Matt
Admin
Admin
| Posts: 485 |  |
|
Project Car - 2007/08/29 11:38
The time has come to update the age of our shell. The problem isn't that the 2001 chassis is bad, no, I'd still say it's better than the newer subaru chassis. The porblem is that noone is willing to believe that our 2001 is one of the most cutting edge rally cars in the US. I'm not talking about you well informed paladin rally fans, I'm talking about uninformed people who are more concerned about image than reality. Unfortunatly there are way more uninformed people than informed people.
So I'be been stending a lot of time latley investigating a larger number to put in the box marked "year". There have been a tone of cars that I've looked at. They have to fufill a few cheriteria to be worth while rally car canidates.
1) All Wheel Drive. 2 wheel drive can be converted to all wheel drive, but it's a heck of adevelopment project. Also, the car should be about 250-300 HP. This goes in the AWD department because there are some 4wd cars with 160 hp, with the cutest, most fragile 4wd systems you've ever seen.
2) Forced induction. Developing a motor is fun. However, one of the few open class rules is that the motor must come from a product line offered by the manufacturer of the car. It is really easy to turbocharge ANY motor, but not too many will survive it. atleast with a already turbocharged motor, you don't have as much reinforcing of the block that you need to do. Aditionally, I read that early Lotus's blew by their intake valve seats when they were first turboed. That's a nightmare!
3) a 100 inch Wheel base. 100 is the lucky number. Bigger is a boat and won't turn. Smaller than 90 is a little unstable too. Engineering around these is all about active diffs, which is a heck of a development project.
4)Price. Cheap is always better.
Now some examples of prime canidates , and why they own't work.
1. The 2008 Audi TT coup. This car is a beautifull match! 250 HP AWD, a 2.0 Turbo Model, 97 inch wheel base, wider and lighter than an STI. And I love the look. I'd practically signed the paperwork before I realized that the chassis are made of aluminum. I bet an aluminum cage would be really light. I don't think I could make it work, but it would be really light.
2. The 2008 SAAB 9-2x. The saabaru, bastard child of Saab and Subaru. It's a bissar genetic experiment resulting from some GM mad scientist. This car is a subaru WRX with a Saab nose, and a luxury interior. This would be a truly unusual, and beautifully simple rally car build. The down side, there is no 2008 model. Saab stopped production of this despised model as soon as the company could in 2006. Only about 10,000 total were ever sold. To get into this car would be getting into a dead end like few others. I can almost hear the executives of both manufactures grinding their teeth at the idea.
3. Porsche Carrera 4. A really swell car for 75,000  http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/coupes/0103_carrera_4_impreza_wrx/index.html The author of this article should take up a career in poetry, horrible, horrible, poetry.
4. Saturn Ion. Right wheelbase, 103, good price, I'm not sure what happened to the Saturn Redline but atleast theres is a 2.0liter turbo motor in the Saturn Family (Sky redline), the AWD would have to be developed. In the end it's just a bit too much of a pain to do without factory help.
So in the end the old standbys (subaru and Mistubishi) are rallyed for a reason. I'm still looking into other manufacturers, but my choices are getting slimmer and slimmer.
|
Forums
There are two of them.