Ive been doing a bit of reading up on cheating in motorsport, found a fair amount in drag and NASCAR but was hoping to find some about small time stuff preferably in other classes.
I have a few that ill try and post later but it is nearly 1 am here.
anyone got anything?
first thought after reading thread topic was cheating ex-gf's... but I digress 
carry on 
Guy I knew's dad raced in some kind of stock drag class back in the 60s, he would run stock pistons on one side and domed on the other, when they made him pull the head to prove it was stock, he'd pull the head with the stock pistons.
Blatantly cheating is against the known rules, most are "cheating" in the regard of "if the rules don't say I can't, I'll do it" the latter is generally the most abundant form of what you're looking for. I see it quite often in SCCA, but as those guys aren't competitive, none berkeleys are given. National level is where people go "well this has to be against rules so I'm butthurt" type of E36 M3......normally if you're faster than people who have been there forever
NASCAR has the most innovative cheats.
I've heard of many ways to get around the restrictors, like D-shaped rocker studs and stud holes that go through to the intake ports, but my favorite was borne out of the realization by one team that their restrictor motor made just as much power on seven cylinders as on all eight. So, they made a header with a long slit in one of the tubes, which was blanked off at the collector end. Then they made a cam with the intake and exhaust events reversed for that cylinder....
Knurled wrote: NASCAR has the most innovative cheats.
I remember MWR (about 5 years ago now...) dimpled the venturi section of their restrictor carburetor... needless to say NASCAR wasn't amused... Micheal had to remove it... and pay a hefty fine
Knurled wrote: NASCAR has the most innovative cheats. I've heard of many ways to get around the restrictors, like D-shaped rocker studs and stud holes that go through to the intake ports, but my favorite was borne out of the realization by one team that their restrictor motor made just as much power on seven cylinders as on all eight. So, they made a header with a long slit in one of the tubes, which was blanked off at the collector end. Then they made a cam with the intake and exhaust events reversed for that cylinder....
Another story I remember reading about cheating in Nascar- I think this was even a Yunick bit- was making minimum wieght. The'd punch out the frame, and fill it with lead shot so when it crossed the scales, it was at weight. They'd be in the middle of a race, the driver would have a cable connected to a blockoff plate, pull the cable and all the lead shot pours out, lightening the car a great deal. I also heard about acid dipped bodies when they actually had to use REAL car sheetmetal, etc. Those guys were insane.
EDIT- Went hunting, turns out it was Darrell Waltrip.
I remember one involving fuel being stored in the rollcage tubing.
You are talking about the man who built a 7/8ths scale car for super speedways........and the "never ending" fuel supply
In reply to petegossett:
He did many many things to berkeley with them.....
Someone on these boards said something about a button that activated the brake lights, to cause those behind you to brake without you actually braking.
Knurled wrote: So, they made a header with a long slit in one of the tubes, which was blanked off at the collector end. Then they made a cam with the intake and exhaust events reversed for that cylinder....
It took me a second to realize what you were saying. That sir, is one hell of a clever way to introduce more air after the restrictor. 
Plenty of 7/8's motors out there, especially when the rules state they will only measure #1 cylinder...
There are plenty of rules that are bent and twisted, but stay perfectly legal because they aren't crystal clear. Right in the "street car" classes is the definition of "stock suspension"....
Jenny Schrader had a restrictor carb that followed the rule "100% of the air entering the cylinders must pass thru the holes in the plate". They drilled small holes in the carb and intake, and used smaller bolts. A small amount of air could pass thru these holes.
Roger Penske rarely cheated. He was often guilty, though, of "a superior reading of the rules".
Smokey FTW 
petegossett wrote: I remember one involving fuel being stored in the rollcage tubing.
Supposedly, Lancia was storing nitrous oxide in the Delta S4's rollcage tubing.
Also supposedly, this is why Henri Toivonen went off the road without any evidence that he even tried to slow down or otherwise correct course... and why the car burned so utterly thoroughly.
This is kind of backwards cheating, but I used to know a guy who ran a KTM 250 in the open class, claiming it was a 300. (The 300 & 250 were visually identical). His goal was to get more season points by running in a class with fewer competitors. It really annoyed me because every time I missed a top 5 in class it was to him. Thankfully that only happened a few times.
yamaha wrote: You are talking about the man who built a 7/8ths scale car for super speedways........and the "never ending" fuel supply
the "7/8 scale" car was a 66 Chevelle built by Smokey Yunick, and it wasn't really "7/8 scale", but rather stock sheetmetal that was massaged in every way you can think of to make it slice thru the air more efficiently.
the never ending fuel thing was also Smokey, but it's not so strange once you remember how long a car with a Holley carb can idle and drive around on just the fuel in the bowls as long as you stay out of the gas.
