OL vs G5

Coming from SCCA roadrace stuff and looking at the amount of money people dump into winning championships for a little trophy and plaque, rally and OL in particular confuses me. Yeah, it's a defacto Spec 2.5RS class, but the way the rulebook is written, someone could really bring something technically capable of murdering Open class. Probably get the rulebook changed pretty quick, but god knows there's people who could afford to do that for bragging rights. I'm thinking something with a Honda namebadge.

Anyway, mild diversion.

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mekilljoydammit
Coming from SCCA roadrace stuff and looking at the amount of money people dump into winning championships for a little trophy and plaque, rally and OL in particular confuses me. Yeah, it's a defacto Spec 2.5RS class, but the way the rulebook is written, someone could really bring something technically capable of murdering Open class. Probably get the rulebook changed pretty quick, but god knows there's people who could afford to do that for bragging rights. I'm thinking something with a Honda namebadge.

Anyway, mild diversion.

I dont think its as easy as you think. There's still a displacement limit, which I believe is 2.65 liters. To build something that is going slaughter open class cars you're talking some crazy crazy money and to make it reliable enough for rally.

You see that shit in drag racing, people building crazy NA 4cyls; but they only have to run for a few seconds at a time. Those engines couldnt last a stage let alone a rally.

It'd be hard to make drag Honda power levels reliably, sure, but you don't really need to. 240-300 at the crank should be comparatively easy to do reliably, in the sense that there's limited prep roadrace built motors doing it reliably, and the complete lack of minimum weight or restrictions on gearing gets you the rest of the way. For the car, by the letter of the rules can't you basically do whatever you want ahead of and behind the passenger compartment? Lot of work, not worth doing for a silly trophy in the US, expensive, right driver, yadda yadda yadda.

OL is essentially a spec class for subarus.

However, seems like for regional entries, G2, G5, and OL is moderately irrelevant. Overall, I see the results fall all over the place. Case in point, Derick taking 1st overall at Idaho 2013 in a G2 legal car.

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Gravity Fed
OL is essentially a spec class for subarus.

However, seems like for regional entries, G2, G5, and OL is moderately irrelevant. Overall, I see the results fall all over the place. Case in point, Derick taking 1st overall at Idaho 2013 in a G2 legal car.

Or Alex Rademacher in a near stock OL Blue Subie bearing an expensive blue Subie with $14000 dog box.

Thing is the POTENTIAL increased grip of AWD is significantly different amount of grip and hence power that can be put down on gravel...

Can't make everybody happy ever--no matter how hard we try.
so:
2 classes 2wd and awd.

Then maybe break that down into A and B...

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Just have one class with a fudge factor by dollar outlay somehow; some sorta seconds per mile per ten thousand bucks spent penalty dealio. I'd love to see what'd show up to a rally event done like that.

A big part of rally is driver. Actually a real big part is driver. At the same time we all compare car builds to speed and then factor driver into where we think we should place in said event.

Fans look at my car and think it should be in front of the field. I agree to a point yet im barely mid pac car. I compare my build to Mconte and he has a better build then i do. So his car may beat me every stage.

Just my opinion but comparing my build to what i think Mconte has we are close or he is a little better.

I have no anti lag no flat shift or launch control. stock diffs stock dccd. Most front running SP cars have all of this plus good diffs and controllers . My car weighs in at 3550 with driver co driver. I feel i have bad 3rd 4th gearing with out anti lag.

Mconte is doing some rebuilding it looks. So not sure what all is planned for lspr. It looks like he is around or under 3100 lbs full race with better gearing and diffs.Then me. Im guessing im around 240ish HP and he claims to be 160ish hp. Take the wieght and gearing into factor and we should be pretty close?

Now take OL Czwalga build similar to Mconte in every way except turbo no turbo. Not sure on final drives on either car? 4.11 4.44? Im 3.90 Both close in HP and wieght one has to deal with lag the other has smooth power all the time. I would think there builds should be closer except the turbo factor. Now if Mconte builds in the 280hp range he should be up tawards the front of the National times.

This is all based on builds not the drivers. I picked these cars because they posted on this topic. Ive seen the cars and talked at rallies. I know Mconte likes taking his old cheap legacy and beating my new shiny 2011 subie! Im fine with that for now!

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ya i think the other car had a little hp on me. but of course hoche is always a little quicker than me ? (he needs ballast!)

From the cars i've seen. I'd say G5 is faster than OL. i'm thinking of Bill Holmes, Lauchlin O'Sullivan, Josh Wimpey , of course Derik Nelson .

Dan is open light and beats me @ Idaho ever since we both went RS 2.5 (I beat him back in our 1.8 days) and i don't think he could catch any of those guys. he's got one of dicks old motors with higher compression and Cams, but from the grape vine nothing too crazy.

I've seen an open light build with 200 Wheel hp (stock gearing) which might be something like 255 at the crank.


