The Gravel Rally Thread

[FLN75S]

Cheers bb, Yeh when you hit the limited in 5th you really know your moving that's for sure, I was surprised just how stable the car was at those speeds though

[LNG 33S]

yeh...we backed it into a tree (see picture in last page).

really fast rally, we held 5th gear (overdrive) for 5 or 6 seconds i recon at a few points. id say well over 200....230 maybe?

in fact when we went off we were in 5th gear going quite fast.....90 100 possibly. road we left and Mike (my brother and driver) put the car into a spin to try and wipe off the speed. we went wide off the road and got the tree. by the time we hit the tree we were prolly only carrying about 40 or 50kph. After that we just drove away and car was mechanically fine.....kept going at full speed for another 10 or 12k till we had an unrelated overheating issue. Car just about stopped, running on two cylinders crawling along....we could tell it was gonna be a re-occuring problem so parked it and sat out the rest of the event!

we are both really dissapointed, not that we put it off, when your pushing hard, it happens; but because we cant seem to finish a rally laterly cause the cars had issues.

we did finish the 1st stage 3rd outright after leaving the start line 9 seconds late, which meant we would of won the stage by 4 or 5! sucks!

FLN75S had a go all day and would of got top five if not for the brake issue! good effort on his part to finish when so many people didn't.

check out www.amsag.com.au for pics and info on rallies past and future.

[FLN75S]

Yeh I was very releaved when I passed the timing marker on the last stage that's for sure its been a while since I've finished and was the first good result for the new car.

Hopefully the cooling issue won't be too hard to fix longy just depends if it has done the head gasket or something worse. Will be round to lend a hand so hopefully you guys can get it back out there soon.

[PHaT MR30]

Fingers crossed I might be doing Scouts SA and Coffs Coast (WRC) rounds of the ARC later this year, car is back from body works this week and then goes to Victoria to spend some time with Johnny the chief engineer at Activ Rallysport.

Getting it prepped to run in the premier class so back to Ultimate 98, but still on 34mm restrictor.

Pretty excited, but its gonna be a busy few months with Scouts, Coffs, Classic Adelaide (with Marlin) and then final round of our state gravel championship all within a few weeks of each other!

[FLN75S]

Good to hear the car is getting there Tim and sounds like you will be pretty busy for the next few weeks.

Some footage is up from Forbes

[warps]

Noice

Well done for getting out there.

Lose the BOV though - sounds awful

I see you tackle spectator points as well as I normally do

[FLN75S]

lol, doesnt have a bov so cant loose it

Yeh its always the way you stuff 1 corner and there is someone there filming it haha.

[warps]

Well what's the pssht pssht noise then?

My best spectator point was at Yarraman a couple of years ago. During recce I'd noted how there was a sweeping RH coming into a hairpin left. "Perfect for setting up a nice scando flick" I though.

Now at the time I was driving an RX2 with the infamous TQX gearbox. Anyone who knows these boxes will know that they have "park" right next to first gear, so when you're in a hurry it's very easy to grab park instead of first (not good). Because of this, I always had to be uber careful trying to select the 1st / 2nd gate. As you can imagine, coming sideways in a scando flick, ready to snap around into the hairpin is not so easy to remain calm and carefully select gears. I missed the 1st / 2nd slot and kept hitting park or 3rd (or kept getting 4th when trying to get 2nd). Managed to lose all momentum, slide sideways into the bushes and nearly stop before finally getting 1st gear. Then sat there spinning at 9000RPM trying to get going again (RX2's aren't renowned for their rear traction). Of course there were spectators and video cameras galore there.

We snapped a front strut a few minutes later - must have been too pissed off to slow down for the triple caution up the road

Bloody mazdas. My old 1600 never would have given me that kind of grief.

[PHaT MR30]

How do you find the SRDET power delivery on gravel? when I can make some space in the garage I wouldn't mind a new toy and S14s are starting to become pretty good value

[FLN75S]

Well what's the pssht pssht noise then?

My best spectator point was at Yarraman a couple of years ago. During recce I'd noted how there was a sweeping RH coming into a hairpin left. "Perfect for setting up a nice scando flick" I though.

