My rally car build: Mostly Photos

I'll start out by saying I enjoy the building as much as I do the racing, and i'm a picky ass engineer, and I'm doing this on a shoe string, and and and... comment, poke holes, poke fun, but its mine and I love it

how it all began: The test mule (circa 2009)


the previous incarnation towing the newly caged chassis home from Cagethis.com (2009ish)


The car really didn't receive much work for the first few years as I went through a divorce, 5 moves (one across country) and a bunch of other stuff.. but
Then I rebuilt the motor, a 1.9 TDI AHU with some fancy Nural Pistons and a sweet port and polished head and manifolds




Eventually it was time for a new roof



A raised shifter


And Paint!!





Then some seat were installed


and some more engine building



and chassis prep/suspension install

and more....


and finally the engine was installed in the chassis


and it was assembled as I could get it in a day


but because i was doing this (moving back to New England)


along the way this happened


which lead to this


and a long set back of $$, so i toiled away with this





until i eventually dug the beastie out from hibernation for some of this



until my landlord called it a demo derby car and asked that I remove it before the neighbors complained... so off to a new home she went


and then a bunch of stuff happened :-D
I took the brakes off the car i bought for my GF to start racing in



I got a completely new cooling system


and started installing parts as they came




I made some VW to Subie adapters


and bolted up some rocking wheels


and I continue to rock forwards as fast as I can being an hour and a quarter from my garage

You must paint the wheels some nice bright contrasting color.
Black wheels are not allowed.

---

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.

You and i competed awhile back with NER, i want to say it was my first event at the dog track? I remember you had a set of axles on the ready lol. the new car looks greta, keep the pictures coming.

looks good, wheels need some colour for sure

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I would rather drive a slow car fast as a fast car slow!
first rule of cars: get what makes you happy, your the one paying for it!

Black contrasts with Everything: even Black....

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Parfois, on fait pas semblant!

I am:
I know:
I am from:

Nobody.
Nothing.
Nowhere.

Good to see you embracing the 5 stud suspension and driveshaft components. It's stronger than the 4 stud stuff in various ways so hopefully that will reduce any failures and possible DNFs.
Have you considered any upgrades for the engine mounts? Standard ones are a bit flexi with the hydro style mounts. There are a couple of options to hold the engine in place more securely.
I notice from a pic that it looks like your timing belt tensioner has been rotated the wrong way to tension the belt. It should be rotated clockwise and have the two pin holes normally sit 180deg from where they are now. Even with one in my hand right now I can't work out if having it the wrong way may impact on how the belt keeps tension.

There is a clutched alternator pulley that may be a beneficial modification as it reduces the flywheel effect of the spinning alternator on the over run, the crank nose keyway has been known to fail with so many ancillaries being driven off it. On that note it's particularly important that the crankshaft pulley bolt is fitted in the correct manner.
What engine code is yours? It looks to be an AHU with that type of inlet manifold. I understand some later versions of this engine have a better design of crank keyway.

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Disappointingly not yet a Jackass

Quote
danster
Good to see you embracing the 5 stud suspension and driveshaft components. It's stronger than the 4 stud stuff in various ways so hopefully that will reduce any failures and possible DNFs.
Have you considered any upgrades for the engine mounts? Standard ones are a bit flexi with the hydro style mounts. There are a couple of options to hold the engine in place more securely.
I notice from a pic that it looks like your timing belt tensioner has been rotated the wrong way to tension the belt. It should be rotated clockwise and have the two pin holes normally sit 180deg from where they are now. Even with one in my hand right now I can't work out if having it the wrong way may impact on how the belt keeps tension.

There is a clutched alternator pulley that may be a beneficial modification as it reduces the flywheel effect of the spinning alternator on the over run, the crank nose keyway has been known to fail with so many ancillaries being driven off it. On that note it's particularly important that the crankshaft pulley bolt is fitted in the correct manner.
What engine code is yours? It looks to be an AHU with that type of inlet manifold. I understand some later versions of this engine have a better design of crank keyway.

Thanks so much for the feed back! Yes I'm hoping the 5 lug stuff holds up to my abuse a little more than the 4 lug stuff... I didn't earn my "breaker boy" nickname for nothing. I blow about an axle an event when i'm really rocking and I've bent a few control arms while I was at it. My worse was two vw's on the sidelines at a rallyx... with the same cv blown. i'm going to try JVL's idea of a simple plastic clip on steering limiter as well... but I do like my opposite lock and seem to break them more in large radi turns with a bump at the apex coupled with full throttle :-P

For the mounts I've replaced the stockers with hockey pucks in the front and engine mount and the trans mount is the corrado g-shitty one which is sans poop. I hope that holds it all together but we'll see after I get it rolling.

I'll check the tensioner.. i know i've taken it off a few times since that photo but who knows if its been rotated the right way. (it made sense when i did it cause I remember debating it in my head, its got the auto tensioning spring feature in it) I might have to crack the manual open for this one. EEK!

Yes the crank pulley does scare me after what happened to my buddies daily driven TDI (yes AHU). I've shimmed mine to take out any free play between the two mating D shapes (.002" shim stock) and I hope that that takes the chance of it rotating and deforming the D's with the impacts of the accel/decel. I will be watching it like a hawk and worse to worse I will be pinning the pulleys to the crank.

Thanks again.

Dave

Quote
BJosephD
You and i competed awhile back with NER, i want to say it was my first event at the dog track? I remember you had a set of axles on the ready lol. the new car looks greta, keep the pictures coming.

thanks.. i will deff keep em coming. I look forward to getting back in the action as soon as possible. With more axles at the ready.

Dave

Looking good. What top mounts are those?

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

Those are Burmeister Engineering Plates.

She Runs!!!

He fussed about the rally shell and not the VW van??? Weird...

sigh. i miss my vw. i need a project. my garage is empty. and i feel less of a man having it that way.

Everyone needs a project car in there life... teaches them that no matter how hard you try in life, there will always be something more to do ;-)