I believe the beloved Sam Strano was cheating when he won his 2010 SCCA F-Stock championship. The Shelby he competed with in earlier years was allowed some extra performance advantages due to a few TSBs issued JUST for the Shelbys. It was reported that Sam illegally used two Shelby only TSBs that year to upgrade his non-Shelby Mustang. One allowed some suspension slotting and the other allowed the carbon-fiber clutch disks. Neither one is a big deal for most classes, but they both offer significant advantages in Stock class autocrossing. Sam mentioned them a few times online until it was mentioned they were illegal.
Back in the 90s I purchased a Dodge Omni GLH turbo car that was used for road racing (SS I was told), anyway I was going through checking this that and the other and noticed the hazard lights did not work and the pull button for the hazards felt "odd". So I was looking at pull button (located on the steering column) and the button pulled off but was not broken after a closer look I realized there was no switch in the steering column? But instead a small open tube (WTF)
At this point I was not sure what to make of this so I started to take the steering column apart and discovered a small tube (not factory) running towards the dash area. At this point I am very interested in what the hell this tube is used for, I trace the hose that supplies the MAP sensor with vacuum and boost pressure
So much for "Show room Stock"
Another story I heard was of computers having two programs, the team would send the car out on track with the "hot" program and after the race ended the car was shut down for inspection and the stock program would come on. And no switches or buttons were used in the car. 
Paul B
You may want to google Toyota Celica Rally car and cheating!!!
Toyota figured out a way to get more air past the turbo restrictor under full throttle that returned back to normal position at rest. The FIA caught them and kicked Toyota out of the championship that year.
The drawings were cool.
It's called Creative Rules Interpretation.
NGTD wrote: You may want to google Toyota Celica Rally car and cheating!!! Toyota figured out a way to get more air past the turbo restrictor under full throttle that returned back to normal position at rest. The FIA caught them and kicked Toyota out of the championship that year.
It was more involved than that. Turbo restrictors are effective not just because of their size, but because of their distance to the turbo wheel. There is a maximum permissible distance involved as well as a maximum diameter.
What someone at Toyota did was engineer a device that had a heavy spring load on it. When installed on the turbo, a tool would be used to pop the device open, moving the restrictor something like 10% further away from the turbo and opening up a small area around the base of the restrictor. The clamp holding the inlet duct on would hold the device open. When you'd take the hose off for inspection, the device would snap shut and look legal.
It's easy to think "oh, well what benefit would there be with a tiny little crevice of airflow and 5mm distance change?" but then you figure that they were discovered after the Toyotas were observed to be out-accelerating the other teams' cars in side-by-side super-special stages.
pickstock wrote: ...was hoping to find some about small time stuff preferably in other classes.
You may not find much exciting reading about this because it's pretty much ignored as inconsequential.
Take your generic ho-hum autocrosser. Not the pro, just the guy who does it a few times a year. Most are classed as stock, when in fact their cars are not stock. Oversized tires, fender braces, ram air intakes, etc.
Since these guys generally place at the back of the pack anyhow, their glorious "cheating" just doesn't matter to anyone other than themselves. Many times they'll be over there patting each other on the back for pulling something over the tech folk, when since their times are 20 seconds slower than the real racers, who cares.
On if, and when, their times start to interfere with the real racers will they finally be called on their cheating.
This kind of thinking pretty much happens in any class of racing.
Donebrokeit's right about SCCA Showroom Stock. Man, NASCAR had nothing on those guys. If I could get half of the folks who actually did it to talk, I could write a book. People would disguise aftermarket shocks/struts/brake pads and who knows what else as stock parts.
At the '88 Runoffs, those of us who were from ATL Region were cheering for Britt Ponder (A2 Golf 16v) in SSC. If my dim memory serves, he finished 4th or 5th on track..but was pumping his fist like he'd actually won the damn thing on the cool-down lap. Sure enough, he started throwing out teardown bond money at Tech, and ended up the National Champion.
Most of what I noticed when I was racing in Improved Touring in the early '90s was that at the Regional level, those of us in the back weren't cheating--and the guys up front weren't cheating either. It was usually the folks in the back half of the top ten that just couldn't figure out how to catch the really fast guys.
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