GA Rally car.
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:49 pm
So... The Alpine rally is rapidly approaching and I've got three rally cars here that are variously broken, in pieces, or simply not finished - and no motivation to fix the one that's easiest to fix....
There's only one logical thing to do at a time like that: Buy another car!
I searched obessively for a month for something fairly ready to go, but there was nothing worth piddling on. A couple of interesting things came up, but either turned out to be less-than-promised, or were sold very quickly.*
I ended up dragging home a GA khanacross car. It has a good weld-in cage, a CAMS log book, roof-vent, hydraulic handbrake but not much else going for it - the paintjob was horrible, the 2-litre Astron is smokey and running like a bag of pooh, no seats, the wiring is awful, etc. But the shell is solid and the price was right (less than you'd pay to have the cage fitted).
The pics tell the story:
Got it home on Saturday lunchtime. This was Saturday afternoon:
...by late Monday arvo, it looked more like this:
Its very much a jam-job respray (industrail enamel!), but it is a million times better than the "painted with a mop" paintjob it previously had.
Had a bit of time yesterday, so fitted up the tail-lights etc (with some 'help' from my daughter...):
I bought nine 200B SX alloys with rally tyres from a mate after he crashed his KE55/TE37 rally car a few years ago - they've sat around since then, but the Galant has finally given them a home.
Also fitted the old Marsh rally seats that have been hanging around since I stripped my old Volvo 164 rally car in 2008.
The navigator's seat was easy - cut the standard rear seat mounts out, and pretty much just bolt it to the floor - sits low and as far back as the rules allow, and puts the nav in between the strongest part of the cage.
The driver's one was a lot more work. I couldn't put it as far back as the nav's seat because then I couldn't reach the pedals... Mving the seat forward put it on top of the standard front mounting box section, which put my helmet hard up against the rollcage.
Solution:
There were a ton of small niggles to work through, including the need to make a spacer for the RHS-rear corner of the seat mounts because it is on the lowest point of the floor - but I got there in the end and am very happy with the strength, stiffness and comfort of the mountings. I will weld in a piece of RHS between the sill and the tunnel to replace the stiffness I lost by cutting the old one out - but I need to get the car mobile first, so I can take it to work where I can use the good welder.
The plan from here is to:
fit the 4G32 from the never-started-project rally car;
Fit the 4.875 Mazda RX-3 LSD (looks like it will bolt straight in! Slightly stronger axles, less-obscenely priced LSDs and a much wider range of ratios). Will get some 1" 4x110 to 4x114.3 adaptor plates, to avoid having mis-matched stud patterns, and to maximise the wheel-track. The Mazda diff also has Commodore rear calipers on S2 RX-7 rotors, so its an easy brake upgrade too;
Fit Ferodo DS2500 or DS3000 front pads;
Fit the Commodore front Bilsteins that are currently in a mate's RX-5 rally car (inside Sigma strut bodies);
Fit the rest of the rally gear (Terratrip, intercom, driving lights, etc);
Rewire - apparently the previous-to-previous owner was an auto electrician.... it's certainly a rat's nest of wires!
Stuff I still haven't figured out:
Rear shocks. A mate has an old GB rally car with some Bilsteins in the rear, and he's talking about going to coil-overs, so I will try to buy the Bilsteins from him;
Eh, my mind has gone blank... There's plenty more, but you get the idea.
There's only one logical thing to do at a time like that: Buy another car!
I searched obessively for a month for something fairly ready to go, but there was nothing worth piddling on. A couple of interesting things came up, but either turned out to be less-than-promised, or were sold very quickly.*
I ended up dragging home a GA khanacross car. It has a good weld-in cage, a CAMS log book, roof-vent, hydraulic handbrake but not much else going for it - the paintjob was horrible, the 2-litre Astron is smokey and running like a bag of pooh, no seats, the wiring is awful, etc. But the shell is solid and the price was right (less than you'd pay to have the cage fitted).
The pics tell the story:
Got it home on Saturday lunchtime. This was Saturday afternoon:
...by late Monday arvo, it looked more like this:
Its very much a jam-job respray (industrail enamel!), but it is a million times better than the "painted with a mop" paintjob it previously had.
Had a bit of time yesterday, so fitted up the tail-lights etc (with some 'help' from my daughter...):
I bought nine 200B SX alloys with rally tyres from a mate after he crashed his KE55/TE37 rally car a few years ago - they've sat around since then, but the Galant has finally given them a home.
Also fitted the old Marsh rally seats that have been hanging around since I stripped my old Volvo 164 rally car in 2008.
The navigator's seat was easy - cut the standard rear seat mounts out, and pretty much just bolt it to the floor - sits low and as far back as the rules allow, and puts the nav in between the strongest part of the cage.
The driver's one was a lot more work. I couldn't put it as far back as the nav's seat because then I couldn't reach the pedals... Mving the seat forward put it on top of the standard front mounting box section, which put my helmet hard up against the rollcage.
Solution:
There were a ton of small niggles to work through, including the need to make a spacer for the RHS-rear corner of the seat mounts because it is on the lowest point of the floor - but I got there in the end and am very happy with the strength, stiffness and comfort of the mountings. I will weld in a piece of RHS between the sill and the tunnel to replace the stiffness I lost by cutting the old one out - but I need to get the car mobile first, so I can take it to work where I can use the good welder.
The plan from here is to:
fit the 4G32 from the never-started-project rally car;
Fit the 4.875 Mazda RX-3 LSD (looks like it will bolt straight in! Slightly stronger axles, less-obscenely priced LSDs and a much wider range of ratios). Will get some 1" 4x110 to 4x114.3 adaptor plates, to avoid having mis-matched stud patterns, and to maximise the wheel-track. The Mazda diff also has Commodore rear calipers on S2 RX-7 rotors, so its an easy brake upgrade too;
Fit Ferodo DS2500 or DS3000 front pads;
Fit the Commodore front Bilsteins that are currently in a mate's RX-5 rally car (inside Sigma strut bodies);
Fit the rest of the rally gear (Terratrip, intercom, driving lights, etc);
Rewire - apparently the previous-to-previous owner was an auto electrician.... it's certainly a rat's nest of wires!
Stuff I still haven't figured out:
Rear shocks. A mate has an old GB rally car with some Bilsteins in the rear, and he's talking about going to coil-overs, so I will try to buy the Bilsteins from him;
Eh, my mind has gone blank... There's plenty more, but you get the idea.
.... albeit with one of John Rawson's "spring-type" LSDs
