I want help on a new NASA Rally Sport class: Spec WRX

While I like the no restrictor idea, and keep it simple stupid philosophy in general, I have an issue with the concept of restrictors being a "real barrier to entry for noobs". Maybe the noobs need to be educated. Or maybe rallying is better off without noobs that are dumber than even me ;-)

A legal restrictor can be turned out for less than $100. The car with restrictor can be dyno-tuned/reflashed for under $500. Less if the tuner wants to sponsor the next Loeb. Yeah, you will want to pull the turbo to drill and tap for retainer screws and drill the cap screw heads for safety wire so that yer friendly scrut. can seal it. Fer Christ sake if I can do it, Nasiocers can. Pull the turbo while it's already unbolted, while yer gutting the cats in the up and down pipes. Buy a spare turbo on ebay for $100, while yer at it, and put a second restrictor on that and have the scrut. seal that too and you have a ready to go spare. Vermont Sportscar will think you are the consumate pro team. They'll be sending spys over to see some of your other tricks ;-). Way cheaper than a cage, rally struts, FIA seats or a pair of hans. Seriously, it's not that big of a job. On pump gas, you'll be close to stock power levels. More torques with race gas. Yeah, you'll wanna shift up before 6,000 rpm.

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

I really intended to stay out of this but I don't like Kieth getting slammed for asking valid questions. If you can't answer questions or concerns without name calling you really haven't a good answer.

So here are some concerns:

The cars would only be legal for select NRS event, not CARS or RA. So they would still need the expense of a restrictor and said tuning if running any other venues.

WRXs are not cheap other than a few hi-mile rebuilder cars. So hardly a budget entry car. If someone can afford the car, the $2000 cage, $1000 seats and more thousands in belts and suspension and tires and destroy the street car to get it made they can afford the $100 resrictor and a few hours dyno time.

Say they spend the $10-20k to get started and balk at the expense of a restrictor, they still have to pay for the 'new' PCM and associated tuning.

Electronic PCMs won't control the horsepower effectively alone or absolutely. They can be circumvented. Who is going to control the "creative" people? It's ok to say "we won't cheat" but to risk the future of rally over it? Seriously..Toyota cheated, Nissan cheated at SCCA truck racing, Richard Petty cheated, Bill Clinton cheated. People lie and cheat from the first time someone in the room wrinkles their nose and says "Jimmy did you mess your diapers?" Taxes, girl friends, school work, time cards, speed limits. marital staus, birthdates, prior arrests and believe it or not motorsports..all cheatable, really.

Restrictors are pretty much absolute and effective. They restrict horsepower and are very easy to police. It takes me a couple minutes to check all the winning cars. They aren't hard to build, aren't hard to tune to. Most of our regional cars have about 250 hp at the wheels without spending a fortune, national front runners are around 310.

If people wanted to race to the lowest common denominator they wouldn't get AWD turbo cars to start with. They wouldn't buy Michelin tires, dog boxes, headers, active diffs and so on. They would all race stock Golfs on Silverstone tires. People always look for an edge, whatever the cost.

If we're looking at newcomers alone then I agree a WRX built for say 3 races isn't realistic. You would want a rental club cars/cars or an option for no safety equipment. There's the big expense.

Right now I just pop the hood, have the competitor pull the inlet hose and play doctor. Otherwise there would be the expensive PCM checker, we'd need many of these, check the engine internals, gear box, final drives and so on. Then IF it was a NRS issuesd PCM and the engine melted, NRS would be responsible for a big assed refund and damages, so that plan isn't feasible.

So basically this would increase an organizers concerns, possibly benefit a few newcomers with a rather model specific car, alienate all the other competitors, Talon/GTX/Audi/Legacy/99 Impreza owners and complicate the heck out of scrutineers lives.

Discuss the concerns, weigh the costs against the benefits and who it benefits, look at the realities and you may just see how elegant that little piece of aluminum is.

So how about a bigger restrictor, Tuning ok, but only pump gas, or a 2 inch exhaust outlet.

phlat65 Wrote:
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> So how about a bigger restrictor, Tuning ok, but
> only pump gas, or a 2 inch exhaust outlet.


Did you read what Gene said?

The cliff notes of his post was that if you can afford to run a WRX, it's not much more to spend the extra money (less then one grand) on the restrictor and tuning.

So why bother with a bigger restrictor with tuning for the bigger one? Now you still have a restrictor, you're still paying for tuning, and then you put a little exhaust outlet?

Why not run the stock exhaust, the 34mm restrictor, tune it (same as you would have had to do with the bigger restrictor) and then not have to spend on a new exhaust gadget.

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

well, I would think you could tune on pump gas with a bigger restrictor, and not need standalone, fancy turbo, anti-lag ect to get safe, fun, reliable power, that most everyone could do. With a restrictor, it would be easier to police, and tech.

Just a thought, i am not really affected by any of this, I have no plans to build a Subaru.

A spec Muffler could also do the same thing, make it bolt in/out for inspection. Use some $39.95 "Turbo" muffler. Easy to limit power that way.

We need no more power. The power/torque now is more than enough.

