'93 Impreza Rally Car

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm hoping to have a welder before end of season. Sadly we don't have the luxurious 8ga sheetmetal German cars appear to have. So I may go that route since filling small holes seems like a good way to practice on sheetmetal that's barely thicker than aluminum tape.
What kind of tape do/did you use? The stuff I found is super thin but I've filled the trunk holes with it for now.

RustBucketLegacy said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm hoping to have a welder before end of season. Sadly we don't have the luxurious 8ga sheetmetal German cars appear to have. So I may go that route since filling small holes seems like a good way to practice on sheetmetal that's barely thicker than aluminum tape.
What kind of tape do/did you use? The stuff I found is super thin but I've filled the trunk holes with it for now.

just the stuff you can buy at Home Depot. It's for sealing ductwork. Just "aluminum tape"'

That's good to know since it's exactly what I bought, thanks!

RustBucketLegacy said:

That's good to know since it's exactly what I bought, thanks!

what I used to do is use the aluminum tape to weathertight seal the hole, and then put some cheap grip tape (or monster tape) over it to provide some protection against it getting punctured, since as you note it's pretty thin stuff. 

RustBucketLegacy said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm hoping to have a welder before end of season. Sadly we don't have the luxurious 8ga sheetmetal German cars appear to have.

Having extensively grafted Subaru metal into a "German" car... it varies.  Parts of the R53 were made out of the thinnest sheetmetal that could hold a crease.  Touch it with the MIG on any setting and it blows away.  Welding on it was an object lesson in getting close fits and making sure everything was CLEAN of paint/debris.  Normally I'd just let welding heat blow all that away.  Do that on .ohtoothin" metal and it blows the metal away before you get it clean.  Close fits mean no gaps to add weld (heat) to and clean means it welds up immediately instead of pouring heat into a spot.

The Subaru had a double skinned floor, with reinforcements here and there to boot!

The nice thing, though, is that being thin means you can reshape it on the fly as you are welding, with prybars and clamps and zip screws if necessary.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

RustBucketLegacy said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm hoping to have a welder before end of season. Sadly we don't have the luxurious 8ga sheetmetal German cars appear to have.

Having extensively grafted Subaru metal into a "German" car... it varies.  Parts of the R53 were made out of the thinnest sheetmetal that could hold a crease.  Touch it with the MIG on any setting and it blows away.  Welding on it was an object lesson in getting close fits and making sure everything was CLEAN of paint/debris.  Normally I'd just let welding heat blow all that away.  Do that on .ohtoothin" metal and it blows the metal away before you get it clean.  Close fits mean no gaps to add weld (heat) to and clean means it welds up immediately instead of pouring heat into a spot.

The Subaru had a double skinned floor, with reinforcements here and there to boot!

The nice thing, though, is that being thin means you can reshape it on the fly as you are welding, with prybars and clamps and zip screws if necessary.

As you both know, my current e30 project has its entire floor pan made out of Mitsubishi (Montero) sheet metal. It is DEFINITELY thinner than the original e30 stuff. 

That is part of the "it varies" too.  Things like hoods and roofs are usually thin enough that you can deform it with finger pressure (which made me concerned when there was a proposal for roofs to be made of steel no thinner than .125".  Yep, eighth inch plate) while body structure tends to be better.

The structural stuff in the Mini and the WRX all seemed to be 18-22 gauge.  Parts of the Mini's floor that were mainly cosmetic were maybe 30 gauge, gossamer thin stuff!

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

RustBucketLegacy said:

That's good to know since it's exactly what I bought, thanks!

what I used to do is use the aluminum tape to weathertight seal the hole, and then put some cheap grip tape (or monster tape) over it to provide some protection against it getting punctured, since as you note it's pretty thin stuff. 

I need to get grip tape for the floors anyway, so that works out

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

RustBucketLegacy said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm hoping to have a welder before end of season. Sadly we don't have the luxurious 8ga sheetmetal German cars appear to have.

