Happy to share the car to the magazine readers, and thanks for sharing your build.
Happy to share the car to the magazine readers, and thanks for sharing your build.
artur1808 said:Why not just put this in the car full-time and sell the Evos?
well, I only have one, for the first part. Jim already has a halo seat but I'm sure he won't want to just "leave" it in my car all the time, just when we're on stage.
and, I like to match. This seat and one red Evo would just look kind of silly. Plus, the Evos are easier to get in/out of at rallycross, where I'm getting in/out a lot. And since they're already dirty and beat-up, I'm ok with using them for general stuff. Just as well keep the nice new seat kinda nice, at least until it isn't ;)
I also think the Evo is better for street use, since the halo kinda blocks off a lot of peripheral vision, which this car is already lacking enough of with the cage.
If I can find a black cover for one of the Evos, for cheap, I may sell one of them. IDK, we'll see....
Well, a bit bummed out. Just found out that they cancelled this winter's WMWR rally in Wellsboro, where we finished 2nd overall last year. We've done this rally(sprint) every year since we started and always enjoy the technical stages and changing course conditions, and had planned to do it again. However, there are a few reasons it's not happening:
1. Turnout the last few years has been pretty low. Back in the day this was a Rally America event with big entry fields, and even 5-6 years ago when i crewed for Ozgur in that blizzard (somewhere in this thread), it was a pretty decent field. But the past few years the weather has been lousy for winter rally - no real snow, temps on the borderline of ice and melt, and just generally tough conditions. The Subaru guys dn't like these stages when they're used in STPR either, since they're best for light 2WD cars (IMO) and AWD and power can't help you like they do on most other stages, at least not as much. Only one or two Subarus entered last year, it was mostly older 2WD cars.
2. Due to STPR moving late in the year, the committee (which also does WMWR) has a lot of work to do. STPR's new WM stage setup needed a good bit of improvement, as I noted after we did it, and seems like the plan is to spend the winter making it better for STPR, which is the "main event" there, with WMWR as more of a sideshow.
So.....I spoke to the organizers and the plan is to bring WMWR back next winter once they settle things out with the course for STPR. So I guess we'll see.
That leave a bit of a hole in my winter plans. Sno-Drift would be cool to go to, but it's a massively long drive that's not in the cards this year. So I think I may take the car up to NY and do some ice racing. I wanted to the last few years, but proximity to WMWR made logistics hard. Maybe Jim will bring the other e30 or the Miata or something. Could be fun. Will keep you posted on that. In the meantime, that gives me more time to work on the Raider project (and more money). The rally plan is still to do SOFR in June.
Nothing new on the car, it's just under-cover in the driveway for a while. The seat is hanging out in the back of the raider, lol. Having a truck project is convenient for storing things :0
well, at least the rally car gets a cover to sit under this winter. :)
the garage is occupied with my new project, which I am calling "Rally Raider" since we'll hopefully use it for recce and other fun things....
Got a package in the mail today.....looked like a terrorist wrapped it and a 6-year old wrote the address. It was from Dan Downey, of course :)
It was our STPR "Big Nutz" trophy for being the top-finishing regional RWD car at the rally (a few national RWD cars like Hooper and Claudia beat us, of course). It gets passed around every year to the winner. I think that's 3 years in a row an e30 has held it.
irish44j said:That leave a bit of a hole in my winter plans. Sno-Drift would be cool to go to, but it's a massively long drive that's not in the cards this year. So I think I may take the car up to NY and do some ice racing. I wanted to the last few years, but proximity to WMWR made logistics hard. Maybe Jim will bring the other e30 or the Miata or something. Could be fun. Will keep you posted on that. In the meantime, that gives me more time to work on the Raider project (and more money). The rally plan is still to do SOFR in June.
I might be interested in some ice racing, let me know what the details are!
95maxrider said:irish44j said:That leave a bit of a hole in my winter plans. Sno-Drift would be cool to go to, but it's a massively long drive that's not in the cards this year. So I think I may take the car up to NY and do some ice racing. I wanted to the last few years, but proximity to WMWR made logistics hard. Maybe Jim will bring the other e30 or the Miata or something. Could be fun. Will keep you posted on that. In the meantime, that gives me more time to work on the Raider project (and more money). The rally plan is still to do SOFR in June.
I might be interested in some ice racing, let me know what the details are!
will do. here's a link to the club. It's a pretty good haul, but we'll see
Hope you all had a nice Christmas. A day of no working on cars, right? lol....yeah, about that.
we stayed home this year, and after presents in the morning, the girls got to cooking all afternoon (I am worthless in the kitchen) so i went outside and fiddled around with Christmas presents. Not like all I got was car stuff, but got a good number of things....some dewalt storage bins that we use for races, a few boxes of nitrile gloves (I've been going through these like crazy doing the Raider build), some bearing buddies for my trailer, a Lego Porsche 911 (wife was specific that there was no Lego 924S lol).