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=Gf8o2R3yV4c

The expense to do a restrictor is negligible compared to the expense of a car and cage.

No other means of governing engine output is as easy and consistant as an inlet restrictor.

WRX should not be considered a budget or entry class car. Last thing we need is a noob in an unrestricted WRX on stage. That is a large risk. If we did the 3 race thing he still needs to get the restrictor. If he doesn't like rally then he still has a trashed car and we took a big chance on someone who isn't still around. I'm too stupid to see the payout...sorry.

If Hurst had said let's do a certain model WRX that gets benefits that no one else gets he would be ducking the lynch party.

hey Anders, I was looking for this thread over on SS.com to see the discussion going on over there....did you put it someplace other than USA, or did you not post it?

and if not, why not? I'd think you'd find more help over there, no? (bigger audience)

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Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

Jon Burke Wrote:
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> hey Anders, I was looking for this thread over on
> SS.com to see the discussion going on over
> there....did you put it someplace other than USA,
> or did you not post it?

I didn't post it there.

> and if not, why not?

(not an answer, only a comment on the question): The world is a lot more fun for me if the "why" or "why not" of my decisions remains in my own head.

Anders

---

Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

heymagic Wrote:
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>you may just see how elegant that little piece of aluminum is.

I absolutely agree that it's the simplest solution possible.

Cheers,
Anders

---

Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

heymagic Wrote:

>
> Electronic PCMs won't control the horsepower
> effectively alone or absolutely. They can be
> circumvented. Who is going to control the
> "creative" people? It's ok to say "we won't cheat"
> but to risk the future of rally over it?

How is the future of rally being risked over it?

---

Quote
Morison
[jvl] Ohh noooohs! There's an h'off tawpik thread in the gent-urinal dick-cushion four-hum. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!![/jvl]

RallyTaco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> heymagic Wrote:
>
> >
> > Electronic PCMs won't control the horsepower
> > effectively alone or absolutely. They can be
> > circumvented. Who is going to control the
> > "creative" people? It's ok to say "we won't
> cheat"
> > but to risk the future of rally over it?
>
> How is the future of rally being risked over it?
>
>

Right now we have the dreaded restrictor. Cheap, effective and really, really hard to cheat with. You're going to have between 250 and 300 hp depending on your wallet. We are following set procedure that most of the world recognizes.

Now if we remove the restrictors and attempt another unverified, non standard means of doing the same thing we incur risks. I'll guarantee you that the ECU can't control power output and further more it can be easily cheated. If we happen to have an "incident" with one of these non standard cars then all hell will break loose. The attorneys will have a field day and there will be a good chance rally will be done in the US.

Unfortunately we must follow accepted practices to minmize risk. If you do something that is not the accepted norm you run the risk of being called negligent. Say for instance we believed the article that says DOT helmets are as safe as Snell rated. Someone has a wreck and succumbs to head injuries wearing a DOT helmet. The family sues. Now you have to defend the position that ignoring every major and most minor sanctioning bodies requiring Snell SA helmets for competiton that you decided on an article that a DOT helmet would suffice. You will be presented regulations from hundreds of events requiring Snell helmets, not to mention the experts from Snell, Bell, Simpson and so on. Get out the checkbook.

Same with restrictors. The FIA requires them. They are the worlds largest motorsports body. They mandated them to protect competitors, spectators and all sorts of involved people. There is always risk , you have to mitigate risk. We now require restrictors in NA. Started with SCCA and moved to RA and NRS. Removing those opens up potential claims of negligence because it is unfounded, unaccepted practice. Sadly we must make many decisions with the fear of being sued in the front of our thoughts.

heymagic Wrote:
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> The INTERNATIONAL classes in Groups A and N exist to enable Squarehead Swedes to take a car to an INTERNATIONAL EVENT in Norway, Or some Russians and Estonians to tow to a Finnish INTERNATIONAL event or a Dutchman and a Dane and a Belgian to go to an INTERNATIONAL event in Northern Germany, or an Italian team to tow 2 hours into France at an INTERNATIONAL event and for those people to be assured that that 1,3 Nova over there is prepped to a common set of rules that they prepped their Citroen to to have some certainty that some PARITY within the classes in each GROUP exists.

The POPULAR classes, where the extreme majority of the participant enter are the various National classes we've sen so much action on youtube like the Swedish GpH, the Finnish F-cup, German GruppH, French Groupe F have nothing to do with homologation, or what anybody is doing in the neighboring country.
Everybody has classes for HOMOLOGATED cars so that the poor fools that buy them have somewhere to drive them at home, and that's explicitly stated in some places.


"Unfortunately we must follow accepted practices to minmize risk. If you do something that is not the accepted norm you run the risk of being called negligent."

That has been the rationale for all sorts of things and it has been shown on several separate issues to be a bare faced lie that what, just as an example,
"Every Major Sanctioning body in the world requires HANS", or "The FIA requires a can over a can over a can over a can"

IF sanctioning organisations want to make rules and say "Neener neener! Fawk you do it or stay home" that is fine but the repeated fatuous claim that what they CHOOSE to claim is "accepted practice" is, and has been shown to be clearly FALSE.

