DemonDriverDan's Rallye Race Car

[DemonDriverDan]

I need to get my post count up in case I want to flog some shit so figured I'd post up the build thread for the race car. I don't think anyone's ever actually seen the car as I don't bring it to FCS / PugFest as it's too much of a hassle to move it around.

The initial plan for the car was to use it as a trackday car then go racing eventually. I started this build while still at uni (along with running the road Rallye) so didn't have a lot of funds for parts. All changed in the end though!

Anyway, I bought the car as a basic track car. It already had some upgraded parts, roughly:

- Stripped out
- 406 Brembos
- Grab handles
- 40mm drop
- Cobra reclining buckets
- 13 row Mocal oil cooler
- Dotz 15" alloys
- Powerflow exhaust





Unsurprisingly it understeered like a bitch on track so I bought a load of new suspension parts:

- 23.5mm TBs
- Hybrid ARB
- Gaz Golds
- Adjustable drop links



We also had a lot of wheel wobble under braking which I put down to warped discs. As those that have run the Brembos know, the discs that don't squeal are expensive so I decided to sack them off and buy the 310mm Brembo kit and a set of 16" 1.2s



Also fitted a dished steering wheel to make it a bit more comfortable to drive





Another trackday down and we still had issues with brake wobble so I decided to replace pretty much everything else in the front suspension and remove the ABS. I replaced the wishbone bushes with p-bushes, new hub flanges, new ball joints, new TREs and new wheel bearings.



Lemforder parts:



Removed brake lines and wiring:



Had to get one of the bleed nipples re-done on the calliper as it was weeping a bit:



Brake t-piece for the new lines. Also fitted a bias valve by the handbrake but don't have a pic of that




We did another trackday and the car was better. Wheel wobble was significantly reduced but still a bit there. Understeer was also still pretty bad, partly due to shit tyres, but also the setup still wasn't there. One of the race teams there suggested getting camber on the front so I put that top of the list of things to do.

I bought a set of adjustable top mounts, as K-Tech upper strut brace and PhillipM / Rippthrough lower brace:










At this point, in about October 2013 I decided to go racing in 2014. This meant we had to get all of the safety gear in the car. More money about to go!

[Kezzieboy]

Good to see you over here Dan! Just out of curiosity, why not just use a '6, rather than a rallye? Surely it'd be cheaper and not damage it's resale value as much, as it's not such a rare car?

[DemonDriverDan]

So I bought a roll cage which was used as an expensive coat stand for a few weeks:



In order to get the cage fitted I had to take up all of the sound deadening from the footwells. This was a surprisingly satisfying job to do and there was more weight in it than you would think. Getting the glue out was crap though.





Then I bought all of my race gear, race seat, harnesses and a spare car. That was an expensive day!







I also picked up a 5L FIA fire extinguisher system and plummed it in to have 2 nozzles in the driver's footwell and 2 in the engine bay, one to the inlet and one to the exhaust.



I relocated the battery to behind where the passenger seat would have been and fitted the cutoff switches.





My local garage and I spent 3 hours on a Saturday evening welding in the seat bars and harness points for the 6 point harnesses.

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At this point the car was now race legal so we took it up to Snetterton to test it out. The day started badly with me going for a 360 spin after fuel poured out of the tank on to my rear right wheel. Luckily I didn't hit anything but it was close! Ended up being because the rubber seal around the lift pump had dropped down slightly causing fuel to leak out of the top and down the tank. Unfortunately we lost half the day trying to fix the problem as we could only see it when driving around left hand bends.



As part of the race series I was invited to go to the initial launch day along with a few other competitors. Took some passengers around Brands Indy and ended up on TV! Also liveried it up, really started to look like a race car now.





We also had to had the car dynod to get a power reading as Trackday Trophy does things by power to weight ratio. Car dynoed at 148bhp at the hub



Now we were ready to race!

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Good to see you over here Dan! Just out of curiosity, why not just use a '6, rather than a rallye? Surely it'd be cheaper and not damage it's resale value as much, as it's not such a rare car?

It came up fairly cheap and I couldn't turn down a second Rallye of the same colour as the first.

[Eeyore]

I knew you raced one but never knew the story behind it! Good read and I wish you the best of luck! May follow you in the brake department at some point. I need a 3 door D:

[DemonDriverDan]

Off we went to the first race at Snetterton. We went up on the Friday morning to go testing and get some experience of being out in a proper race session where cars can pass you on either side, etc. It was a bit of a change from a trackday but nothing special, especially when you see the price! Testing went really well and we made some serious steps with the car from last time we were there on the trackday. It drove really well and was awesome in to corners, if still a little understeery.

