GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

[david_white]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Will be watching with interest Gavin, good to see you're going the throttle body route. Are you looking for extra power or just driveability? Don't suppose you need more power though really, but extra mid range grunt is always very useful

Nice garage set up, whats the 3rd project??

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Will be watching with interest Gavin, good to see you're going the throttle body route. Are you looking for extra power or just driveability? Don't suppose you need more power though really, but extra mid range grunt is always very useful

Nice garage set up, whats the 3rd project??

Hi,

A bit of both hopefully, we'll see how it turns out

3rd Project will appear in the Restoration section in a few weeks when I get a bit further along with it

Thanks

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

The engine is nearly ready (delayed by the bad weather) so today I finished off the boot



A bit messy due to the fuel pumps having push on connections, but should work and the pumps are mounted a fraction lower than the tank outlet so should gravity feed through the first filter

[dottydogmk1]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Hi Gavin, happy new year - I went gravity feed to save messing with swirl pot and lift pump and it seemed to work ok (allbeit very briefly!). Any figures on the engine yet? I had some good news before Christmas, rebuild number three is being paid for so hopefully third time lucky! Good luck with the new set up, cheers, Steve.

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Hi Steve,

The tank has a built in pot beneath the feed so there should always be plenty of fuel coming out
Engine is just waiting for the ECU before it can be mapped

Glad to hear your engine is getting sorted, hope it gets done for the first event

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

More tweaking last week - since putting the dry sump tank in the engine bay, everything has been running a lot hotter and if I leave her idling for too long the oil temp rises as the fan is only blowing through the rad

So I bought a 50% bigger oil cooler and a 9" fan to keep the oil cool. Bit of a tight squeeze, I had to trim the front panel, trim the grill and space the rad back with a few washers









Then I spent today sorting out the drivers seat (which had come loose again), replacing the link bar that came off on the last event with a new one, fitted the prop, filled the rebuilt gearbox with oil and lastly fitted some "comedy size" mudflaps as per 2011 Rally Regs, 4mm thick and have to stick out 40mm either side of the tread, so now they are the widest point of the car

[stone4dr]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Come on Gavin ,Dont tease us get a photo up of your flaps . .

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

TRS Brands Hatch Stages - Sun 30th January 2011

After realising over Christmas that getting the engine back in time for this event might be a bit tight, I'd booked 4 days off work last week and headed up to HT on the Tuesday. The hard work was done on the engine which was now fitted with different cams, all shimmed up and ready for the injection system, and the dry sump pump had a new bracket. Ron had made a start fitting the throttle bodies but unfortunately there was no sign of the ECU and loom for it, so the only option was to refit the carbs, so I did this while Ron machined the rocker cover and repaired the sump (which had sprung a leak when the pump came off), and Tuesday night I was back home with the engine in the back of the Scorpio, under strict insturctions not to start it, but to return to HT on Friday for a Rolling Road session

Wednesday was spent fitting it along with a very nice 4-1 manifold from 105speed, but this gave me some more work to do because the downpipe stopped by the steering column, nowhere near the rest of the system. A quick trip to Merlin Motorsport at Castle Combe yielded a 2 1/4" exhaust section with a 60 degree bend, so now I had a manifold, a bend and a system but gaps in between all of them, but by 1am I was happy I had a complete system that would last the day

Thursday I removed the injection pumps and refitted the red tops, all plumbed into the injection tank, and also welded up some cracks in the passenger 4 link box, not sure when that happened

Friday everything was loaded up ready for the rally, and I went back to HT where Ron fitted bigger jets to work with the new cams and exhaust, but there wasn't much we could do about the huge flat spot at 5000rpm

That night I stayed with my parents to save going back to Bristol and spent Saturday morning fitting the sumpguard, lowering the suspension and trimming the mud flaps to try and stop them scraping the floor, before a quick blast up the road to make sure everything was ok. It was, but pulling out of junctions was interesting, either chugging a lot or having huge amounts of wheel spin once we were on cam

