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Thread: Fostek's R&D department

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    Fostek's R&D department

    Here at Fostek, a large proportion of our time goes into developing new products, and also making current products lighter, stronger, perform better, last longer, etc. So it's only sensible that we invest some time and money into building a suitable test bed for, err, testing things, prior to selling them. OK, it happens to look a bit like a mk2 Escort, but that's besides the point.

    These days, if you want to build a mk2 to be quick on Tarmac, it will tend to follow a tried and tested pattern; a big CC engine, Tractive box, 15" wheels, heavy duty rear end etc. Not that there's anything wrong with all that, it sure makes a quick car, but I fancied approaching things from a different angle. First up is weight. There's rules to govern how light the car can be for rallying; the 2.5's have a MIN weight of 890kgs (not that many are even remotely that light). A 2L mk2 has a MIN weight of 820kgs, quite a handy amount less. And also, by running a big CC engine, you tend to have to up-armour the rest of the car - big old gearbox to take the torque, heavy duty axle, prop, brakes, etc etc. AND, what a lot of people forget is, that a big CC engine tends not to rev like a smaller engine.
    So to achieve a similar top speed, you'd have to gear a 2.5 motor higher than a 2L, for example. Not only that, but I suspect (I have to say that, because I'm not a driver) that very, VERY few drivers will be able to make the most of kind of power a 2.5 puts out. Especially on 8" wide rear wheels...
    Perhaps the extra grunt of a 2.5 is just a hindrance on anything other than smooth, dry, grippy tar? Anyway, I did some maths, and I reckon that if I can get this car down to it's legal minimum weight, it will have comparable power-to-weight ratio of the 2.5s, but given it's 100kgs ligher, it'll handle better and stop better, amongst other things.
    Not only that, because of the high revving engine, and 6 close gears, the gearing can be VERY short. And I can run lighter duty axle, prop, clutch, and brakes.... So that's the plan anyway. We shall see!

    It's taken about 4 years to reach this point; I'll not bore you with all the fabrication/bare shell pictures - given that this car is going to compete in National Tarmac Stage rallying, the bodyshell has to meet a fairly strict set of rules in terms of what you can/can't do to it, cut out, replace etc. So by mk2 Escort standards, it's not that trick, good old fashioned engineering here. The pictures start with the shell in the paint booth...







    I actually started with a semi-prepared shell; It had been built to Historic Spec (BDG, ZF etc) for Alister McRae to use in the BHRC a few years back, but for one reason or another that never happened. It had already had the cage fitted, tunnels, 4-link boxes etc. The tunnel needed modifying because I wasn't likely to use a ZF box in such a modern car, likewise we made a few tweaks to stiffen it up, remove some weight, and distribute weight as carefully as possible. Exhaust tunnel was also in the wrong side, so rather than cutting it out, I just mirrored it, so there's now twin tunnels, which a) adds rigidity to the floor and b) means you could run a different engine later if you fancied...



    Again, externally, no need to re-invent the wheel. Rear arches are Gartrac boreham jobs, fronts are also Gartrac but +1" each side to cover the JEMS wide track front end (more of that later) and the front spoiler was made specially to include some ducts, in an attempt to keep the front brakes from melting. The colour is Jaguar Gun Metal Grey in case you are interested.





    Engine: pretty obviously a SBD Duratec, not just any one though, this is Matt Downer's old engine, and prior to that, an SBD test mule. I've had the pleasure of sitting next to Matt on several rallies, and thus I didn't need any convincing that this engine is more than capable of taking on any other 4-pot N/A engine currently on the market.
    This is the engine in a previous home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo-TVyMdEgo





    Mated to this is a Sadev 6-speed sequential. Chosing a gearbox wasn't easy, but this thing ticks all the boxes for me. No need for a gearstick, some compressed air and electrickery takes care of chanaging gears. That's all for the moment; more photos as the build progresses...
    Last edited by Dave; 29-12-2013 at 17:20.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Not sure what's going on with paragraphs there...
    And I can't edit it?
    Last edited by FOSSIE; 29-12-2013 at 15:42.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Work of art! Love it

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Sure to be the best Escort in the country once it's finished.....I don't know anybody else who puts so much thought and effort into their build

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Simply stunning and no surprise judging by the standard of work Fostek are known for , looking forward to the updates

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Looking good Tom.
    i edited it for you, hope it is OK at that.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    I too share your take on fast cars. Bigger is not always faster. Only, instead of 2,0 against 2,5's I run 1,6 against 2,0. And to some extent I can tell the consept does work it's far from superior but defenately competetive. I believe with a smaller cc engine you have two main advantages. Weight and weight distribution.
    Oh and that car Is to die for! Best of luck with it.
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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    there is certainly merit in your logic of not going to 2.5, my limited knowledge of rallying say you may well be right, certainly on the circuits lighter smaller engined cars can give the bigger ones a real hard time and only really loose out on the very fast long circuits, where a lot of power results in very high top speed, but my limited knowledge of rallying is that you dont have straights long enough to reach 130 plus mph speeds where a 2.5 would come into its own.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Love it, love it, love it!! That is a gorgeous colour Tom.

