Aaron Luptak Aaron Luptak Professional Moderator Location: SLC Join Date: 02/15/2008 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 776 Rally Car: Civic... |
as an illustration, check out Dave Coleman...
He's done a lot of interesting/weird shit: http://www.motoiq.com/projects/mazda/project_mazda_frankenmiata.aspx http://www.motoiq.com/projects/mazda/project_mazda_miatabusa.aspx http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles/id/2115/angry-hamster-evo-ii-holy-crap-i-drove-it-and-now-im-deaf.aspx Looking through those projects, it's clear to me that he's got access to a whole bunch of machining/fabrication skill, not to mention engineering know-how of both the seat-of-pants and book-learnin' varieties. You know what he used to rally? A Datsun 510, with all the important bits in basically the factory locations. You know what he was building as a new rally car, before he moved on to other stuff? A Mazda 3, with all the important bits in basically the factory locations. If a guy like Dave, who has a pretty good track record with crazy-ass cars, sticks to normal stuff for rally, that seems to me to be a big red flag. --- or, alternatively: --- suppose you're building some contraption to play on the track. want to do some honest-to-goodness, 10/10ths testing? pay $100-$200, haul it an hour or less, and get an hour or more of running it at a track day near you. want to see how fast it can go, and how it compares to others? pay $200-$300, haul it an hour or less, and run a time-trial/attack-the-time/whatever event at a track near you. now, in contrast, the rally-car-contraption: want to do some honest-to-goodness, 10/10ths testing? pay $400+ (entry fee), plus license fees, hotel, etc, haul it 4-8+ hours, and run a rally. want to see how fast it can go, and how it compares to others? pay $400+ (entry fee), plus license fees, hotel, etc, haul it 4-8+ hours, and run a rally. building a car like you're talking about, and having it be fast, driveable, and reliable, requires lots of development time. While some of it - basic reliability, will-the-wacked-out-suspension-geometry-try-to-kill-me-above-40mph - you can sort out driving at legal speeds on open public roads. But to actually make it a fast race car requires testing at 10/10ths, and development. If it's a track car, that's relatively cheap and easy. For a rally car, you can either do what I described above - 'develop' through competition - or spend even more of your time and $$$ to close a road for yourself properly. If you've got a huge plot of private land, with nice roads and neighbors that don't care, maybe that's easy. If you don't... --- bottom line --- all folks here are trying to point out is: rally, in the US, is hard to get into and hard to compete in sustainably - IF you choose the easy path and start with a Subaru/Golf/Volvo/whatever with stuff bolted in roughly the same places as it came off the boat. I'd guess that the percentage of folks that seriously start an 'easy' build that actually run a single event is probably 50%. The number of folks that run one event a year, for multiple years? Maybe 30-40% of that initial crowd? The number of folks running multiple events a year, for many years - maybe 25%... starting out with a complex project car, especially when viewed through the lens that most here are looking through (ie. "we don't know you, and don't know if you have any more mechanical ability than changing your own oil" ) , means we start evaluating your odds - I'd put you at a 5% chance of finishing the car and competing in an event. Many here want to rally - not necessarily build cars. That's why folks are making suggestions to improve your odds of actually competing. Now, if your primary interest is building a project car, feel free - nobody here will stop you, and I'm sure plenty would be interested to watch your progress. Hell, I'm pretty sure the teams out there running GTXs would be thrilled to know more about your secret sauce that will supposedly make the gearboxes indestructible. Just don't expect anybody here to say "this is a great way to get into rally and build a car that will last forever (or at least until you wrap it around a tree), you're a genius for coming up with some idea that no one ever before has thought about". KF7RWG http://www.utahrallygroup.com |
john vanlandingham John Vanlandingham Junior Moderator Location: Ford Asylum, Sleezattle, WA Join Date: 12/20/2005 Age: Fossilized Posts: 14,152 Rally Car: Saab 96 V4 |
Aaron the thing is all of us guys who have been around 20-25 years have already seen the exact same "brilliant idea" dozens of time before.
even back in the time 323s were "popular" they were only marginally quicker than half decent spec Group2 cars when driven by guys who were already relatively good. And they were expensive bitches to keep going half reliably by '92. Guys were scrambling to find parts then; by the late 90s there were real pain to keep em going cause of the relative rarity of the things needed: gearbox parts, hubs, knuckles, subframes.. And just a note on my buddy Dave Colemen and the Maz-dog 3.. The fact that he works at Mazda USA and does have access to INFORMATION (like parts dimensional data and thus interchange for things like swapping in bigger CVs and halfshafts that on paper ought to be more durable than stock grocery getter parts.) might be a key factor in building a Maz-dog 3... This guy claims to be a diesel mechanic, so if he's been doing it for more than a year, he can probably change the oil and even swap in parts... But obviously he has no clue about thinking about the 'why" do something part of the problem.. And with his contrarian style of completely ignoring direct questions, he's obviously intending to ignore any advice. Conclusion: dreamer or troll. 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. |
NoCoast Grant Hughes Elite Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
Oddly, I sent Mark this thread last night after a few texts about putting Tommy's Evo drivetrain into a Chevy Aveo. I wonder if he saw that statement in my first post in this thread... Grant Hughes |
DaveK Dave Kern Elite Moderator Location: Centennial Join Date: 07/11/2008 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 1,085 Rally Car: Compact M3 & Evo IX |
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NoCoast Grant Hughes Elite Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
Guys, let's all welcome Mark. Mark has a perfectly good Subaru Impreza rally car that hasn't been driven in five years with a 2.2T engine, DMS 50mm struts, and runs fine. He just finished graduate school and got a kush engineering job and also got married to a woman who's an actuary and getting ready to take her sixth actuarial exam. Now let's kick him in the nuts anytime he has stupid ideas like an Evo drivetrain into an Aveo and remind him to first focus on getting the rally car he has running again and go drive it a few times before he starts some dumb new project. Of, Pashka-san. Later. Your thread is over. Grant Hughes |