Attempt at a Rally Civic

artur1808 said:

NGTD, I'm in exactly the opposite position as I have some experience with Honda's but little to none with VW. Want to trade? 

I actually thought about it as I was writing my post, but there would be so many issues to deal with, that I think I will keep the Honda (just to start - I'm in Canada).

Heck yes! I would love to get my hands on a Rally VW like that. Great cars for G2

In reply to B13Birk :

Thanks, I'm looking forward to getting it out on stage. I've had a few successful rallycross runs, but am still learning how to drive FWD cars and doubt I'll be blowing anyone away when I get it out to a stage rally. 

Not a ton of updates on the car, I've started de-stickering and cleaning the car. Not super critical, but I want to have a clean-ish slate to begin with and it's a good way for me to get a little more familiar with the car. 

On another note, I made some improvements to my garage that will surely go a long way. I picked up some LED utility lights off of Amazon and am blown away by their output. This should make working on this car MUCH more pleasant. Went from a single bulb at the center of the garage:

To 4 LED bars spaced around the car:

As part of your "getting familiar" time, something I like to do now after repeatedly stress cracking many parts of our FC RX7 rally car is to go around all of the unibody seams near the suspension/subframe/other high stress mounting points looking for cracks.  You can use a bright light on the other side of the seam to look for hairline cracks which would otherwise be hard to see.

You posted in my thread so I'm posting in yours!  

How's it going?  Where do you stand with car prep right now?  Still headed to Sno*Drift?

Prep is going well, keeping the build thread updated is not. 

I am entered to run sno*drift, but still have a few little things to finish up on the car. I underestimated the amount of stuff I need to have in the car and am trying to be strategic about the layout in the trunk. Between the spare, fire extinguisher, spill kit, first aid kit, tow strap, tool box, and triangles, things are getting crowded back there. 

Also, if anyone has a magical solution to the terrible mk2 VW door handles, I'd love to hear it. 

In reply to artur1808 :

I'd consider putting stuff you may want in a hurry in the back seat area instead, like triangles and the first aid kit.  The times I've needed triangles, I wouldn't have wanted to have to run around to the back of the car to get them.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

That's a good idea, I'll see if I can find a nice spot for them. For what it's worth, RA rules say that one of the triangles has to be within reach of the co-driver, so it's strapped to the roll bar in front of his seat. The other two are *currently* trying to find a spot in the trunk. 

Got the hydraulic handbrake plumbing done last night and bled the brakes. However I wasn't able to take it for a drive because it was getting late and I'm trying to be courteous to my neighbors. But we are supposed to get some snow on Friday, so that'll probably be a good opportunity to drive the car around and a feel for how it handles snow/ice.

In reply to artur1808 :

We have one strapped to the cage near the codriver, then one tucked into the inside of the quarterpanels behind each seat so we can reach them as we're getting out of the car.  Maybe there's a nice spot on the rear doors you could attach them, or bungee them to the main hoop or something.

Nice. I like watching other people rally. My friend got a prepped CRX so I got some irl action too.

Maybe change the thread title to reflect the decisively non-civic aspect of the build?

Hey I know you!

:)

If anyone knows how to change thread titles, please let me know because I agree that the civic isn't particularly relevant anymore.

Got the car on the ground yesterday and decided to go over to my co-drivers house to test the intercom. I hit a bump in the road and suddenly the car died. Upon trying to restart it I noticed that the fuel pump wasn't priming. Turned out to be a wiring issue. I'm going to rewire the fuel pump to a switch on the dash so I don't run into issues with it again. 

On a lighter note, the hydraulic handbrake definitely works :)

I'm going to drive the car around as much as possible over the next couple weeks just to get more comfortable in it and continue working through any small issues that may come up. Aside from that, I'd say all of the major stuff is done and ready for Sno*Drift. 

GAH!  I missed this thread the first time around!

Do you need crew for the race?  I'm one hell of a re-fueler

Not sure I can get that Friday off, but I could come up Friday night to help out Saturday.  I'm in SE MI as wel...

Once again forgot to update this. Better late than never, I suppose.

Sno*Drift Recap:

The week leading up to it was a little hectic with last minute prep, but we headed north feeling confident in the car. The big question of the weekend would be road conditions. The days leading up to the event saw a bit of snowfall, but generally the roads were icy from some freeze-thaw cycles. The forecast showed highs in the 30’s and low 40’s for the two days of sno*drift. As this was my first stage rally, we would be last on the road and I was fully expecting the roads to be a skating rink. Our strategy would be to stay conservative and finish the event.

Aside from a small electrical gremlin that wouldn’t allow the car to start as we were trying to leave tech, everything seemed to be going well. Co-driver and I went through and pared down the notes as much as possible, aimed the auxiliary lights, and got the service vehicle ready for business.

Tons of anxiety leading up to the start of the event, but everything got off to a smooth start for us. We compared notes with some other teams after the first stage and found out we weren't even the slowest!

Unfortunately, there was a crash on stage 2 that lead to stages 2 and 3 getting cancelled. By the time we started stage 4, it was already getting dark, so I’m glad we had our auxiliary lights on early. The night stages went well, we were maintaining good speed and even managed to overtake someone on stage! Someone at the spectator corner got footage of us catching up to the escort that we would then overtake a few hundred yards farther down the road.

Once we got back to the hotel and checked the results, it looked like we were up to 15th overall (of 30 that started) and 5th in 2wd after the first 8 stages.

