The X Grips are awesome, mine has never come out with 100's of miles of wheeling and years of auto x's in my dads car.
The X Grips are awesome, mine has never come out with 100's of miles of wheeling and years of auto x's in my dads car.
Some quick updates as Ozgur is driving down with the last two bars for the cage (and we have a logbook appointment upcoming as well)...
Once the two new roof bars are installed, I'll complete putting the interior together, which really won't take much time. In the meantime:
Got my helmet and comms in. Stilo DES Plus helmet with the WRC 03 intercom. Pretty well-regarded stuff and this helmet fits great. One little issue is that we found out that the Stilo intercom stuff is almost impossible to get to work with the road racing system that we use in the Chumpcar, so Jim is having to get some stuff we weren't expecting, since we can't really adapt his other helmet and comms to this one. Kind of sucks....but par for the course in racing it seems, where everything costs more than it shoudl and nothign is ever easy, lol.
Got some roll bar padding....once again screw SFI for taking something that should be very inexpensive, and making it way too expensive...
Dash and interior mostly back together, and all my electrics work..
So little thing, mostly for the winter rally. Since we will want our winter coats with us (and gloves) in case we get stuck, crashed, or stranded in the winter woodland.....rather stash them in the car where it's warm than in the cold trunk. So just a net down over the back seat to hold that stuff down while we're running...
Added some lower support bars to the rear strut bar where the cage backstays are. This should make it much stronger...
And with that wrapped up, put the rear glass back in an my new banner that I made with the wife's vinyl cutter :)
A shout out to Ozgur's team, since Ozgur bent the cage..
So, that's how it sits at the moment....getting close!
I've admittedly been slacking at updates as all the little things needed to get the car ready seem to be coming together with about 10 days left. So here's a quick catch-up on what's going on. Or maybe not so quick....
ok, so let's start small. Added a lower dash support (and re-installed my little gear box that I can't do without :)
Then got around to putting new roof bars in after Ozgur drove them down from Brooklyn so I could get them done in time for logbooking. A bit of a hassle getting a good fit, but they may be the best-fitting bars in the entire cage after half an hour using the grinder and shaping by hand. More importantly they're within the required 100mm RA limit.
And with padding. The new location does compromise on headroom a tad, but I still have sufficient clearance without having to lower the seat
Installed the Stilo intercom controls. Decided to do it on the windshield bar so we can adjust underway without reaching back. Wiring runs over the cage and drops down behind the two seats
And installed the windshield. Solo. With no speciality tools. That trim spacer is a major pain in the ass...
Oh, Ozgur also brought up the other four RE39 mud and snow tires. Not sure when I'm going to use these since they're for deep snow (not likely at WMWR) or deep mud (which we don't have at frostburg). But good to have.
Then did some interior lighting installs. Cheap ebay LEDs. Two colors, separately switched...Not the cleanest installation ever, but will suffice for now until I have more time.
White
Red (it's not as bright as it looks, trust me)
Test with my future co-driver
Dash mostly in
wired power to the plugins on the codriver dash vent to power whatever gear he wants to have
picked up this great deal at Lowes. Love this box and will be perfect for tools in the trunk. Very sturdy so can be ratchet-strapped down without deforming.
and some storage stuff for codriver. Overkill right now until we figure out what is useful and what isn't.
seats in test fit
And got a articulating mount for Jim's iPad. Not sure if we'll use it as a rally computer or not, but could come in useful for watching a movie or something if we end up in a ditch or down in the trees, lol.
Then went to the WDCR rallycross end-of-season get together and picked up my season "trophy"
AND...
next morning Marcel Ciasi came up and logbooked me. He had a few suggestions for additional minor cage elements that I'll work on this summer, but it passed the requirements so we're good to go, hopefully.
Then did a 150-mile round trip shakedown in the car up to Jim's house to work on the Chumpcar, since we're running the VIR 12-hour two weeks after the rally...
messing with harness mounts. Two sub strap positions for if I have a tall or short co-driver in the future...
