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john vanlandingham
The key to the future is "WHY?"

Don't know...wish I knew...

Do people buy Subarus because they like rally or do they like rally after they buy one and see Subarus running?

I love rally cars...period... That's why I love MaxAttack. Got a rally car? Is it 2WD? Come spank it!

Rally parts availability and support isn't as great for other brands/configurations, especially older cars (Volvos/Merkurs/Saabs/etc.)?

Would a crappy early 90s V8 Mustang be a good rally car? (I don't know) I want one for SCCA rallycross just because I think it would be a hoot!

It sounds like Jards car is exactly what Open light is about and what I believe rally needs. Now just make the rules so no one can try to out spend Jards build spec.

I have broke to many wrx trans to care to talk about but I believe the trans will hold up well if you dont go crazy shifting. More then likely the transmissions that do break break from bad driving abuse. Some one setting fast smooth stage times probably wont have many issues.

The rule package that I threw out there will work at RA Nasa and Cars events. The guys who buy in would have to police them selves and appoint a person to take care of money at the event. The only real issue I can think of is that the sanctioning body you are racing at would have to tech tires. (look for the stamps at stages)

This also could open up options for sponsors to help the teams funds. A sponsor gets more for a series then an individual and if there at all rallies then it should be the best bang for the buck in advertising.

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john vanlandingham
The key to the future is "WHY?"

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Don't know...wish I knew...

Do people buy Subarus because they like rally or do they like rally after they buy one and see Subarus running?

No idea. They don't appeal to me at all because of lack of affordable improvements to the box and nothing for the final drive shorter than 4.44 which is fine for a turbo car but crap for a n.a. car....

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I love rally cars...period... That's why I love MaxAttack. Got a rally car? Is it 2WD? Come spank it!

Yep!

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Rally parts availability and support isn't as great for other brands/configurations, especially older cars (Volvos/Merkurs/Saabs/etc.)?

Whaddya mean??? There's BETTER stuff for Volvos and Xrattys---not any more for Saabs---but better AND vastly HUGELY cheaper than anything fwd OR Subies.

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Would a crappy early 90s V8 Mustang be a good rally car? (I don't know) I want one for SCCA rallycross just because I think it would be a hoot!

Ain't a V8 fan. Lots more stuff, but not needed so a lot of extra junk for no advantage..

Remember, what the engine doesn't make for yank, the final drive does.
So a n.a. 4 with shorter gearing is in the same place.

---

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.

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Reamer
It sounds like Jards car is exactly what Open light is about and what I believe rally needs. Now just make the rules so no one can try to out spend Jards build spec.

I don't follow your logic that creating more rules for a particular car / class will bring more people out to rally. The current rule structure in place already allows them to compete at their desired level (IMO current rules are stable and pretty good). Until there is a large, consistent competitor base I don't think that this approach would help at all.


For the subie thing; it's a click and ship thing. there are lots of parts / options available that can be had from different suppliers and you can apply a number of different approaches and get good results. cost may not matter.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2011 03:08PM by KTurner.

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john vanlandingham
No idea. They don't appeal to me at all because of lack of affordable improvements to the box and nothing for the final drive shorter than 4.44 which is fine for a turbo car but crap for a n.a. car....

Disagree...no issues at all with the 4.44s in our OL car. Higher power cars will eventually destroy 4.44 5MTs. Stock 6MTs are bulletproof on turbo cars.

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Whaddya mean??? There's BETTER stuff for Volvos and Xrattys---not any more for Saabs---but better AND vastly HUGELY cheaper than anything fwd OR Subies.

Possibly mis-education on my part.
Is your suspension cheaper for a Volvo/Merkur than it is for a 2.5RS?
I can buy a working Subaru 4.11 5MT for $500 all day every day. Working NA 2.5 motors for similar...
Rear diffs for $100...
Axles are $50 - $100 each depending on if you want Autozone rebuilds or OEM rebuilds...
Junkyard control arms/lateral links are $cheap (and you might plate them anyway)...

I don't know how much those things cost for other cars.

