Club Arnage

Hi guys,

            In one of those seemingly rare moments of time these days, just to let you know that the blue beastie had its first competitive outing in Radnor forest weekend before last as it was the first round of the British Off Road Championship this year which we have entered.   End result with our diminutive 2.5 concrete mixer turbo diesel up against the big boys running 3.5s, 4.6s and 5.7s was a creditable 18th overall from about 56 entrants, and the extra points from a delightful class win leave us placed 10th in the overall championship standings after the first round.   Very pleasing stuff, and for those that can remember a few months, who kindly provided advice on uprating the automatic gearbox - thanks very much for the steers and contacts.   Connecting the kickdown cable, feeding it with Red Line ATF fluid and breathing on the torque convertor served up an absolute treat - goes like a scalded cat with a firework up its ar*e off the line, pulls like a train in all the gears. including the high ratio ovverdrive fourth.   So job's a goodun.   A couple of pictures of us in action are at:

http://www.concept-photos.co.uk/gallery/folderview.asp?gallery=motor%20sport&folder=british%20off%20road%20champs%20radnor%202005%20page%201&page=1#gal
 (http://www.concept-photos.co.uk/gallery/folderview.asp?gallery=motor%20sport&folder=british%20off%20road%20champs%20radnor%202005%20page%201&page=1#gal)
 
http://www.concept-photos.co.uk/gallery/folderview.asp?gallery=motor%20sport&folder=british%20off%20road%20champs%20radnor%202005%20page%202&i=0019.jpg&page=4#gal (http://www.concept-photos.co.uk/gallery/folderview.asp?gallery=motor%20sport&folder=british%20off%20road%20champs%20radnor%202005%20page%202&i=0019.jpg&page=4#gal)

Future championship rounds are on both Sat and Sun at each event, which are at Ellesmere in early June, Lockerbie in early July, Tunbridge Wells in September and Driffield in Yorkshire at the end of October - details of dates and directions to the venues are at http://www.britishoffroadchampionship.co.uk/ (http://www.britishoffroadchampionship.co.uk/), so if anyone is interested, come and say hi in the paddock to us in number 30.   All the best for now and looking forward to Le Mans in the MGA,

Mark

Well done Mark, will there be an off-road course at the track day?  ;)

Given the general lack of gradients in East Anglia, only for those that decide to investigate the scenery around the track on unplanned excursions............. ;)

Maybe I'll catch up with you at Tunbridge Wells in September after LM Mark. We can always lend you Trayboy if you wish as his specific gravity will definately help your traction.
Rusty

Mark, will try to make it to Tunbridge event if possible. Can't see any CA stickers on your beast tho!

Andy - more to do with the fact that (aside from dealing with the usual grmelins the day before the event) the paint had only been drying the night before - one day we will learn that the 4 months from season end to season start all need to be used to do stuff, rather than spending the first couple of months just pondering what to do next....... ;D ;D

Mark

Hi all,

         I know that we are all concentrating/building up to the great event, but if anyone fancies a change by catching Round 2 of the championship and is in the area, we will be at Lodgewood Park (formerly Park Hall Farm) near Ellesmere (between Shrewsbury and Wrexham) this weekend, racing on the Saturday and Sunday.   Actual location is to head north from Ellesmere towards Wrexham - one mile out from the derestriction signs turn right towards Penley, from which point the turnings will be signposted.   Car number 30 is us, so if you come, do trundle over and say hi in the paddock.   All the best,

Mark

Would you come next march at le Mans for a demonstration of your beast at our 4th 4Wd festival ?  :D

Hi all,

        Well, the BORC Round 2 was an entertaining weekend in some nice weather over at Ellesmere - thanks to Gordon from CA who called by and had a chat - nice to see you and thanks for your support.   The course was a mixture of fast field sections, some varied woodland, and one forest section where the tracks were covered in bark and wood chippings that rutted up into unpredictable humps/dips and "washboards".   The latter made for some interesting flying lessons at speed in mid-forest, tested the suspension to say the least, and went well beyond acceptable limits of being shaken around in the car!   Overall, a slightly disappointing finish, with 2nd in class and 25th overall from 54 starters, caused by scoring a maximum time on one round, where we lost around five and a half minutes.   Our ignition power just cut out completely part way round on the second run out of ten, leaving us pissed off and stranded until we traced it eventually to the internals of the switch breaking (thanks a bunch Demon Tweeks!).   Back on course, we managed to make up time hand over fist to get back up the board and one more run would have secured a second class win, but that's racing unfortunately.   Anyway, a simple enough problem to fix and at least it wasn't major enough to stuff up the whole round.   Next round up near Lockerbie in Scotland on the first weekend in July, but we'll all have been to LE Mans by then - Hurrah!!!

MG Mark

Gilles,

         Sounds interesting - please PM me some more details about the event.

MG Mark

BUGGER!!! Why didn't I read this earlier.  ???And  I was in Shrewsbury over the weekend!  :(

Andy,

         Sorry -  didn't think of posting a reminder until late on Thursday evening - were you and the mighty Commer at the vintage car show thing we saw signs for near Shrewsbury?   Piccy of us on one of the forest sections to show you what you missed......

Mark

Mark, she's a beauty no mistake!

No, didn't hear about the classic car show either. I was up there staying with my brother for the weekend. He is a 4x4 nut too, although his is a bit bigger than yours!

Andy,

        Now that is a tractor.......tyres like that would be nice but sadly we have to run with a control tyre.   Front view of the beastie exiting one of the wood sections yesterday is below - beauty is pretty definitely in the beholder though ::).   Shame you misssed it - never mind, tunbrisdge wells is on September.

Mark

Yes it certainly was an interesting days motor sport, a shame you never got the class win Mark. I trust it wasn't the car I helped push back onto its wheels that robbed you, if it was I would have taken longer to tip it back on all four!!! Hope to see you in the Poo bar on Saturday, Gordon.

