E30 Rally Car

In reply to Berck :

Congrats and well earned- I was watching the live timing to see you finish the last stage, great to see you get through the notoriously difficult Rally Colorado after the issues you had there the last couple years. 

Congrats on the finish at a tough rally!

Woohoo, made Rupert's GRM sticker photo of the day!

nice!

nice!

Congrats on the finish! It was great to see a handful of RWD cars out there!

I was working Start at both Valley of the Gods and Dragon's Trail. When Bret rolled, we got very little information over the radio - we actually got more info from the competitor sitting at start with us from their RallySafe. As for the regroup at Dragon's Trail on Sunday morning - we were confused to, but also just doing as directed from control. It was kinda fun to have our own little private Parc Expose in the canyons

Added a roof scoop.  Tried out the lights that came with the car.  Looks more like a rally car like this:

The roof scoop is less impressive than I'd have imagined when it comes to airflow.  It does nothing unless I crack the window, then it's fine.  But if I then turn on the defrost fan, all airflow from the scoop stops.  That tells me I was getting more pressurization from the fan than I would from the scoop.  This was at 45mph, but I'm slow.

I was hoping to go rally in Tennessee this year, but my co-driver isn't up for it.  Thus the light experimentation since there's apparently a night stage going on in Tennessee.  It's on a track, so presumably the ancient hellas would be sufficient.  For real stages, I probably need something modern.  Also, you can't even open the hood with those hellas there.

I would just slap a giant diode dynamics light bar on the hood, but... rules: "A headlight shall be considered as any lighting device throwing a beam toward the front of the vehicle (low-beam, high-beam, fog lamp). Auxiliary headlights may be installed. These lights may be fitted into the bumpers, radiator grillwork or the front part of the bodywork, provided that such openings as needed in this case are completely filled by the lights fitted. All auxiliary lights shall be mounted no higher than the top of the hood."

I notice plenty of folks are installing light bars on their hoods, but modern cars have very slopey hoods so I guess if you mount something on the front of the hood it's still lower than the top of the back of the hood?  I have no such advantage with my very flat hood.

Or maybe the rule is such that you can mount them on the top of the hood, but the lights can stick up higher?  It's a bit vague.

That scoop may be too far back to get good pressure with the big flat windshield the e30 has, not sure though.  Mine provides quite a lot of airflow once you get moving, and I think it's the same external dimensions.

The light rule is, I think, primarily to keep people from running super high mounted (roof) lightbars, or to keep them from blocking their own vision.  I haven't heard of a car being dinged for it since ARA has been ARA.

Rats.  I was wondering if that's the issue, as well.  It's as far forward as I could get it.  Any farther forward and the interior section would hit the front bar of the cage.  I think it's exactly the same one that you have.  It's just fiberglass, so I could probably modify the intake section to reach farther forward.  But I'm not sure I could possibly remove it without destroying it, given the amount of windshield adhesive I used.

I guess I could mount a light bar as low as I can go on the front of the hood and see if anyone complains.  Also, if the lights aren't mounted for tech, I suppose it's even harder for them to complain?

Actually, thinking about it some more, since it's two-piece, I only need to remove the top piece to extend it forward.  There's adhesive there too (particularly along the back, because the fitment was terrible), but it should slice cleanly.

Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing announced that for the last race of the season (at Pueblo), they'd let any logbooked race car join.  The wife asked if she could drive the rally car.  After thinking about a bit, I decided, "Why not?"

It's got an SCCA logbook that doesn't actually mention it's a rally car.  I dropped the suspension as low as it'd go, slapped some Miata wheels that already had NT-01s on it, and ajusted the seating position for her.  I don't have any sway bars, and the welded diff is a terrible idea on pavement...

I had some 15mm spacers, but that wasn't enough for the front wheels.  So I ordered some 25mm spacers, but it turns out those weren't enough either.  So I stacked two 15mm in the front and put the 25mm spacers in the rear and that worked.  (I've got 90mm studs, so plenty of grip.)

So, there's the rally car, pretending to be a road racer.  Nothing broke, the car performed flawlessly, and the wife had a blast.  They put her in small bore, and she finished ahead of a half-dozen spridgets.  (The photo is from a practice session, she didn't actually have to race against the Factory Five Cobra, which was also there in response to the any logbooked car invitation...)