SWMBO got me a nice insulated duck jumpsuit for winter garage work and winter racing events....did a lot of research and this brand is pretty well-regarded, similar to Carhartt stuff, and much less expensive, so that's cool.
other stuff...
Spent some time organizing stuff into the new boxes and getting rid of the mismatched stuff I've been using to hold small parts, nuts and bolts, etc. (oh, the inlaws got me a right-angle drill driver that works with all my Max XR batteries as well)
My parents got me a Kenwood rear-view camera to go with the Kenwood deck in the Sequioa. Been meaning to get one for a while, not that I can't survive without it, but it's nice when backing the trailer blind, or hooking up. So of course with it being 50 and sunny I had to go install it...
Decided to put it up high on the roof so it can see over the trailer "hutch"
Took a while to snake the wiring through the stock conduits, which are pretty tight-fit, drilled a hole and grommet for the wire on the top of the rear hatch.
Hookup to the HU was cake, as Toyota was nice enough to put a reverse signal wire with the stock stereo harness to activate it (the deck can also just turn it on with a "camera" button.
Looks pretty good, happy with the view...
night is decent too, with my super-bright LED rear floods under the bumper hooked to the reversing lights.....it gets dark in the woods at rallies.
So, hope you had a nice holidays.....
How do you like the kenwood? I'm looking for a car play unit with a volume knob and I'm between the car play version of that and a Sony unit.
spandak said:How do you like the kenwood? I'm looking for a car play unit with a volume knob and I'm between the car play version of that and a Sony unit.
I really like this deck. I actually had an earlier model of it in this truck previously (but I wanted one that has Spotify and Android Auto, so i got this one). Also had an earlier version of it in my WRX. I like the functionality of this design, and of course having a volume knob!
This one is pretty inexpensive too, as I recall under $250 since it's a couple years old.
Not much going on with the car, but I did pick up another set of wheels - the "phone-dial" style ones from the Mini that Downey uses (which are way cooler than the ugly 5-spoke ones I use right now). Got them for a steal, but they were in New Jersey. Billy Petrow was nice enough to grab them for me and hold them so I rolled up there to get them in the GTI (this is only notable because I also had to pick up a hood for the Raider.....)
I had to swing by the Hoboken piers to get a good view of Manhattan since I didn't have time to go in...
Met up with Billy at his shop and Ozgur met us there to bring the hood (which he had picked up for me from someone in Brooklyn). We vamped on the 25-degree sidewalk.
Then loaded the stuff in the GTI (a very tight fit...)
And then hung out at the shop for a bit and checked out some of his/customers' random cars
you may recognize his well-traveled rally/drift/hillclimb 240SX there in the background...
After that grabbed some lunch with Oz and then headed out of town to stay with Chris and Sarah Nonack down in Quakertown (somehow didn't take any car pics, or pics in his epic shop/garage building, so this will have to do)
Woke up this morning and headed home. Nice easy trip, good to see some rally friends here in the offseason.
Oh, and here's the wheels...I have a thing for wheels with circles in them for some reason lol..
Cool to see that VW Fox thing is still alive!!
Saw it quite a few years ago at Tall Pines.
In reply to NGTD :
Not sure how alive it is...it's pretty much in storage from what I can tell, with no plan to put it back in competition at the moment.
Took a quick break from the Raider project with the nice-ish weather today and decided to pull out the rally car driver's seat and test-fit the new one. It's a bit dirty under there....
The seat fits fine physically, but is definitely slightly wider at the base than the Sparcos, so I'll have to oval out the base mount holes so I can move both base uprights out about 1/4" or so. Not a big deal, will do that later as today was just to check out clearances with the cage, etc. The new seat is definitely closer to the door bars (practically touching them) due to the higher side bolsters, but that's not a bad thing. Looks like it should fit just fine once the base brackets are modified.
Oh, and happy birthday, Nick...
For your birthday I ordered up some new Maxsports for myself (same ol RB3's or whatever they are that we all use). Gotta keep up with the Joneses, ya know? ;) I actually wasn't planning on getting any additional tires, but figured with a good chance of early-season muddy/cold events perhaps the Federal gravels were not a very good idea. This car is pretty easy on tires with the way I drive and usually a single driver - the last set of Maxsports lasted almost 3 seasons (and going forward I'll keep using the gravels during warm/dry events, most likely).
Got some new super-wide drag radials for the rally car to use at the strip.
No, not really....just pairs of these for the upcoming rallycross season. Just as well save the Federals for the stages since they're more expensive, and the Maxsports are a bit better for rallycross anyhow.
OMF to the G.... is that Sakis Hadjiminas's old twin turbo V6 Fox?
