Fox Rally Team

ianh · 10 Jul 2011 at 12:40

Hi all, when I'm not on these forums I'm the cameraman/telemetry dude/tea-boy & chief tool fetcher for the Fox Rally Team, a new Team comprising of current and former RAF personnel based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. We've just completed our first ever Rally and I've done a little write-up with some videos (watch in Full Screen for 720p). We also have a website which is currently being worked on www.foxrallyteam.co.uk and a Youtube channel featuring all out videos so far. I'll update this thread as we go through the season.

Crail 2th July 2011
This was to be Fox Rally Teams 1st competition rally. After spending years as a co-driver for various successful teams Phil Coulby, a Junior Technician at 12 Squadron RAF Lossiemouth, swapped seats to be a Driver in his own team for the 1st time, piloting an ex-works Skoda Felica. Co-driving duties fell to 1st timer Audrey Smith who had to overcome not only her fear of being a nervous passenger but also her nerves at being an untested Navigator with barely a few months practice behind her. Leaving doubts behind them the 1st and 2nd Stages passed quickly as both Phil and Audrey settled into the groove surprisingly quickly and, apart from a slight mishap with a tyre wall, everything was going better than expected. However on both the 3rd and 4th Stages punctures from Crails unforgiving airfield surface and a slipping clutch looked like spoiling what was turning out to be a fantastic drive from the new team. After a series of quick repairs by team mechanics Graham Taylor and Chris Tabbener Stages 5 and 6 were finished without further incident much to the relief of Phil and Audrey. When the Stage totals were finalised the team anxiously gathered with the other Teams swapping tales from the day. Out of a field of 55 starters the team not only finished 39th overall but amazed themselves with a 3rd place in Class which netted them their first Trophy.

The Team would like to thank everyone who has helped make the Teams success a reality and hope that this continues on their next rally at Otterburn on the 29th July.

If you're interested in becoming a Team Sponsor please E-Mail Phil Coulby on [email protected]

Thanks for Watching and remember "Wear the Fox Hat!"

ianh · 10 Jul 2011 at 13:50

Cheers, it's a bit of a steep learning curve for us all so any advice is great. As to the map I thought I'd try it just to see if I could (never done this stuff before) but it's not as good as I'd like (all hand-drawn in PS) so it's being replaced on later videos by a GPS Map & Telemetry setup from www.racechrono.com so it'll look more professional and certainly better than my hand drawn effort.The camera however can't be moved due to scrutineering so we're having a play with the cameras exposure settings or fitted an ND filter to solve this or we zoom the camera into show just the windscreen.

ianh · 11 Jul 2011 at 12:40

It's a Drift Innovation HD170 Stealth (kind of an advanced 1080p bullet cam) with a crappy chinese 640x480 keyring cam filming the "face" shot. I've just replaced the chinese cam with another HD170 which'll be plugged into the Intercom system for better Audio (you can see the lead in the pics) or, if we can figure out how to do it securely, mounted outside the car for external shots..

The HD170 has an adjustable exposure so now we've got to do some tests before the rally to see what give the best results.

ianh · 28 Aug 2011 at 12:50

Otterburn 29th July 2011

We went to Otterburn on the 29th July facing only 3 other cars in our class so we had hoped that as long as we finished we'd get some points. Now Otterburn is a very tough event on cars, of the 87 that started less than 50 managed to cross the finish line intact and sadly we weren't one of those. Basil (the car) had been "acting funny" the day before during scrutineering (randomly cutting out, lack of power etc) and seconds after pulling away from the 1st time control (not even getting to the start of Stage 1 200m further on) the engine quit and couldn't be restarted.

After a very quick strip and rebuild of the virtually the entire engine including the fuel system, intake manifold and coil packs we couldn't cure the fault and had to pull out which was a huge disappointment for the team, especially when we discovered that only one managed to finish in our class.

On getting back we knew the Air side was good which left Coilpacks/ECU and Fuel and after a chat with the previous owner we decided to check that the fuel pump wasn't sucking the tank liner which had happened before. On taking out the fuel pump it was immediately obvious that the pump had popped an internal seal as 75% of the fuel it should have been pumping was jetting out the top.

Once that was replaced and the shakedown run's finished we discovered that the fuel pump in Basil must have been failing for awhile as Basil now seemed to be faster (confirmed with GPS figures) which was a pleasant surprise for a by now, very tired team.

Basil will be back rallying on the 11th September when we go back to Otterburn where we hope to at least start the damn rally this time!

