Jump to content
SAU Community

The Gravel Rally Thread


Recommended Posts

Nice one Tim, let us know how you guys get on.

I am hoping to go up and watch but i have a event on the week after so i'll most likely be too busy getting the car ready, hopefully that wont be the case though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 169
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

I've seen a few people mention that they are going up to Coff's to compete? Is anybody going to just to watch? At this stage I'm going by myself and keeping it cheap by camping in provided camp grounds near the service park. Would great to see some other SAU people up there , I'll have to pick a SAU shirt to make it easy for people to spot me. action-smiley-069.gif As I didn't know what I'm doing bought an Enthusiast Evernt Super pass but i have now found a spectators guide here http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/australian-rallying-discussion/26849-wrc-australia-fans-spectating.html . reading through it I may have adjust my plans a little , the Stag my have troubles with some of access roads.

Anyway's, if your going, let me know, always keen to have beer with new people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not going to Coffs any more, a lot of hard work to get the car finished and its still got to get engine mods done and tuned and all new brakes and the budget is pretty stretched. Shame, but we would rather not go all the way up there and break it on the first stage cos we didn't get a chance to give it a good shake down. Looks pretty shit hot now though.

I had some pretty prime accomodation lined up in a 3 b/r townhouse with garage that I cancelled yesterday. If anyone was after a good place to stay right near the service park (and the Super Special goes right past the front), I can hook you up with the details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Congratulations must go to Guesty on a great result at the inaugural 500 Classic Rally on the weekend.

Guesty was the co-driver for Peter "beaka" Barrett in a Toyota Sprinter. They finished a strong 3rd after 7 stages of which the majority were in the dark!

Obviously you tamed the beast since Beaka hasn't rallied in over 10 years and from what I heard he drives likes "Triple Caution through dip, hold it flat!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some footage is up from Forbes

Nice, a gravel rally thread on a Skyline website. I feel quite at home all of a sudden.

Skyline's in bits at the mo doing a rebuild to see if we can find some power without cheating and putting on a hairdryer :P It's only been a month and these vid's are making me impatient. Might have to ship the Skyline over and come for a play some day!

A couple of NZ video's for ya's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

mtstageslogosctweb.jpg

The MSCT is proud to present the Southern Cross Television Mountain Stages Rally for 2011. It is an all new roadbook with approx 180Km competitive and a central service park in Mathinna.

How to get to Tasmania

The Spirit of Tasmania sails daily between Melbourne and Devonport.

Spirit of Tasmania | Home

Toll Shipping offers a cargo service between Melbourne and Burnie daily.

Toll ANL Bass Strait Shipping - Home

How to get to the Rally from Launceston

Directions are located in the Spectator Guide below, please allow at least 1 Hour 45 Minutes to get to the starting location in Mathinna.

Accommodation

Affordable comfortable accommodation is available at Archers Manor and is the finish location for the event. A great restaurant and motorsport bar are located here and is where the presentations and all the competitors will kick on.

Archers Manor

Please find below Entry Form, Supplimentary Regulations and Spectator Guide.

Entry Form

http://msct.com.au/PDF/Rally/2011%20Mt%20Stages%20Entry%20Form.pdf

Please fill the highlighted sections on this form out in full and click SUBMIT.

Supplimentary Regulations

http://msct.com.au/PDF/Rally/2011%20Mt%20Stages%20%20Supp%20Regs%20approved.pdf

Spectator Guide

http://msct.com.au/PDF/Rally/2011%20Mt%20Stages%20Spectator%20guide.pdf

It is recommended to set print settings in Adobe to 'Fit to page' and print duplex. If your printer is unable to print duplex, first print page 1 only, flip the page and insert into the MP tray of your printer (blank side up) and print page 2 only.

More information is available at www.msct.com.au

Entries close Friday 16th September 6pm, We encourage you to get your entry in soon.

TV Commercial to air from 11th September

Regards,

MSCT Mt Stages Committee

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I had a run 2 weeks ago at the Amsag Cowra rally, this event has a mix of both fast shire roads and more technical stages in the forest.

I was running a different co driver for this event plus new brakes and diff so it was start of easy and see how we go. Just as we were starting to work well and i was trusting the calls i managed to damage the oil cooler cutting a corner and it put us out for the rest of the day. Luckily i noticed the low oil pressure and shut it down before any damage was done.

We bi passed the oil cooler and filled it back up with oil ready for the Sunday stages which are all fast shire roads. With nothing to loose i pushed pretty hard and we managed to win all but 1 of the stages which was when we blew an intercooler pipe a couple of km's from the end.

Here is a couple of the stages, the first has some tar sections as well which i always enjoy though not much fun pushing hard on rally tyres.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Thread revival.