Saturday morning I found that the hotel parking lot had turned to a sheet of ice and couldn’t even make it to the car without falling down. Playing it conservative would be the name of the game today. However, on the first stage of the day, we clipped a rock on the inside of a corner and started losing pressure in the RF tire. With about 2 miles left in the stage we slid off the road and punched a big hole in the sidewall of that same tire. Managed to finish the stage on 3 tires and quickly swap it during the transit. Despite mismatched front tires and terrible road conditions, stage 2 went well.

Stage 11 (third stage of day 2) got cut short because the roads were so icy that volunteers could not safely get to their stations. This should have been enough warning to be even more conservative, but I am not a smart man. Slid wide less than a mile into the stage, had a hard impact with a bank on the driver’s side of the car, landed back on the road and tried to keep driving. However, this impact broke the tie rod on that side and suddenly the front wheels were having some miscommunication issues which led to us putting the car in a ditch a few hundred yards later. Unfortunately this ended our rally early as the car was stuck and we had little to no steering ability.

Sweep towed us back to the transit road and with the help of a series of zip ties, hose clamps, and a wrench acting as the interim tie rod, we got the car loaded onto the trailer.

Despite the disappointing finish, it was an amazing experience. I learned more than I could have imagined and am excited to get back out on stages. As far as DNF’s go, I’m thankful that myself and my co-driver were fine and the car suffered minimal damage. Life has generally gotten in the way over the last month or so, but the car should be back in action at a local rallycross this weekend!

Also, the new process for posting photos is so convenient! Huge thanks to everyone that helped make this possible. 

Can a moderator please change the name of this thread to "Mk2 Jetta Rally Car"?

Got the car all patched up, eyeballed an alignment, and took it to a local rallycross last weekend. Results weren't too great because the course was so rough that it revived my intermittent fuel pump connectivity issue, leading to a couple instances of the car shutting down on course. Regardless, it's always a blast throwing the car around on dirt with friends. We were lucky enough to have some great photographers at this event, so here's a few photos.

Great picts and write up. With the fuel pump issue, could it something as simple as the fuel pump relay coming loose? iirc that was a normal issue with mk2 cars on stage. You may be able to dig something up on specialstage.com about it.

It seems like it is actually internal to the fuse box under the dashboard. The terminals are wiggling loose; I need to pull it apart and get a good look at it. Or just grab new fuse box from the junkyard. 

It's been a while, but I've got a few updates.

In preparation for the Central UP Rally in a few weeks, I've been going through the car and fixing up a few odds and ends. Fuse box has been replaced and fuel pump issues are fixed. The car still doesn't like to idle, but it is more consistent now. Cold starts and idles fine, but does not like to idle when its warmed up. I'm thinking O2 sensor? 

Ball joints and wheel bearings have been replaced, and the interior has been cleaned up/optimized a bit. The most obvious changes to the car would be the exterior. I have never been a fan of the headlight setup on the car:

So I ordered a round headlight conversion and decided to give the car some paint so it looks the part a bit more

Nothing fancy here. Just some black/blue rustoleum and white tractor paint I had laying around. Turns out you can paint a rally car with a roller and it'll look good enough from a distance. 

Detroit Region SCCA will be hosting a rallycross tomorrow, so it'll be good to get a little more seat time before heading out for our next stage rally in a few weeks!

looks good. And yeah, rally car.....why would you use anything OTHER than whatever paint you had lying around, lol.....

Really glad you got the car finished and made it on stage. I really love your setup. I am always watching these types of FWD G2 cars popping up on the FB marketplace groups for rally cars for sale and I get green with Envy. We recently picked up a Mitsubishi lancer that we need to get some cage stuff figured out on but I hope to follow in your foot steps and get on stage here soon. Keep up the good work. Thanks for posting. 

Glad to hear someone's reading the thread and following along! I'm trying to get better about updating it. 

The rallycross came and went, and was overall a success. The goal for the day was to push the car a bit more than usual as a shakedown for Central UP Rally. Because of this, my driving was less than tidy and the overall results weren't great haha. But it was a ton of fun, and that's all I care about. 

About halfway through the afternoon runs I pulled the handbrake with a little more gusto than usual and felt the distinct "pop" and loss of pressure associated with a loss of brakes. Finished the run, pinched off the line, and did the rest of my runs with only front brakes. When I got home, I found that a previous owner somewhere along the road had bent a rear brake line in such a way that it rubbed against the gas tank skid at full bump:

Brake line replaced, clearance checked through a full range of motion, and bled. The old girl is back in business! Also decided to get fancy and throw some LDPE on the underside of the car. I did the passenger side after this photo:

I leave for a business trip on Saturday morning so this is really my last chance to prep things before leaving for Central UP rally on June 15th. I decided to clean up the co-driver side of the car and added a simple folder for holding stage notes/route books:

Added a few D-rings to the trailer to make strapping the car down a bit easier, the Jeep is getting an oil change today, and then the racecar gets some final touches. Last details for the Jetta will be a quick alignment, light bar mount on the new core support, and a quick cleaning. Not sure if I'll need the light bar as Central UP rally is supposed to end around 9PM and its far enough north that it should still be light out, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Here goes nothing!

Great thread! Good luck!

LET THERE BE LIGHT (again)

Knocked out the light bar mount and replaced the front strut mounts yesterday. 

Lightforce 240s?