If you're interested in becoming a Team Sponsor please E-Mail Phil Coulby on [email protected]

Thanks for Watching and remember "Wear the Fox Hat!"

ianh · 16 Sep 2011 at 16:11

Otterburn 11th September 2011

After the disappointment of a DNF at their last visit to Otterburn the Fox Rally Team were determined to prove that their 3rd in Class finish at Crail wasn't a fluke. With Basil now back together after some fantastic work by Mechanic Graham Taylor, their hopes were high for a good finish at the Pirtek Lindisfarne Rally. While Graham and new Team Mechanic Stacey Reid setup the service area Driver Phil Coulby and Co-Driver Audrey Smith went over the pace notes one more time allowing Audrey, who'd never used pace notes before, one last chance to correct any misunderstandings. With the tension mounting Fox rally team shot out of the gates onto Stage 1 and straight into trouble as a slipping clutch threatened to make the teams Otterburn DNF jinx a reality. After some quick roadside fixing from Phil brought the clutch back to life, the next 3 Stages passed in a white, green and newly pink blur until an engine fault left the team running on only 3 cylinders halfway through Stage 4. Phil managed to nurse a badly backfiring Basil back to the Service Area for a 15 minute stop allowing mechanics Graham and Stacey to swap both the spark plugs and coil-pack but, despite their best efforts the fault couldn't be located in time for the start of Stage 5. Rather than quit the rally the Team were determined that this time they'd finish no matter what. With the car only running on 3 cylinders from Stages 5 to 8 the Team dropped to last place in their class but they still grimly hung in until the Lunch break after Stage 8. This 45 minute break allowed Graham and Stacey to strip the head down and discover that the exhaust valve on the No1 cylinder had lost it's securing nut and had stuck shut. With a new nut in place Basil was back to firing on all 4 again raising the moral of the whole team. Now Basil was back to his best the Team were ready to start fighting their way back up the leaderboard from last place. With both Phils driving and Audreys skills peaking at the right time they smashed their way through Stages 9 to 11 with some brilliant driving and posting some impressive Stage times. After crossing the finish line at the end of Stage 11 the team had a short but nervous wait while the results were finalised. They needn't have worried though as despite all the mechanical problems their pace through last 3 stages stages and the mis-fortune of other teams had seen them leap from 5th place to finish 3rd in class earning them yet another trophy and proving the result from their 1st rally hadn't been a fluke.

The Team would like to thank everyone who has helped make the Teams success a reality and hope that this continues on their next rally at Otterburn on the 23rd October.

If you're interested in becoming a Team Sponsor please E-Mail Phil Coulby on [email protected]

Thanks for Watching and remember "Wear the Fox Hat!"

ianh · 27 Sep 2011 at 01:55

Engine and Gearbox Strip-down 25/09/11

After the clutch issue and missing exhaust valve nut from the Lindisfarne Rally we decided to remove the engine and gearbox and strip both down before the Cheviot Rally back again at Otterburn on the 23rd October. So with Haynes manuals in hand, over the weekend Team mechanics Graham Taylor and Chris Tabbener started what should have been a straight forward job.

The initial work on Saturday went smoothly with the engine and gearbox carefully detached from everything in the engine bay after a quick compression test. It was at this point the problems began! The roller bearings on the drive shafts fell apart when the drive shafts where removed from a very worn Diff which, in sympathy, also fell apart! After a full strip down of the gearbox, stripping the clutch, rebuilding it's thrust-bearing and a complete rebuild of the diff (all of which took the best part of 5 hours) we called it a day and went home proud of ourselves.

The Sunday was engine day and, hopefully, putting everything back together. During the hunt for the missing exhaust valve nut the Sump was quickly removed (not there), the valve stems were checked (again not there) until the nut was found inside the Rocker cover. Whilst the cover was off the tappet clearances were also checked and adjusted. As we started to refit the sump we noticed that Crank and Cam Shaft both seemed to be the factory standard items and not the race versions that this ex-Skoda works car should have had. This led us to strip down the spare engine (which hasn't been used in many years) to find that the race spec items were indeed fitted to the spare. They'll remain there until next season when the engine will be getting a full rebuild. Once the engine was and gearbox were mated back together it was a simple task refitting everything back into the engine bay and by 5pm Basil was running sweetly again.

Now we'll just need 1 more weekend before the Cheviot rally to check over everything once again to make sure we built it right. The surprise of coming 3rd twice on a standard 58hp engine (instead of the 77hp race one we though we had) means that another trophy winning finish would be amazing for the Team too.

Thanks for reading - Here's some pics - (the fully gallery is here - www.ianhenshall.com/rally/250911)

ianh · 27 Sep 2011 at 14:39

Yeap it's definitely fun, infact we've got an unofficial pact that when it stops being fun is when we quit!

Our lack of funds is currently the biggest limiting factor for the Team as the engine/gearbox upgrades and spares package we need to become truly competitive (>120hp) will cost into the £1000's to do properly. For example with the standard 58hp engine/gearbox (but an amazing suspension setup) we're only 40secs to 1min slower over a 17min stage than another newer Felicia with over £10k spent on it.

So for the time being we're saving every spare penny (our unofficial Team nickname is "Zero Cost Motorsport") while using the cars reliability (and occasional bad luck of our competitors) to continue racking-up trophies and points, which hopefully will make us more attractive to potential sponsors for next season.