Who's going to Rally Victoria? We are heading over and cross registering in the VRC/ARC. Pretty excited to be rallying again after a long break. Actually gonna be a bit of a task as ive never written notes under such controlled recce and the driver has never driven on them!

Car has spent a few months in Victoria in the good hands of Johnny Down and Melbourne Performance Centre. Now making plenty of grunt through the midrange, and it should be a totally different car to drive with some new diff maps (and ABS disabled!), handling issues sorted and most importantly decent brakes!

Anyone else entered or going for a look?

Dates are 11-12th November

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Had a great run at the Amsag Sunny Corner Rally on the weekend, we got our best result yet and no drama's all weekend which is always good to finish of the year with.

We managed 2nd outright and 1st RWD, the stages had a good mix of tight technical corners but with some nice flowing ones as well which is always better for the Silvia.

below is some photos from the event.

_B120375.jpg_B120363.jpg_B120384.jpg_B120472.jpg_B120698.jpg_B120777.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fantastic Effort Jason!!!

We also had a great event at Rally Victoria. Allthough the lead up to the event was stressful, went to pick up the car and it had no brakes on it so had to get some air freighted in from V-Sport and because we went from running in just the VRC to the ARC had to install a firebomb (not a bad idea though). Oh and we had planned to run on Pirelli's (which we had a stockpile of) but again cos we were running ARC had to run the control Khumo tyre.

Did a pretty good recce and wrote some notes we were happy with, could have done better, but a last minute terratrip problem meant we had to guestimate.

On the friday we took it easy to get a feel for the car, notes and being actually able to go at a decent pace knowing what was ahead. Finishing Heat 1 in 10th outright.

Saturday we fitted a new set of Medium 800R's and set on our way. There had been big storms a few days prior and we expected the roads to be much the same as the previous day. They were far from wet! We used up those 4 tyres in 2 stages! and had to struggle through the next two stages, both of which were 20 odd km's long each, to the next service where we made the decision to fit some 900R Hard's.

This allowed us to pickup the pace in the afternoon stages (which were a repeat of the morning stages). We were faster on each stage in the afternoon and on the penultimate stage managed 4th outright which was very pleasing. The final dash around the super special stage we were fastest outright and finished Heat 2 in 6th outright.

Final result being 6th outright overall, we were very happy considering this was only meant to be a shakedown for the car and crew. Amazing to be trading time with ARC regulars and big names of the sport.

Apparently we were invisible to photographers so I haven't got any pictures yet, but will be sure to post them up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice one Tim,

Good to see the car went well for you guys. I had the same problem with Tyres all day as well by the end of the 1st stage they were already pretty worn and by the time i finished the 3rd stage i could see steel belting on the rears lol, luckily i had a service straight after.

I was running the Khumo Mediums but i think ill stick to the hards on the rear just to get some life out of them.

How do you compare the Pirelli's to the Khumo's? i have heard good things about the Pirelli Tyres but i've never tried them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its really hard to compare them back to back as the car is set up so different to when we ran on Pirelli's, It woudl be nice to compare all the Khumos, it would be nice to try the 800 (open tread pattern) in a hard compound (we only tried mediums) to see how they go. the 900 (closed tread) in Hard was better wearing, and on the hard packed road gripped well and obviously showed in stage times.

Pirelli is more expensive too I think? and there isn't much available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know what you mean its hard to compare unless you organise a test day and try a few different setups to see how they feel.

It would be great to be able to have a day trying different tyres but i know that will never happen, the only other tyres ive ever had a chance to run was some Michellins and i found them pretty good but you can't get them anymore so i'll stick with the Khumo's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know what you mean about set up, we didn't touch anything on the car all weekend except tyre pressures. Had Johnny Down working on the car a few weeks prior to the rally and he spent ages dialing in springs/shocks, alignment, diff maps, engine tune, everything and it felt spot on. He knows his shit, having worked as an engineer for various WRC teams such as Peugeot, Seat etc and Jaguar F1 team! Feel sorry for him though as Justin Dowel certainly keeps him busy fixing the car!