Dear All,

             Just a reminder that this weekend is Round 3 of the BORC up in the forest at Castle O'er near Lockerbie (just into Scotland).   So if anyone is around that area and fancies coming along and watching the racing, then please do and introduce yourself in the paddock - Car Number 30.  All the best,

MG Mark

Hi all,

          Back from an alternately sunny/rainy/windy Scotland near Lockerbie and a jolly successful weekend's racing  ;D ;D ;D.   Round 3 had less of a true off-road flavour, although there were still plenty of muddy/rocky bits, but an 8.5 mile course along very fast, sweeping gravel tracks gave us a new challenge in constantly changing conditions, ranging from skating rink to total grip from one corner to the next.   The watchword was that old adage of "to finish first, first you have to finish".   A number of competitors failed to remember that as they threw themselves and their cars into various parts of the Scottish scenery on the early runs - thankfully no injuries, but some spectacularly (and expensively) wrecked machinery resulted.   We ran quickly in the right places and reliably throughout this time, ending up with another class win and 10th overall for the weekend.   Not bad for our little diesel and with the extra points from the class win, we are now at the rareified position of 7th in the championship.   Next round is at Tunbridge Wells on 10/11 September - I'll post details of location nearer the time.  

MG Mark

Sounds like a cool head and a bit of forward thinking was the order of the day. 7th overall eh? Very well done!

Andy,

          Thanks - it did seem to pay off for us in the right places!   And a bit of luck too.   Only one of our runs resulted in any damage from an inconsiderately placed/part-submerged rock, which we had avoided all of Day one (because we didn't know it was there....), only for the organisers to mark it with a dayglo arrow on day two because of the numbers sustaining punctures from it - of course, it then acted like a bloody force field magnet.   Thankfully no puncture, but we knew at the time that we had hit it and sustained some damage, but carried on as all the systems were working, although the handling had turned into something akin to driving a Mk II Escort on a rally stage with bags of tail out/opposite lock stuff, which is normally nigh on impossible in a 4WD.   After my earlier motivational messages to my driver, I just thought he was being particularly committed at the time.....   Didn't affect our time unduly, but when we climbed out at the end of that run we found a chunk out of the tyre sidewall, a bent wheel rim and a very bent Panhard link rod - no wonder the run felt decidedly weird.

MG Mark

Congrats Mark.  Less haste, more speed eh!

Hi all,

          Sorry to say that those of you who might have been planning on watching off-road racing at Tunbridge Wells in Kent on 10/11 September will sadly find none there.   Not sure why but that venue has been cancelled, so we are now racing that weekend at Driffield to the east of York.   Sorry for anyone planning to see us in Kent that weekend, but anyone up York way that weekend, more than welcome to come over and see us on the paddock (race number 30).   All the best for now,

Mark

Hi all,

        Well, Tunbridge Wells turned into Driffield because the organisers weren't able to satisfy the requirements of the land owners re damage etc, despite them wanting us to come and compete there.   Never mind - the MOD driver training area at Driffiled (on the 800+ acres of the old RAF Driffield airfield) was an excellent course.   The Army have been there a while, so there were loads of humps, jumps, mini-mountains and quarries to negotiate.   12 runs were made over the 6-mile course, on mixed tarmac, gravel, hard track, soft mud and water.   Unsurprisingly, it was a dirty weekend.   The only major drama we had was when the electrics died completely following a brief christmas tree display of warning lights - thankfully it happened moments before we were about to start a run, so were able to push out, fix the snag (earthing) and incur no penalty.   A puncture on one run and an overheating problem on another caused by yet another electrical gremlin didn't drop us down the order unduly, and we ended the weekend with another class win and 9th position overall.   Happy days - good piccy of us flying without wings is at:

http://www.cautionovercrest.com/Rallies2005/BORC_RD4/Car%20030-11%20BORC%202005%20Driffield.jpg

Next and last round is at the Sweet Lamb rally stage in Wales on the last weekend of October for anyone hardy enough to brave the elements at that time of year - with a bit of luck, we should be on for a final class win and an overall top ten finish in the championship.   All the best for now,

MG Mark

Enjoying it whilst we can ;D ;D (thinking of the other current thread at the mopment!)   The last round of this year's BORC is at Sweet Lamb on the Saturday and Sunday of the last weekend in October in 2 weeks time.   Even with "dropped worst round" scoring system, I think that the championship class win is in the bag come what may, and a good result should see us finishing inside the top ten with a bit of luck.   anyone over that way or fancies a bit of end-of-seasojn motorsport, that's where we will be.

MG Mark

Err...where is Sweet Lamb? Wales somewhere???  ;D

Indeed it is - pretty much west central Wales near Llangurig

http://www.sweetlamb.co.uk/geninfo.htm

MG Mark

Well, that’s the last championship round completed, over a very windy and wet weekend at the Sweet Lamb rally complex in Wales, clearing up only for the last few hours of Sunday.   Certainly it didn’t start particularly well for us, with a late afternoon arrival following traffic jams on the way over meaning that we only got to walk the first third of the course before it got dark, leaving the prospect of driving the remainder of it blind on the first run on the Saturday.   As it was the end of the season, we had treated ourselves to the nearest hotel rooms, about 5 miles away - sadly, the road from Sweet Lamb to the hotel was firmly closed by the police as there had been a bad accident, leaving us with 2-hour, 76-mile detour to get to the hotel......still, at least we got there before the bar shut. :)   

Great to see fellow CA’ers Dan Lowe and Rick Cutler come up for the weekend to spectate and drink beer.   We even managed to persuade Dan Lowe to be installed in my co-driver’s seat for one of the runs; mind you, he didn’t need much persuading  :o the broad smile at the end of it spoke volumes ;D.     