I Love subaru because of snowboarding. i never knew i was a car guy , as a teen i would beat the shit out of a 1986 ford escort, very rarely but with great joy i would take it down dirt roads, and try to climb sandy hills. (Lived in central michican, under the bridge)

then i got a corrisca (hated it) and moved to tahoe. well FWD + snow sucks. Yes i've seen 2wd cars do fine in rally, mud, and snow. but I'm talking in a tourist town with ICE and hills, and you want to go snowboarding. in tahoe the Cal Trans has chain inspection points and only 4wd/Awd cars get to pass , everyone else has to stop and chain up. ever driven a 80 mile round trip to go skiing with chains on? have you done the same drive with snow tires only?

yes snow tires only is much much more enjoyable. so is being able to take ANY ROUTE in your town to get to point B. there are certain routes in Tahoe that combined with 4 feet of snow, that a 2wd isn't going to make it. esp When you have to stop because of some idiot crashing or stopping in front of you.

anywho so snowboarding in tahoe lead me to my subaru/awd love. 3 years of rallying a FWD low HP car taught me that any car can be fun to rally. that rally driving is awesome regardless of your car.

but ya now i'm a subaru fanboi due to 8 years of snowboarding in tahoe. I bet in colorado and other big snow / ski areas you get a lot of the same. also you get people who end up horsing around a bit on the snow and think "gee this is fun" and when they learn rally lets them do that legally ... well its a match made in heaven..

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john vanlandingham
No idea. They don't appeal to me at all because of lack of affordable improvements to the box and nothing for the final drive shorter than 4.44 which is fine for a turbo car but crap for a n.a. car....

BUT! 4.44 is geared for Bonneville for a rally car.
Typically for a 2.0 rally n.a. motor on 15" tires I'd expect to use a 5.15 or close thereabouts.
That's 20% shorter, and ever little foooot-lebs the motor makes is multiplied by that 20% more---more torques are better.

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Disagree...no issues at all with the 4.44s in our OL car. Higher power cars will eventually destroy 4.44 5MTs. Stock 6MTs are bulletproof on turbo cars

.

Not saying they're problems, just "not enough" if EVER anybody shows up with a 4.88 or 5.1

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Whaddya mean??? There's BETTER stuff for Volvos and Xrattys---not any more for Saabs---but better AND vastly HUGELY cheaper than anything fwd OR Subies.

Possibly mis-education on my part.

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Is your suspension cheaper for a Volvo/Merkur than it is for a 2.5RS?

Yeah but that's because they're 2 struts, 2 shocks vs 4 struts...

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I can buy a working Subaru 4.11 5MT for $500 all day every day. Working NA 2.5 motors for similar...

$50 for a T5 and a new gearkit with better ratios than any but some JDM boxes for NEW $380.

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Rear diffs for $100...

Supra from FREE to $75 with a 4.3 ratios and a relatively speaking HUGE 8" ring gear and HUGE axle diameter.

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Axles are $50 - $100 each depending on if you want Autozone rebuilds or OEM rebuilds...

Same for Xratty or Volvo not needed.

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Junkyard control arms/lateral links are $cheap (and you might plate them anyway)...

Same

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I don't know how much those things cost for other cars.

MOST incidentals are similar or same-ish.
I swear the difference is the cost of the good gears stronger than we can kill, and final drive --ring and pinions for free to $130 NEW

Show me a 4.88 Subie final drive. or a 5.1 Or those for almost ANYTHING.

Now show me those for under $150


And in the end good ratios and right final drive are huge advantages to have.
Disadvantages not to have.

---

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.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2011 06:01PM by john vanlandingham.

Creating more simple rules to keep cost down. EVERY single successful business does this. Rally doesnt seem to get it. The number one thing that rallies should be doing is cutting teams cost to race. IMCA is a successful sanctioning body in the USA and there total base is on making things affordable.

Like I said before the racer in me says dont restrict what I can do. In reality I cant 100% listen to what the racer in me says. I would spend myself into bankruptcy.

Open Lite, and Nasa Open Medium , do actually cut costs down, because you aren't allowed a turbo.

ooh ooh, and show me a 4.88 or a 5.1 final drive for my RS please, please, please!! first I've heard that those exist.

The CRS has great rules to Further cut costs down in its stock : GT class. stock rules when written well actually make for cheap racing. the class rules are basically you can't change any part unless we say so. you can take any part from the same body style (chassis + drive train + na or turbo) so if you have a 1.8 awd "NA" subaru , any part from any other awd subaru is fair game.

when you swap motors you must take intake + exhaust manifolds too. ECU has to be stock.

now where are you going to spend your money??? not on turbos, no on brakes, no on light weight parts.. motor internals while on a stock Ecu ? .. probably not very fruitful. Fancy diffs? final drive? suspension, tires? ya that's about it though. I really feel I'm a final drive swap away from "Maximizing" my car for its class , and my car is almost entirely stock. Oh and you can relocate your battery (but it must have stock specs, CCA, volts, etc) so can't spend money for a braille

found the correct part in a pick n pull, then its probably legal.

now playing by CRS rules, is not going to make me the best Open Lite car, but it will be kind to my wallet its not really that hard to figure out how to make rules , to make a class Cheaper to run in...

Basically start with a stock/production ruleset, then allow all parts sold as OEM part, and allow most or all parts that came from a pick n pull / dismantler and bolt up with out modification. works for imprezas, legacies, Golfs, and ??? probably a lot of other cars that i don't know much about.

probably works on volvos ? BMWs ?

No, we are fine. We have two different sanctioning bodies as well as the ability for individual events to place insurance such as RNY and Idaho and WW. If push comes to shove, we may just run with lesser liability insurance and no health coverage. If it came to that, I would still probably compete.

But, the RA model is not sustainable. I would love to see RA continue to put on events such as the Perryville event (http://www.perryville.100aw.org). $250 entry (steep $125 license fee) but that is a subsidized event and is not sustainable if you break the math out as far as how much it really costs. This is not to say that the new owner of RA won't continue to subsidize these smaller events, but if he does, he will continue to hemmorage the money that RA has been hemmoraging since they took over from the SCCA.

That said, I have entered the Perryville event and will be happy to compete in any well priced event regardless of sanctioning body.

Let's see how this all pans out. In the meantime, rally as much as you can.

Theres lots I dont like about the production class. When is the last time you seen a production class vw golf. JVL's cars he always pushes to be cheap couldnt run in a production class. The ability to fab and change things is part of the fun. You cant change or fab your own strut tops or use hiems for tie rods and trailing arms. you cant build your own rear suspension. These are up grades that dont cost thousands and dont make the car faster but help with durability. The door cards and dash interior stuff seems pointless in a rally car.

This also makes for more work in tech then an open class car with cost restrictions. All tech would really have to do is make sure your struts,tires and diffs were legal. Should only take a few minutes per car. 1 extra guy in the tech line could cover all of this while the safety part of the car is being checked.

Once you have a rally car complete it comes down to cost of consumables to get to the next rally. A lot of these rally cars that are sitting could probably be finished with the money spent on tires and fuel in one rally by Strusa.

So far most of these rules, while maybe well intentioned, just reward the under achievers who don't make enough money to afford the sport they want. So get an extra job, get a sponsor or two. I see tires as a safety item, yes they are expensive and consumable but running on bad tires is a risk I'm not willing to allow at an event I'm doing tech. We lost a ralliest years ago and one of the concerns was the poor tires on the car. If we go real budget then you guys need to drop down to Quinn Morely's build and spend no more than he did.

Anyone can get together and make whatever rules they want, police them yourselves, shake hands on it and run. No extra official help at tech, we have enough to do in the short time allowed. Like the great CRS classes. You certainly don't need NRS or RA trying to legislate on a W-2 basis. Most 2wd competitors now run on some kind of a budget and other than 2 cars most are pretty close to stock.

The rules now are very simple. 2wd, any configuration, any year, similar motor...RA (or not..NRS). We have 3 classes that accommodate most budgets and the Open Lite class seems to be gaining ground and allows those people the opportunity to further develope the car into real money burning grief if they want.

I'd like to see more $100k a year guys in the sport so we can charge higher entry fees, always run in the black without worrying. JV could sell more parts, Dave could build more cages, we could do more for volunteers... it would be awesome.

Really odd thing is the guys with the nice Subes, Evos even Talons never complain about the slower guys and small budget cars lowering the property values....

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Reamer
Theres lots I dont like about the production class. When is the last time you seen a production class vw golf. JVL's cars he always pushes to be cheap couldnt run in a production class.

Sure they could. They just would be near the "eyes like saucers" fun they can be. In fact I tell guys "get out there and pound things and upgrade as you beat shit up"

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The ability to fab and change things is part of the fun.

Well part of the fun--maybe. But for sure being able to swap in a stronger part that doesn't fail, say Xratty or VW Golf strut bearings are utter shit. Golves i found that Subaru can be made to work by just drilling three holes in the top sheetmetal so for $5 at the "Rally Car Spare Parts Storage Depot" that some derisively call junk yards, and you can forget the top mount failures FOR EVAR!

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You cant change or fab your own strut tops or use hiems for tie rods and trailing arms.

and that is flat silly---or worse.

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you cant build your own rear suspension.

Or even reinforce the stock crap. And that is foolish. Or worse.

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These are up grades that dont cost thousands and dont make the car faster but help with durability.

Yep, the 4 link bars cost $14.60 for the bar. 4 Bucks for the weld on tab.
$15-16 for the rod end. Do it once for way less than the time to weld up a cheesy stock arm and have it fail repeatedly..
But nope, not if some genius ruled it out---a genius who probably never thought of how easy it is.

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The door cards and dash interior stuff seems pointless in a rally car.

Yesh but they're there already, they don't cost anything and they cover edges of sheetmetal, big deal.

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This also makes for more work in tech than an open class car with cost restrictions. All tech would really have to do is make sure your struts,tires and diffs were legal. Should only take a few minutes per car. 1 extra guy in the tech line could cover all of this while the safety part of the car is being checked.

Easy peasy, and no annoying waste of time if some fool protests some other fool because the plastic trim around the shifter is from a '95 in a '96 shell---which we actually had occur out here...

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Once you have a rally car complete it comes down to cost of consumables to get to the next rally. A lot of these rally cars that are sitting could probably be finished with the money spent on tires and fuel in one rally by Strusa.

I can think of 5 that can do that for less than 1 set of tires, hell 2 tires, just time. one is sitting 35 feet from me right now!

---

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.

Quote
heymagic

Really odd thing is the guys with the nice Subes, Evos even Talons never complain about the slower guys and small budget cars lowering the property values....

Well actually before you got back in they did via the hired whore who was hired as "media guru" but who basically pulled off some palace coup and began cooking up endless ideas---well not really cooking them up. According to a member of what was then called "The Manufacturer Council"* who would occasionally call me direct to vent, the horribly inappropriately named guy would just sit while Subaru and Mitsubishi's suits would dictate what rules they wanted, and nod occasionally and mumble "yes Massah, yeas Massah"
They wanted shorter distance between gas stops---limiting stage length. Done. They wanted shorter events of 120 miles max. Done.
2 Minute windows for "Manufacturer Council" cars...

And they wanted no cars in a National older than 4 or 5 years--done at 7 years. And of course no mention regardless of placing of any cars other than the "Manufacturer Council" cars.... Done.

The driver's didn't have to complain, they had hired thugs who would willingly anally rape the "benevolent Dictator".

(Question is is it really rape if the guy dropped trousers and had a 5 gallon "family size tub" of Ream Creeem already before they even walked in?)


* "Manufacturer's Council" was a bullshit money grab cooked up by the misnamed misgeburt "Leader"where is you wanted to score points for the "Makes" Champignonskit, then the manufacturer must pay $25,000 or some such nonsense or the results wouldn't count......Thus we had a Kia or Daewooo or some such POS crawl around and win "Makes Championship for Gp2" while the battalions of VWs that beat the guy earned nothing...they didn't exist...


It was a bad time and was when the entries began to double and triple.

And the last time there was a Series Sponsor.

---

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.

JV that was quite a while back and doesn't seem to be the current thinking from either sanctioning body.

A plan like that does have some business merit tho. IF you had a higher 'standard' and income level then in theory there would be more money flowing all the time. In reality we see that doesn't work. In tough times even high end business fail right beside all the others.

Since the discussion has slowed maybe I was too tongue in cheek for a few....so listen and think a minute to what JV and I are saying.

If we are going W-2 racing whose W-2 do we use? How low do we go to find the upper limit? Using the tire example..I can afford new tires every stage (but since we don't typically have service every stage that becomes less important..right?) Some of you can't seem to afford that many tires, we don't actually have a number established yet, so you want to limit to your level. Which is what? 4 or 6 new tires for each event? What about used tires? What about the starving student who can only afford one new tire each event? Why are using your arbitray income level rather than the true bottom? Who decides? As I've said there will always be someone with more than you, and there will always be someone with less. So we allow 8 tires for a day or weekend, whatever. We've limited my spending, which isn't necessary and the poorest guy still hasn't enough tires. If we limit the new tires then we further harm the poor guy...how? Diminished number of used tires available to him. BFG doesn't make used tires to buy retail.

Now lets go further, I'm so poor I can't afford to run on JVAB suspension. So I think "they" should require nothing better than GR2 shocks. That will definitely reduce my costs and bring more people in...yup. At the end of the year I may have spent all of JVs $2000 price in GR2s, DNF'd several events, damaged suspension components...wait I actaully spent more. Although I guess a DNF is cheaper than racing all weekend so maybe I saved money. Then we go with the year of the car. Nothing newer than 1996 or costing more than $500 will be allowed. How do you govern what some one spends? No new motors, clutches, brakes, transmissions?

SCCA racing..Formula Vee..one of the oldest most regulated simple classes around..dwindling participation..lack of fun, too restrictive and costly. A little 'stock' 1200 cc air cooled VW motor can cost upwards of $10k. If you want to win you'll need that. It makes about 10hp more than the average motor. That is huge on an identicle field. Miata the same way, very restrictive, very expensive.

We don't force anyone to race beyond their means. You can run with a cheap car or used tires. I don't see where you should expect everyone too.