How to not get emotionally attatched to your car

Yea...it's crazy. I had 2 motor DNF's (and one dumbass hood smash windsheild dnf) in a row with that DSM and finally I build a motor that runs strong and I'm having trouble putting the car in the classifieds!

I started Sandblast really conservatively esp on the first stage...not sure if the motor would hold, but it held great. A really rusty driver, and a co-driver that had only finished 4 stages prior, along with a belt that flew off on the last stage (12 minutes on stage to fix) held us back a bit more than I would have liked, but damn that was fun! I'm thinking I love the talon! Probably because I've never driven any other rally car.

So I should sell the DSM that runs well, with a strong 'close' ratio tranny, great cage and is log booked and that I've bled on so many times to build well...the xratty that will take at least the next year due to finances. Hmmm...tough call.

I am sick of my head bouncing off the cage on stage or any time my helmet is on, the terrible visibility, the weight, the restrictor, the suspension travel etc.

JVL, Grant, Matt Smith...anyone...I need a pep talk here!

The xratty has lot's of head room, lighter than a DSM, and great suspension available. They even look nice.

I tried really hard at sandblast to destroy the xratty and it just took the abuse and kept going. The biggest problem I had asside from poor driving was trying to find consistent grip without an lsd.

Build the xratty and enjoy!

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Matt Smith

Racing in glorious black and red

My daily life is a Saab story (sold!)

Here's a pep-talk:











Heh, heh.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Keep it. Two rally cars > One

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Grant Hughes

Get a 325i. You can pick one up for $500. It is roomy. It has 172 horses out of the box. A rally legal weld-in cage kit is about $750 from Kirk Racing Products, or build it yourself. It is torquey. It does not weigh a whole lot for its generation of cars (it can go down around 2400 lbs without lexan or fiberglass). There are oodles of them in the boneyards. Its parts support in the United States is the same as the Volvo 240 from a OEM standpoint, and there is significantly more go fast stuff for it than the 240. It is raced on tracks throughout the US.

It is RWD. A quick ratio rack is readily available from the boneyard. An LSD is readily available from the boneyard. A 4.44 or 4.1 final drive is readily available from the boneyard (and there is actually a 5.1 out there somewhere, which was used in the Prodrive M3s if you can find one).

It is the last cheap RWD car left worth rallying other than the 240, since Xrattis were scarce to begin with, and the Corolla fetches the drift tax.

Look for us to be running them sometime within the next year. Do a Google and you will find that they are being prepared more and more internationally. There are actually one-make series in the Netherlands and the UK for them.

We'll sell you a whole Dodge Colt rally team if you are interested. You saw the cars at SB.

Wilson

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

What series. E30 is a waste of time. E36 on the other hand, I occasionally tell my wife that that will probably be our next rally car. In Finland. I wish.

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Grant Hughes

He's talking E30. I want to know where to get one for $500. They have one very nice feature (shared with the 240...) that so many modern cars don't have: Minimal tumblehome. That means, the roof isn't half the width of the car because the pillars taper to the middle. More room for cage and stuff. No headbanging unless you put an MP3 player in it.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

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

Yea, that's some motivation alright! Def where I think we should all want to be.

Grant...you're the devil 2 rally cars to maintain and keep up to date? No, it's the xratty for me. I own it already. They are rare, but I should be able to find a few cheap shells for a couple of years yet. The motor is no problem, a t5 tranny will have parts available forever. It's just a daunting task when I already own a rally car. I really need to step away for a year while I change jobs and get settled down somewhere else.

I read this hoping to get the info promised.
I should have known better...

If it works keep it and keep trying to kill it.
When you do kill it,
strip it and crush the sucker so you don't buy it back
(like I did).

I guess it should be: How do I NOT get attatched to my rally car? Sorry Randy.

Problem is: I killed it twice and fixed it! I guess I need to bend it up real bad!

Bring it over to Rallye de Paris and we will park it on the grenade launcher range.

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RichardM

Just think of how much it sucks putting on the pulleys on a DSM after you put the engine in the car. Or how much it sucks to swap a tranny in the car. Speaking of trannies, how about the lack of real trannies for the car. Diffs? What diffs. There's three of them. Are there even any non-viscous options for any of the three. Don't even get me started on final drive ratios. Though I must say, in my old rally car as I was cruising along I25 in top gear, about 500 rpm from red line at around 110 MPH, I was slightly jealous of my friend in his DSM rally car passing me at 140-150 MPH in 4th gear. Of course, the same stupidly wide low gearing made the car pretty boring at rallies. And god damn if my neck didn't hurt after codriving in that car, where my head was crooked the whole time. Oh, and let us not forget about the awesome weak transfer cases and superb weight balance, and excellent suspension travel, or lack there of anyhow. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the neverending intercooler plumbing that's always in the way of whatever your working on, their poor aerodynamics that results in them liking to run hot, then stuff the turbo right next to your radiator so it can melt the fans and really cause some fun overheating problems.