On to the racing, and a testing, very fast course was run over 7 miles, with a real mixed bag of gravel tracks, open moors (for which read bogs) with a couple of small “quarry” sections and 2 river crossings, all up and down some serious gradients over a 1,500 foot height range - of course, the recent weather ensured that there was plenty of water and plenty of mud.   The first two runs on the Saturday were entertaining, with reasonable times.   The course was easy to learn quickly, but we had what appeared to be a fuel starvation problem at the end of a long 2-mile drag uphill, with a few hundred yards of very slippery mud towards the end of it.   The engine decided to revert to idle  >:( thus losing drive for about 5-15 seconds, in the same place at the top of that long uphill section on each run - it seemed to be resolved by cleaning some muck out of the fuel filters and replacing a dysfunctional breather valve.   As the problem didn’t reappear that day, the remaining 6 runs were good and quick still, and we ran well in the top ten.   

Sunday dawned with more rain and miserable grey skies, with the situation made more challenging by finding (only about 40 minutes before the first run of the day) that two of the rear radius arm bushes had disintegrated and needed replacing (yes, we should have checked more thoroughly before heading off to the hotel on Saturday, but the lure of draught Stella was too great ;)....).   Our stalwart mechanics, despite one being very unwell from the night before, played a real blinder and, despite the lack of shelter (it was too windy to put ours up) and the rain, they had both bushes replaced in under 30 minutes, allowing us to get to the start line on time for the first run of the day.   With the rain, some sections of the course had become even boggier, which sapped power from the engine and increased the running temperature, which on our first run then exposed the real root of the previous day’s problem - not fuel starvation, but a hitherto unknown water temperature sensor, integral to the engine block and linked to the ECU, that instead of cutting in at around 120 degrees was now cutting in at only 105 degrees and causing the engine to revert to safety idle mode until the temperature reduced.   So on the remaining runs, by easing off a touch going up the long uphill drag, the engine kept working and we still managed to achieve good enough times to give us second in class and 11th overall.   

We entered our first national season hoping firstly, not make fools of ourselves and, secondly, that the pinnacle would be making a top ten finish at one of the rounds.   With the result from that final round, we end the season as the British Off Road Champions for Class E (prototype, sub 3-litre) and have achieved 8th place overall in the Championship standings, so we are chuffed to bits - not bad for a little BMW 2.5 litre turbo-diesel up against the big V8s. 

Thanks for the advice on gearboxes before the season and for the various support during it.   We will be entering next season’s championship and, over the winter, will be looking to change the engine, probably for a BMW 3.0 litre diesel, which will keep us in the same class, but with a multi-valve head and considerably more power and torque than the existing lump, will pull us the notch or two needed to mix it for overall honours next year.   Now then - anyone got a spare engine lying around?   

MG Mark

Congratulations to you both.  Now you need to look out for an accident damaged 530D BMW for a suitable 'donor'.

What-ho Wing Co! Well done to you both!  :D

Excellent, well done.

It was a really good weekend. Fun had all around, even after all the beer on Sat night and the cold wet weather. We will certainly be out to see some more of these events next year and also hope to see a new 3.0l BMW engine running. Here are some more photo's for you enjoyment.

More:-

More:-

That #30 looks pretty cool.Can you tell me what it is? What type of drivetain
etc.? That thing would go great at our hunting camp. 8)

Randy,
No. 30 is the car entered by the aforementioned CA stalwart and track day organiser 'mgmark'.
The engine is a 2.5 litre BMW diesel with auto box.

Hey Randy, you should note these photo's were taken in your new county of Wales. It's a beautiful and magical place when the sun's out (not often!) but look at that weather and you can see just why the Pruetts left to go live in sunny Florida!

Thanks for the good wishes all - it has been a good season indeed.   Look forward to seeing those who can make it at events next year.

For Randy, as Steve says it is a 2.5 litre turbo-diesel from a 1995 BMW 325tds, mid-mounted with a 4-speed ZF automatic gearbox as fitted to a Range Rover, modified with a high stall torque convertor (2000rpm) connected to a Milner reverse rotation, straight-cut transfer gearbox (no differential) in which the ratios can be changed.   Engine drive kicks in at 2000rpm, which is when the turbo is starting to do its work (so no turbo lag) and it pulls all the way to 6000rpm with the autobox used as a manual shift only.   Axles are from a Range Rover, with standard diffs and halfshafts, with the radius arms mountings modified to increase the castor angle for steering lock.    Suspension is a mixture poly bush and rose joints, with Fox Pro reservoir shocks on all 4 corners (doubled at the rear).   Chassis is a Matt Lee designed spaceframe.  Steering is by racing rack and pinion, with electrically pumped power assistance.   Vented discs all round, with twin master brake cylinders and a fiddle brake working on the rear wheels as well.   Turbo running at 1-1.2 bar boost, water injection and on the last round we used Shell Racing diesel.

All the best,

MG Mark

What CD player does it have?  ???  ???

If you have nothing planned durin the '06 season, I'ld like to invite you to our next 4ws fair on 25 and 26 march.

You may do some demonstrations and/or track discoveries for newbies...

I join you a few pictures of last editions

more pictures

Smokie,
         
          I wish - It's a single track disc on permanent loop.   The main title is "engine revs and straight cut gear scream" (pitch varies neatly to engine speed) and backing tracks of "buckets of stones", "underside scrape" and "splash".   We haven't even got coffee cup holders.

MG Mark

That thing has got to be a blast to drive.

When I looked at those pics it made me think of home.Wales aahhh

6000rpm on a diesel,now that is kicking ass.

Does anyone off road a santa fe :o

Just spotted this one Mark.  Excellent result, well done to you both.

Well done! Good luck with more power

and I was wearing that smile for days  ;D

Thanks again for the opportunity to go round for a run it was amazing!!

and Congratulations on the 8th overall championship position!!

