 hours running,  Kelly and Mark finished the course in 9th overall out of 20 rigs.





SEMA CHARITY PINEWOOD DERBY:  July 18th 
We blasted through to the SEMA Charity Pinewood Derby car race.  The Team worked very hard getting our 3 entries ready.

• Daystar Silver Stock took 1st place!
• The JK unlimited class took 4th.
• LTAA Truck finished 3rd.

SAND BLASTED AT OREGON DUNEFEST: July 30th - August 3rd
We spent the most incredible weekend with the coolest sand loving, grit eating, crazed people we have ever met. We brought along our Fire Breathing, nitro burning JK just to see what she could do in the sand.

WOO BABY! 

We were presently surprised and so were the fans. We made it all the way to the Quarter Finals before getting beat out by our competition.

Haley Wilson's TJ Sand Drag Jeep was crazy fast yesterday and needed to keep the hood down, so she came over to the Daystar booth at Dunefest, and bingo! We installed new Daystar Hood Wranglers.

We can’t wait until next year!
THANKS, FANS!
SEE YOU SOON AT AN EVENT NEAR YOU!

Daystar Products Cam Can UTV & Rollbar Mounting System

One of our most popular offroad accessory lines is our patented, award-winning Cam Cans.  Designed for offroad storage, the Daystar Cam Can line now mounts to your UTV rollbar 
(Fits 1” , 1-½”, 1-¾” and 2” bars) providing you with a storage area for tools, for drinking water, and for petroleum based fluids.

Cam Cans are easy to install and  can lock together providing you with extra storage that can be set at any angle on your rollbar.  Here’s our latest video showing easily the Black Cam Can is mounted on a UTV using our new Cam Can UTV & Rollbar Mounting System:

Here's a closeup view of the mounting plate:













And here it is mounted on a UTV. Note the Double Cam on the left and the single cam on the right:

Of course, like all Daystar products,  Cam Cans are Made in the USA!

For more information on this, and our other award-winning Cam Can products,  please visit our website here.

Daystar Products Sponsors Motor Trend's CHEAP TRUCK CHALLENGE on Youtube!

There's not a lot of things more fun than offroading, and when we were approached by MOTOR TREND CHANNEL with sponsoring an offroad show that blends together all the things that makes offroading fun, well we couldn't say, "No!"

We just had to say, "HECK, YEAH!"

CHEAP TRUCK CHALLENGE is available on Youtube as part of the DIRT EVERYDAY program, and we're a proud sponsor. CTC mixes in your Do-It-Yourself Show, Your Competition Show, and your Whacky Characters Show in an offroad format that is a great entry into the world of offroading.

Contestants are all friends of host Fred Williams who get together in smash-built trucks and jeeps that have to meet a certain budget (Fred's is an S-10) .  Then they put the vehicles through all sorts of challenges that test the drivers and vehicles for heck of it!  Lots of driving, climbing, and wrenching!

It's a great starter show into the world of offroading and fabrication with lots of great tips and ideas for folks on a budget.

Why don't you check it out for yourself?  Be sure to leave a comment on their Youtube page and tell them Daystar sent you!

Daystar Products CEO, Mark Turner to Speak at 2014 SEMA Show Vehicle Dynamics Forum

The first of the TBS forum panel sessions, the Vehicle Dynamics Forum, is scheduled for Monday, November 3rd from 1:00 to 2:30 PM. in Rooms N258-N260 of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Vehicle Dynamics Forum will be moderated by John Waraniak, Vice President Vehicle Technology, SEMA. Guest Speakers and Industry Experts include:

• Paul Venhovens, BMW Endowed Chair in Automotive Systems Integration at CU-ICAR

• Paul Williamsen, National Manager, Strategic Educational Support, International Market Enhancement Team, Lexus International

• Tom Gillespie, Co-Founder and Director of Product Planning, Mechanical Simulation

• Terry Ledwidge, Director of New Business Development, Link Engineering

• Mark Turner, CEO Daystar Products

• Joe Schaefer, President of Konig American

Attendees of the Vehicle Dynamics Forum will learn how to customize with confidence and ensure their products comply with federal motor vehicle safety regulations.  SEMA’s Vehicle Dynamics Program and participating member companies have made significant achievements over the past five years in understanding how performance products such as suspension, brakes, wheels, tires and steering as well as engine modifications interact with electronic stability control and other active safety systems. The innovative and collaborative approach developed by SEMA has minimized costs while establishing unique capabilities for members that want to know the impact of their products on vehicle dynamics and ESC performance.  SEMA has been supporting the development of an industry-first math model with CarSim for evaluating the ESC performance of aftermarket-modified vehicle through pure simulation and analysis. An overview of the CarSim ESC Math Model and applications for SEMA members will be presented by Dr. Tom Gillespie at the Forum.  September 1, 2012, marked the date requiring aftermarket companies to comply with the U.S. Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 126 for ESC systems. When loss of driver control is imminent, ESC strategically applies the brakes to help stabilize the vehicle. Similar requirements for the rest of the global automotive community are contained in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 13H regulations.