    I will be interested in the JEMS wide track, as i am thinking of going down this route next.

    Just got back from Longmoor today and Pete Rayner was there with his new Millington 2+ and for the first 3 stages, even on the wet map, he just could not get the power down. His son was winning at the end of stage 3 due to the frost/ icey tar in his 1400 Citroen AX, and Pete was down to about 7th. Not belittling Petes engine by any means, but now you can't get Dunlops any more either, i will be interested to see what the choice of tyre will be without having to go all out on Michelins next year.

    Keep the updates coming please Tom.

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    Fostek's R&D department

    Nice to see it in paint Tom.

    Fingers crossed that low front spoiler doesn't cause to many issues out on the Tarmac on 13's
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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    I was think of grey for my build and now I have see a mk2 escort in grey it looks the nuts
    sideways is the best way to turn a corner

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Lovely

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Cheers for the comments fellas,

    and thanks for the editing Dave - no idea why it did that??

    Anyway, couple more pictures for you from this morning;

    Front panelwork is now on for good. The wings, arches, spoiler, front panel and slam panel were all painted off the car and are now bolted-on rather than welded. Apart from anything, it makes installing the engine (well, everything in the engine bay) easier with the panels off, and it means the paint sprayer could do a more thorough job of painting those parts you'd miss if all the panels were on. It looks a bit OTT but I wanted to retain the sort of strength/rigidity that the original spot welds provided. There's about 120 bolts holding the front end together! Don't worry, they are all Aluminium bolts (m4 thread) so weight is negligible. If the car is ever in a prang (pretty likely) then it should just be a case of replacing a panel, no need for taking the whole car to a bodyshop.



    Pedal box and brake plumbing is all in for good. The pedal box is a good old fashioned Gartrac job, although it has had the Fostek treatment and is now stiffer & lighter. I did look into using floor mounted pedals, but it just won't work for us, ergonomically, so it had to be underslung like the standard box. To be fair, the Gartrac job is brilliant, I love the thought and design work that has gone into them, and they work very well. I've gone for AP master cylinders rather than the normal Girling type, partly due to them offering better pedal feel, but also because they have a much bigger choice of sizes/bores which can be handy for fine-tuning the hydraulic system. The clutch cylinder is standard issue Girling job, not too fussed about that, it's only used for getting the car off the start line.

    One thing worth mentioning, (and this was an idea I got from Andy Pipe's TS thread) is that I actually fully plumbed/bled/setup the braking system on the bench prior to fitting in the car. I reckon one of the biggest causes of unsatisfactory brakes in a competition car is the pedalbox either being badly built, or just not set up properly. There is a lot can go wrong! By doing it on the bench, I was able to bleed the whole system and piss-fart around with master cylinder pushrod lengths, bias bar float, pedal height etc etc - the idea being that you want the bar itself 90 degrees to the pushrods when it's under pressure. This invariably means the bar will sit slightly skewed when at rest, but that's fine. This sort of fine tuning is just a pain in the arse when the box is in the car! Another thing I noticed (might be obvious to some people, but I'd never noticed before) was that it was just not possible to PROPERLY bleed the system unless I opened a front and rear bleed nipple at the same time. If you just opened 1, it would seem to bleed ok, except what was actually happening was that 1 MC was running out of travel before the other (only just, but it would be enough to trap air). That's just the sort of thing you wouldn't spot with the system in-situ. So once happy the pedalbox was setup properly, it was all fitted up... Apart from adjusting the front>back bias, it shouldn't need touching now.



    The throttle pedal looks a bit strange - and that's cos it is. We're using SBD's new fly-by-wire throttle system, so the pedal itself is now really just a sensor, telling the ECU what the throttle demand is, and the ECU then decides how far to open the actual throttle. That's a little aluminium rose-jointed link connecting the pedal to the throttle pedal position sensor mounted on top of the pedal box....