New positive battery terminal. Bling bling, eh..
Now let's do some skidplate work. Bar is on the way from New York for this weekend, but want to get the rear and front attachments set so I can moutn the bar more easily.
templating for rear holes
Flipped the weldnuts on the mount so that I'd have an easier time aligning the plate when installing or re-installing. Turns out my drilling was perfect, which surprises me lol
New hardware for the underbody protection, so I only need two wrench sizes to take it off when needed, rather than four.
And swaybars deleted. Because apparently no e30s run stage with sways, and I'm not awesome enough to go against prevailing opinion
So, that's it for now. Still a lot to do. Install skid U-brace. Make and install a foot brace for Jim. Figure out all the rest of the gear mounting, install a second harness, and some other E36 M3. That's it for now, I'm tired.
And we keep going....
I neglected to tape up the headlights (required) so off with the grilles and I ordered up a roll of Lamin-X sheet (way cheaper than ordering pre-cut stuff, and I have 20 feet of it left, lol). So put those on the headlights, fogs, tails, signals, etc. Not that you can really see it...
Then onto the front towhook. Because of how the stock tow hooks are, it's a hassle to use hooked straps there, since they hit the bottom of the bumper. Always annoyed me, so I ordered up some axle straps (red, as required for tow hooks). Fed them through the stock tow eyes which too a bit of grinding on the rear bracket to fit them through, and brought them together. Taped up to avoid noisy clanking. A tiny bungee hooks them to an eyebolt on the bumper when not in use. Will do the same on the back bumper.
And now the big project....skidplate. I initially was going to make the U-brace bar removable, but after mocking it up there didn't seem to be any real reason to do that since it's not under the engine, oil pan, or anything else that I can't easily access or remove with the bar in place. And welding just seems stronger than bolts, I guess. In any case, I jsut didn't have time to do anything real fancy here, so after a half-dozen mockups, drilled some holes (stainless 1/8" kills bits fast), welded in some weld-nuts, tacked the plates to the bar, took the bar off, welded everything up, put it all back on, welded the plates (ugh...upside-down welding on my back on the floor again...), and painted everything (not pictured). Everything fits perfect, bolts all thread into the right places (with large fender washers and lock washers) and all in all, it's totally installed.
A good time to thank Red46 for fabbing up this custom one-off skidplate for me out of 1/8" stainless. It's a beast. And to Ozgur Simsek for bending the bar for me and driving it down from Brooklyn last week. In any case, I think I'm done with this (don't mind the two holes on the front, they were for an idea that I decided not to do (no attachment to core support).
Those bolts are hungry for rocks. ARRRR NOM
paperpaper wrote: Those bolts are hungry for rocks. ARRRR NOM
meh, I have more bolts and no matter how mashed up they get I can still get them off. Not exactly sure how else to attach the skid to the bar. I have considered making some kind of "lip" in front of the bolts to deflect impacts. Something to work on this spring, I have an idea of what I plan to do.
How is your skid attached to the bar?
I'd find a more recessed bolt head. Something with a flat head and an allen head.
something that a rock will just glide over.
i.e. 
I've had enough of allen heads, they just get full of crap and strip. I used them on my rallycross skidplate and ended up having to drill a couple of them out. I may chamfer the edges of these bolts but I honestly don't think it'll be an issue, as this car is not low and the bolts don't stick out as far as the picture makes it look like they do. The car is up on stands and the front lip is slightly lower than the bolts - so if I hit something the skid will hit before the bolts will either way.
Either way, will consider other options going forward, but these will have to do for now
Also I like regular bolts with 17mm heads so we can pop the skid off with an impact quickly if needed. Allens/star heads don't like impact guns much, especially if the holes are jammed with mud and crap.
So hopefully wrapping things up with a few days to spare, giving me time to recheck nuts and bolts everywhere and do last-minute minor things.
Jim came over today to do all the adjustments on the codriver seat and harness so we should be good there now. We also did some decorating of his helmet in true 80s style after testing comms, as well as some other minor things.