Can't wait to see the 3 litre in the back  ;D

they're two BMWs' wrecks specialists that I know in la Sarthe.

Can you please tel me which engine you would like to find...
... have you any idea of budget (I know you'ld like to answer as few as possible....)

MArk -

If you are looking for the odd BMW 330 D engine in the 205bhp spec - twin turbo etc, let me know, my comapny have had a few - injuries of late!! including an X5 D losing its life on a motorway.

No idea what they do with the lumps, but it could be a good unit ?? THe X5 unit gives out 230bhp i think. Our 330's are 205 from the 05 specs i believe.

Why not try from the 535 lump. Thats awesome and diesel.

All I know about the diesel that they require is that they want one that is less than 3000cc if it is 1cc more then they end up back at the bottom of the next class up.

Gents,

           Thanks for the thoughts re engines.   The basic criteria is that it needs to be the straight six 3.0 litre diesel (actually 2997cc) with a 4-valve per cylinder head (our existing 1994 vintage 2.5 is a two valve per cylinder head).   We know that it is the same basic block in terms of size, engine mounts etc, and most importantly, will match the existing gearbox without modification.   This will keep us in the same class, but with an extra 500cc (effectively 1 litre running at 1 bar boost) and more charge volume passing into the head and thus give us a bundle more power and torque.    The 3.0 litre has been fitted to both 3-series and 5-series, but we're not sure yet at what point the head became multi-valve, or when the electronic gubbins in the ECU become still too new to bypass/modify.   In addition, much as we'd love to go for the more modern engine from the new 535d (which is still actually 2997cc!) the electronics gubbins are still too new to bypass/modify and the twin turbo pumps out the sort of torque (414 lb/ft!) that will mean uprating/changing the gearbox, diffs, halfshafts etc.   

Robbo - thanks - I may well be in touch when I have more info.

Gilles - similarly I'll let you know, although we may well be able to find the same here.

All the best for now,

Mark

As intimated in another post, a couple of days ago we collected a 3.0 litre BMW diesel engine of the right sort of vintage and mileage (from a 2002 530d) with an ECU that can be fiddled with.   We've found a specialist BMW dismantler/spares business, who is interested in publicising their business via the vehicle and racing, so hopefully we will be able to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement.   

We now have about 3 months to get the engine modified and installed (along with the rest of the jobs that need doing) before the first round of the 2006 season.   This year's rounds are below - the dates are pretty well fixed, but the venues are still provisional - however, taking an educated guess for any of you that may wish to plan to come along,to asny of them, I suspect we will have: 

8-9 April - Radnor Forest, Wales
3-4 June - Ellsemere, Shropshire
1-2 July - Castle O'er, Scotland
9-10 September - Driffield, East Yorks
28-29 October - Sweet Lamb, Wales

Looking forward immensely to surprising the opposition with being in the same class, still with a diesel, but with sh*t loads more power and torque.   Just need to make sure that we surprise the opposition rather than ourselves with the greater speed with which we could arrive at the scene of the accident!   All the best for now,

MG Mark

Will put the dates in the Diary Mark, I expect we can make most of them. Certainly the ones south of the Scottish border.

Good news about the engine, You should leave the competition for dead with the extra power. Seeing everyone else had the 3.0 lter at Sweet Lamb and you did not I think your performance was quite unmatched.

See you soon.

Fantastic news Mark!!  ;D

A racing diesel.... it'll never catch on  ;) :P

Thanks for the good wishes guys - look forward to seeing you there ;D.   In the meantime, on with working out which 6 or 7 wires of the 60-odd coming from the ECU loom are the ones we actually need......... :-\

Mark

and we were there long before audi............ ;D

That's brave.  And with 414 ft lb I'd strengthen the chassis too.

Good luck

Dates for 2006 rounds are the same, but the venues have changed - here they are:

Round 1      April      08 /  09      DRIFFIELD - East Yorks
Round 2      June      03 /  04      ELLESMERE - Shropshire   
Round 3      July      01 /  02      CASTLE O’ER, LOCKERBIE - Scotland
Round 4      September   09 /  10      RADNOR FOREST - Wales
Round 5      October      28 /  29      HAFREN FOREST - Wales

MG Mark

Dear all,

            Just to let you know of progress so far leading up to Round One of the 2006 season at Driffield on 8/9 April.   The new (at least new to us) BMW 3.0 litre diesel (hey, we were there before Audi...) engine has been in and out of the car a few times sorting out the plumbing, mounting, modifications etc.   It is now back in the car for the final time, mid-way through being wired in - may even get it fired up for the first time this weekend with a bit of luck   The rebuilt/modified gearbox is immaculate and built to withstand the substantial increase in power and torque.   If anyone needs to know how to re-engineer a ZF HP22 box (non-electronic) using the internals from the much beefier ZF HP24 box (electronic) without bringing all of the electronic gubbins with it, then we know a man who does.   We shall see how the diffs and halfshafts stand up to it all, but running an automatic transmission will help cushion the loads.   The suspension still has to go back together, but at least that is a straightforward "put back what come off".   Although we are, to put it kindly, a tad short of time before round one, we should be there and running under our own steam all being well.    All the best for now,

MG Mark

As of yesterday afternoon at 1500hrs, ladies and gentlemen, we have a working race car... fully wired and plumbed in, fuel system bled and engine fired up first time.    Makes all the right noises except in the turbo department, where it makes a mixture of squealing pig, clatter clatter, and grining noises - exchange turbo unit beng delivered tomorrow and them we're set to go.   Pre-season testing will probably consist of driving it round the yard and on/off the trailer.....

MG Mark

Check your oil system for debris,when a turbo brg/impeller shaft go bad it can pollute the oil.Good to hear it is all systems are go.How bout some pics?