On to race day and everyone was excited, our first race! Quali started well until it all went tits up, I shifted in to the wrong gear and broke the engine. My fault completely and I was gutted. We put the car on the trailer and headed home. The next race was only a few weeks away so it was important to get the car home and find out what was wrong.





Long story short it turned out the bottom end was f*cked and we missed the next race at Oulton Park. Deciding it was better to get a new engine I picked up as a swap for the old seats I used to have. While we had the engine out I also decided to swap to a VTS rack and remove the power steering. Also changed the linkages to some Miles rose jointed ones.



Oh and I heat wrapped the manifold



Forgot to mention we also fitted Carbotech XP8 pads before the start of the season.


So we fitted the new engine, decat and fibreglass bonnet to save some weight. Unfortunately the new engine decided to piss a load of oil out of the rear main oil seal. I was pretty pissed off at this point as it had been a big rush to get the new engine in in the first place. This meant taking the gearbox out to replace the seal which was a bitch on solid mounts. While the box was out I replaced the clutch as well, made sense really. We finished all the work at 2am before we were due to leave at 5:30am to get to Rockingham for testing before our next race.

We tested the day before Rockingham and I was bricking it that the new engine wouldn't shit itself as we hadn't really tested it. Turned out to be alright in the end although the air filter fell off and was given back to us by the marshals after testing!



The race went well. We qualified quite far down in 17th but weren't that bothered as it was just good to make it through the session without breaking the car again! In the end of the race we ended up 9th which was great, top 10 in our first race. A good result.



I'll copy the remaining posts from .net

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Another weekend, another race. On Saturday we raced at Cadwell for the first time and, once again, the car decided to not play nice!

We left home at about 5:30am on the Friday morning to get up to the circuit in time for the afternoon's testing. For those that don't know, Cadwell is literally in the middle of no where, it's like someone played a bas**rdised game of spin the globe and put your finger on it to decide where to build this circuit. Anyway, after a 4 and a bit hour journey we finally arrived and started unloading. As normal I took the car around the paddock to check everything was ok but I noticed a loud banging noise when coming on and off power aggressively. In all honesty we had heard it before at Rockingham but had completely forgotten about it, oops.

The knocking turned out to be because the top solid mount had pretty much destroyed the chassis, as is kind of expected. The issue being that the nut the mount bolts in to had play to the mount could move around. We solved this by getting another nut on the bottom and managing to do that up to apply enough pressure to the original nut to stop it moving around. With that problem it was on to testing!

Testing itself was in changeable conditions. We had 3 sessions so I was out first, we split the second between my brother and I and he had the last session. My first session was very wet which made it tricky to get a read on how to really carry speed around the circuit. That being said it was awesome fun and I love driving the car in wet conditions! No idea if I'm any good at it but it was loads of fun My fastest laptime in that second was around 2m 03secs. The middle session was drier but still damp meaning we could get down to the 2 minute mark. Unfortunately not all went to plan when my brother had a small spin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzWjH5x6...e=youtu.be
The final session was back to being wet again. Things went much smoother and my brother managed a few fairly incredible 2min 01secs lap times!



In the morning of the race we noticed that the suspension was very soft at the rear of the car. I wound the adjusters up on the shocks and that seemed to stiffen it up again so we went out for quali. My brother went out first and set a 1m 49secs lap time as the track was bone dry. Unfortunately we noticed that the softness had come back again but there was nothing we could do in the session. I then went out and did a 1m 48secs which put us 12th on the grid (of 28) and 6th in class (of 10) which we were reasonably happy with.

With the car back in the paddock we looked at fixing the rear shocks again but the adjusters had stopped doing anything and seemed to be defaulting to their softest settings. There was nothing we could do so we pushed the arches out a little to stop the tyres rubbing and went out for the race.

The race itself was so much fun. I had a titanic battle with several Clios including overtaking someone around the outside of the turn 1 and going side by side in to the first corner after the mountain. We made a small bit of contact going in to the Gooseneck which was interesting! Rather than describe it all, worth watching the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPzjHDH68CY

Few highlights in the video:
- First lap
- Few laps after the safety car comes in at 8min 30secs
- Contact with a Clio at 13mins
- Finally overtook the lap after the contact
- Exciting moment with a Mini at 35min 30secs

So, we need to fix the engine mount, get some new shocks and remove the steering lock (brought up during scrutineering).

