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Showing results for tags 'rally'.
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I've been around the rally scene for a few years, both as a competitor and am organiser. I started competing at age 12 in my father's Mk1 Escort, eventually progressed to an AE92 Corolla FXGT and won the local club championship as well as doing a few club rallys, and then did the usual mid-late 20's thing of getting married, having kids etc. So motorsport took a back seat for a while. Now that the kids are a bit older and the mortgage is under control I decided it was time to get back into doing some competing. Or perhaps it's just a mid-life crisis thing. For me motorsport is about having fun driving the car fast. Some people are out there trying to be as competitive as possible and winning at all costs. That's not me. Heck, on one gravel rally I was lifting off on the straights (doing 160km/h) because that was more than fast enough for my tastes! And when I did go after the club championship I didn't enjoy the racing because I put too much pressure on myself to get a good result. So coming back into the sport I want to build something that is fast enough not to get boring, slow enough I'm not going to scare myself silly, is reliable and, most importantly, goes sideways. Because going straight is boring and sideways is much more fun! After looking at what existing competition cars were out there that met my requirements (not many) and were within my budget (even fewer) I decided to go the route of building my own. I'm not a very good mechanic, so building a rally car from scratch means I'll be leaning on lots of my car club friends to assist with the trickier stuff. And I don't have an unlimited budget so this is going to be a case of spending money where it's going to be worthwhile (eg: good suspension) and forgetting about things that won't materially add to the enjoyment factor (eg: adding carbon-fibre roof scoops). The candidate vehicle I identified? An E87 130i - with 260bhp without making any modifications to the engine and rear wheel drive, plus ample parts availability for the inevitable meetings with banks and fences, I decided this was the best route to take. Here's the car I bought, in full lowered, boy-racer spec: The rough plan for the build is: Safety gear - rollcage, seats, belts etc Suspension - something strong that will handle rough rally roads without requiring repairs after every event Brakes - work out what can work with 15" wheels without having to replace the entire setup with a pedal box etc. And of course a bias valve to get some braking onto the rear. Diff - you can't go sideways properly without a LSD! (not without welding it anyway, which isn't the plan) Other - sump guard, under-body protection etc. And all the electronic nannies need to be exorcised from the car. Bureaucratic stuff - it's going to need both a MSNZ Authority Card and a LVVTA Low Volume Cert. The latter is always fun to sort out... As of starting this thread I'm already part way through the build, so I'll add posts over the next few days with what's been done so far. Thanks to family stuff the build isn't going particularly quickly but the car should be in a state to at least get out of the garage sometime before winter - I hope!
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I'm attempting to build a E36 compact into a budget gravel rally car. I had an AW11 Mr2 'sort-of' track-car previously, but it was hardly used due to track day costs and I thought it was time to move on to something a bit different. I've never rallied before, I've always wanted to, I just didn't think i have the balls to. Time to find out! The plan is to start by doing grasskhanas and autocrosses, and once I get a cage in start doing gravel sprints. Car will mostly be stock (at the start at least) to get the hang of things and grow confidence in a slow car. Picked up an automatic 1999 318Ti for under $1k, and all it needed for a WoF was some tyres, a few bulbs, and to clear the ABS light. About a week after I got it, it was already time to try it out on grass, by doing the HCMC grasskhana in Massey. The ABS light came back on just before the event (looks like pump motor/electronics), so conveniently the ASC and ABS were disabled during the event. Even though it was still auto with a single spinner, I had a blast throwing it around the dirt. Looks like the project is a go.