Picture taken at Sweet Lamb rally complex last October, It had the old engine then though.

Just realised I posted that picture on Page Three of this thread. (No Sun jokes please!)

I meant pics of the engine swap.Etc.

I don't have any pictures of the new engine, have to leave that to Mark.

Dismantling the knackered turbo did not reveal any internal damage to the impeller or fins, and the noise it was making was very much a bearing thing, however, we will be doing a precautionary oil change just to make sure.   I'll take the camera this weekend and post some pics next week- just with the way the engine goes in, how it is packaged and where the ancillaries sit compared to the 2.5, it's a neater looking and more compact installation, which has also allowed us to refine the intercooler/radiator insatllation which should provide us with even better cooling capacity.   

MG Mark

Sounds great,looking forward to the pics.

Just curiuos though.Will you be able to use a variable waste gate on the turbo.

The racing you do are they timed events where speed is the essential?Or are they like a trials event where slow is the key? ???

The wastegate is variable (vacuum controlled) and has variable vanes as well.   The events are speed events - imagine WRC but  off road and you pretty much have it.   

The replacement turbo is in and the first test in a local farmer's field today (before competing this weekend) was v. successful.   A couple of minor snags were resolved on the spot and it runs beautifully.   Not just beautifully but like a scalded cat with a bunch of lit fireworks up its ar*e - the difference in perfromance is truly awesome - now difficult to keep up with the gear changing, so we may look at upping the ratios depending on whether it tops out too early on the straights.   Off up to Driffield tomorrow, and racing on Saturday and Sunday.

MG Mark

Hey

Good luck fella


>Martini...

Thanks for the good wishes chaps.   The weather was too sh*te to take any pictures - cold, freezing, gales, hail, rain etc etc.   A good course, very wet and muddy, but unfortunately we succumbed to first round gremlins, having not had any testing to speak of before the event.   We managed two runs before we reached the "unfixable on site" stage.   An intermittent electronic fault kept cutting the engine in a random way (which restarted on the button, but it's still not nice losing all power when you need it) and halfway through the second run, the turbo decided it had had enough - later diagnosed as an over-pressure on oil (104 psi) blowing the seals.   How that happened is unknown as yet.    So not an entirely successful first round, but never mind - that's racing and we have a 2 month gap to the next one to diagnose, fix and test..... I'll post some pix of the engine installation soon

Mark

Should have added - when it was running on song, it doesn't half go now........

Mark

Congratulations and commiserations Mark.

I little inter-round tweaking to do, then you'll be flying around the course.

Good to here that the engine transplant and upgrade has been worthwhile, if a little frustrating on your first outing.  I bet you can't wait o get out in her again.

It's a pity there isn't a round of the championship over here in Northern Ireland or I'd come to show my support.  Did I see the Scottish round has been change too?

Good luck!

Patrick.

Right - here goes with an update, having got a few spare minutes after getting back off holiday and caught up at work.

We had a very frustrating second round at Ellesmere back at the beginning of June a coupe of weeks before Le Mans, with the car's engine seemingly running well (but still cutting out randomly occasionally).   However, we appeared to be very short on gearing, whereby the only gear that resulted in anything like acceleration before running out of revs was fourth, and the top speed from that was pretty lamentable.   And drastically over-fuelled.   Still managed some half credible times, but only just on our pace of last year, so something was wrong.   The something became even worse when we lost drive to 2 of the wheels on one run (a sheared halfshaft) and the competitor wa*ker driving the vehicle running behind us caught us up, and couldn't be ar*ed to wait as we pulled over to let him through.   Result - he punted us up the rear end - no damage to him, but a severely bent radius arm and cracked chassis mount to us put paid to anything else for that weekend.  So not a good weekend.

Once we got back to the workshop and stripped things down, the source of the gearing issue became apparent, once we had worked out that our gearing ratios should have been giving us the right sort of speeds - although the gearbox internals had been seriously strengthened, we suspected that the culprit was the torque convertor (untouched) not being able to handle the extra power and torque.   True enough once it had been split, every single impeller fin was bent over virtually flat.   The acceleration in fourth was only there because, unable to get drive any other way, when it got into fourth, the top gear lock up came into play, hence getting decent drive only in fourth.   

With that re-done, and the repairs to rear end (which once we had stripped it also revealed that the axle casing had been bent as well, so that was a complete strip and replace job!) and the remaining fuelling/ECU issues, we decided that although it was running (after a fashion) we would give the Scotland round a miss - a heck of a long way to travel only to be non-competitive again, particularly as having blown two rounds, we would not be in with a shout for anything this year), but would concentrate on getting the thing fixed and running properly in time for the Welsh rounds.   That has now been achieved, with the ECU issue resolved properly and it niether cuts out nor over-fuels.   Running tests last weekend reveal that we are now back to the earliest scalded cat promise shown at the start of the first round.

So, the next round is on 9/10 September at Radnor forest in Wales http://www.offroadrally.com/Information/Venues/RadnorForest/tabid/198/Default.aspx.   Hopefully, we should be a damn sight quicker there than so far this year!   See you there if anyone fancies coming along.

MG Mark

Mark,

Good news about the repair of the car, I would love to attend the next round but have commited on going to Britcar 24hours at Silverstone. I hope to make the last round at Hafren Forest if you are able to make it there.

If you are only attending one round in Wales let me know and I will try my best to come along.

Good Luck but most of all have FUN!

For those of you who have not seen offroad racing it is great fun! No FIA getting in the way and a real way to get up and close to motorsport!

We are definitely aiming to make both the Radnor and Hafren rounds, so the only thing that will keep us away from Hafren willl be if the wagon gets competely stuffed at Radnor - aim on heading for the Hafren round and we'll see you there if you can make it.