Its funny the politics even in Australian rally, all the top photographers are briefed on who to shoot, IE take pics of the first three cars and move to next stage! So it was really hard to get good quality shots as most were just snap happy spectators, but I did find this guy who took some of my favorite pics of the weekend, thanks to macrophotographics.com

385423_10150458201501253_623531252_10932500_2020272685_n.jpg

384493_10150458201641253_623531252_10932501_1653340730_n.jpg

380797_10150458201781253_623531252_10932502_995653125_n.jpg

303969_10150458201886253_623531252_10932503_857937964_n.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 5 weeks later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share




  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • There are a few variables here, some are relevant but not critical (IMHO) to help answer your question. The two major things: 1) Ignoring anything to do with forced induction - all engines have their own natural torque curve, and it will ALWAYS roll over higher in the rpm.  There is a fixed relationship between power and torque.  When dealing with kw and nm, the relationship between them is roughly: kw = (rpm * nm) / 9549 nm = (kw / rpm) * 9549 The peak torque of an engine (without boost) will typically climb until somewhere nearish the middle of it's operating rev range, give or take a bit - then start dropping again.   The nearer the minimum and maximum rpm of the engine the steeper that drop off tends to be. 2) Boost simply increases the density of the air going into the engine, which inflates the torque at that point.  The ramp up in the torque curve you see on a turbo engine is due to the boost rising, but it's essentially just multiplying the torque you'd see if it was naturally aspirated.  The roll over you see at the end will typically be what would have always happened with the engine, whether it was naturally aspirated or turbocharged.   If the torque never started dropping then power would climb infinitely. The cool thing about this is you absolutely can tune the power delivery to suit the needs of the owner and/or the limitations of the car, and I regularly do this.    With modern turbos we've got to the point where a setup that someone may run well over 20psi of boost with could actually reach target boost well under 4000rpm if the tuner/owner WANTED to - and a lot of people seem to do this when there is actually no realistic benefit, generally it just adds a massive amount of strain to the engine and drivetrain and often actually makes the car harder to drive. As a general rule I tend to tune the boost curves for cars I tune to reach a "useful" torque level through the rev range and will often end up with a curve that ramps hard to a point, then creeps for the rest of the rev range - not to make the boost curve "soft" as such, but more to make sure its neither laggy nor pointlessly violent in it's delivery.   There have been cars I've tuned to be almost like a centrifugal supercharger (or naturally-aspirated-ish) where they actually only hit like 8psi of boost before opening the gate, then ramp up the next 10psi over the rev range... if the car is "loose enough" to drive. On the flip side I've tuned a car that had stock cams and the engine's natural torque curve fell over HARD in the higher rpm and resulted in a slightly awkward power curve to work with, in that case I actually started ramping up boost to boost torque in a way to offset the engines "NA" torque drop off... at peak rpm actually running a good 5psi+ more boost that what the "flat curve" would have defined.  This gave the owner an extra 500rpm or so of useable rev range, and had a fairly solid impact on times he was running at motorsport events due to being able to hold gears a bit longer and also falling into a more useful part of the rev range in the following gears. Here's an example of an RB in a GTSt I've done the "softened" boost curve to not pointlessly ramp straight to the max boost target early in the rpm, but still made sure it builds useful boost.  If you went in the car you'd not guess at all that the boost curve was doing anything "weird", it feels like it spools immediately and accelerates relentlessly (traction dependent) and holds to max rpm.   I don't know if you'd guess what the boost curve was doing by driving the car, or even looking at the dyno plot... but imho it suits the combination.  
    • therefore on the first examples, as we see, changing cams (graph 2) influences the quantity of torque at high revs its OK for me. so a tuner can act on the wastegate via the boost controller to increase the boost at high revs? on the last example, the boost does not decrease ok, but the torque does. this can come from cams etc etc ok. but on the other curves the boost is not constant, it increases, this is what I find strange to my mind. even more so if it comes from the relief valve. sorry I'm very new don't blame me. in my mind I couldn't imagine how the boost could be higher after the spool  
    • right, but fundamentally, for a given mechanical setup, you are either using all the torque (and therefore power) it will give, or you are choosing to run it less efficiently. Many tuners will have a practice of identifying peak available torque and then winding it back a couple of % for safety, but unless you are working around a very specific issue like a weak gearbox, there is nothing to be gained by making 20 or 30% less than the engine can
    • You can manipulate the torque delivery by ramping in boost gently, then throwing it all in after peak torque to keep the torque flat. It's nothing magical.
    • Tuning the wastegate to do it. That is all. Most people want the boost to not fall off like the most recent example. Those also look like dyno runs with an Auto/Torque converter setup, which does fun things to the graph. The boost tapers down like that because the turbo cannot supply the same amount of air at 7000rpm that it can at 3000 in terms of PSI. That, or the tuner has decided that it tapering off like that is what someone chose to do. IF you have a wastegate that can't bleed enough air to slow the turbine, and IF that turbo can flow enough air to feed the engine at high RPM, you get 'boost creep' which is a rise of boost pressure beyond what you are capable of controlling and/or want. None of these show symptoms of that, but if you had a run that was 20psi at 3000rpm, and 27psi at 7000rpm, it could be an example of that. Or simply that the person wanted boost later for their own reasons... The dyno graphs don't always show the full context.
×
×
  • Create New...