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Absolutely cracking weekend at Brands GP. We didn't test at the circuit so had never driven the GP loop before, so that was all quite new. We've done a few laps on the Indy before so at least we knew half of the track!

Having fixed the steering lock, rear calipers and fitted a catch tank in the run up to the race we were feeling fairly confident that there would be no issues with the car. We arrived at the circuit on Friday afternoon to set everything up and get ready. Sleeping in a tent on the back of the trailer is never particularly fun though!

We had no issues with scrutineering and the driver's briefing was as uninteresting as always. Finally we could get out on track for qualifying and the track was awesome! The GP part is so flowing it's incredible to drive. Qualifying went really well and we found that we were much faster than a lot of others out on the loop. We qualified 2nd in class and 24th overall, our best qualifying by far! Although we did have to have a quick visit to the stewards about exceeding the track limits, oops

On to the race. It was a 44 car grid and we were slap bang in the middle so it was always going to be intense going in to the first corner. I was determined to make a decent start after not getting a great one at Cadwell, luckily that was the case this time. I only lost one space to a RWD BMW which was unsurprising. Turn 1 was also surprisingly good and I had a lot of space to keep places. The first few laps were spent trying to defend cars that were faster than me in a straight line which was a bit rubbish but there's nothing I could do. Things eventually spaced out and I could start to put some decent laps in to start closing down the gap to the pack in front. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time before coming in to pit but then it was my brother's turn to take the wheel.

We had a perfectly timed pitstop which put him out 2nd in class and hunting down 1st very quickly. After 2 laps we had taken the class lead with 20 minutes to go but one of the Clios was bearing down fast. Ben tried his hardest but with 2 laps to go, the Clio jumped us. We ended up coming second which was a disappointment but if you're disappointed with second then it's been a good day!

Then the car blew it's rad, oh well. Still got a trophy

Few photos from the day:











And the full race video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_pHJlNy3pE

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We had another race at Silverstone a few weeks ago which went reasonably well. We qualified 6th in class which I was disappointed with as I thought we should have been higher. Times were close though, only 1 second off of 2nd in class. My brother was 3 tenths faster than me which was also close.

The race was a whole different ballgame. Just as my brother drove out to the assembly area it started to rain heavily, we were on dry tyres. The Dunlops are great tyres but as soon as there is standing water they become rather useless, as he found out on the way to the grid. We made the decision to bring him in and change to the wets, he had no traction and no chance of staying on the road. He came out last (31st) and having been lapped by the leading 3 cars however very quickly overtook one of the leaders and started making progress toward the next car. Unfortunately a safety car was deployed so we ended up still lapped and with the entire field behind us, may as well have been 2 laps down. Once the safety car came in it was all about getting the foot down and going for broke. Ben made swift progress and pitted 23rd, quite a few others were still on dry tyres and he was lapping at least 10 seconds faster so it was fairly easy to catch up! My stint was much more straightforward as I was out on the lead lap so was racing the cars around me. It was awesome fun driving in the rain with the wets on as you could get all sorts of sideways and overtaking people. We ended up 11th and about 2 car lengths behind 10th, a bit frustrating as I really wanted 10th but hey ho.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXglne7iono

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That just about sums up where we are in terms of the race car. It's just had a 3J plate diff fitted and got a new engine in the pipeline. High lift cams, ITBs, 4-2-1 manifold and a ported and polished head.

[Piggy]

Great work...glad your posting on here so I can keep an eye on your progress more

Be exactly what I be doing with my best mate if it wasnt for us both getting married

I may well have missed it but what race series is this?

[rocker8742]

Good to see a thread up over here mate also interested to know what series it is

Car looks great and sounds like its only going to get better

[Dum-Dum]

Very cool. Cant wait to see more.

[DemonDriverDan]

I race in Trackday Trophy. Cracking series, really enjoy racing there. 45 minute race split between 2 drivers.

Been a while since our last race so testing at Brands on the 15th to give the car another run and test out some new parts.

Immediate plans for the car is limited as there's not a huge amount of work I want to do during the season. Once the season is over few things to happen:

- Pull dash out and remove the heater matrix
- Strip all wiring out and rewire to save weight
- Rebuild suspension with bigger TBs, ARB and stiffer front springs
- Fit fibreglass boot and perspex windows

Slowly getting parts for the engine build, aiming for a fairly big figure but it's a long build. I'm also stripping down and rebuilding the spare car to become a second race car. Should be good when it's done!

[Dum-Dum]

What are the race fees like in that series?

[DemonDriverDan]

£375 per round or £450 for the Brands GP race. