Just read up on the demise of Group B back in the 80s...

There's a certain downhill corner around a building in the San Remo rally that seems to have the same camera angle for decades.

The year that Rohrl (I think) blew everyone's mind and wrestled the S1 E2 to victory? He looks like he was standing still compared to the early post-GpA WRC cars.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

To all, Juha Kankunen just hopped into a WRC Focus in 2010 I think and he said, "Power Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm OK, (and then with big eyes for a Finn) but brakes and suspension......."

Remember, those guys had semi truck loads of all kinds of tires, the had truck loads of good shocks (Ford RS200 used about 9.8" travel magnesium bodied Bilstein coilovers. I have 4 , they're good).

Their discs were big, the calipers as big as now, and they had good pads...

But that had relatively flimsy tube frame stuff because of an obsession with weight.

Group A forced everybody to use production bodyshells, and that forced them to think harder and led to thinking about making very strong intergrated shell/cage....

And differential design has improved dramatically.

So LONGER suspension, bigger discs, better diffs is the real areas improved
(and longevity of gearboxes and turbos).

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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.

Yup, better chassis and rigid shells allow softer suspension and much better grip. If you look at the old Baja movies with Walker Evans and Ivan Stewart and commpare to now with the new breed of truck...what a frickin difference there is. Rally is the same way. Some of the jump pics now show Subies with more droop than any 2 or 3 of the old rally cars had combined.

Where could Group B have gone?

Click the links, read the info. Audi was testing a mid-engined car that looked like an ultralight RS200. "Kevlar seats you could spit through"

Also: "Normally it takes 40 days to get a new design as good as the current model... this was better right away"

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/1206/page1en3.jpg

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/618/page2bg3.jpg

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5522/page3vp0.jpg

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/7373/page4rd4.jpg

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1483/page5qr1.jpg

I'll see if I can find the Lancia information. They were experimenting with a twin turbocharged cross port four cylinder. 4 valves per cylinder, but the valve orientation was rotated 90 degrees. Intake ports were in through the top, exhaust ports went out to each side of the engine. Far out.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2012 07:24PM by Pete.

Pete, you mind if I cross post this to that audi forum?

Another factor, since about 1985 FIA has been working hard to limit speed, stages have been changed, tire widths reduced, min weight incressed etc.

So to say GpB cars are only little% faster then Gp4 Cars could have other factors, all factors are not controled. I have video of 1986 where there was a big discussion about how the stages had to be modified to keep to the new mandated max speed down for the GpB cars. Some of the stages at Finland were shortened or broken into two to slow the cars in the very fast sections etc. Other rallys added turns or the odd chicane here and there.

We also have plenty of results of rallys where the early Audis crushed the world's best Gp4 cars, like 12 min even after rolling off the road and losing a lot of time. The Audi's was then crushed by the later GpB cars.

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In the long run reality always wins.

Quote
aj_johnson
Pete, you mind if I cross post this to that audi forum?

Go ahead, although I think that's where I found it.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.