Having extensively grafted Subaru metal into a "German" car... it varies.  Parts of the R53 were made out of the thinnest sheetmetal that could hold a crease.  Touch it with the MIG on any setting and it blows away.  Welding on it was an object lesson in getting close fits and making sure everything was CLEAN of paint/debris.  Normally I'd just let welding heat blow all that away.  Do that on .ohtoothin" metal and it blows the metal away before you get it clean.  Close fits mean no gaps to add weld (heat) to and clean means it welds up immediately instead of pouring heat into a spot.

The Subaru had a double skinned floor, with reinforcements here and there to boot!

The nice thing, though, is that being thin means you can reshape it on the fly as you are welding, with prybars and clamps and zip screws if necessary.

I'll be taking advantage of that b/c a bunch of the spot welds have been popped on both drivers and co-drivers floors, as well as the leading edge of the firewall. Thank you for the tips, I'll keep those in mind

Finally had enough 50+degree days to get the cage painted, which was holding up a lot of other work. Also managed to install self contained hood pins (the screw backing plates were a royal pita). As well as a few undocumented odds and ends (spare tire tie downs re-installed after paint, engine mount fixed, etc.)

RustBucketLegacy said:

self contained hood pins (the screw backing plates were a royal pita)

I just threw the screws out and used rivets to avoid that whole thing.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

RustBucketLegacy said:

self contained hood pins (the screw backing plates were a royal pita)

I just threw the screws out and used rivets to avoid that whole thing.

Ditto. 

Now that I think of it, it would have been faster to make a Home Desperate run to acquire rivets and a rivet gun than mess with the screws...

Seems like I'm on a ~monthly cadence with updates so here goes:

Did a bunch of tires and mounted a few older dmacks which turn out to require a terrifying amount of pressure to set the beads

Also got fire suppression installed with pull handles and lines. Made a pretend handle out of cable to check hood clearance on the exterior pull.

Turns out it's impossible to get the lock nut behind inside the cowl unless you're made of rubber, or remove the dash and hvac, which I wasn't about to do. So I made a small aluminum bracket and riveted that to car and bolted the pull to it instead. Also discovered the reason for water in the cabin was the massive holes that were cut for the bars that used to go from the down bar to the front towers before they were cut out to put stock hvac back in. So now there are large holes in the cowl cavity that water runs into before the fender drain. Hooray. We'll need to pull the dash and seal these at some point soon but likely not until after Bristol.

Had some fun with a dash panel that will likely be remade as we figure out what else we want on switches/buttons/etc.

Towed the car up to the mid-east rally headquarters of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and knocked out a bunch of things on the car. While also giving it a solid look over with another set of more experienced eyes. Conveniently, they still had a borrowed set of scales... turns out it's not too fat. Sub 2600 with a tiny antigravity, just a hair over (2636) with a chunky group35.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  was a massive help and a bunch of the small stuff was knocked off the list. Replaced the weld nuts and reinforced the front skid plate mount, installed harnesses, troubleshooting wiring for a handful of loose unmarked wires in the center stack, the rallysafe wiring harnesses and mount were installed, intercom, map light, battery tie down and terminal solution for the tiny battery, torque striping for the important stuff under the car, changed rear-diff fluid and a few other things I've forgotten.

Most importantly we were able to truly drive the car on a proper shakedown run and nothing bad seemed to happen besides a few forgotten zip ties I had recently added and not trimmed being slapped around by the rear tires. Followed up the successful car work with less successful tow rig rig work after I broke a bolt off installing new front shocks.

Finished off the weekend with a gas station photo the car actually drove to for the first time since we bought it.

