I want your car

I spent ages looking for a challenge spec car for sale, couldn't find one anywhere!

I've got 14's at the moment - ET43 (ET should probably be the same as your 15's?) and I thought the gravel tyres are supposed to be 165/60/15's? Not noticed any problems with the suspension on full droop - that could be because I'm on standard suspension struts (will be getting AVO's when I've sold my other car) and they don't droop as far - surely it's more of a problem when you land and they come up all the way? So far I've only done about 8/9 12car road rallies, going to do my fist nat b event in a couple of weeks time (Bruce Robinson) - I'll have a check and see if the two have been meeting, but I don't recall anything so far!

If you decide to sell your wheels/car, let me know

Your wheels with ET43, are they standard wheels? And how wide are the wheels? My 15s will probs be up for sale when I get 14's I'm happy with.

I'm navigating on road rallies at the moment. If your doing any in Wales let us know, id like to come and have a look at your car.

The first one's on this side of the country, the next is in north yorkshire, not sure what road rallies are up after that, but I'd be happy to trade (a look in your car for a look in mine!) if we're in the same place at the same time

Wheels (full spec): 14" 6J (means 6" edge to edge) 4x100PCD, 57.1mm Centre bore, offset 43mm (ET43)

I've got the spec sheets for the Polo Group N gravel setup - it says OZ rims, 15" 6J, ET45 - rear's with a 5mm spacer

mullens you sag I offered my nav services first :p

mullens you sag I offered my nav services first :p

Hey not once did I offer my services, I'm budgeting it this year. Just said that if he was going to a rally that I was, I wouldnt mind a gander at his 'back garden project'.

I dunno, one guy sticks a rally car together and everyone wants a look at it!

Demon - what sort of navving have you done/do you do?

Update: Back seats back in and strapped down (doubling up as stowage for tools and clothes on the rally), rust spots cleaned up, filled and painted - the car is ready for it's first real outing on a National B road rally event

An update of the car, prior to my first Nat B event!

Sold my CRX, had some cash, so I went and bought a mixed set of avo's (GTX rears, mono-tube fronts) - the fronts are on a 4 week wait (they're built to spec), but I got the rears delivered this week as they're held in stock.

Was umming and aahhhing over what rates to go for, but after the problems I've had with traction - coming out of a corner, accelerating, the weight transfer back was causing the front inside wheel to go light each time and just spin up, standard springs are 120lb's on the rear, so I had to beef it up to compensate - I decided to go for the group-N spec sheet setup (as springs are flippin' cheap, it's not difficult to replace/resize them) at 325lb/in springs with 100lb/in helpers

Also replaced the front springs with single, 10.5" 300lb/in springs (moving away from the twin 8in and 2in helper)

car is much better behaved, still a little bouncy, I think the rear rates are a bit slow, but I've still got the adjuster on minimum (will up it a couple of notches before I go out I think) and it creaks a lot - could do with some urethane top mounts!

Cleaned it up for scrutineering, so this is "before" - I'll take some photo's of "after" tomorrow!

And some gratuitous interior shots to show the OMP's that the missus got me for chrimbo

looking good, any more races coming up?

looks like you did well on your first few!

one thing, i was once told a car handles better when lower to the floor?

is this incorrect? aha

just had my first National B event

here's the after pics:

As for lowering=handling, well it depends on the car - lower isn't always better - control roll centres, get the tracking and camber right, and a car will handle. Lower makes controlling roll centres easier. Most lowered cars have screwed up camber, which tends to make them handle crap. This setup I took around a boggy field, three muddy airfields with potholes and mud mounds as well as normal(ish) roads and it did great on all of them

Edited 14 February, 201016 yr by majic79

ahh right, thanks for explaining :)

how did you get on also?

40 starters, was seeded 38th, finished 32nd

Photographer pics from the event just got published, click the link for the only Polo in the event going through a ford:

http://www.mandh-photography.co.uk/events/...0/bruce-213.htm

(index has thumbnails of other cars, there was a Seat ibiza out as well)

Alright mate, nice result, will you be coming down here? Carpet bagger etc?

I heard Matt Fowle navigating for car 14 and finished 14th overall did a stage rally that weekend also!

Nick Clarke belongs to the same motor club as myself, and its nice to see he did quite well even though i hear he got some penalties

Are you on the MandH forum?

Keep it up, hopefully see you about on a few events in the future!

Edited 23 February, 201016 yr by mathew

finally a modified 6N i'd actually want to own

Alright mate, nice result, will you be coming down here? Carpet bagger etc?

I heard Matt Fowle navigating for car 14 and finished 14th overall did a stage rally that weekend also!

Nick Clarke belongs to the same motor club as myself, and its nice to see he did quite well even though i hear he got some penalties

Are you on the MandH forum?