After he left, I fabbed up a footrest/brace for him which we had measured and templated. A transverse bar (right under where he wants his feet) with a beefy stainless plate angled and bolted to the floor and the crossbrace. Doesn't budge no matter how hard I press on it or kick it :) We'll see how it holds up on stage.
Also did some other small things like clearancing the bottom of the rear bumper to give free range of movement to the towstrap on the rear hook, a few other minor interior things and adjustments, and whatnot.
Oh, also the other night went over to Shawn's house (Moxnix on GRM) and he was nice enough to mount up more tires for me - this time some fresh Altimax Arctics. Remains to be seen how much snow there will be at WMWR, but at very least it'll be some mix of snow, ice, and mud so these should do fine. WMWR is allowing only DOT tires this year, so can't use the big-block snow/mud rally tires I have. Will take some getting used to the soft sidewalls on the Altimaxes...
So, all packed to leave in the morning for the winter rally....which has no snow. But it's cold. So conditions are going to be tricky. STPR WMWR stage is extremely rough and unkind to street tires, but with temps and ice on the gravel, everyone is weighing whether to go with snow tires (for traction) or gravels (for survivability). Looks like I'm going to run recce with the Altimaxes tomorrow and then make a call for Saturday, when temps are supposed to be higher....
Recap and wrap-up when I get back!
Good luck! Car is looking great and ready!
Large recap and pics to come later this week.
Cliff notes:
About 20 cars started the rally (more than half of them 2WD). Only half of those finished all five stages.
We finished all five stages and our 3 clean stages were right there with the fastest cars in the class (some of which are very experienced rally drivers in well-built cars). On our other two stages we had a flat (which we drove on for a mile before stopping to change tires on stage, costing us about 8 minutes), and we finished the rally with 2 miles on the roughest terrain with a flat rear tire...so, slowly...cost us probably 4 minutes or so.
In the end, we were 3rd in class (though officially listed 4th due to a timing error) and 7th overall (IIRC). We finished behind Chris Nonack who amazingly managed to run clean all day (though a bit slower than us for the first few stages), until he also got a flat near the end of the last stage (and passed us on that flat while we also had a flat...). Nonack was 5th fastest overall in the rally!
We completely destroyed two new snow tires and two bottlecaps, which went in a dumpster before we towed home. Snow tires are great in snow, but not great when the snow melts and turns into giant jagged rocks.
Otherwise, no damage to the car, suspension, body, engine, or anything else. Our worst damage is a big dent in the skidplate from a cinderblock-sized rock we hit at aout 50mph (it was loud). So, happy that my "build" held up well. We also passed tech easily (and the inspector is a known Rally America inspector who likes to find things wrong, so I hear).
Jim was awesome reading the notes and we were on the same page (no pun intended) for the entire rally so he made driving the course much easier, especially with a lot of blind corners due to mud all over the windows. Our crew (Katie Spoth and Steve Nichols) were great as well. And of course much love to Ozgur Simsek, who built the cage and provided endless hours of advice to me about how to drive it, how to "do" it, and so forth.
So....pics, full recap, etc later but we're home with a great-running and undamaged car - which is more than a lot of the more experienced entrants can say. Good stuff.
Also check out Chris's thread for his recap and vids: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/86-rx7-rally-car/105449/page15/#post1998192
Here's our in-car from SS4.....Kind of slow at first since we had some slippery gravel tires on the front with some ice still on course...opens up to the spectator jump around 5:00 (in which we get a bit of air), another smaller jump around 9:00, some bad car control around 10:00, and into the big frozen lake (about 3' deep with giant ice chunks floating on top) around 11:00.
Vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6AnZk9Qt7s&feature=youtu.be
Note that in this vid, Nonack shows up behind us around 11 minutes - so if you go over to his thread here, you can watch it from his view as well :)
Mad_Ratel wrote: I'd find a more recessed bolt head. Something with a flat head and an allen head. something that a rock will just glide over. i.e.
