Hello from Arlington Celica Party

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jrally
Wow, that arm looks almost identical to my Escort arm, except the Escort ball joint is only two bolts, inline with one another.

-Jon

Yeah, the worst for trying to easily reinforce and none too strong as the are..
That's OK we have plans.

I've never bent one, but I don't have the rust issues the PNW does. (Jay folded one in half on the Protege, looked like the inside was full of rust.)

-Jon

Arlington is outside of Washington DC, not Washington state. I know, I know, it's easily confused. I loved the Redskins when I was young. I bet it wasn't until I was 27 or 28 that I realized they were in DC and not Washington state.
PNW doesn't have rust issues as far as I've seen.

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Sean Edwards
well, well, well

I had quite the conversation with John from JVAB today. And I finally feel I'm headed in the right direction. There was one point in the conversation that John may have said, "Celica's aren't that bad"......Maybe.

We decided that building the car for open light would be boring, and the motor would have to be fairly high strung N/A to get some ponies out of it. Were now talking about a pretty stock 3sgte(turbo) in the 200+ hp range.

This would mean that I'll be running Nasa events, as well as a few Canadian options, and all the available local stuff.

I think if I put some energy into it we can get the car up & going by Spring time.

Lets talk about this for a minute.....basically you need 18 co-efficients to get an unrestricted RA license. Olympus would give you 3 (if you finish). An accredited school can give you 4. I don't know how the school Lund has fits into that. You can apply to RA for an unrestricted license with previous racing experience or after the first 9 co-efficients. You need to finish events to get the points. A last stage mechanical DNF may be counted with approval, but it takes finishes to count. You can accomplish this in a year if you try.

By trying to do the NASA/Canada only thing you may be years getting enough points to get an RA license. Currently with the majority of PNW events being RA you really need to find a way to make that work for you...and us. See we need entries at all events, not rebels at one event a year. You need seat time more than a turbo. Your plan doesn't work well for any of us.

So...either suffer with less AWD power for a few events or drop in a FWD set-up. Neither one is hard to do on that car, nor terribly costly. We have a couple NA Subes running and they should be easy pickings after you get a few stages under your belt.

Get on stage, learn to drive (it's harder than it looks) or you'll end up a keyboard poser with an unfinished rally car in the garage ( not mentioning any naMMes ) or worse a finished rally car and no roads to run on.

OBTW..the wife bought a new Scion TC in '07 and that thing really scooted stock. Plenty of fun power to be had in NA motors these days.

Just for the sake of conversation:

http://www.rallyclassified.com/classified.php/listing/5590

Damn, that's a smoking deal!! But then again, I would have to see the car in person to tell for sure. Anyone want to buy a well sorted out Group 2 Escort, so I can go get it!! :-)

-Jon

Gene, isn't this guy a northeaster? That being said I wish I had bought a rwd car the first time instead of building what I had (turbo awd talon). Didn't have five spare shells though. That's nice, and may be a good reason to stay the course.

---ahhhh, I see I missed that location discussion---



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2010 05:01PM by frumby.

Sorry, I'm from Arlington, WA. PNW.

If its possible to drop in a na motor and fwd driveline from a regular cellica, I would think about doing that, and saving the awd stuff until you have some stages under your belt.

I was able to really scare myself plenty of times with 100 hp. and understeer sounds kinda lame, but really, understeer at 60 mph on a dirt road with big tree on both sides; holy crap!

I hear ya guys.

From a Road racing perspective, getting your grasps w/ a fwd only to switch to a awd, would be counter productive. Maybe I'm wrong? Two different forms and styles of driving. I would be more open to running a 100hp awd celica than a fwd one.

I've had multiple forms of fwd cars, and at this point I'm over it. I want to try something new.

It wouldn't be difficult to build a NASA legal car w/ my street car & have it ready by spring. Keep it real simple...no cute stuff. At the same time continue building this thing for Open Light. Get some miles, get some co-effecients.....Party? The only thing different would be the powerplants. Safety equipment could be swapped from chassis to chassis. I'd have to buy doubles of a few things but those could act as spares if/when I need it.

What do you think? I'm open to just about whatever, except fwd, no offense to anybody here.

I just want to start racing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2010 10:49PM by Sean Edwards.

I've been thinking about all the possible engine variations for the last few days. I thing the best solution (aka the most cost effective/least sucky) is to build a high compression ratio stroker 3s-gte. Here's the logic but it's all predicated on you being willing to throw down money on good engine tuning and changing the camshafts eventually.

-you can run the stroked 2.2l in normally aspirated on race gas with hot camshafts and if you can find one a 4.5:1 final drive. That's the Open Light spec. and it shouldn't be a total dog.
-it bolts in and the offset ground 5s-fe stroker combination is a proven entity.
-eventually you can change out the camshafts, add a good turbo, and re-tune for the restrictor on Open spec...you will already have a high compression engine that can be maximized for low end torque while wheezing through a 32mm straw.

That's the best I can come up with. Anyone else got a better idea?

-Tim

buy the sub $5000 ready to rally RX7 in Portland, Rally it, build your OL car.
Or, buy a $400 Volvo, do a cage, suspension, saftey, and Rally it.

I think that the RX7 would be a waste of time and money. The Volvo 240 is the best low buck rally car and it gives you room to grow. I like Tim's idea because you already have the car.

The most important thing to do is get to work and then get on the road as soon as possible.

I know a guy with two rally cars, he talks up a storm but I know for a fact that those cars will go to the crusher before they ever see another gravel road. You actually have to enter an event to be a rally driver.

---

Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

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Rallymech
I think that the RX7 would be a waste of time and money.

Why? That car has been running for awhile, and it apparently comes with a boat load of spares for 5k. So, you get a ready to go rally car, and a bunch of spares, for 5k. That sounds like a great deal, even if there is some random weak spot that may break- as he'll have the spares to fix it.

Sean, if you have road racing experience, they might give you the waiver. It sure would be worth asking before you make your plans.

One thing I remember reading about the celica, the toyota team stopped using them because they were hard to see out of. So when you are planning out your cage, keep this in mind. Every inch makes a difference, roof bars tight to the roof, figure out how to mount the seats as low as possible, and hopefully you are not too tall. Double check with Mr. Heymagic about the cage layout before you weld!

And there is a Arlington in Wa. as well as Va.? Go figure.