MG Mark

We're getting there in stages is probably the best description of last weekend's round in South Wales.   The engine is now running reliably and consistently, without randomly cutting out (it was fuel mapping issue that caused it to do so before).  Having optimised the size of the intercooler, the turbo is now boosting as it should up to 20psi, but we now need to sort the sensitivity of the wastegate valve to get better pick up and tune the fuelling as it is underfuelled.   Can't remember who was asking, but I have got pictures of the engine installation now which I'll post when I have downloaded them from the camera.   

We had a good 7 runs on the Saturday on a very fast and flowing course on graveltracks and rocky sections, although the fuel tank decided to spring a leak on the fifth run of the day from the pounding the car was getting, it was fixed with liquid metal and enabled us to get out for the last two runs.   Sunday's runs started well, but on the second a cloud of transmission oil smoke in the cockpit during the second run gave us a clue that all was not well.   We managed to trickle it back to the paddock, to find that one of the gear retaining nuts in the transfer gearbox had worked its way loose off the shaft and punched a hole in the casing.   Thankfully no major damage done, but that was the end of our weekend.

From the good runs that we did get, a comparison of our times against the front runners reveals that compared to last year on a fast course like that where were running about 2 minutes off their pace, it is now a minute off their pace.   So there is a big improvement with more to come from our 3 litre oil burner against the big petrol V8s.  We are getting there and hopefully should be in line for a good end to this season - we could do with it!

MG Mark

Hey Mark that was me asking for the pics.Glad to hear you are working through your teething problems.

It was nice to meet you at LeMans. ;D

Well, time flies and the last round of the season is on us this weekend, venue now at Driffield (again), as the organisers couldn't get Sweet Lamb or Hafren.  So anyone up in that neck of the woods, or who fancies going there this coming weekend is welcome to come along and find us in the paddock (running number eight).  The venue is probably the best we go to for ease of access to the whole of the stage for spectators

At last we seem to be heading into a round this year with everything pretty much sorted (keeping fingers firmly crossed) ;D.   The gearbox casing and fuel tank are properly fixed.   The engine had been runing lean in Wales and that did need sorting, as although good, the car didn't feel anywhere near as sprightly as it should.  Sorting the fuelling out has been an interesting fault finding exercise, resulting in a reminder of the "dooohhh" variety, namely not to just look for electronic faults just because it's easy to blame the electonics when you can't be ars*d to think logicallly about the problem.

Initially when re-mapping the ECU, as we increased the fuelling, the engine started cutting out again after 2-3 seconds on full throttle.  After much swearing and a fruitless day spent programming, looking at fault codes and re-programming, it finally dawned that if the fuel being demanded by the ECU was not actually being supplied, then the ECU would just cut the engine.   

The engine had also becoming increasingly difficult to start, so we started looking at the fuel delivery pumps; the lift pump pushing out 3 bar was the first suspect (3 bar is pretty much on the lower limit and putting a gauge in the line showed how much it drops on acceleration - like to 1 bar) and was replaced, giving us a rise to 7 bar being supplied to the main injection pump.  No joy, as it still would not even fire up properly let alone run lean >:(.   Next stop, the main injector pump and control valve buried in the depths of the engine bay.  Replacement with a new pump and valve (as usual they come as a complete unit so you can't just buy the bit that's not working) and, well, hoo bloody rah at last - fired up first time, on the button, with the race fuelling programme, with the right sort of mix of grey and black smoke on acceleration.

Taking it out into the local fields and, oh my giddy wotsits, what a difference ;D ;D ;D - we are now way up onto a whole new level of power, torque and fun.   Doughnuts on dry concrete or tarmac.   And probably a whole new level of "I wonder which bit of the drivetrain will go twang first as well".    Still, that's another bridge to reach, we carry spares, and we'll see how we get on next weekend.  See you there if anyone makes it to the event.

And, yes amazing1, I will get the camera out and take some decent piccies of the engine bay for you (the last ones I took were cr*p).   

MG Mark

Good luck ! ;)

It looks like the weather's going to be suitably foul, so hopefully this favours the torque of the diesel over the out-and-out BHP of the big V8s. Good luck Mark.

Well there we are, another season done and dusted.  The final round at Driffield last weekend saw us with the sort of performance level and reliability (mostly) that would have been really nice to have had nice at the start of the season  ;D ;D.  Links to a couple of pics of us at the weekend below.  Weather was mainly dry (Sunday was gloriously sunny and warm) although the course remained v. wet all weekend with plenty of standing water, puddles and swimming pools as well as mud.   

http://www.songasport.co.uk/06BORCr5/car008a.html
http://www.songasport.co.uk/06BORCr5/car008b.html

The car was finally running fully on song with its new injector pump, giving us a new dimension to exploring a greatly expanded acceleration envelope within the same braking envelope.  Saturday's runs (8 in all) saw us in 7th place mark overall, so we looked forward to a decent Sunday.....until about 400 yards into the first run on Sunday, over a couple of crests, we had a delightful "what the f***" moment, when the steering did not respond to the command to turn after landing.  After the "bo**ox" moments straight after that, we found that we had very limited steering and thankfully were able to cut off the course and get straight back into the paddock, rather than being stuck out on course waiting for recovery.   

One of the Panhard rod mounts at the front had decided it fancied a spell as a free agent, unconnected to the chassis.   A bit of field welding later saw us back out and running well to finish, but the maximum time scored on that first sunday run dropped us to 11th place overall - without it we would have finished at 6th or 7th overall. 

All in all, after a lot of frustration this year, it's nice now to be running further up the field than last year, having more than halved the gap to the overall winner compared to last year, with more to come from the engine.   The next step is to work out what gearing we should be running now that it is pumping out plenty of horses and lb/fts, and then whether upping the boost pressure on the existing turbo (running at 22psi at present) will do what's needed along with bigger injectors, or whether to go the whole hog and fit twin turbos.  Parallel turbos would be fairly easy and better for reducing lag at the expense of top end power, or sequential turbos would be better for both lag and top end but, by comparison, horrifically difficult to plumb in and control.  Either way, there is doubtless plenty to keep us busy in the close season!