    The brake lines are a bit different too. I've never been a fan of running braided Aeroquip type hose throughout the car; just no point (although it is simple) - I'd rather use solid lines everywhere apart from those bits that actually need to flex... So what you can see here is a bit of a concoction of Goodridge stainless fittings, banjos etc and good old fashioned kunifer pipe, with some black heatshrink over the top to make it look neat.

    I discovered an INCREDIBLE method for straightening the kunifer pipe (wibbly wobbly brake lines are my pet hate) - it involves a vice, mole grips, and a big hammer - check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvGEKaaPf5E

    Hydraulic handbrake base is in, although it needs mounting properly. I wasn't going to bother with a hydraulic handbrake at all (what's the point?) but the driver of this car convinced me to fit one; purely to get him out of trouble if he over-shoots a corner, not that it's used for actually getting round tight corners... Modern diffs and EPAS did away with the need for handbrake turns...

    That's all for now, keep watching
    Last edited by FOSSIE; 30-12-2013 at 12:10.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Interesting build, looks mint already, very nice and I like the bolt on panels

    About 2.5 vs 2.0, we have lots of 2.5 over here class 14 and tons of 2.0 16V class 13, I am not sure if there are minimum weights over here but here is my take on 2.5 vs 2.0 in Ireland

    On dry tarmac 2.5 is by far the fastest, 2.0 just cannot compete on the straights, But with 2.5 there is also a big advantage out of corners, they power away like a bat out of hell, as for top speed, I doubt that any of the mk2's are getting much over 120mph on the long straights (there are very few straights like this in most rallies)

    In wet or even slightly damp conditions 2.5 is a disadvantage imho, 1.6 to 2.0 cars do far better in these conditions, trying to put 300bhp and big torque down to a wet road is a big challenge

    Your weight penalties may change this a lot making the two classes very close together with both cars close to the minimum weight

    The 2.5 engines do not produce a massive amount more top end bhp but the big advantage is mid range torque imho which is very noticeable

    Having said all of that driver skill makes a far bigger difference than all of the above, the difference between a very fast driver and an average one is night and day and in the right hands a mk2 with a proper 2.0 16V engine can win at almost any rally

    If it was a straight up drag race 2.5 would win for sure but rallying does not compare to this, 70kg is a lot of weight on each corner and with 6 speed the 2.0 will be ready to go out of every corner

    Best of luck with it and sure it is going to be a real contender in the overall MK2 results
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Power is nothing without Traction, Audi discovered that in 1979 and 80 with Rallying.

    It looks a Beautiful Car and an interesting Build. I have heard rumors that there are Alloy Axle casings that are about on some historic Escorts.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by Forest_rallying View Post
    Power is nothing without Traction
    And Commitment
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by Forest_rallying View Post
    I have heard rumors that there are Alloy Axle casings that are about on some historic Escorts.
    Not that I'm aware of. There are alloy axles in existence (see my Facebook page) but not in Historic rallying.

    The axle for this car is pretty special; Magnesium diff housing, titanium LSD, chromoly tubes, it is unique and not something available to customers at the moment. I'll start a thread just for the axle when I get round to assembling it...

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Thanks for that interesting news, look forward to reading more as and when.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    looks superb and i love a build that dares to defy the trend and offer alternative thinking

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by RWD fords rule View Post
    Interesting build, looks mint already, very nice and I like the bolt on panels

    Your weight penalties may change this a lot making the two classes very close together with both cars close to the minimum weight

    If it was a straight up drag race 2.5 would win for sure but rallying does not compare to this, 70kg is a lot of weight on each corner and with 6 speed the 2.0 will be ready to go out of every corner
    Thanks for the comment.

    I think the important thing to remember is that "most" mk2s out there are built to similar specs regardless of the engine; I'd be surprised if there was much difference in weight between the average 2L and the average 2.5, and for that reason, yes, the 2.5 will just overall seem quicker. But I can't get around the idea that how quickly a car accelerates is down to power-to-weight and gear ratios...

    1 car has 330hp and weighs 950kgs, 8k rpm, 120mph max, 4.6 final drive
    1 car has 290hp and weighs 820kgs, 9.5k rpm, 120mph max, 5.1 final drive
    (otherwise cars are the same)

    which will win the drag race ?

    I think it's important to look at the overall package, not just how much grunt you've got.

    And I agree with several of the posts above about 330hp being a pain in crappy conditions; I wish I had £1 for everytime a big banger escort driver has said to me "I could do with 100hp less" after a slippery stage, which lets face it, is more often than not in the UK!

