Something something lurking for years, now finally making a build thread.
My wife and I recently purchased a used stage rally car. We've been rallycrossing in the DC and Susquehanna regions for the last 4 years with the goal of graduating to stage rally. We still plan on rallycrossing as well as rally sprint this coming year while bringing the car back up to spec.
The good: The car is a '93 chassis, with '01RS motor, trans, and wiring (all of it, for minimal hackery). Mechanically it's great, runs well, stops, turns, etc. Shifter is very short and crisp. Stage 1 clutch and lightweight flywheel only have 3 events on them. Long tube headers, cams, EJ253(?) valve springs.
The Bad: Not much, honestly. Needs a bunch of things to be stage legal again, but nothing is actually broken or terribly sketchy.
The Ugly: Cosmetically, it's a rally car that's been sent over jumps hard enough to lawn dart the front end into the ground. Put on it's roof once, the current roof skin is not original. Then laid on it's side, cracking the bondo from aforementioned rollover. Rockers are beaten all the way in. Various other dents and things.
Obligatory gas station trailer photo:
What it needs:
Seats, harnesses, fire suppression, rally safe wiring, map light, intercom, etc.
Front end pulled back out so that there are the least number of caveats to working on the car in service as possible.
Currently, the lower rad hose has a hose clamp in the middle to keep it from kinking shut. I'd likely be okay with this after we get a bunch of rallies, but for starting out I'll be following the Keep It Stupid Simple methodology.
What's been done:
Installed a non cracked dash cubby lid.
Fixed a non-start issue that turned out to be the aftermarket negative terminal block. Which had intermittent connection through the black paint they seem to come covered in. Solution was sand the paint off the contact areas.
Removed headlights, front bumper/crash beam, radiator on request of body shop.
Took it to the body shop this morning to have the front pulled. Depending on how the work goes, I'll probably be back at some point. They often have a couple E30s and caged track cars in the mix of the couple dozen Porsches and Mercedes.
Equally obligatory past life jump photo:
A lot of rally wins in the history of that car :) First rally we ever did (WM Winter Rally) they took 1st overall, for that matter.
Pretty sure Kimmett was in the right-hand seat for a lot of them (and Jason Smith, and probably Jared Lantzy)
Side note: drive that car through Wellsboro, PA and all the local ladies will chase after you, thinking you're Jon Kramer lol.
Side note 2: It actually started its rally life with DC Rallycross. Here's a decade ago, at Summit Point
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
We love the history and the photos of this car that keep popping up, thanks!
The car will be making its return to DC Rallycross after a long hiatus next season. We won't have seats and harnesses in time for the last event this October, but the Nugget will be back out as usual.
RustBucketLegacy said:
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
We love the history and the photos of this car that keep popping up, thanks!
The car will be making its return to DC Rallycross after a long hiatus next season. We won't have seats and harnesses in time for the last event this October, but the Nugget will be back out as usual.
If you friend Kramer on FB, there's about 1000 photos of it on his page going back 10+ years, lol.
Here's some real history of the car:
also, had me confused for a sec thinking this was Joe and Carolina (who also run with DC, are also a couple, were also looking for a turnkey rally car, and sold their rallycross car last week, so they must have found one as well).
I assume I am not crazy and this is Andrew/Julia, yes? How appropriate to buy the old *Heavy Metal* car ;)
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
I'll have to check if I'm friends with Kramer or not on FB.
And yes, this is Andrew and Julia. I agree, still need to ask him for a few stickers... both because it's a great team name (and we both like metal), but also to honor its roots when we change its livery 
Car is home from the body shop!
They pulled the bottom of the core support back out 2 inches and straightened out the frame rails as best they could without cutting them open.
Which explains the half inch of clearance between the radiator fan and the timing cover.
Still need to put the front end back together, but hopefully things line up better than before without too much additional hammering.
We'll try to get the inside cleaned up and the front back together this weekend.
Also, the body shop has a purple crack dealer next door... My kind of neighborhood
Very cool that they could just yank the core support back out for you- any plans to reinforce it to keep it there?
Also, how many events are in this thing's logbook? I'm gonna guess something like 35?
