Rally Report from Hexus Rally Central

[Zak33]

Right, the full run down on Bank Holiday Rallying

On Sunday me and Sair took the car to Scrutineering, which was not at the venue of Millbrook, but at an Industrial Estate near Flitwick. We drove “the Beast” there and she was faultless. We were one of only 3 cars to be DRIVEN to Scrutineering, mainly cos we’re only an hour away, but also cos the car is totally well behaved on the road. Some of the stuff we are competing against is monster tweaked, and you just can’t wear it out on doing 100 road miles for a safety check. So those were all on trailers. And there was some machines to behold. Subarus, and Evos, 6R4’s and Darrian T90’s….big dough guys, big dough.

All was well, although we didn’t have a First Aid kit. It occurred at this point that we were competing on a National Event, not just a club-mans rally, as we’ve never needed one before. Its then you feel the pressure, from a silly mistake, that you’ve never needed something as basic as a First Aid kit before….it all sinks in. This is quite a big event It’s gonna be good

Monday dawned and it was looking hot…we had wet tyres too, but 4 brand new Michelin dry tyres, N20 compound (quite soft) and some new rear camber on the rear wheels. That job was quite easy, simply some washers on the bottom link and the tops of the tyres now tilt in and the bottoms out….and do they ever!

Noise testing was done in the event area of Millbrook test centre. I’ve been here a lot, but for Dave it’s quite new. This is the most thorough set of tarmac roads of every incline and slope, with fast downhill’s, mammoth 1 in 1 climbs, blind crests and big drop offs…with HUGE ARMCO to rip your wings off. Some of the tighter turns have positive camber on their inside and others on the outside, so it’s a navigators heaven, trying to remember the positioning of the car after each terrifying blind crest and to prompt the driver on the next loop.

Each stage involves a MERGE and later a SPLIT where the cars often get onto the stage together, as we do two laps per stage. 8 stages in total, 70 miles and with as many as 10 cars out there at once. So, as we count down to take off, and give it hell up through the first 3 gears into a tight left, we spot a 205 Gti on its second lap where its gonna merge with us and with lots more inertia, and then its down to rapid decisions by the driver as to letting it go or jumping in front and risking a whack and a marshal’s flag. Plus me in my harness, strapped in real tight, trying to crane my neck to see behind us while Dave navigates the tight corners and trying to remember the instructions I gave him before I started looking behind for a car at the merge. And as with all rallying, there’s cars littered all over the place, from First Stage aggression, where the unsuspecting drivers have wiped out their multi thousand pound rally cars within 45 seconds of the start….and the PEBBLES….oh the pebbles….
Either side of the track’s are storm drains for rain water and these are filled with pebbles….well, not anymore they’re not! The buggers are all over the roads, literally like marbles, from rally cars clipping the apex of corners and spraying rocks everywhere. It’s devilishly dangerous on stage one.

And as for money….well….car 1 is an Impreza World Rally Car. Guess at a price. Go on. Well, rumour has it that Mr Fleck’s car is worth just shy of £500,000. That’s half a million pounds. He was 89 cars ahead of my £7500 monster The blokes we were parked next too in the Service (Dick Mauger, pronounced Major) blew his engine up on stage 2….£10,000 engine guys…..dead…..11 miles

On to the rally itself….no, hang on…lets talk power here.

I have 108 bhp at the fly wheel and a Quaiffe close ratio gearbox with a very very low final drive. Rev limiter is 6400 rpm (tho it READS at 6900)
Peugeot 205 Gti’s 1.6 are 115bhp as road cars, and these cars are running with no limiters and are going to 8000rpm when required. Exhausts/Cams etc bring the typical to 130bhp to 145 bhp
Nova Gte (same engine as mine) but on Throttle bodies and individual management systems are running about 150 bhp.
Civic VTECS are 160 bhp as road cars….so I have no idea what they do in the trim I saw. Guess at 175 bhp.

And by stage 4, we were 64th But most of my class, (B10, 1600 fwd) were still alive….it’s the quick stuff that dies first at Millbrook…unless you’re good.

We were seeded most of the time behind a Ford Ka Group N car. We start at 30 second intervals and on the 3rd and 4th stages we had caught the Ka by the last 3 corners. 7.3 miles per stage, and we made up 30 seconds. We were doing ok for a metric tonne car. But we were being passed by Escort BDA’s (2 litre rwd) like we were stood still.