Anyway, down at Brands, scrutineering was passed without any problems and we were ready for Sunday

There was a full entry of 80 cars with 29 in our class, and Holly was co-driving as usual, looking forward to teaching me the Rally School bits as she used to work there as an Instructor

SS1 & SS2
Off the line with loads of wheelspin, across a bit of dirt into a 45 right and very nearly went straight on, the cold tyres having no grip at all, which made the whole Rally School section very interesting, but soon we were through the gate and across the car parks to join the circuit up at the top of Paddock Hill Bend, going the wrong direction up the main straight, hairpin left into the pit lane, all the way along it before a hairpin right and back along the other side of the pits, then hairpin left and onto the main circuit, still going the wrong way into Graham Hill Bend, up to Druids then to Paddock, back round again before the last lap we carried on past the pits into Clearways, then hairpin right onto the Grand Prix Circuit to the Flying Finish
Apart from having trouble getting away from the slower corners, DVY was going well and was pulling hard once on cam
SS2 was identical and we went 13s quicker, but it was difficult to tell how quick we were not having met anyone out of the stages

SS3 & SS4
Starting on the Rally School again, this was a simpler stage only using one side of the pits with a lot less tight corners which meant I could keep the revs higher and set some quicker times. At the end of SS3 we were given results from SS2 and were disappointed to be 37th overall, behind a lot of people I would normally expect to beat
A decent time on SS4 saw us climb to 25th after this one and by now there were a few retirements, caused by mechanical failure, falling off into the gravel traps or hitting the very solid tyre chicanes
Jon Segger had to retire with no 4th gear (I'm amazed my old gearbox has lasted so long behind the Duratec) and Steve Hall broke a driveshaft on his Fiesta

SS5 & SS6
The stages were reversed now which made the Rally School a lot more fun as the tyres were nice and warm when we got there so we had plenty more grip, with Holly encouraging me to throw it in to the corners we had a great time, even setting 10th quickest time on SS6 which was a bit more like it
Various people were having trouble with the Flying Finish at the end of the Rally School on a 45 right over crest - trying to take it flat out, they ended up beached on some bollards and a few retired because of this
After these 2 we were up to 19th overall, a bit more respectable

SS7 & SS8
Back to the original layout in reverse, so a lot more hairpins in the pits which slowed us down trying to get going and by the end we had only made up one more place, finishing 18th overall and 10th in class

All in all it was a fun days rallying, there were loads of spectators there and a lot of people came over to say hello who I hadn't seen for many years, hopefully it'll run again next year

Many thanks to Holly for keeping me in the right direction, hopefully when the engine's completed we'll be back near the front again

A few pics taken by Derek below, videos will be posted when I have some time, I've got in car of 5 of the 8 stages

[PaulAlex]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Well done Gav - definately sounds like a "local" even to add to the diary for 2012....

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

good stuff well done mate, bet you cant wait to try it on the throttle bodies

[mervhill]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Well done Gav - definately sounds like a "local" even to add to the diary for 2012....

Matt did the fatal thing of going to watch, then wishing he'd done it as the likes of Jay Stanley, Dave West, and Pete Rayner were competing. Silly boy

Well done Gav, was disappointed I couldn't make it down to watch, however even Matt commented on how frickin freezing it was so probably wasn't too bad a thing!

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

It was nice and warm in the rally car, but freezing in service

Throttle bodies...










Made by AT Power with shaftless butterflies for maximum flow to give performance very similar to a slide throttle

Just got to figure out how to run twin cables and then they'll be fitted

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Some in car from Brands

Brands Hatch Stages 2011 SS2

Brands Hatch Stages 2011 SS3

Brands Hatch Stages 2011 SS5

Brands Hatch Stages 2011 SS6

Brands Hatch Stages 2011 SS8

[Tazman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

good one Gavin. Knew I should have come and spectated this one

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

good one Gavin. Knew I should have come and spectated this one

Hi David,

I bet you've still got your hands full. Hope everything is going well