Keep it up, hopefully see you about on a few events in the future!

Not on the MandH forum yet, but probably will sign up eventually!

My first event, I was happy enough getting round the course, picked up one 5 minute penalty and lost a little time on the way round as my nav's a complete novice (she's getting better, she got us all the way round, so that's the important thing!)

Carpet bagger - isn't that a stage rally?

Alright mate, nice result, will you be coming down here? Carpet bagger etc?

I heard Matt Fowle navigating for car 14 and finished 14th overall did a stage rally that weekend also!

Nick Clarke belongs to the same motor club as myself, and its nice to see he did quite well even though i hear he got some penalties

Are you on the MandH forum?

Keep it up, hopefully see you about on a few events in the future!

Not on the MandH forum yet, but probably will sign up eventually!

My first event, I was happy enough getting round the course, picked up one 5 minute penalty and lost a little time on the way round as my nav's a complete novice (she's getting better, she got us all the way round, so that's the important thing!)

Carpet bagger - isn't that a stage rally?

Nah its a road rally in dorset way.. we hold stage rallys at goodwood race circuit though

hmmm, can see myself being up for that - think the Carpet Bagger's run this year already though?

hmmm, can see myself being up for that - think the Carpet Bagger's run this year already though?

yeah last month, didnt do it as i was doing time controls instead!

Got some new bits last night!

Shiny....

Much improved stiffness on the front, there's a track day up the road from me next week, but it's overpriced and I'm poor again, I might see if I can blag my way onto the track and try and get them setup

Can you send me over the part numbers. And size and spring rate. How much did they set you back?

Let me know how they perform.

I spoke to Avo - it's on their website (www.avouk.com), the list price is £300 per strut (fronts) the rears were a lot cheaper

I've gone for 300lb/in springs (10.5" long) with a 100lb helper (2" long) on the front, rears are 325lb/in (12" long) and with the same 100lb/in helper - but I think they're too hard

Had a track day on Friday (waiting for photos) - surprised a few people (may even have had a few "tripod" moments!), car was brilliant

Rolling road day today, 110bhp on the rollers (only mod is a pipercross induction kit and some new Magnecor KV85's)

Vid of the RR:

Edited 20 March, 201016 yr by majic79

well a slight update to the rallying scenario....

I've been doing it a year now and decided to invest in some decent gearbox tools - I can now strip (completely and almost totally non-destructively) the 085 gearboxes down - the only bearing race I had a problem with was the output shaft clutch housing side bearing (pinion bearing) which basically exploded when I was trying to get a splitted in behind it - never mind, it needed replacing anyway!

So the car had a duff gearbox when I got it, which I bodged a bearing in to keep it going (at the cost of £36) and that lasted 6 months. I've since acquired 2 more gearboxes, one was "good" but lasted one rally and now sounds like a bag of nails and the other was grinding a bit. With me now having three duff gearboxes, I took apart both of the two out of the car and examined them - one missing some teeth, one needs all it's bearings replacing but otherwise fine - and decided to rebuild them both. I've now completely stripped one down, cleaned out the entire casing (fun) washed all the gears and needle bearings (fortunately serviceable - not perfect, but will do while I rebuild the other two boxes) and replaced all the major bearings with OE parts.

I started this afternoon with this

and finished this evening with this

Had a slight oversite on ordering parts, I didn't get a pair of zero shims for the diff bearings (managed to salvage one, the other is sized and no good for initial assembly)

Worked out that I'd need to do this 6-7 times to get my investment back on the tools (working on £300 for a recon gearbox and replacing every single bearing in the gearbox - I could probably have left the diff bearings in and saved £40) and given that two of these are recon gearboxes and haven't lasted too long, I can probably do a better job - might need to start taking orders soon!

Two weeks to go before the next one (and there's one the weekend after that as well, so I need this gearbox to last at least three weeks!)

Started last night stripping the car to get at the gearbox - the recommended way is to remove the front slam panel and pull it out of the front. I couldn't be bothered, so I removed the sump guard, lifted the car up and removed the exhaust so I could drop it out of the bottom.

Overnight parts to finish the gearbox this morning, fill it with oil - it feels smooth as a baby's bottom

I finished dropping the gearbox out and got the newly reconditioned box in - as I was on a roll, I got the selection mechanism, the drive shafts, starter motor and all the rest of the gubbins attached.

Here's a couple of pics of the removed gearbox and the sump guard - note the amount of mud stuck in there!

Exhaust and battery tray to refit and it's time for a test drive

Last year was a bit limited on the rallies I could do due to lack of funds, but this year I'm hoping to get out on a few more - hoping to do a couple of welsh rallies as well!

are you able to explain where to anchored the front harness points? Even better if you could get pictures..

Aaron