What brakes do you have fitted , if everything is free there would be no reason for them not to work , apart from not bled properly

 

Genius!

 

AP 6pot. I got a set of pads from you a few months ago if you remember
I believe they are bled properly, but I will check

 

I know it sounds obvious but did you bleed both the inner and outer bleed nipples , and that the nipples are at the top of the caliper not the bottom ?
Sorry if i'm teaching you to suck eggs but you'd be surprised by the amount of people that do that lol

Cheers Ian

 

Ummm, now I feel stupid, I only bled the outer!!! What a dumb ***!!!

 

Thanks Ian, hopefully that issue is now solved

 

Dumb ***

yes that will fix it

 

Great brakes and great advices hahaha

 

Did a few mods









Remapped on Sunoco 102

Swapped springs for slightly softer ones, stiffened up the rear roll bar.
Fitted RCM oil catch can.

Gave it a much needed wash

Then trundled off to Bovington Stages in convoy with my mate to give it a blast

 

Bovinton Stages

Stage 1 was slippery, spitting with rain and ground was wet. I had no experience of the place and my nav had only done 1/2 mile there. Took it steady and brought the car back unscathed setting 6th fastest time, well happy as I thought it was really slow!

Stage 2 was drying out, loads more grip and we knew where we were going a bit better, I was pushing on but not too hard, I wanted to make it to the end. We set 7th fastest time and dropped to 7th overall.

Stage 3 was dry and we were on new slicks, I was fired up, I knew where I could make up lots of time as I lifted in several places that were easily flat and brakes very early in a few places.
Off the startline, tried to pull 5th and something in the box broke, possibly the selector, box was stuck in 5th. Tried to nurse the car back to service but the clutch wasn't having any of it and gave up a few miles down the road. Stopped on stage and walked back to service bitterly disappointed, I was just getting my teeth into it 😠

 

what box you running

 

6 speed dccd

 

not sure if it will be the same but we had a lot of trouble when we started a few years back with selector forks bending

the mod that cured it was to drill and tap the box casting and put 2 jacking screw through to support the selector rods

that was on the 5 speed = trouble was the first few times it did it when you broke the box apart they would snap back to the correct position - the 3rd time we hole sawed the box up to find it

 

Hole sawed the box up! Love it.

The interlock arm (no 5 in the diagram) broke

 

good you found it without too much trouble

 

It wasn't too bad, I just stripped the box down until I found it, everything else looks ok, I'm glad the bit that chipped off didn't go through any gears.
The replacement part was £50 from TEG.
I'm using a shorter ratio box now, 5th and 6th were the long ones and a bit much for most stages, so this one will be up for sale once rebuilt and checked

 

Tom just read this good to see the car out and running. I have kept the front bumper bar on my car, all be it lightened a bit, and I only had to chop a little bit out to allow me to bring the inter cooler pipes out under the headlights. Not sure if the RA bumper bar is different.

 

Hey Arch, nice, one, the bumper really needs some support or it just falls down, and it's a good thing to mount the intercooler off. Do you have any pics as I seem to remember when flipping it the pipes wanted to go straight through the main supports that go into the chassis legs?!

 

So after breaking part of the shifter linkage in the old box I swapped it out for a spec c box with the shorter 5th/6th. And after several discussions with various people I decided to go with the xtreme twin 200mm clutch (actually the colour sold it to me! Lol) thanks Alyn @ AS Performance for supplying it



Took the car up the road and within 5 miles and 3 hard launches the box **** itself. I havnt fully stripped it yet but believe it to be part of 5th/6th selector mechanism or 5th/6th synchro. Proper gutted, 5th/6th were so much nicer, kept the car right in the power band and was a lot more suitable for rallying.
So I rebuilt the old box and put that in just in time to do Caerwent rally

 

With the majority of issues with the car sorted I was hoping for a finish, 3rd time lucky!

We were seeded 29th which wasn't too bad



Stage 1, wow the place is tight and curbs everywhere! 11mile stage was awesome, nice to get your teeth into but hard to learn and so many curbs, stones and painted breeze blocks to watch out for, you'd be lucky to get away with a mistake here. We set 20th fastest time which I was really happy with as lots of locals doing the event. My co driver knew the place really well and gave some great advice, I can't thank him enough, proper good lad, encouraging as well as calming, he made a massive difference

Stage 2 was exactly the same and we took 40seconds out of our first stage time, climbing up the leader board.

Stage 3 was cancelled due to an accident, I believe the crew are ok but the co driver had to be rushed to hospital. I hope she makes a speedy recovery and it out again soon.

Stage 4 was slightly different to stage 1 & 2, we set a good time and climbed up another position.

Stage 5 was different again, again we set a good time and were just a few seconds outside the top 10

Stage 6 was the same as 5 and we decided to make a push for the top 10, although we wanted to make the finish too, so it was a bit of a balancing act. I loved driving the stage, pushing the car hard but being sensible about where. The tyres didn't feel as good a earlier in the day, I think they overheated fairly quickly which hindered the rest of the run. We took 9 seconds off stage 5 time and we were hoping that was enough to move us up into the top 10, but unfortunately wasn't quite good enough, we finished 11th overall and 2nd in class.

Throughout the day the car had only suffered minor injuries, in the form of tyre sidewall 'buldges' which we think were caused by clipping curbs, but this meant throwing them away and using the spares. The tyres were new, so didn't last very long and think I will be using another brand from now on. They defiantly went off toward the end of the day even though they were brand new, maybe a slightly harder compound would have been better in the afternoon when the temperature was higher.

Thanks to everyone that helped out, the pit crew were great. And a big thanks to the impreza type r driver who sold me some fuel as I nearly ran out! Sorry about your engine, hopefully see you out competing again soon

 

Any updates mate ?

 

I did 7 rallies in total, finished 2 of them. Reliability is shocking, so I'm building a better car, check out my other thread in projects.
To summarize 2015 - Car is fast but doesn't last
Broke the internal gear linkage in 2 6speed's
Snapped 4 rear driveshafts
And had a crazy electrical issue
Every time I've retired it's been from a top 10 position, the last event we did we were in second place in front an ex works nissan when the gear linkage snapped
The overall package is about 1-2secs a mile off the ex WRC cars I've been up against.
So the next car will have a better suspension/chassis setup (I hope!), be lighter, have a sequential box and will run a little more boost on a slightly higher compression ratio. It will be interesting to see if it makes much of a difference