Also, we'll be really shaking the car down with irish44j and a massive MR crew at the first DC rallycross of the season this coming weekend

damn, that's substantially lighter than my e30 - though mine was weighed with spares, full fuel, jack, tools, fire extinguishers, and all other stage gear (max weight) so not sure what you had in there. Its funny that the 200lbs extra are all at the rear for us vs. yours. But I have a big yellow top up there, because I like the reserve capacity (after running a full stage with no alternator charging). Also, add about 20lbs a corner once you put gravel tires on vs. those street tires ;)

here's ours a couple years ago. I've shaved off a few lbs and improved the cross to near 50% by moving the battery (and we do carry a lot of gear). 

The better half has been playing with stickers and the first run came out well, with more to come as she has time to play with it. The theme being 8bit stuff b/c BitByBit Motorsports

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Nice, that was car basically empty. No rally wheels, no spare, no tools, no firebottle. So probably another 200lbs of stuff for race weight and 300lbs on top of that when we get in it.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

And the fancy battery wasn't much more money than the yellowtop so I figured I'd try it out. I'm not sure how much the street tires weigh but the rally stuff is 48lbs a corner, so I'd assume you're right on with 20lbs differential

bump 

The long overdue update now that I've caught up on sleep....

As proven by ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ above and mentioned in Irish44s posts, we did in fact make it to our first ever stage rally at Bristol Forests Rally 2023, despite my best efforts.
The last couple weeks have been a blur of working too much followed by thrashing on the car at night and repeating. Of course, this could have been avoided if I knew how to properly estimate how long things take, or more correctly, not assume things will go quickly and without issue. Starting a few months earlier would have helped too.

The following lists are basically note keeping for me.

Completed a bunch of the smaller items in the weeks prior (I promise a bunch of pictures after the novel):
Mounted the tiny battery (has underbody plastic under it b/c the battery tray is a bit wrinkled)
Mounted the horn
Made mounting tabs for the light bar and ran wiring
Installed hood struts as required by Julia after she realized we didn't have a hood prop
Tidying up of various wiring
Swapping the rallycross KYB AGXs into the rally car
Attempted to swap brake pads oply to realize I have different pad shapes, thanks Subaru
There's more on this list that I've forgotten at this point

Completed within 24hours of leaving for the rally:
Swapped brake pads that our crew bedded in for us after tech
Moved the Federal rally tires over to the recently straightened speedlines and off of the dual drilled Team Dynamics wheels
Bought a limited toolset and bag from the peddlers of deadly jackstands
Bought and mounted more eye bolts for the trunk area
Bought and mounted red teams fancy boxes to stuff full of first aid spill kits
Strapped in the new stuff and tow strap to the trunk
Mounted camelbacks into the car
Ziptied in the helmet net
Finished installing rollcage padding
Wired in 2 horns, one for me and another on the codriver foot rest (as required by the codriver)
Re-installed mudflaps the rear
Re-installed underbody after aquiring more bolts b/c the originals were cut off
Applied stickers to the sides of the car to hide the cracks in the bondo
Taped corner lights to the car
Added washers to the codriver seat mount bolts
"Fixed" skid plate mount (bolts are crooked as but thread fine

Oh, and it was raining off and on the entire day before we left and were working on the car -_-
The upside to that, is there was a rainbow in our front driveway which made me feel slightly better about the possibility of missing the rally

More pictures as promised:

Foot horn:

Trunk mounting:

The intended schedule of events:
Finish the last minute prep and packing on Wednesday, sleep well Wednesday night.
Leave early Thursday, arrive around noon, check in, do recce, hang with people, and sleep.
Finish recce and tech inspection on Friday morning, lunch, relax until first tarmac stages Friday night.

The actual schedule of events:
Worked from Wednesday around 1300 through 0500 Thursday morning, slept for 4 hours.
Finished the car after 20 Thursday night, packed, left at 2130 and immediately turned around b/c I would've been a danger on the road towing for the next 7 hours to Bristol.
Slept for 3 hours and left at 0100, heading straight for tech inspection, where we arrived at 0800 on the dot.