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Probably going to leave it as is for now. If we booger it up again I'll consider reinforcing it, or putting a non squished front end on it.
Pretty close, 27 events on the logbook: 4 with Petrow, 23 with Kramer
Over the weekend:
Got the tag light mounted in the center with a brighter bulb
Made 2 hood stops out of 1 broken hood stop and duct tape to keep the hood from contacting the radiator
Slow but steady progress. We have a bunch of parts that have now come in (seats, rallysafe wiring, intercom, etc) that will be installed after I find time to grind out and repaint some surface rust and clean some general crud off the interior. Also waiting until we get temple bars added back in sometime in late November.
Due to STPR (original goal) being dropped from the national circuit in 2023, our target event for next year has been bumped up to Southern Ohio Forest Rally in June. Hopefully we'll have enough rally sprints and rallycross to feel comfortable in the car by then.
Keeping old rally cars alive. I love it.
In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :
We're trying!
RustBucketLegacy said:
Over the weekend:
Got the tag light mounted in the center with a brighter bulb
Made 2 hood stops out of 1 broken hood stop and duct tape to keep the hood from contacting the radiator
Slow but steady progress. We have a bunch of parts that have now come in (seats, rallysafe wiring, intercom, etc) that will be installed after I find time to grind out and repaint some surface rust and clean some general crud off the interior. Also waiting until we get temple bars added back in sometime in late November.
Due to STPR (original goal) being dropped from the national circuit in 2023, our target event for next year has been bumped up to Southern Ohio Forest Rally in June. Hopefully we'll have enough rally sprints and rallycross to feel comfortable in the car by then.
I wouldn't sweat "national circuit" as anything meaningful unless you intend to go for a championship or something. Really, all national events mean is that you're going to finish even further back and that absolutely nobody there will care about you because they're all busy drooling over SRT and Ken Block lol. We're doing Bristol Forest Rally next year (a super-regional) and may well still do STPR, because it's close, it's fun, and it's not the crystal meth capitol of Ohio. And also, it's the "local" rally and needs the support of the locals to get back to national status, honestly.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
I mostly meant it's not scheduled at all which means it's hard to plan for. If it does end up as a regional and we can swing it, we'll try to go for the reasons you mentioned
RustBucketLegacy said:
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
I mostly meant it's not scheduled at all which means it's hard to plan for. If it does end up as a regional and we can swing it, we'll try to go for the reasons you mentioned
ah, didn't realize it wasn't scheduled at all yet. Shows how much I actually pay attention to the rally world other than what I'm directly entered in lol.
The seemingly monthly update:
Finally had time to make on Friday to knoack a few things off the list.
Made a seat bracket template out of cardboard. All drawings must be signed off by inspector Bean.
Seats installed, went with Momo Daytonas b/c a bunch of people we know run them and like them. This also meant we could sit ion them and know they fit.
Managed to band clamp an exhaust to the car which ended up being about 8 inches too long but still sealed enough to evict some of the mouse house that had been made in the muffler. The rest ended up in on the ground when unloading and even more in after the exhaust was finished landed in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 's shop... Sorry about that
Spent the weekend at ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 's place and the venerable 9HIO added temple bars and sub-belt mounting bars. In addition to making the available exhaust usable. TBD if the wrx catback is loud enough.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Thanks for taking that picture. Literally the first time I drove it not on or off a trailer
Finally had a chance to work on the car again. Pulled the codriver footrest out and found gobs of mud behind it. Scraped out a bunch of the old aluminum tape barely holding on over a lot floor holes. Plan is to grind out surface rust, primer, new tape, then paint again.
Also spent a couple hours working out how I wanted the spare tire tie downs to work. After the picture below I ended up moving the passenger eye bolt farther up to reduce the chance the tire would get loose and end up in the cabin. Still need to paint the new holes and take care of other crusty bits in the back before painting it (again, this thing has like 3 layers of paint already).
You can also see more prime examples of zip-tie engineering with the harness holding the tag light on.
lol, aluminum tape is a key go-to for chassis holes! I've used much of it for years (though I eventually welded them all up).