Now at the time I was driving an RX2 with the infamous TQX gearbox. Anyone who knows these boxes will know that they have "park" right next to first gear, so when you're in a hurry it's very easy to grab park instead of first (not good). Because of this, I always had to be uber careful trying to select the 1st / 2nd gate. As you can imagine, coming sideways in a scando flick, ready to snap around into the hairpin is not so easy to remain calm and carefully select gears. I missed the 1st / 2nd slot and kept hitting park or 3rd (or kept getting 4th when trying to get 2nd). Managed to lose all momentum, slide sideways into the bushes and nearly stop before finally getting 1st gear. Then sat there spinning at 9000RPM trying to get going again (RX2's aren't renowned for their rear traction). Of course there were spectators and video cameras galore there.

We snapped a front strut a few minutes later - must have been too pissed off to slow down for the triple caution up the road

Bloody mazdas. My old 1600 never would have given me that kind of grief.

lol that does sound like a good effort.

The noise you hear is just the air rushing back threw because it has nowhere to go but back out the air filter, it was worse than normal because of the extra boost it was running on that event.

1:08 in a better effort on this corner

Tim, i find it pretty good considering the power it just comes down to good suspension and a good tune with a nice torque curve. You will always struggle with wheelspin but if you do these things and keep the tyres up to it they are a great car on dirt. the S14 would be a good choice and you would have plenty of fun in it.

[guesty]

Well guys, to those of you who don't know me, i used to have a R33 that we built into a full-on Tarmac car ready to run Targa and the likes. I've always had a soft spot for the gravel and in the last few years, this has been my main side of motorsport navigating in a WRX for club events and Servicing for a 2010 Spec C for state rounds/Targa etc. fast forward to last year after an unfortunate event where i put the car on it's lid, i decided to spend a bit more time and money and build something that i have wanted to for a long time... a Prodrive Legacy Rally Car in full Rothman Subaru colour. and so it began. currently it's just waiting to have the cage finished and painted and it will be good to go :-) i know it's no Nissan, but who can say no to one of the classics of rallying..

there's a couple of pic's of what it's currently looking like, and what it should hopefully turn out to look like

[FLN75S]

Very nice, feel free to keep us updated with plenty of photos.

What events are you planning on running the car in? And to what spec will you be building the engine/driveline?

[guesty]

Plan to run the car as a PRC car so can only really do exhaust, suspension, brakes and ecu. Going to run state gravel rounds and the occasional hillclimb

[Mr Wombat]

Under PRC Regulations they aren't eligible, due to capacity... Not sure if anyone is running one under AMSAG???

Wouldn't be a bad thing although the minimal suspension travel, physical weight and location of the weight would hinder it.

That said the drivetrain (ATTESSA) wouldn't have and problems, probably be a good thing.

they specifially say in the cams manual they are eligible for PRC.

the main problem isnt weight. theres alot of fat that can be cut out of them, and from the factory they are similar in diamensions and weight to the last gen WRX. weight distribution is similar too.

the suspension is a bit of a hassle, but if your going to the trouble of building a rally car, the suspension should be FAR from stock, and will be altered to suit.

the main problem atm, is the restrictor rule, which is most advantagous to cars around 2L capacity. there has been rumours floating that cams may revise this rule. im doubtful tbh.

hopefully if i can convince the ball and chain, ill be having a go on dirt and see how a GTR compares to the wrx/evo boys.

Edited June 25, 2011 by Mr Wombat

[guesty]

Thought i would post an update on how the car is going, finished the cage on the weekend and fabricated some seat mounts for it. ned step is scotchbrite the rollcage and primer it and get it inspected.

[FLN75S]

Looking good

[Duncan]

Tas rally again next weekend.....have you guys sorted some snow?

[guesty]

some snow?? pretty sure the Regs need to be changed to Snow chains required....

[Erelyes]

So I have a question for the rally guys here...

Does anyone know how much suspension travel the Nissans actually have? Or how much you can get out of em?

Particularly the R32/33/34 and S13/14/15.

My gut feeling is the 33/14 onwards will have better travel due to the higher rear strut?

And the silvias will have more potential being mac strut in the front?

Planning a build for here in NZ where the reg's are pretty easygoing for building a rally car (championships excepted) but don't want something that'll wind up with 90mm of suspension travel and put a strut through the bonnet if I get it airborne.

Pete

[PHaT MR30]

Well the EVO is finally back from the bodyworks, I don't know what could have possibly taken them so long to paint the thing. Now its a race against time to get it ready for Rally Australia