Rally Project

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Interesting JBeck, we have road rallies here and ive always wondered about the specifics of it.

Still my opinion is that, people drive like prats on the backroads all day anyway. Might as well do it in an organised fashion at night!!
 
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JBeck said:
The point of revival is that everyone has the same chance to be competitive. You could be a millionaire but you wouldn't be able to spend loads on your car giving you the advantage. It's quite possible to be a front runner in a quite basic car. I'd be happy with the regs if i didn't want the car for road rallying aswell. You can spend £20,000 on a road rally car (and they do) and there is no recognition, prize money, nothing. Revival is aiming big, with 8 or so large events next year and the MSA pushing it hard as the next big thing. I know what they are upto, they have opened up the road rally classes and you can run some hellish machinery nowadays. This will lead to more problems with the public and police (it's bad enough already), the MSA know this and will use it as an excuse to ban it. I'll give road rallying another 2-3 years and it'll be gone.

For those that don't know much about the event types i'll explain. Road rallying = using public roads/lanes at night, meeting oncoming traffic is probable, the spectators are alomost always problematic (driving like prats, chasing rally traffic, parking by peoples homes and shouting, handbraking, wheel spinning etc), local residents complain to the organising club and the police. Around here the police have actually been turning up at the start of events and telling all competitors that if they use the handbrake on a hairpin they'll be knicked. The police have been out in force as of late, mostly to control the spectators (read boy racing chavs who think they are all colin mcrae and lots of them) We get residnets parking tractors, placing straw bales or simply standing in the middle of the road on a corner. Bricks through windscreens, chains and wire tied across the road. Road Rallying is a PR nightmare, there's no two ways about it.
Revival rallying = Driving on stages only, i.e. farm tracks, parks (e.g.weston park), old airfields, forest roads, fields etc mostly in the daytime, in quieter cars. All public roads that link these stages will be non competitive, just like a WRC event. It's cheap, you only need basic mods on your car and you could be up there fighting for the lead by just being a decent driver. I love road rallying but it doesn't take a genius to see which direction our sport is heading in the next few years.

Btw http://www.endurorally.com/index.html

Unfortunately I think you're right. :( Although different regions seem to get different problems (our main one is noisy spectators) it all adds up. In North Wales they have big big Police intrusion, in England it seems to be more of the obstructing the road deliberately, people slicking the road with diesel and so on. Very very childish.
 
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That Police intrusion has come down to here now aswell as from the midlands, it's kind of attacked us from all sides. My local rally had the tractors, bricks and chains all in one night. I hope road rallying doesn't go but it will, let's hope we get the opportunity to compete in the last events ever. My club is actually running a revival event next year, covering around 400 miles. Hopefully i'll do it and see what the future holds for us.
 
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Hi again, right had a bit of spare time to get a few more things done.

First off removed the bumper and got rid of the crappy grilles top and bottom. The slots are way too big and let in all kinds of stones, birds and whatever else is lying around, not good for cooling. As i got a new rear bumper that was metallic grey (GSI one) i'll have to spray both of them. Doing them the proper grey will be a pain due to finding the correct colour so they'll just have to be white. Flatted the bumper off and put some plastic primer on so the paint adheres ok. Will have to update this one as the paint hasn't arrived yet :(
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Next up, get rid of the battery tray from under the bonnet. One pair of cutters, 10 minutes and off it comes.
Now you see it...
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Now you don't
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Time to do the job i have most been avoiding, getting rid of the sunroof! First off is to unbolt the thing from inside which leaves a huge hole in the middle of my roof.
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I waited and waited for a breakers to cut me a roof off a Corsa but after two months they still hadn't done so. Nevermind, there's a Nova parked up here so i got a nice big grinder with a cutting disc and chopped out a nice piece. Placed my sunrrof on top and cut around it.
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Now comes the fiddly bit, it needs to be trimmed exactly to the size of the hole. As you can see i ended up cutting mm's off to get it just right.
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After an hour or so, it fits!
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Had to clip some grips underneath to rest the plate on.
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On top of the grips i put slithers of metal inbetween to get the plate excatly level with my roof. Out comes the welder and i spot the plate in place.
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I'm not going to seam weld it as it will probably warp all my hard work. Some snot will do...
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Got a air sander and a rough disc and flat the join off on top, making sure to take the spots down below the level of the roof. Slapped some filler on quickly as i was running out of time.
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It'll have to stay like that until Monday when i'll go up and finish it off.