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    lovely car

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    What a build, savage work so far and cant wait to see the finished result!

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    One thing worth mentioning, (and this was an idea I got from Andy Pipe's TS thread) is that I actually fully plumbed/bled/setup the braking system on the bench prior to fitting in the car. I reckon one of the biggest causes of unsatisfactory brakes in a competition car is the pedalbox either being badly built, or just not set up properly. There is a lot can go wrong! By doing it on the bench, I was able to bleed the whole system and piss-fart around with master cylinder pushrod lengths, bias bar float, pedal height etc etc - the idea being that you want the bar itself 90 degrees to the pushrods when it's under pressure. This invariably means the bar will sit slightly skewed when at rest, but that's fine. This sort of fine tuning is just a pain in the arse when the box is in the car! Another thing I noticed (might be obvious to some people, but I'd never noticed before) was that it was just not possible to PROPERLY bleed the system unless I opened a front and rear bleed nipple at the same time. If you just opened 1, it would seem to bleed ok, except what was actually happening was that 1 MC was running out of travel before the other (only just, but it would be enough to trap air). That's just the sort of thing you wouldn't spot with the system in-situ. So once happy the pedalbox was setup properly, it was all fitted up... Apart from adjusting the front>back bias, it shouldn't need touching now.
    Thats a great idea Tom, I went with a slightly different tactic though, i made all flexible the pipes into and out of the pedal box way too long, about 1M too long, loads of room behind the dash for for the extra piping, so once the system is bled on the car i can disconnect the throttle cable in about 10 seconds, undo the four bolts holding the pedal box in place and rest the whole lot on the seat and tweak the push rods etc, it saves a lot of f'n around upside down with your head in the foot well. I assume you needed to disconnect the callipers after you bled it all on the bench? Or do you have some nifty trick to feed the pipes to the wheel wells without disconnecting them?

    STUNNING build, you have an incredible eye for detail.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Any pictures of the floor above the diff/axle? ... it looks very clever.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Looks great, I particularly like the bolt on panels.

    Any more pics of the shell fabrication?

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by muckerbarry View Post
    Any pictures of the floor above the diff/axle? ... it looks very clever.






    I'm a bit short on photos from the fabrication stage, but these pictures should show most of it...

    Seriously, there's nothing very interesting about the shell, for 2 main reasons; 1) You're not allowed to do anything drastic these days, and 2) I'm running 13" wheels which means you don't need to start dicking about with extra high tunnels, raised chassis, turrets etc. We spent a lot of time making sure everything was right from a geometry point of view, for example, we mounted the shell on a jig and discovered the front strut tops were 2mm out, left-to-right, so we squared everything up so there's a good square base to start from.

    There's now enough available axle travel that the chassis rails will hit the floor before the axle touches anything... Obviously you'd not want this to happen, but it does mean we can use every mm of available damper travel.

    The tank platform wasn't quite as effective as I had planned, but it was still worth doing. We've saved some weight, moved the fuel tank further forward and lowered it's COG, plus the old floor was cut out so the axle now has more travel. Again, this isn't quite so drastic/important as it would be with 15" wheels, but it does mean that I now have enough space to get the axle, exhaust etc well out of harms way.

    The fuel tank is a Pro-alloy job (very impressed) which although looks quite high-up in the car, it's wide/fat rather than tall/thin, so it's centre of mass is now actually a few inches lower and 10" further forward than a typical escort gp4 shaped tank (in fact it's bang over the axle).

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    I always thought an exhaust tunnel would increase the height of the seat mounts so i was interested to see how you had done yours. By separating it from the transmision tunnel you can put a nice low mount between the two, seems obvious now ive seen it!

    Are you sticking with 13" wheels to simplify the build as you mentioned or is there more to it than that?

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    You're on the right lines with the exhaust tunnel, but in this case, my plan backfired! I have mounted the driver's seat as low as it can possibly go, i.e. the underside of the seat shell almost resting on the exhaust tunnel, but when I sit in it, my head is wedged against the roof. So I can't drive the car, but that's probably a good thing.

    It isn't helped with the exhaust being so large (3" at that point) - and I was keen to keep it well up out the way.

    But if you are a bit shorter than me, or at least more normally proportioned, you should be OK.

    13" wheels - well that's a whole other subject in itself - the long and short is that there are pros and cons for both 13s and 15s - and I decided at an early stage that 13's would be best, for this particular car, on the sort of events it's going to do. If it was built to do airfields (where brake temps are way higher) or perhaps if it had a bigger engine where every last square mm of tyre footprint was vital, then perhaps it would have had 15s. The plan might backfire (as it may with so many other items on this car) but for now we have to stick the 13's - the whole chassis setup is designed and manufactured around a 13" wheel and subsequent ride height.