XR4ti, one diff, tough, close ratio gearboxes, no restrictor, light weight, strong components, rally specific upgrades available for almost every single important part in the car. Speaking of which, I was looking at Evo brakes today. The front Group N setup costs more than my entire Group A replica brakes and pedal box.

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Grant Hughes

Exactly Grant. Those are the things I need to remember. God changing pullys/belts SUCKS esp when the motor is blazing hot...why did I lose 12 minutes on stage to change a belt last Saturday?

There are diffs out there. Kaaz front (mine's open), some stock models had a clutch type rear (mine's viscous and I don't think it works much). My center is welded. TRE did the tranny for $2000+ with double synchros and closed the ratios a bit. It's just ok and it's a nightmare to remove that thing without pulling the entire motor.

Worse than the suspension travel is the fact that to see over the hood you have to sit so high that my head is almost on the roof, and my helmet is bouncing off the cage, even though that is super tight to the B-pillar.

Time to work on the xratty I think, but it'll be a far cry from the monster you're building...at least for a while it looks like a Lincoln Locker and the stock T9 tranny. Shouldn't be too bad with some suspenders and brakes though.

I have small hands so always got nominated to do the four M8 bolts that hold the water pump pulley. Or is that PS. Anyhow, it sucked, and even with my girly hands I usually had trouble.

Suspension and brakes are #1 on the list for an XR in my opinion. Leave everything else stock, weld the rear diff, and go. Then upgrade over time. I made the mistake of buying alot of stuff up front while I was waiting to get the cage done and for brakes, but now I'm close. Just was out there getting ready for the super cool power steering cooler and oil cooler setup. Was planning on working on it alot this weekend, but of course, 6-7" of snow in the forecast.

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Grant Hughes

E30. I guess it is all in what you want. I want it cheap, and decent, and a car can be put together pretty cheap and decent, with the only alleged thing lacking being suspension travel.

To quote my good friend Geo. Beckerman:

Quote

OK, time to pound a stake into this anti-BMW rally car propaganda. Sure, there are well-known drawbacks to E30 BMW's for rally, but that goes for a number of other cars as well. E30 BMW's are cheap now(<$600) and available. And if you get tired of the project, a road racer or track day guy will take it off your hands. (Try that with an XR4Ti, like the one in the NW that has been for sale for some time, now.)

Look at the Group F videos and photo galleries on www.rallikuvat.net Count the number of BMW's the Finns are using. Finnish Group F have deservedly been held up to us as the "gold standard" for all things RWD rallying. If BMW's were such crap cars for rallying, the Finns wouldn't give them a second look, would they?

What is Finn, Toni Gardemeister's, personal rally car--the one he chooses to drive to drive for fun?
http://www.tonigardemeister.com/secretfiles.php ...an M3

About 3 or 4 years ago I had an XR4Ti, a 318is, and a Datsun 510 sitting side-by-side here at the farm. I measured the suspension on them, looked at toe change in the rear relative to suspension travel, etc.

Folks, there isn't enough difference to write home about! They all are trailing arm rear suspension cars with the same design-restricted travel. Front strut design is similar--although the BMW could be at a disadvantage on truly rough roads. (Actually, the winner in my unofficial side-by-side survey was my wife's Volvo 244! Find a better starter rally car for the US if you can. For the price of a good VW ring and pinion, you can put a T-5 trans and a 4.56 or 4.88 gear in a Volvo. Search the internet for VOC, Volvo Original Cup.)

Thinking for yourself is an American tradition. Or, you can believe the oft-repeated message. Your money, your choice.


George Beckerman

I'm not worried about the suspension on the superhighways that make up the stages east of the Mississippi. And giggles per dollar are pretty damn good. And parts are way easier to find on a car of which there were 2.5 million produced, and which are still raced all over the place.

Keep building your Xratty. Or build an E30 in 1/4 of the time. You aren't going to win in the Xratty anyhow (or in the E30 for that matter) but you will have a ball in RWD, just sooner.

Regards,

Wilson, who is actively rallying an old RWD Colt, and just wants to move from 1977 to 1987.

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2008 08:12PM by wvonkessler.