MG Mark

It's good to see MGMark back on CA.

It prompted me to wonder if there had been any recent Off Road Success, or indeed Off Road Failure, to report?

Thank you kind sir - I've just returned from a 3-week Grand Tour of France, Switzerland and Italy in the missus's MGF, with many motorsport milestones visited or driven on during the tour, hence the absence from posting for a while (more of that perhaps in another thread) and am now catching up with the important things in life back at work....   Life has been hectic this year one way or another, and I had quite forgotten to keep this thread up to date for any interested readers - apologies.

Work over last winter following on from the final round in '06 at Driffield saw us with a gearbox rebuild, doubling the fuel pumps, revising the turbo, air intake and intercooler layout, and doing all of the usual routine end-of-season strip down, inspect, fix and reassembly work on the chassis and suspension, topped off with re-mapping the ECU to capitalise on the bigger injectors. By the start of the season this year, all appeared to be well, apart from an irritating intermittent cutting out problem, whereby ignition power would just die, but would reset immediately.....   

     The first three rounds of this year's championship have come and gone, with a new venue in Staffordshire for Round One, mid-Wales near Radnor for Round Two and Scotland for Round Three, each of them bringing their own joys in one form or another.....  A new control tyre is aimed at levelling the field, although as it now uses an All-Terrain rather than a Mud-Terrain tread pattern in the interests of minimising damage to the land on which we race, there were concerns over how well it would perform in the wet and in mud.

Round One was at a new venue for us, a disused Army Range at Baden Hall, for a dry, fast event over a relatively short 5-mile course on a mixture of tarmac, grass and woodland.  The car ran like a dream, with shed loads of power, and we were putting in times that had us sitting around 10th overall, which given that the venue had less off-road and more rally stage about it, was good.  The intermittent cutting out problem became less and less intermittent, although reset was immediate and we were able to restart on the move - not ideal, but we were only losing a few seconds a run as a consequence.  Unfortunately, the intermittent nature became more permanent on our penultimate run, when we lost 3-4 minutes getting restarted in mid-run.  Having traced the fault and fixed it (the ignition relay) we were heading up to the start area for the final run, when an intermittent knocking noise made itself heard.  This was a diesel-knock, heralding a failed injector, so we withdrew from the run rather than risk terminal damage to the engine, and scored a maximum time for that last run, which dropped us way down the order to 34th overall....
 
Preparing for Round Two, we fixed the ignition issue properly by relocating the relay away from the engine bay (where heat had been causing it to malfunction) and rationalised wiring.  The diesel knock had forced the removal of the injectors, all six of which (bar one) were revealed to be in what could be best described as a "state".  This prompted the fitting of uprated (for uprated, read meatier, bigger and expensive) injectors, allowing us to remap the ECU and some local testing after that showed yet further power and torque increases.  So with that all sorted, Round Two was at Bleddfa in Wales, again a new venue for us, over what promised to be a super 7-mile mixture of hills, grassland, hard tracks and some woodland.  With rain during the previous week to pave the way for some good off-road action, the venue lived up to that promise.  The car's performance was now, frankly, neck-snapping in terms of acceleration and top-end power, pullling well even uphill in fourth gear, which is an overdrive ratio.  Times were great, running in 7th overall until, as we landed after a high-speed crest and put the power back on, a rather loud bang announced the rear differential noisinly lunching itself.  The run finished with 2-wheel to the front and lots of loud clanking noises from the back, losing us around 2-3 minutes.  Much butchery with a hammer and cold chisel was needed to extract the differential, as the failure had been the carrier bearing caps...  Still, we got it out eventually, a new diff went in and off we went again, running well until suffering two punctures on successive runs put us back down the order into somwhere around 20th..  We worked out that the latter was through running the tyres with inner tubes (normal practice to prevent air loss if a wheel rim gets dented) and that with our increased power, the tyres were "shuffling" on the rim - once they reached a certain point, of course the valve ripped out and the air came out..  Dispensing with the inner tubes and adjusting the tyre pressures resolved that problem.  At this point, you start to think "if it isn't one thing, then it's another", although the language used was a tad more colourful!

Round Three saw us well set for a return to the Scottish venue at Castle O'Er near Lockerbie on a traditionally fast (scarily so in parts) and open 9-mile course on gravel track, hills, woodland and a couple of real off-road sections.  With the car now running completely reliably and with bags of power, we were happily sitting in 6th place with 3 of the 10 runs to go when, on the 7th run, my world in the left-hand seat quickly turned brown, green and wet, and that of my driver turned cloud-coloured (grey) as we slithered rapidly on our side, for about 100 yards along the bottom of a rather deep V-shaped drainage ditch that we had been pulled into on a high-speed right hander.  Nothing had changed about the corner or how we had taken it from the previous runs.  However, once the world had turned quiet and we had determined that we were both OK and worked out that we could not get the car out of the ditch ourselves, we extracted ourself from the car (which was effectively on its side) walked back up the course a little way, and then waited to warn following cars of the hazard and for the course recovery vehicle to get to us.  Once it did and the car was out of the ditch, it was immediately apparent that we'd picked up a puncture.  Although there was no way of telling definitively whether we had picked it up before the corner or in the ditch, we had entered an off-road section not far before it in a rather over-exuberant manner (driver missed the braking point...) and hit a rocky area off the track, so on balance it may have started to go down before the corner in question, and was flat as we entered it, which may be what had caused us to run wider than normal and get sucked into the ditch.  Definitively something of a "Sh*t" moment, as we had been running so well otherwise.  Recovery to the pits revealed a bust halfshaft as well as the puncture, which might have had something to do with it as well.  Although nothing else appeared to be bent, there was really no way of telling what else may have been done to the car without a proper inspection back at home.  After the ditch excursion at around 80mph, and with speeds getting well over the ton mark in other parts of the course in less benevolent surroundings, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and called time on that event.  A bloody long way to go for a cr*p result, but at least we had been running well and competitively - a retrospective look at the times (assuming that we had carried on putting in the same good times for the last 3 runs) would have seen us finish 5th overall.

