My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

[Kieron]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

I was going to pop over Jon and finally get that go but didn't feel too great so never made it out of the house. My mates Phil (big chap) and Jo do the burger van. He said you were having a good tussle with Milinou's (sp) Red race car. Impressive if you were hanging on to that as it competes in the Ford Saloon Car Champ doesn't it?

[JonSegger]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

I was going to pop over Jon and finally get that go but didn't feel too great so never made it out of the house. My mates Phil (big chap) and Jo do the burger van. He said you were having a good tussle with Milinou's (sp) Red race car. Impressive if you were hanging on to that as it competes in the Ford Saloon Car Champ doesn't it?

Yeah I think it does. Actually, Mark (co-driver) was driving my car most of the morning and passed the red one. In fact, the only car that overtook us all day was a Caterham that I let past so I had a bit more room to show off round the corners

Very happy with the performance, just need to get the handling a bit better.

(Good burgers by the way. Compliments to the chef. )

[Magic]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Yeah I think it does. Actually, Mark (co-driver) was driving my car most of the morning and passed the red one. In fact, the only car that overtook us all day was a Caterham that I let past so I had a bit more room to show off round the corners

Very happy with the performance, just need to get the handling a bit better.

(Good burgers by the way. Compliments to the chef. )

I caught but never passed the red escort, thought i better pull in before my ambition overtook my talent.

[Dan_S]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Saw this at the meet in Colchester the other night, and more importantly..heard it! Sounds awesome, hopefully when I do some trackdays I'll see it hoon round! Or I'll see the back of the car anyway

[Revolution66]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

What's the spec on the engine? Which throttle bodies did you use? Any photos of the engine bay showing the clearance between inner wing and throttle bodies? Cheers!

[JonSegger]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

What's the spec on the engine? Which throttle bodies did you use? Any photos of the engine bay showing the clearance between inner wing and throttle bodies? Cheers!

It was all supplied by Dunnell. I think he has his own throttle bodies made now. There's some pics in this thread showing the clearance before the airbox was on - there wasn't a lot of room.

[JonSegger]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

The Richard Burns Memorial Rally - 15/16 August 2009

A quick update on how we got on...

We'd missed last year's event because the car was still in bits - so we were really looking forward to this one. The whole event went pretty smoothly for us and was very well organised. We even had a Red Arrows fly-past on the Sunday.

I was probably a bit too cautious again during the early stages, but I was also still struggling a bit with the handling. The car was understeering quite a lot in the tighter corners and starting to wear the front tyres again on the outside edge.

There were 8 stages - 4 each day. The stages were all around 12 or 13 miles and it was very hot.

At the end of day one we dropped the front suspension about 10mm. This didn't cure the problem entirely, but it did help a bit.

Our only real 'near' drama was about 3/4 of the way through the last stage. We were flat out on a long wide straight, but when I tried braking for a 90 right into a narrow concrete road, the pedal went to the floor and we had no brakes. Luckily, we could carry on through the cones and then spin it back round again. We did the last few corners with no brakes.

When we got back to service we could see brake fluid over one of the front wheels - so a pipe or fitting must have split or burst (at the time of writing I still haven't had a chance to investigate further).

We finished the weekend 15th overall and 7th in class. We were both pretty happy with that, especially considering we were seeded 46th and there were about 100 competitors.

Our next event will probably be the Lynn Stages in November.

Some pics...

[team_zi]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

All cars suffer from understeer, even F1 cars, and its caused simply by too much speed. You probably just need to try a little less harder on the tight corners. I have to really control the red mist when I'm out in the Fiesta, but slower entry, and modulate the throttle pedal continously (very quickly, on/off/on/off trying deeper and deeper throttle as the corner starts to unravel itself) pays dividends for me.

[Barn]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Try left foot braking into the corner John, it may help, it may not, won't hurt to give it a try

[Paul C]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Well done Jon, great pictures there.

Give the handbrake a nip, it works for the Irish boys

[Retromotorsport]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Jon, you running comp struts? ... because normally dropping the car 10mm will increase understeer, as the TCA's go flatter so less neg cam is applied in roll, whereas with comp struts you increased caster when dropping so negating the loss of roll neg camber gain, the caster adding neg and positive camber where you want it , in the corners not on the straights...

if you do back to back stages try winding as much castor on as you can when doing the stage the 2nd time and see what happens ... of course this is just between me and you

[JonSegger]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Thanks all

Gary, we are running compression struts and no anti-rollbar. It was set to 3 degrees caster and 1.5 degrees neg camber before we dropped the front. We didn't measure it afterwards though.

We set the initial spring heights based on trying to get the corner weights sorted. We had it pretty much even left to right, but to get a slight bias to the rear we ended up with the front quite high. We had the front/rear split at 49%/51%. That's why we tried lowering the front after the first day.

Our theory was that shifting a little more weight to the front may reduce the under steer... maybe we'll try some more caster in conjunction with that and see how we get on.

[GavinR]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Good result on the rally, you're obviously going quick even if you have a bit of understeer

Like Gary says, increasing the castor will help the turn in, I think I've got about 4 deg castor and 3 deg camber on mine

[jdrally09]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Try harder springs on the back, say 185lbs and 230 on the front. It seems you have too much grip on the back. But it will grip well in the wet as you have it now. Also I am converting back to leaf springs with coil assist. Seems to be the way forward now, especially with a heavy thick tubed atlas axle.

[Roadsport]

Re: My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

Thanks all

Gary, we are running compression struts and no anti-rollbar. It was set to 3 degrees caster and 1.5 degrees neg camber before we dropped the front. We didn't measure it afterwards though.

You should probaply re-measure the angles. They do change when lowering the suspension. Thay could be off now.

Also I'd think of installing an stabilazer to the front. It helps especially when some ammount of caster is applied.