Like hell a rock will just "glide right over" it. A rock will grind metal into the recess and make the bolt a royal PITA to get off. Believe me: BTDT.
I know it seems counter-intuitive, but in my experience with skid-plates under low cars, there is so much other crap for things to get caught on, a few more bolt heads are the least of one's worries.
Excellent job completing the Rally. This whole thread is still awesome.
Awesome. Look where you've come from. It's been a long and winding road, but I've enjoyed following every step of the way. It may be time to go and re-read from the beginning again.
Purchase October 2011
First Rally cross March 2012 (I won't tell you that I preferred the simple uncluttered livery back then though)
First Stage Rally February 2016
Yeah, it is pretty neat looking back for sure, thanks for putting those together :)
Alp's black e30 there with almost no livery and my old blue wheels on it, I had to double-take thinking it WAS my car lol.
irish44j wrote: Alp's black e30 there with almost no livery and my old blue wheels on it, I had to double-take thinking it WAS my car lol.
I did that at least 3 times too.
2016 Waste Management Winter Rally (SCCA RallySprint)
(Photo by Tim McBride)
For our first stage rally, we entered the WMWR in Wellsboro, PA. This had previously been a Rally America single-day regional event, but SCCA took over sanctioning this year which was good news since we were already SCCA members and it saved us $150 for RA membership. Plus SCCA dropped the entry price by $100, so even more savings.
I crewed at this event last year for Ozgur Simsek, and as you may recall it was blizzard conditions and well below ZERO and windy...with tons of snow on the ground last year. This year, a bit different. Wellsboro got little snow all winter, but it had been cold so the ground was frozen, the mud was frozen, and a crapload of frozen puddles and mini-lakes. This presented a tire issue for most entrants....snow/ice street tires, which would have good grip but vulnerable to flats and sidewall gashes, or rally gravel tires, which would be tough but have way less grip, especially on ice. To make things worse, the temperatures the day of the rally were scheduled to get into the high 40s and sunny, so we'd have to deal with ice in the morning and then an unknown rate of melting so mud/water/ice in the afternoon. As you will see, it was a tough call for all competitors and tire choices (and luck regarding flats) made a huge difference in the final results.
That said, we showed up in Wellsboro Friday for recce. It was freezing temps and the whole course was icy with a thin cover of snow disguising rocks, ruts, ditches, and other gnarly stuff. But since recce is at slow speeds (max 35mph) not really an issue there. We worked on creating stage notes since we didn't have official stage notes from previous rallies like many other teams did who were at those rallies. Car felt fine but even at slow speeds it took a lot of work to stay out of trees and ditches in some area.
I'll stop here and mention that some friends were here. Alp brough the other e30 (with his dad flying in from Turkey to co-drive for him), and Chris Nonack and his girlfriend Sara came in his RX7, a vintage rally car from the 90s that looked rough (normal for Chris) and that he hadn't had much time to put together. Ozgur didn't get his e30 finished in time (trying to cage it and do an M50 swap), so he came to advice, crew, and hang out. Saw some other familiar faces from DC rallycross (Jon Kramer and Jason Smith, the defending champs of WMWR), Nater Kane and Brian Batocci also up there crewing. Our crew was Stephen Nichols (also from DC rallycross) and Katie Spoth, Jim's sister. Alp, Chris, and us were all in the same class (R2U, equal to G2 in rally america), which was by far the largest class with a dozen cars entered. A few other 2WD cars were up in R2O/G5, but the favorite Matt Brandenburg/Brakim Racing had tow rig issues and didn't get their e36 there.
Friday night we hung at Ozgur's cabin with a bunch of teams, and while I had a few beers and chatted Jim worked with Ozgur, Domenic, and a few other co-drivers on notes and strategy, getting some pointers from some very experienced guys.
Saturday we got the car out and saw the start list, with us in 13th position (actually 11th with two cars withdrawing), right behind Alan Edwards in his Neon and the Beliveau Boys, rally veterans in their Golf. Behind us was a G5 Porsche 944 and two Subarus, so we had a bit of worry that they might catch us on stage.
