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Just thought of opening my own thread after reading some of the others, to use it to seek for advices (whitout opening more threads) as the car is a building process, albeit it being already racing.
Car is unarched, it was "build" to do regularty sport, which is basically having fun on close roads, no racing involved (like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUjtLXEddA).
After a few years of this low cost pointless "racing", me and my father decided to give it a go at new born historic gravel rallies, even if the car is not really race ready.
Car has a std bottom end pinto, cnc machined head from burton with f33 cam, cr should be around 10.7 (calculated not measured), running on weber 44idf.
4 speed rocket box, english axle with 3j lsd.
Suspension wise is basically standard, we tried to do some spring work with threaded tubes, to adjust ride height, but big diameter springs doesn't seems to work well, it's not responsive over bumps and not that much adjustable.
rear is single leaf spring with bilsteins, gp1 for tarmac and fast rallies, and softer one for rougher terrain.
By now, after the pandemic lockdowns, we have done 4 gravel rallies, first two were nightmares, started 10/15 historic cars, both times only 4-5 cars arrived, roads were too harsh for 13inch cars, because you have to remember we start after 40-50 4x4 r5 monster plus n4 subarus and evo.
Third rally was val d'orcia a month ago, better road conditions, the car went well and we managed to keep a full gr.2 spec kadett (injection, full coilovers, 5 speed box, ecc...) behind. Unfortunately it was the only car quite "comparable", other car in class is a monster bmw320 with 6pot engine, with a crazy good driver also.
Fourth rally last week was rally adriatico, with super smooth and fast roads, perfect for our escort, but a "strange" thing happened, basically the rear right halfshaft bearing retainer collapsed, it was noisy on road sections, and undrivable on stages, after 4 stages it collapsed resulting in the wheel going out. (not completely, so we managed to stop safely). But with the rear wheel moving around it was impossible to drive and times were miles away.
Now we have a good stop, next gravel rally will be at october, so in the mean time we are planning to fix a few things, which is why I opened this tread, to have some guidance if someone is interested in it.
First thing on the list is to change the suspension set up at the front, I was thinking at grp4 fab. front legs, with alloy hubs and adjustable tca.
I'll be going with 260/60 bilstein inserts and long springs.... regarding the pounding of the springs, is there any difference between big diameter and 2.25ones? currently we have 190lbs big springs on, feels good and I would like a similar setup.
Second thing on the list will be to upgrade rear english diff with quaife kit, to avoid failures, but with 160-170hp it doesn't make sense to go with baby atlas.
Third (and final?) thing will be the engine, I have a std block and a head ready to be worked with, but the main restrictions in power I have now are 44 carbs, 48dcoes will be the main problem as it will be hard to find genuine ones.
Also with a 11/11.5 cr I don't really know which cam will it be best, because last thing I want is and engine with no torque under 4k.
Hope this could be intersting to someone, rallying with a not perfect car against full gp.2, gpA and gp4 beasts is not easy, but it's fun.
Enea.
Car is unarched, it was "build" to do regularty sport, which is basically having fun on close roads, no racing involved (like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUjtLXEddA).
After a few years of this low cost pointless "racing", me and my father decided to give it a go at new born historic gravel rallies, even if the car is not really race ready.
Car has a std bottom end pinto, cnc machined head from burton with f33 cam, cr should be around 10.7 (calculated not measured), running on weber 44idf.
4 speed rocket box, english axle with 3j lsd.
Suspension wise is basically standard, we tried to do some spring work with threaded tubes, to adjust ride height, but big diameter springs doesn't seems to work well, it's not responsive over bumps and not that much adjustable.
rear is single leaf spring with bilsteins, gp1 for tarmac and fast rallies, and softer one for rougher terrain.
By now, after the pandemic lockdowns, we have done 4 gravel rallies, first two were nightmares, started 10/15 historic cars, both times only 4-5 cars arrived, roads were too harsh for 13inch cars, because you have to remember we start after 40-50 4x4 r5 monster plus n4 subarus and evo.
Third rally was val d'orcia a month ago, better road conditions, the car went well and we managed to keep a full gr.2 spec kadett (injection, full coilovers, 5 speed box, ecc...) behind. Unfortunately it was the only car quite "comparable", other car in class is a monster bmw320 with 6pot engine, with a crazy good driver also.
Fourth rally last week was rally adriatico, with super smooth and fast roads, perfect for our escort, but a "strange" thing happened, basically the rear right halfshaft bearing retainer collapsed, it was noisy on road sections, and undrivable on stages, after 4 stages it collapsed resulting in the wheel going out. (not completely, so we managed to stop safely). But with the rear wheel moving around it was impossible to drive and times were miles away.
Now we have a good stop, next gravel rally will be at october, so in the mean time we are planning to fix a few things, which is why I opened this tread, to have some guidance if someone is interested in it.
First thing on the list is to change the suspension set up at the front, I was thinking at grp4 fab. front legs, with alloy hubs and adjustable tca.
I'll be going with 260/60 bilstein inserts and long springs.... regarding the pounding of the springs, is there any difference between big diameter and 2.25ones? currently we have 190lbs big springs on, feels good and I would like a similar setup.
Second thing on the list will be to upgrade rear english diff with quaife kit, to avoid failures, but with 160-170hp it doesn't make sense to go with baby atlas.
Third (and final?) thing will be the engine, I have a std block and a head ready to be worked with, but the main restrictions in power I have now are 44 carbs, 48dcoes will be the main problem as it will be hard to find genuine ones.
Also with a 11/11.5 cr I don't really know which cam will it be best, because last thing I want is and engine with no torque under 4k.
Hope this could be intersting to someone, rallying with a not perfect car against full gp.2, gpA and gp4 beasts is not easy, but it's fun.
Enea.
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