The full-scale vehicle testing with Link Engineering and dSPACE hardware-in-the-loop vehicle dynamics simulation technology and CarSim product development methodologies available to SEMA members are the same as that used by all OEMs and major suppliers around the world to develop, test and simulate vehicle dynamics, new chassis system components, engines, powertrains, drivelines, suspensions and vehicle electronic control systems. The Vehicle Dynamics Forum will include an overview of the SEMA-Clemson Vehicle Dynamics Projects as well as the pioneering WTC Research to determine the impact of custom wheels and tires on vehicle dynamics performance by Dr. Paul Venhovens from Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR).

                                                           

Daystar Products New Hood Cowl for the Jeep JK Wrangler 2007- 2015

One of the biggest, and most challenging problems facing the Jeep JK owner is the amount of heat generated under the hood of the vehicle when it's offroad.  This is one of the reasons why the factory places the insulation barrier under the hood - to  to reduce noise and to protect your paint job from excessive heat. The problem is that is often the insulation itself isn't enough, and the paint bubbles up or cracks anyway.

There have been several different designs of hood cowls by other manufacturers, but in one way or another while they addressed the under hood heat problem - they also created other problems like weakening the structure of your Jeep's hood.  When Daystar took up the challenge of creating a hood cowl that removed this under hood heat, we also wanted to take up other challenges:

• Most hood cowls and venting systems are fine when driving, but what about when you're doing a slow crawl over a rock face, revving the motor and only moving forward a couple of feet at a time? 

• What about weight and paintability?  Do we want to install a large item such as a cowl that will be a bear to match the paint on your existing hood?  What about the cost? 

• How easy is it going to be to install?  Will you have to go to the body shop, or will you be able to do it yourself?  

With our new Daystar Products Hood Cowl for the Jeep JK Wrangler we've solved all those problems and more.  The Hood Cowl reduces under hood temperatures,  keeps the structural integrity of the hood, is easy to install with templates provided for precise installation, keeps the under hood insulation from the factory,  is fully paintable, comes complete with all necessary parts, and is of course,  Made In The USA. 

The Hood Cowl is made from ABS plastic which is light, strong and holds paint well.  The design of the Cowl in conjunction with the vents is made to draw the heat away from the engine compartment even when the Jeep is standing still. 

The effectiveness of the Daystar JK Cowl and hood vents been tested. Throughout the development process the design and placement of the vents underwent severe scrutiny. To start we went to MOPAR and used their information on current hot spots under the JK hood, on JKs equipped with 3.8L and 3.6L engines.

We then went to the V8 conversion companies and added their data. This information was use to determine where and how large the vents needed to be and then located.

The next step was to determine how air flowed under, around and over the hood at idle, low and high

speed. This information would determine the location, shape and size of the vents, our goal from the onset of this project was to design a set of products that would work in concert to reduce under hood temperatures. The side and front center vents we placed in hot spots ( for low speed and stopped operation) so that excessive under hood could escape using simple thermodynamics, heat rises. The design of the front center vents need to be tackled from two directions: Under the hood they protrude into the airflow and "grab" the heat, above the hood they are shaped to redirect the air flow, thus creating a low pressure area that forces the high pressure air moving over the hood to create a vacuum that "pulls air from under the hood.

The front center vent and Cowl front opening were placed to eliminate a hot spot, but more importantly to remove air from directly behind the radiator. As air is introduced through the radiator at speed it builds up under the hood creating a high pressure area. This reduces the effectiveness of the radiator as incoming air "runs" into increasing resistance. the front vent and cowl are the first line of defense and get the air that comes off the fan, while the side vents allow the air that is moving around the motor to escape. An good example of the build up of pressure under the JK hood is how it flutters at higher speeds. [On a side note: the combination of our hood vents and Hood Wranglers will virtually eliminate the fluttering hood problem]

What does this all equate to? When designing the vents we focused on the extraction of heat under high and low speed conditions, something none of our competitors have done. Check it out:




For more information on our Hood Cowl and other Hood Accessories please visit:  www.daystarproducts.com