Everyone headed down to the Wellsboro Green for parc expose, with some rally fans out there to check out the cars and chat with drivers. Also the start of the rally.
Me and Jim with Chris and Sara
Alps' ride
Chris and Sara
And we were off for the first stage. For WMWR, it uses the first stage of Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (summer) run three times one direction and two times the other. This is known to be a rough, rocky, and technical stage and it didn't disappoint. Total stage distance was 56 miles (so about 7 miles per stage, though it felt like three times that)....
Ready to roll behind Alan Edwards
We began the day on four fresh Altimax Arctic snow tires (and pretty sure every other car also ran snow tires as well)
This being our first stage ever, we were being careful (especially in the ice) and had a few minor close calls but nothign too bad. Jim was working on his call timing and me on my call listening. We made it through in a bit over 18 minutes (1 minute behind the class leader and half a minute ahead of Nonack), and the proceeded to get a speeding penalty during the transit back to the stage start......so newbie lesson #1 learned :/
Secondn stage we went out more aggressively, and apparently everyone else did too, as we came upon Alan and his Neon about a mile in, off the side of a crest with the front of the car in a tree and the rear wheels in the air. Made a quick stop to make sure they were ok as they climbed out of the car, and then carried on. Now that we had a feel for the course and a good pace on notes, we held to a much better clip, posting a 16.280 (even with the stop), which was the second fastest of any 2WD car out there, just a couple seconds behind Beliveau. Charlie Tamaris managed to blow both his front tires in the Porsche and limped in. Nonack and Sara came in about 20 second behind us, but they were held up for a while behind a slow CRX and lost some time there. Meanwhile Dawson and Clute ran a second 17.xx run, so we had four of us in a close battle for first after two stages.
Edwards, post-tree..
We picked up a little friend too
Alp is losing his bumper. He totally lost it later on stage, lol
Stage three started well. We were moving fast as some of the ice was melting. Alp got stuck in a giant puddle, a couple feet deep with 3" thick floating ice chunks (more on that later) and lost some time. I'd say we were well ahead of the pace of our last run and then I started feeling some banging and thunking and knew we had a flat tire out front right. Where we were, there was no good place to stop and change to our spare so we limped it for about a mile to the first viable spot and pulled off. Between limping it for a while with difficult steering and lots of hard bangs of the rim off rocks and changing the tire, we lost a good 8 or 9 minutes. Luckily we pulled off near a spectator area so we just left our jack, flat tire/wheel, and impact gun sitting there off to the side and someone was nice enough to grab the stuff and take it to our crew at service...so that saved us from packing it back up in the car at least. Meanwhile several cars passed us, including Nonack.
(Photo by Tim McBride)
We got back on course and went as fast as possible to the end, posting a 23.700 total time for that stage (while Dawson/Clute pulled mid-16 minutes and Nonack/Sara pulled off a low 16s). Beliveau had some issue on course and we actually passed them near the finish. So after three stages we were sitting probably in 3th place. Of note, Tad Uzzle and Alan Jones, who had been substantially slower than us (and flatted) on the first two runs, were credited with a 7 minute run (which shoudl have been 17 minutes). Remember that, it'll come back to haunt us later. We actually finished the stage right behind Tony Esposito in his WRX, who had left a tire in the middle of the trail about a half mile from finish, and was limping it over the line on a bare front wheel and broken suspension, ending his day.
(Photo by Tim McBride)
Off to service, in a giant mud pit. Our crew had some lunch for us while they checked the car, but aside from the flat nothign was wrong with it and we didn't ahve to fix anything. Decision time about tires. Some teams were staying on four snows (including Nonack), others moving to full gravels as it started to melt and get exteemely rocky out there (and these are big, jagged rocks, not gravel and pebbles). With the temperatures still not all that high and still some icy areas on course, I made the fateful decision to put my pair of gravel soft compounds on the front (to protect tires in turns) but stick with snows in back (rather than my gravel mediums). This would turn out to be a rookie mistake - though we weren't the only team to do this.