On stage events of note: oh yeah…lots
On one part, flying down a tarmac strip at about 70 mph, I needed to call a ramp exit to the left, but was well and truly joggled and lost my place on the map from a tight corner and I failed to call it. Dave saw the line of cones blocking and directing us, and wrenched the car to the left and up what looked like a concrete service track (it was) and as we crested the little slope we were face to face with the SPLIT , which luckily I had already made a mental note of and I called “RIGHT, KEEP RIGHT” and as it turns out that was the way we were already ploughing from the cars energy, unlike the 205 Gti which we caught on the second lap and found him right in the middle of the narrow concrete strip at the top, his bumper touching the oil barrel that separates the two lanes…we went left this time, while he reversed out of the barrel and went right.

One the third stage, after a quick start, we went up a “one in one” ramp and over a 45 degree left to drop back down a “one in one” and then into a medium 90 right with positive camber…..it felt too slow to me, so on the second lap, I called it “flat up to the crest and just lift at the top”, while directing Dave to the far right of the “up ramp” and shouting for him to cut the left corner real tight for a fast straight line….he did it all with aplomb, but bloody hell, we were flying SO MUCH faster than the first time…..as we landed we drifted across the pebbles, and had the right side of the car on the grass, and as we dropped down the hill at 80 ish mph the ROAD SIGN that was on our side of the road loomed large and frikkin fast….he caught the car, and got us back onto the road, but we collected the edge of the sign, ripping into the windscreen pillar and cracking it across Dave’s vision, spraying him with glass…..the rear quarter just caught the post that supported the edge of the sign, and twisted the rear of our car back onto the track….

Its my job at this point to shout “just get on with it, don’t worry” as Dave is now sprayed with glass and thinking “we nearly died”. It was, after all, my car and my fault…..This kind of thing is so exciting that I fail to find words to explain it, BUT try it in your head…..up a 100 metre ramp, blind left 45 degree corner, and a drop, drift wide and see a sign post in your way, tug steering left and hard as you dare without losing grip and graze it and SEE the edge of a metal sign board hit the screen at head height….just AWESOME

[Zak33]

Next scary moment…..well, it’s gotta be me finally convincing Dave that if I tell him exactly where to keep the car, in a very steep positive camber right, that we will literally catapult up the next hill, and he’s gotta let it drift wide to the left and then tease it back to the RIGHT Armco over the blind crest at the top, cos I PROMISE it’s a straight landing BEFORE we need to turn left at the bottom under full speed, and we gotta trust the Michelins to grip enough .I gotta say…flat in 4th over the blind crest, even though you KNOW its straight before a long tightening left, and to grab 5th at the crest and not lift and then drop down into a fearsome left for a “1 in 1” climb at 6000 revs in 5th, is a feeling of sheer terror and exhileration in one. It is SECOND TO NONE My arms are goose bumped as I write this.

By the end of stage 4 we know the car is too heavy to compete with the 205’s and 106 Gti’s, BUT it’s behaving with manners that you would NOT BELIEVE. She is so stable…the rear camber is working BIG TIME….but the rear tyres are KNACKERED….they are overheating BIG TIME and we’ve lost more than half of the tread in less than 30 miles. The FRONTS, where all the power and braking and steering are being done are MINT CONDITION….same tyres, same compound…..we NEED to get the levels of grip at the FRONT up now….we need camber (not as much as the rear) cos we clearly have loads of potential here….loads.

But not enough power. Not even near….and then, stage 7 it happened

I had convinced Dave to TRY a tighter line round the hairpins…and he did (as always) what I said…..so once again, its MY FAULT….but as we entered the hairpin right, after a fast left, he wrenched the steering round to maximum right, dropped to 1st and planted the awe inspiring 108 thoroughbred race horses down….through the limited slip diff and through limited slip hot race tyres…and under that much torque and pressure and the angle that the steering geometry holds the CV joint…..she broke

Its good that it broke where it did…cos we sat with some nice guys from Sheffield with my dead car, in the sun, watching the cars go by, with Harry Hockley Motorsport t shirts on, who saw and heard it, said how impressed they were with what we’d managed on a 1600 Astra that was “the quietest rally car we’ve ever heard….ever” and they pointed us to a £14 plus vat mod for the steering which will restrict the travel by less than a millimetre and stop the CV joints breaking

And now it’s coming in the post.