So, the story of this season so far is reallly one of unfulfilled promise.  As I've been away for 3 weeks, I don't know what else has been done to the car yet, other than that the initial assessment post-Scotland was that nothing major had been deranged.  We shall see in 2 weeks at Round 4 at the Sweet Lamb rally complex in Wales, whether the promising performance becomes a fulfilled reality at some point, and finally get to recapture some of our past achievements!

MG Mark

Sounds interesting Mark, where abouts is the Sweet Lamb rally complex in Wales?

Would love to see you at Sweet Lamb a great place to watch. Although I will be in Amsterdam working  :'( and others will probably be at Silverstone for the Britcar.

Where is the final event in Oco/Nov planned? Maybe I can try to make that one.

PIGLET...

Sweet Lamb Rally Complex is up in North Wales http://www.sweetlamb.co.uk/ (http://www.sweetlamb.co.uk/), not far from Aberystwyth (or however they spell it).

Shame you can't make it, but you're right, it's a grand place to race at, and to watch the racing too. 

The final round is on 27/28 October, but with the location remaining "to be advised".  One of the other Welsh venues, probably around the Radnor or Walter's Arena areas would be my favourite guesses.  I know that the organisers have been having a few venue "issues" this year, so anything is possible, and I'll post the details as soon as they are confirmed.  In the meantime, although Rick can't make it to Sweet Lamb, anyone else is welcome to come along and say hi to us!

MG Mark

Wow, a pretty comprehensive "sports report" there Mark. :o :D

In summary I guess there's been some off road success but unfortunately a bit more off road failure. Here's to an increased success ratio for next season.

True indeed, but we prefer to call it "development".........

MG Mark

Well, Round 4 at Sweet Lamb came and went, with a dusty, dry, warm and occasionally sunny weekend in the mountains of mid-Wales.  A course of nearly 7 miles was actually pretty much like a tarmac and gravel rally stage, with only about 400 yards that could be described as off-road, and over a mile of tarmc (!!!).  We're not entirely sure whether it was down to organisational incompetence, because of the sponsor's A/T tyre, or a combination of the two, but it definitely was not what should be expected for an off-road course.  The end result was a blisteringly fast course that was going to suit the new independent 4x4 306 look-alikes much more than the the live-axle spaceframes. 

Saturday was a good day and we put in good times and finished the day in 15th overall. The car was quick and reliable, as was my driver once he had got in the groove after the first couple of runs following some verbal encouragement.  Dust was an issue if you were catching the car in front, as once within a couple of hundred yards, visibility was zero - on some of the more open parts of the course, you could look across and see rooster trails of dust hanging in the air as though it were some sort of mini-Safari Rally.

Sunday started with a quick round from the off....right up to the point of a slow puncture becoming a flat tyre, which pitched us out wide on one corner.  This was followed by a sideways slide which got beyond the point of no return fairly rapidly and then, as the energy bled off and the tyres started to regain some grip on the gravel (at the same time as the wheel rim dug into the gravel) a gentle and perfectly executed 3-sided roll ensued, starting with my side, then onto the roof and finally coming to graceful halt on the driver's side....

Composure was regained and crew egress quickly achieved (we're getting quite good at this now....).  There was no apparent human damage, although it was difficult to tell about the driver, as he swore and stomped off to calm down, but that gave a reasonable indication that nothing was amiss there.  A marshal helped right the car, and it was clear that we hadn't done anything more than superficial damage to the bodywork (some nicely splintered fibreglass and a few bits of crumpled aluminium) and the deflated tyre, which was missing its valve completely (the same as in Scotland). 

I did not meet the driver's comment (repeating exactly that of the last occasion at the Scottish round) of "it felt a bit odd on the previous corner" with the response of "then why the fu**  didn't you back off", as I did not think that this would be very constructive in the circumstances.  A trundle back to the pits brought forth no horrible clanking or grinding noises, so we could have gone out again with a few minutes metal bashing, application of duct tape to fibreglass, and a new wheel/tyre.  However, when the adrenalin wore off, it appeared that driver had hurt his shoulder, so an early retirement was the order of the day.

With this being a repeat of the same sort of puncture that we had in Scotland, a bit of headscratching points towards the tyre valve being ripped out when cornering hard in ruts on gravel/rocks, particularly as the car is much more powerful than last season, is going through them faster, and is spinning up the wheels.  Soft, long-travel suspension doesn't make it easy to detect a puncture, unless it is a catastrophic blow-out, and the valve coming out leads to a slow initial puncture (hence perhaps the "it felt a bit odd") which then turns into a complete flat pretty quickly when subjected to sideways forces.  Using flush fit valves and welding a protective bead to the wheel rim around the valve area should at least rule that issue out for the next round.

We can moan about the course, but it was the same for everyone, and we were not unique in picking up a puncture or in rolling the car, and at least no major injuries or structural damage were sustained, just some cosmetic stuff on the car that will take a bit of time to put right and one hurting shoulder. 

At least the car is now fast and reliable, providing it is kept on the course.  The final round of the BORC is on 27/28 October, venue not yet known, but probably somewhere in Wales.

MG Mark

Thanks for the report and good to hear that you both managed to remain relatively unhurt.

Let me know if it's N Wales, and I'll make the trip again Mark.