Stage 4 (reversed) started and we were moving well. The gravels up front had pretty good traction (though less than snows) and the sidewall strength gave better confidence in rocky areas. Nonetheless, I was being a bit careful (both of front tire grip and rear tire strength) and we were definitely a bit slower here. Midway through the stage I look back and see the yellow RX7 a couple turns back right before we plunge into the large water/ice pit and barely claw our way out, while spraying mud and water through the car and on the inside of the windshield. Fun. But with Chris back there it was decision time.....find a pull off and let him by, or pick up the pace so as not to let him pass and also not slow him down. Since he was in contention for the top spot, the plan was to let him by if it looked like we couldn't stay ahead. So we got motivated, put the pedal down, and got in a rhythm on the second half. Chris got a bit close a few timed but overall we were able to put a little bit of distance through the runouts and uphills, using the mighty M42 (lol), though he stayed a turn or two back the whole time (he has video of the whole thing from his car). He came across the line a couple seconds behind us with us around 17 minutes and them about 16. So still sitting in 4th place.
From Nonack's car
(Photo by Tim McBride)
Stage 5 (reversed) we went out of the box fast, wanting to make up some time and get on the podium. Running well and running fast, we had to almost stop as class leader Derek James in his focus was sitting sideways across the stage with the front of the car smashed up. Snuck around him after we saw the OK sign and continued hard on, now shooting for possibly second in class with James out. Then about 2 miles from the end, a hard hit into some rocks and right rear tire FLAT. Almost noplace to change tires at this point so we decided to limp on and try to finish. The big problem being that this part of the course was still pretty icy, VERY rocky, and had several uphill hairpins. And we're trying to do it with one-wheel drive and a 25% lockup LSD diff. After a few minutes, we saw lights and pulled off to let Nonack go by (as it turns out he had a flat on the same wheel as us but I guess was being more aggressive) and limped 2 miles going pretty damn slow and across the line with a 21 second time. I'll also mention it was dark by this point.
So, goal #1 successfully completed: WE FINISHED. Without damaging the car (except wheels and skidplate, as I'll show later). Only 10 total cars finished all five stages, and only 6 cars in our class finished. So pulled off and did a tire change, and transited back to service and then to the fairgrounds/finale meetup.
So that's that. We figured the second flat took us off the podium and when provisionals were posted it didn't surprise us to see ourselves 4th in class and 8th overall (with Jon Kramer and Jason Smith once again winning the event overall). Checked our times and they more or less matched up with Jim's log, so we hung out and chatted for a bit and watched the awards, with Nonack and Sara taking 2nd in class and 5th overall, less than a minute off the class winners Dawson/Clute - who had NO flat tires or any other significant issues all day. So that's impressive.
Rotary fools...
As we were leaving after the awards, someone noted that we should be 3rd. Huh? Yup, looked at the times and Uzzle/Jones in the Mazda2 had been credited with a 7-minute run on SS3, which shoudl have been a 17-minute run. By fixing that, it woudl have put us 5 minutes ahead of them, not 5 minutes behind in the standings. But in rookie mistake #2, we didn't look at his times during the provisional period, and once final results are posted, they're final. Lesson learned. So on the official record, we are listed as 4th in class and 8th overall. In reality, we were 3rd/7th. Kind of a bummer that something so dumb could be overlooked both by the organizers and by us. Uzzle/Jones weren't at the ceremony (probably thinking that they had finished 4th), else I'm betting they would have self-reported the wrong time once they saw it. Oh well....that's on us for getting caught up in the post-race hanging out/loading up and not looking closely at the provisionals.
So we headed out, cleaned up, and went to the one local bar open at 10pm to throw down many PBRs with WMWR champs Jon Kramer and Jason Smith along with Alan Edwards and his team/crew, listen to a DJ spin 90s rock, and take in the local scenery at a bar you can actually still smoke in, lol.
And the drive home...