On to the actual event:
Arrived at tech inspection and actually passed without much issue, except a note about our horn being E36 M3 (which isn't true but we'll take it). We also didn't have all of the stickers we needed due to a miscommunication on part of event staff.

Stopped in at check in to get checked in and pick up our missing stickers. Then applied them in the parking lot next to a few other teams.
Swung by to pick up the rental car and dropped off the tow rig/car/trailer at service with a short list for the crew of Amanda, Stephen, and my Dad.

Thankfully we have white car for this weird white graphics package.​
We got a single pass of recce in on the 2 tarmac stages and went back to the airbnb to sleep for another 2.5 hours before returning to service for the drivers meeting. Leaving shortly after for the tarmac stages.

At this point I've slept <10 hours in almost 3 days, Julia managed to eek out a few hours on the tow there so she was a bit ahead but neither of us were in peak form by any means. I definitely don't recommend it and if it wasn't our first ever event, there's a good chance we wouldn't have gone.

The first tarmac stage was okay, we ended up delayed as a local managed to drive on course in the middle of 2 cars running. Julia and a bunch of other codrivers ended up getting penalties from the confusion. Which were later removed. After the wait, we were finally belted up and at the line.
Butterflies were rampant in our insides but it was the good kind of excitement. Roughly 3 years after deciding we would race a stage rally, we were sitting in our own car, in our own gear, about to race our first stage ever.

And it was about as messy as you can expect. Julia got lost a bunch of times in the notes, I could barely keep track of them while also driving the car hard for the first time ever on pavement and the second time ever in general. The first being a rally cross 2 weeks prior.
My driving was molasses on a cold day, Julia was rubber banding through the notes like Flubber, and we were both having a ton of fun.
Sailed through the finish line with big dumb grins and a cemented addiction for whatever it was we just did.

Oh, and we were last car in the order because first time and zero other applicable driving experience.

Joined the rest of the field at the regroup just after finish and hung out with everyone for a while.
I'll spare the rest of the details as they can be found on the anypercent thread, but we didn't end up racing the reverse stage. Much to my annoyance after spending time to mount and wire the lightbar.

Got back to service and then the airbnb and crashed hard until we absolutely had to be up on Saturday.

Saturday was awesome, we finally had some rest and were on the way to our first gravel stages. The reason we actually put in the effort.

We started out slow but built confidence in both our hastily marked up Jemba notes and the car itself. The stages themselves were a bit of a blur as we tried to figure out how to do the thing. But by the end of the day we were able to push harder than the morning and had begun to get in sync for significant portions of the last stage with minimal loss in notes.

Random pic from first(?) service:

Everyone at the event was super, super helpful and friendly. Especially towards Julia as a first time codriver, she probably had almost a century worth of combined experience giving her advice and patiently answering all of her questions at various times of the day. On the driver side, a bunch of our friends/rally acquaintances and especially Chris and Adam were congratulatory towards us all day for finishing each leg, which was nice. We had over an hour at one of the regroups in the woods and basically hung out with everyone for a while. Sadly Josh and the Yeetle were out at this point along with a large portion of the rest of the field.

This was also where someone kindly pointed out that our rear wheels had been installed backwards. This was remedied at the last service where the car seemed to check out fine again besides a little more oil used. A baffle, pickup, and oil cooler are planned before our next event to hopefully fix this.

A few stages later, we proudly took our last stage selfie:

Returned to service to more congrats on surviving our first ever event at a rally with 53% attrition. Headed back to the airbnb and then to the awards ceremony to hang out and celebrate our friends on the podium.

An uneventful 7 hour tow later, with a quick gas station pic.

We returned to home, which is where the cat is.

Well done on finishing!

Congrats again!  Also, in every picture I've seen so far, that quarter panel vinyl completely hides the bondo crimes on the back of the car.

In reply to Median :

Thanks!

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Thanks, and you as well for back to back podiums!

We were pleasantly surprised how much better the car photographs now