Bill holmes has at least 500 Crank HP. Lane's volvo? 500+

So from cars that i've actually seen / read about / heard of ... I'd say Group 5 all day long.

if you followed an FIA Super 2000 build but scaled it up a .5 liter , you "should" be making 350 HP. but that's a Wider power band, no turbo lag HP ... If solberg came over and raced one of those.. pretty sure he would be leaving higgins behind, by a lot...

My favorite style of classing has been super classing system.


the classes would be :

Overall : did you enter the rally? your results will show up here. are you Open 4wd? your results will Only show up here.

2wd : every single 2 wheel drive vehicle has results here. they also show up in the Overall so we can see how much ass you kick ... (or didn't)

NA 4wd : got the All wheel drive ,but forgot a turbo? your results show up here as well. but also in the overall class so we can make fun of you.

NA 2wd : wow you forgot everything, your results show up here to make you look awesome, but also in the overall class so we can make fun of you.

when the results go deep for a regional championship for one of these classes you could look into spawning off a class for people who have done less than X amount of events at the start of that season.


Sure everyone signed up on this forum Could find some faults with this system. but its also nearly perfect. separation of 2wd from 4wd , forced air or naturally G-aspirated. also you could easily see where everyone stacked up by looking at 1 class (overall)

only down side is those in forced air 4wd who get beat by "lessor" classes are gonna have a hard time showing how they 'won' the rally ...

Quote
Reamer
A big part of rally is driver. Actually a real big part is driver. At the same time we all compare car builds to speed and then factor driver into where we think we should place in said event.

Fans look at my car and think it should be in front of the field. I agree to a point yet im barely mid pac car. I compare my build to Mconte and he has a better build then i do. So his car may beat me every stage.

Just my opinion but comparing my build to what i think Mconte has we are close or he is a little better.

I have no anti lag no flat shift or launch control. stock diffs stock dccd. Most front running SP cars have all of this plus good diffs and controllers . My car weighs in at 3550 with driver co driver. I feel i have bad 3rd 4th gearing with out anti lag.

Mconte is doing some rebuilding it looks. So not sure what all is planned for lspr. It looks like he is around or under 3100 lbs full race with better gearing and diffs.Then me. Im guessing im around 240ish HP and he claims to be 160ish hp. Take the wieght and gearing into factor and we should be pretty close?

Now take OL Czwalga build similar to Mconte in every way except turbo no turbo. Not sure on final drives on either car? 4.11 4.44? Im 3.90 Both close in HP and wieght one has to deal with lag the other has smooth power all the time. I would think there builds should be closer except the turbo factor. Now if Mconte builds in the 280hp range he should be up tawards the front of the National times.

This is all based on builds not the drivers. I picked these cars because they posted on this topic. Ive seen the cars and talked at rallies. I know Mconte likes taking his old cheap legacy and beating my new shiny 2011 subie! Im fine with that for now!

I have 4.44 gears, but my car is a tank haha. In the 3100-3200lb range without drivers. I overbuilt everything, entire cage out of 1.75" etc. I figured whats an extra 50lbs, on the cage. Between me and my dad we could probably lose that just by working out.

Diffs, viscous center no dccd, vsld rear. I have eliminated power brakes with a dual master setup. I will say having proper gearing vs. the celica made a huge difference. Celica was good for 2 years, but the last year the gearing just wasnt enough. That car would have probably been a great Open car. It was so much more stable than the subaru. Switching it almost felt like I was driving RWD, in comparison. It took work to rotate the celica, but at 100mph it was stable as could be (if you could get it there haha).



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2014 07:41PM by czwalga.

Quote
Reamer
A big part of rally is driver. Actually a real big part is driver. At the same time we all compare car builds to speed and then factor driver into where we think we should place in said event.

Fans look at my car and think it should be in front of the field. I agree to a point yet im barely mid pac car. I compare my build to Mconte and he has a better build then i do. So his car may beat me every stage.

Just my opinion but comparing my build to what i think Mconte has we are close or he is a little better.

I have no anti lag no flat shift or launch control. stock diffs stock dccd. Most front running SP cars have all of this plus good diffs and controllers . My car weighs in at 3550 with driver co driver. I feel i have bad 3rd 4th gearing with out anti lag.

Mconte is doing some rebuilding it looks. So not sure what all is planned for lspr. It looks like he is around or under 3100 lbs full race with better gearing and diffs.Then me. Im guessing im around 240ish HP and he claims to be 160ish hp. Take the wieght and gearing into factor and we should be pretty close?

Now take OL Czwalga build similar to Mconte in every way except turbo no turbo. Not sure on final drives on either car? 4.11 4.44? Im 3.90 Both close in HP and wieght one has to deal with lag the other has smooth power all the time. I would think there builds should be closer except the turbo factor. Now if Mconte builds in the 280hp range he should be up tawards the front of the National times.

This is all based on builds not the drivers. I picked these cars because they posted on this topic. Ive seen the cars and talked at rallies. I know Mconte likes taking his old cheap legacy and beating my new shiny 2011 subie! Im fine with that for now!