All in all a good time, and our damage list is pretty slim:
Our custom Red46 stainless skid took a monster hit and saved our oil pan....bowling-ball-sized rock going fast enough that we bend the support brace as well!
Car is sitting in the garage after a rinse and probably won't touch it for a couple days, then will put it on stands and do a full inspection.
"To Do" List before the next rally:
Else pretty happy with how the car handled, drove, and worked overall. Next up is VIR 12-hour race for Chumpcar (in Jim's e30 race car) and then a few WDCR rallycrosses as I fine-tune the car.
Also worth doing again if I haven't done it recently is a big thanks to: Jim Spoth for great co-driving and calls and keeping me in check, Ozgur for building the cage, Katie and Stephen for crewing, Josh S. and Nick for moral support and rallycross competition, our friends at Condor Speed Shop for their awesome material and moral support, Red46 Sump Armor for the protection, and my family for putting up with endless nights in the garage and greasy hands on the door!
So is the added fun of stage rally worth the added cost and work involved over rallycross - in your opinion?
Lof8 wrote: So is the added fun of stage rally worth the added cost and work involved over rallycross - in your opinion?
I think it'll be interesting to see how he feels about that question in respect to both the single day rally sprints vs full stage rally.
I'm super excited for the next one so I can actually come crew and cheer :D
Lof8 wrote: So is the added fun of stage rally worth the added cost and work involved over rallycross - in your opinion?
It's certainly a LOT more work both to prep the car and to do the events. The cost for rallysprint is pretty reasonable, full stage rallies will be more. Is it worth it? If it wasn't, I wouldn't be doing it! That said, I'll still keep doing rallycross with WDCR as well because it's cheap and close and doesn't require much work. That said, I probably won't do any "out of area" rallycrosses any more, and will instead save my travel/hotel money for stage/rallysprint. For longer travel, rallycross probably won't feel worth it any more.
We had a great time out there and left a lot of speed/time on the table as well. I was afraid we'd really be outclassed and much slower than some of the experienced drivers/cars out there, but for a technical course like this I think we were right up there with the fastest 2WD cars in terms of time aside from our flats. Granted not as much competition as we'll see at, say, STPR or something, but still pretty happy with how competitive we were at our first event, especially in tricky conditions and using snow tires (I've rallycrossed on gravels for 4 years, and never on snows....so being careful about tire punctures is not something I've worried about before now).
So yeah, it's worth it once you do it. But the up-front costs for the car, cage, equipment, and safety gear is certainly not insignificant....it ended up costing much more than I expected, to be honest. Nor is the risk of destroying the car and all the work I've done on it.
bluej wrote:Lof8 wrote: So is the added fun of stage rally worth the added cost and work involved over rallycross - in your opinion?I think it'll be interesting to see how he feels about that question in respect to both the single day rally sprints vs full stage rally. I'm super excited for the next one so I can actually come crew and cheer :D
If we run STPR, we may very well try to do a team with 3 or even 4 e30s (Jesse, Alp, Ozgur, and us) and combine crew forces, parts and resources to make it easier for everyone. TBD. STPR costs about 3-4x as much as a rallysprint so will be saving my pennies
Starting post-rally inspections. First thing I found is the reason it seemed we lost an inch or so on the rear suspension....
Yeah, the wimpy upper spring perches bowed inward. The center nub basically rests on the outside of the frame rail, which was mashed in a bit. Sooooo.time to do some cutting and replacing with stronger metal and some thicker plates to spread out the load. The lower perches on the trailing arms are very slightly bent in, but not enough that I really need to do much other than add a bit of plating over it. Going to use some beefy 1/4" that won't easily bend, but since I have adjustable perches for the springs, I can get rid of that 1/2" by dialing them down if I want to..
flattened out the stock perch and will re-use with the 1/4" backing disc. Should alleviate the issue going forward, hopefully.
So you think this happened with normal spring force because the mount was weak? I took one look at that and went "coil bind." Are your springs long enough to allow for full bump?
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