martinj
Post #1
Hi,Have gone for putting the latest update into the 'projects' as the car is a constant project - sometimes that is a good thing!
Since the last posting, the car has been through its MOT having had the roller bearing lower bushes fitted to the new dimma wide track arms that I picked up on a holiday in Europe last year (seemed sensible to have some spares as they are not quickly avialable if I have a problem on event, or between). The arms were also treated to new ball joints, and new track rod ends were fitted for good measure.
I opted to drill and tap the rear of the arms and then fitted them with a threaded rod that allow them to be secured in the p-bush, rather than welding the sleave to the bottom arm. They fitted well, with a bit of a fiddle to get everything aligned when re-fitting the arm with the washers in the kit. The front of the car now has now rubber bushing, with the top mounts being a bearing aswell - the rear will have the last of the rubber removed when the new axle goes in with its new solid front mounts, the rear axle mounts have been alloy block type since its conversion to a rally car.
With it MOT all sorted, there was a bit of rest available ahead of the rally this weekend - just time to get a bad cold, the ideal personal preperation!
Azimghur Stages - 12th July
This rally takes place at a naval airfield near Colerne, using parts of the main runway with the majority of the stage running over the road network and taxi ways around the airfield. This year we used some new areas of the venue which were really good quality with amazing grip levels.
The car went through the noise test at 96db at 4500rpm, max allowed is 100db, and then passed scruitineering without any comment.
With the lack of finishes at the previous rallies, we had been seeded at 73, but all we were concerned with was getting some miles on the car, and an all important finish - it is amazing how demoralising it can get when you have a few non finishes.
There was a very impressive field of cars, with the event sponsor entering two Aston Martins, converted GT racers for rallying, they looked great but seemed a bit too quite to be right.
The weather was a bit changable through the day but we stuck with the pirelli moulded slicks all day as the ground temperature was high and the showers that fell did not leave the ground wet for long.
First stage was a bit slow, feeling for the grip levels on a drying stage, and just getting back into how the car felt, second lap of the first stage saw us push a bit harder and everything seemed to working just fine - what a relief.
We then set about over the next seven stages working up the order, both on the overall stage leader board, and our road position. With our seeding, we were catching atleast one car per stage, and on some stages we also over took the car ahead of that which had entered the stage a full minute before us.
My car has a pretty basic engine and gearbox in it, and as such in a straight line drag doesn't pull away from many things out there, but when we were getting into the braking areas for the corners and chicanes, we were just leaving the other cars behind - the braks on the car are just amazing and a high speed venue like Colerne really makes that show. The other really good thing with the venue is some of the very high speed corners that they have, we were pulling 100mph through some of the open 90 degree corners and again were just killing the oposition on these areas of the stages. The Kaaz diff was doing its thing through these corners and it is going to take some getting used to, as it allows you to take the corners so much faster once it starts to ramp, found myself wishing for more power in the corners.....
During the lunch service period I decided to do a quick spanner check on the front suspension to check that everything was still tight....off shears the 13mm P bush bolt! A quick extraction of the bottom arm, a bit of finger crossing, and the mole grips attached to the bur that was just poking out of the p-bush body and it un-wound. I was pleased to put it mildly - a quick root in the selection of bolts we carry in the van, and both sides peugeot bolts were swapped for 12.9 cap head bolts and everything was put back together - for anyone out there who is fitting new bushes, standard or Rich's ones, please give serious consideration to useing a better spec of bolt, I was amazed at how poor the quality was of the peugeots ones, the other side's one was also stretched - they are pennies from Screwfix in 12.9 strength.
The rest of the day was a repeat of the morning, fuel, checks and overtaking.
At the end of the event, we had climbed from our starting position of 73, to 34th overall, and I think it was 11th in class (there were 30 cars in our class). I was just happy to have finished without any major issues.
The New Rear Axle
I met with the guy who has been engineering the new axle for my car at the event, and I will put a new thread up when I have had a chance to take some pictures.
It has spacers between the trailing arms and the back of the hub, with new longer stub pins running through. It all looks very good, and I just need to set up the ride height and get it on the car to test that it all hangs together!
It was really good to have broken the duck with the car, and was nice to receive loads of complements about the car, it seems to liked by loads of the other rally crews out there, I even had a crew say how nice looked on stage when we passed them!
Martin
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- Maxi rear axle hub spacers +53mm per side- Maxi front steering rack extensions +40mm per side
Posted 14th Jul 2008 at 04:09
. What power are you running with?