The specs on my car areeeeee:

- Roughly 2850 full race weight (without driver/codriver, add 300lbs for that).
- All of the races have been on stock 2.2T powerplant, VF11 turbo on an engine with 175,000 miles, with intake/exhaust, probably 170-180 at the crank. Stock ECU, no launch control, flat shift, etc. etc. However I just recently got a reflashed ECU which will allow for a bit more torque. Still the same turbo. I'd rather have a super responsive turbo that doesn't even notice the 34mm restrictor and give me a wide torque curve then some big laggy turbo that gives me a high HP number that sounds good. I'm excited to see what this ECU does for responsiveness as well.
- 4.44 transmission with Cusco 1.5 way front and rear diffs. I love these diffs. Came with the car and it took some time to get used to just how much grip and power it can put down mid-corner. Still getting used to it!
- 06/07 WRX 4-pots and 2-pots rear brakes. No proportioning valve though, I do want to fix that. Good pads on it, never have had a braking issue. Brake booster is gone. Previous owner paid for that insanely expensive STI booster delete (i.e. a tube spacer).
- All Wheels Driven coilovers that have performed great. They are off getting rebuilt right now while I also play around with some different spring setups.
- Steering quickener
- Stock horn

All in all, I sold my old OL car for $300 more than I paid for this already very well prepped Open class car. The engine is low power enough and responsive enough that it just feels like a hot OL car. I really enjoy this setup and it's fun learning it. Going through a major refresh with some new bushings (lots of stock bushings around the car), rebuilt shocks, injectors getting cleaned, re-routing coolant lines, thermal protection, etc. etc. Basically a good teardown before LSPR to get it ready for the end of 2014 and races going into 2015.

I will have to admit it's fun beating newer cars.

Though don't discount those "stock diffs" and a "stock dccd". Aren't the diffs front and rear in the STI's already plated LSDs? Slap DCCDPro and I bet it could make a nice difference.

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czwalga
Just curious as to what people think is a better/faster platform. There's always talk of lumping all of 2wd together, but I was thinking g5 and OL cars might actually be on very similar footing in terms of speed.

I'm talking north american rally, not WRC S2000 cars which would be considered open light. Say for example a midly hopped up 2.5 rs, with good ratios, vs a higher HP car like greenhouses neon or brandenburgs bmw.

What makes you think Brandenburgs car is G5? It's not, he's got a built 3.0L so in Rally America that's a G2 car. His car illustrates what can be done when you 'build all the things.' Great suspension, built motor at the limit of the G2 classification, dogbox with good ratios (no idea about rear diff ratios), and enough lightweight bits to probably get somewhat close to the minimum weight based on displacement.

I'd say if you're looking to make the decision on a mildly hopped up 2.5rs, the BMW 328 I picked up is probably a more apples to apples comparison. Set of cams, intake, exhaust, and a chip on the power side of things and stock gearbox, a 4.44 LSD, and some JVABs. With a 2.8L engine its firmly in the G2 class and as a newbie rally driver, I can say at both events I've run (Ojibwe 13 & 100 AW 14), the car had more HP than I was actually making use of. IIRC that engine should make 210hp the crank. Can't remember how we stacked up against the OL cars, but I know there were some subies lower than me in the running order and I know there were some non-turbo ones in front of me.

So many of the G2 & G5 comparisons are based on building the theoretical "best car" and at those levels there may be a benefit to the higher powered cars...but a bunch of those G5 cars are simply light pressure turbo motors that make similar power and torque as G2 legal cars...but with lag. When my Compact is back up and running, it'll be a G5 car because I picked a new motor with another 0.2L of displacement.

I've had (and still have) a more than Open class Evo, and I think from the drivers seat the RWD cars are every bit as enjoyable to drive. Sure you cover ground more slowly, but the grins and sideways are worth it. Even though I've broken lots of BMW parts, the 2wd experiment has still been loads cheaper than the Mitsu.

Dave

oh and a Stock US STI 04-05 has a Torsen front and Plated rear set to 41 lbs break away tq (quickly goes down to 11) the 06+ STIs get a torsen front and rear.

ugh my Daily driver STI was smoking pretty bad at the last light before i got into work this morning... Great


I think if you look at near stock to mild builds G5 takes the cake.

if you are ready to drop 168 Pounds (ford S2000) its OL all day.

here's my earth shattering HP and TQ Specs!

And for comparision. Justin Pritchard just posted his dyno of his OL car. 145 hp. Yet he schools everyone, G5 or not.

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MConte05
And for comparision. Justin Pritchard just posted his dyno of his OL car. 145 hp. Yet he schools everyone, G5 or not.

I think that boils down to him being a quick driver, not that the car is faster than every G2 or G5 car. I don't know what events Justin has run for doing direct comparisons, but remember that Reeves last year finished 3rd overall at Ojibwe (?) in a real G2 car. Has an OL car done that? I know an SP car won SnoDrift overall when all the fast guys got stuck. Honestly don't see any reason a proper OL car couldn't win at SnoDrift, but I think once you get back to semi-grippy terrain, the G2/G5 cars could have the edge.

Dave