Acepted pracice in many places is to have a rigid points system before one can get an EXPERT licence and then once having an Expert licence have the right to enter an INTERNATIONAL event and it is for THOSE CARS, EXPRESSLY N4 and A8 where the use of say HANS is obligatory in a few countries domestic events---the expressed logic being they have to have them for INTERNATIONAL event , so they have to use them on home events.

There is no worthwhile common trans continental entries for our little events be it Doo-Wops or Olympus or the events in Canada, thus there is NO REASON to mimic only ONE PORTION of the rules set, the portion designed to allow folks to travel and do INTERNATIONAL events .

Gene, you know how often I get the "Well (snarl, snarl grrrr!) This ain't Yurope, and we'ze ain't noez Your'a'peeins" Well after all these years I return the malediction:
This ain't Yurope!
I know Eurpe probably better than most since I can and do read all the gawddam Western Europen languages (theyre ALL related and just two major groups, it aint that impressive---I'm fawkin useless at say Chinese or Russian).

Our rule need to live or die by OUR prevailing conditions....


Restrictors WORK at limiting the AIR INTO a fawkin motor, but what the rest of the motor does with the air that gets in is another thing and can and as we all see is routinely "rearranged to defeat the purpose of the restrictor.
Can't rev? Make it a mid range killer.

You know this, Gene, dontcha?
Come on.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

John , I know exactly what restrictors do. They do it well. I do happen to turn wrenches on both a regional winner (Davies) and a national winner (ACP).

No way in the world are all the Swedes and Finns going to come over and pay the legal fees of a lawsuit here. Quite honestly that is one of the worst arguements I've heard.

Facts are restrictors limit power and performance, that was their design. A design drawn in blood...

Removing restrictors for a very limited number of competitors and a limited number of events while trying other unenforceable, unverifiable methods of restriction is running a huge risk. That's the truth. Since I probably won't be the one suing you really needn't yell at me. Our legal system isn't of my making. Wait until one of your struts collapses and a car dives into a bunch of spectators or some such ( and I truly hope it never happens).

Right now everyone running a turbo AWD car has a restrictor, probably a couple hundred in N American. I don't see 30 new guys lined up with '02 to '05 WRXs whining that they will only enter 3 or 4 NRS events only if they can run without restrictors.

So far no one has come up with a better way of restricting power. Blow off valves aren't easy to calibrate or always reliable. Electronics won't do it. Exhaust restricting has it's own set of problems.

RA and CARS will not let unrestricted cars run (especially with novices). Anders is free to do whatever he can afford at events he organizes.



Either way we're talking about regulating speed. A 34 mm restrictor versus no restrictor and a whole bunch of hard to verify conditions. Both accomplish the same thing. Both cost a little bit of money. One is proven to be extremely effective, the other won't be. Both require tuning. One requires a sanctioning body to invest in a couple sets of pieces of aluminum on a wobbly plastic handle, the other requires at least extra ECUs purchased, a mythical way to test them, engine tear downs, accusations of cheating, complaints of low performance and reliability issues, production and delivery issues and more. Certainly something regional events are ill equipped to deal with.

Either way are regulating speed, you do get that don't you John??

heymagic Wrote:
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>
> Either way are regulating speed, you do get that
> don't you John??

Except 34mm restrictor cars are are actaully the quickest rally cars ever (when optimised and driven by the best of the best)
Real world data shows the average mph has gone up since the 34mm rule came in place.
(And I'm not yelling at anybody)

Even on out modest level, PEOPLE aren't faster, the really inarguably well designed turbo 4wd cars of today ARE quicker, and stage times show it even for some cars which LOOK pretty damn slow and boring.

The restrictor has forced people to do what they should when building engines and that think about torque.
As I said, what the motor does with the air AFTER it goes thru the compressor is another thing than what the restrictor limits which is air going IN.
(I know FIA cars have max diameter of the wheels in the compressor, max blade height etc which FURTHER limits things, but WE don't, and even with the 34mm thing inplace the average speed on stages in WRC went up apprx 5 km/hr or about 3 mph within 4 years of the rule being in place.

The restrictor didn't slow THEM down.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

john vanlandingham Wrote:
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> The restrictor has forced people to do what they
> should when building engines and that think about
> torque.

So are you suggesting that suspension, differential, gearbox, tire and engine technologies would have not advanced if there had been no restrictors?

> ...and even with the 34mm thing inplace the average speed on stages
> in WRC went up apprx 5 km/hr or about 3 mph within
> 4 years of the rule being in place.

But what was the immediate effect of the restrictor?

> The restrictor didn't slow THEM down.

Didn't it?

Restrictors don't exist in a vacuum (even if they regulate one) and if the same technological advances had been made in suspension, differential, gearbox, tire and engine technologies without the restrictor do you not agree that the cars would be even faster than they are with restrictors today?

---

First Rally: 2001
Driver (7), Co-Driver (44)
Drivers (16)
Clerk (10), Official (7), Volunteer (4)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Last Updated, January 4, 2015

Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2009 03:21PM by Morison.