    Speaking of which, I do have a problem which I need to sort out fairly soon - wheels!

    Naturally we wanted to fit the biggest possible braking setup on the front, and in order to do this, I got my hands on as many different 8x13 rims as I could, scanned the inner profile of the rims, and overlayed the CAD drawings on top of each other so I could see which one had the best caliper clearance. The Compomotive ML was the winner by a mile, like 8mm better, so we plumped for the Comp ML in a particular offset.

    Didn't Compomotive then stop making wheels!!?? I have 2 options; reduce the size of the brakes (new disc, bell, caliper bracket at the very least) or try to find some more suitable wheels. Split rims would solve the problem, but they are very expensive and, I think, banned in rallying (need to confirm). The other option is to make some! Watch this space...

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    love this build keep up the good work i need more pics tho

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    At 6 foot 3 i have the same problem, you very soon run out of headroom with a helmet on and a cage in the way!

    Unfortunate on your choice of wheels. There was a rumour compomotive might be starting limited production again at some point? I guess there is always second hand ones around if you needed a temporary solution.
    Last edited by Nelly; 02-01-2014 at 15:14.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by Nelly View Post
    At 6 foot 3 i have the same problem, you very soon run out of headroom with a helmet on and a cage in the way!

    Unfortunate on your choice of wheels. There was a rumour compomotive might be starting limited production again at some point? Otherwise there is always second hand ones around if you needed a temporary solution.
    Yes I heard that rumour too, in fact there's been loads of rumours, but I've not been able to confirm any of them. Given that their entire manufacturing facility (machines, foundry equipment, lathes, painting gear etc) was up for sale a few weeks ago - my guess would be that "if" they start selling wheels again, they won't be made at the same place! Interesting that the only items missing from the auction was the actual die tools (moulds) for the rims, so somebody still has these...

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    Racer Decade Plus User Forest_rallying's Avatar

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    The Moulds have probably found their way to China by now, more Crap to be Imported in to our Country!

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Your right tom no split rims in rallying
    Hexham and District Motorclub

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Thanks for the extra shell pictures. I thought I was the only one with the problem of not getting the seat low enough! I,m 6’4” and I’ve a really long torso. I ended up cutting a pocket into the floor under my seat at the tunnel side to get the seat low enough, the pocket isnt pretty but it got me an extra inch, the seat is still not nearly as low as Id like it….

    But apparently tall people are paid more, and i'm great at reaching high stuff, so swings and roundabouts....
    Last edited by muckerbarry; 02-01-2014 at 19:23.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by Nelly View Post
    At 6 foot 3 i have the same problem, you very soon run out of headroom with a helmet on and a cage in the way!

    Unfortunate on your choice of wheels. There was a rumour compomotive might be starting limited production again at some point? I guess there is always second hand ones around if you needed a temporary solution.
    I know a guy who deals in compomotive a s they have started making the 17"/18" wheels again so far.

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    This build is a work of art!! I only hope my escort looks half as good when it is done!!

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Quote Originally Posted by mexicotait View Post
    Your right tom no split rims in rallying
    Where does it say that Luke?

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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    Stunning build. Watching that car grow is a treat. Thanks.
    The difference between men and boys... is the price of their toys!!!!

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    Fostek's R&D department

    Well after saying that I tried to look and confirm it but I couldn't find anything in the blue book after a quick scan.
    However at the rally of the midlands a few years ago I saw a 911 fail scrut whilst wearing split rims
    He then returned to scrut later with different rims and passed

    I asked later as I was having a mosey around the car and they confirmed they had been asked to change the rims

    Mr salkeld will be your best bet
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    Re: Fostek's R&D department

    A great looking shell and the tank platform is very nice, will definitely help with weight distribution

    There's a local chap round here (Josh Payton) running a Mk2 with a 2 litre JRE Vauxhall giving 290 - 300 bhp and he regularly beats the 2.5 litre cars and had a couple of 1st O/A's on single venues in 2013

    With regards to seating position, when I went to fibreglass seats 5 years ago, I ended up removing the seat rails to get myself low enough in the car - the side mounts are bolted through the floor with thick plates. But I don't have an exhaust tunnel so that helps, there's just a bulge in the floor behind the seat for the centre silencer

    Looking forward to seeing how close to the minimum weight you can get
    GavinR

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