SO…..two weeks time….we go out again….

[Zak33]

sadly there are no pictures or film from Sair....camera's are banned from Millbrook (except for offical bods) and Spectators are restricted to the service area....its not much fun unless you're competing, although she did come along for moral support...which is good cos I was gutted after the break down, and she was worried cos we never came back....she had to wait for the NEXT stage to finish before we got towed in....thats an hour and ten minutes before she heard if we were ok...sorry Sair

However......look for Car 90 in this website on the Millbrook Stages link

http://www.sc-photography.co.uk/rally127.htm

[Zak33]

also look for Car 65 (yellow and blue Fiesta) for an idea of what OFF CAMBER roads do do a fast car's handling.....cos it shows it perfectly....the car just falls away from the road

Astra did good there....she performed faultlessly on that junction over and over, both directions

[Butuz]

Nice!!! must be so much fun.

Regarding Civic's my mates just picked up an (N reg i think) 1.6 vtec thats pushing 170-175 odd BHP. It goes well, very well.

Butuz

[Crazy Cricket]

The 1.6 twin cam civic lump is the B16B, fast little things. 160 stock in the UK, but the old CTR that wasn't sold over here made about 185. On top of this there are more tuning parts than you can shake a stick at, and it's a strong lump. It's only weak point is that it's an open deck design, this only matters when you tune the nuts off of it, and even then there are plenty of parts to close off the deck. N/A lumps can nudge 300 and hit 10k revs, there are stroked drag lumps that with big turbos and nitrous making over 700.

Bad luck about the drive shaft, second shaft it's poped isn't it ? I guess with that low FDR you are making huge torque at the wheels. Can you fit sturdier shafts/joints?

[Zak33]

Originally Posted by Crazy Cricket

Bad luck about the drive shaft, second shaft it's poped isn't it ? I guess with that low FDR you are making huge torque at the wheels. Can you fit sturdier shafts/joints?

Second shaft is fine the CV joints ARE up to the job in a straight line...its under the force of a tight turn that they seem to be weak...makes sense really. I have thought about new stronger shafts....guess I missed that boat when we got a brand new Quaiffe kit for an F13 box, with diff, at £1600 and not an F18 box

She'll be fine...it never gonna have enough torque for killing it in a straight line

now the Lock Stop is ordered we should be cool

[Tumble]

at least it broke while it was doing something that should have broken it this time..... I take it the spare relay wasn't needed?

[IainB]

Nice read Zak - glad to see it all coming together (and Im sure I have ALL of this to come when my build is finished....)
As things do - they find the weakest link then work along... at least you didnt nuke your engine on its first run on the dyno - that wasnt cheap for one of my friends....

[DR]

http://www.everybodysmile.biz/tonyla...35/page29.html

[Zak33]

you HERO

my baby in action

[Tumble]

crikey.. Am I seeing the slice in the windscreen pillar you made with the roadsign in the penultimate photo there??? if I am, then that must have been frightening.... bet it was loud

[Rave]

Originally Posted by David

http://www.everybodysmile.biz/tonyla...35/page29.html

LOL @ pictures 4692 and 4708- you can just make out Zak with a look of abject terror on his face!

Great story dude, better luck next time. It's a shame you can't link to the pictures, one of those Subarus looks exactly like the ones I worked on at Prodrive.

Rich :¬)

[Sair33]

Cool piccies!!!
(Better than I could have done anyway )

[Sair33]

Originally Posted by Tumble

Crikey.. Am I seeing the slice in the windscreen pillar you made with the roadsign in the penultimate photo there??? if I am, then that must have been frightening.... bet it was loud

That's it! It was the glass that looked more scary, doesn't really show up in the pic... BIG crunchy crack

[Zak33]

yup...windscreen was scary...I was so pumped up and have had so many crashes with my previous driver that I'm kinda imune but Dave looked shaken (for 30 seconds his driving was off) but its my job to shout and keep him focused.

Not much shakes Dave....but it was close to a biggy

Makes ya proud to have a car like this tho....that would never even have hurt....the rol cage behind the pillar is like a tree trunk