In reply to Knurled. :
I believe so, yes. It's been in storage with Petrow for a number of years now. They'd probably sell it to you for the right price ;)
In reply to irish44j :
Hnnnnnnng! That car is a lot of the reasons why I like longitudinal VWs, saved all the AWD bits from my deceased Quantum, and am low-key looking for a Fox.
IIRC they are also the guys who "solved" the Subaru transmission issues by swapping a complete 4000 quattro drivetrain into an Impreza. The car had Audi 4x108 wheels on it. I still want to know how they made a starter work on a Subaru engine mated to an 016 transmission! The only comment I ever heard about it specifically was "you don't want to know"
irish44j said:Oh, and happy birthday, Nick...
For your birthday I ordered up some new Maxsports for myself (same ol RB3's or whatever they are that we all use). Gotta keep up with the Joneses, ya know? ;) I actually wasn't planning on getting any additional tires, but figured with a good chance of early-season muddy/cold events perhaps the Federal gravels were not a very good idea. This car is pretty easy on tires with the way I drive and usually a single driver - the last set of Maxsports lasted almost 3 seasons (and going forward I'll keep using the gravels during warm/dry events, most likely).
Lol, that looks like a picture taken in the 80s scanned on a scanner from the 90s. Glad to hear we'll all be on the same tires now, I'll take that as confirmation that my decision to buy the Maxsports was indeed the right one. :)
95maxrider said:irish44j said:Oh, and happy birthday, Nick...
For your birthday I ordered up some new Maxsports for myself (same ol RB3's or whatever they are that we all use). Gotta keep up with the Joneses, ya know? ;) I actually wasn't planning on getting any additional tires, but figured with a good chance of early-season muddy/cold events perhaps the Federal gravels were not a very good idea. This car is pretty easy on tires with the way I drive and usually a single driver - the last set of Maxsports lasted almost 3 seasons (and going forward I'll keep using the gravels during warm/dry events, most likely).
Lol, that looks like a picture taken in the 80s scanned on a scanner from the 90s. Glad to hear we'll all be on the same tires now, I'll take that as confirmation that my decision to buy the Maxsports was indeed the right one. :)
lol,, IDK why the photo came out like that.
I mean, for the people who are uber-competitive and looking to do all the national BS, there are several better tires to have - people like Vaughn who truck around with 5 different sets, each for different conditions. Indysports, Unigoms, etc. But those all cost a lot more, and I'm not willing to make that kind of investment in rallycross, frankly. The Maxsports are comparatively cheap and "pretty good," and for our surfaces not sure if the higher-end tires would be much better anyhow. And since we all have them, keeps things even tire-wise.
Still not sure if I'll run them on all four or just on the rears like I've been doing.
Headed up to Shawn and Katie's place today and Shawn was nice enough to mount up my Maxsports in trade for some good cider :)
After that headed down to the pick and pull yard to try to find some random stuff, mostly for the Raider project. Of course hardly found any of it, but did find the parts bluej (Josh) asked me to look for. Figures, lol.
Also ran across an old beat 944 there
Don't need much from a 944 these days since my 924S is mostly done, but it did have one little part I'd been keeping an eye out for. So on the 924S if you look from above the hood you can see the battery.
So that's kind of lame, but whatever. But apparently on 944s with alarms installed, they had a small metal panel there to "protect" the battery from a thief just reaching in and prying off the positive terminal to shut off the alarm. Brilliant. Anyhow, Ithis 944 had that, so i took it off and put it on mine. Little stuff...
This weekend I headed down to Richmond to see some friends and spent today helping out the Dirty Industry guys pull the drivetrain from the old car (which you've seen many times in this thread), which is literally cracking in half all the way down the p-pillar and across the unibody. So everything is being swapped over to the red (rust-free, undamaged) shell I sold them last summer. So, they have a month to get it all ready to compete....
Oh, and leaving Neil's hood I spotted this super-rare white GMC Typhoon (probably never seen one before in my life)
Decided a month away is too long to wait to get dirty (when the DC rallycross season starts), so going to head up to the BMR season opener up in PA at their big new venue to get some testing in and knock the rust off. Looks like there will be a couple other stage rally cars out there playing as well, incluing Nonack in the Merkur. BMR isn't a big RWD region, so we may be the only two among a field of Subarus and FWD subcompacts, which seem to be the cool thing in that region :)
So that's next weekend, figured I'd throw the new wheels and tires on and get the car off snow tires, since winter weather is not forecasted for this week at the moment. Man, I really like how these wheels look. So much better than the ugly 5-spokes we're using for stage (all 3 sets are from Mini Coopers, btw). Fresh Maxsports look pretty cool too :)
We'll see if the BMR event really happens- they initially said they would only run if the ground was completely frozen or covered in snow since they're apparently not allowed to chew up the surface too far. Last time I went to a BMR event it got canceled two runs into the first heat for similar reasons so I'm skeptical.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Hm. Mike Julian didn't say anything about that to me, and he knows I'm coming a pretty good distance......
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