Oh and the 4 into 1 arrived at last...
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Sorry for the dodgy pics i was using my phone.
 
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You won't believe it but it took me around 7 hours just to stick that plate in today, was a horrible fiddly mega precision required type of thing, never again...

kreeeee - did my first event there as a navigator. Saw & Weld Rally 2000, came 5th overrall and 2nd in class, My missus lives there :) Edit... no she doesn't i dumped her woohoo!
 
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so your going to return the car to stock, or mod it? im not sure what class your wanting to do now if the road rallys are being sabotaged.

"Had a bit of a chat with mate last week who was in turn talking to guy he knows. A place in Leominster are getting, wait for it... 170 BHP out of these babies and 180 BHP from the 16v units. Ok so they have everything possible done to them but for a 1400cc unit that is mighty impressive."

they got a website?
 
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Well i'm near Shrewsbury in a secret location! :D

Some lads from around here do videos and flog em online, so for those that don't really know anything about road rallying you can see here...

This is my local rally, did the course closing car for it last year (or was it the year before doh)
http://www.vidmatt.co.uk/Pacemaker05/PacemakerVideo05.htm

More here, links on right
http://www.vidmatt.co.uk/photos_videos05.htm

I'm there somewhere in the MK1 mex.
Make sure you watch the Breidden clip, some mad cowsheds on that one. The Yellow Escort MK2 that spins on the hairpin is the guy who owns the garage where the Corsa is.
 
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Yeah they do, soon change their tune when they see it though.

No work today so i went up to the car. Sprayed the Bumpers and while waiting decided to make some spotlight brackets. First up i grabbed twp pices of the right stuff and cut them to length.
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After a bit of looking and eying up some suitable mounting points on the car i did a few bends in the right place and welded on a couple more bits.
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Added some more to the underside, running all the way underneath and bent down onto the vertical to provide strength and rigidity. After loads of dodgy welding and 20 minutes we get this.
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Grind all the weld down so it's tidy, add some black spray a few bolts and voila, two spotlight brackets. They bolt to the front of the slam panel and down the rear of the metal bumper support. Slapped the bumper on, cue dodgy shaky phone pic... Not bad at all and a saving of £25 + vat + delivery.
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Things are starting to take shape now, got my bonnet pins, boot hooks and harness bolts coming next week. Along with the cage at last (maybe)
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After i'd finished i decided on a nother mission. Instead of buying a vertical hydro handbrake for £125 + delivery i'm gonna make one of them too. Again i got the right material and cut it to length and shape. This is as far as i got until running out of time, will update this week i hope.
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Also put the roof lining back in today, ready for the cage now.
 
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JBeck said:
Well i'm near Shrewsbury in a secret location! :D

I was 'round that way for the weekend a couple of weeks back. Looked like there was some sort of event on as well as there were all sorts of road-rally style cars out and about on the Saturday morning.
 
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Yeah there's always something going on around here :)

Right, put in a Harry Hockley straight cut close ratio gearbox and a quaife ATB LSD at the weekend. All was going well until i started the car and discovered that it was jammed in reverse gear... Forward gears still enagaged but obviously fought against reverse. Took the side off the box today and pulled the whole gear cluster out of the casing in one easy lump (great design, another reason i went with vauxhall) Upon examination i found that the Detent rod was simply a bit stuck. Took out the spring and replaced and voila, we have neutral. Slid it all back in and after only an hours work had a fully functional gearbox. The gearing is superb, 1st is long and the next 4 are mega close, drops hardly any revs on the change :)

Rollcage is being sent tomorrow, about time too! will get some piccies sorted asap.
 
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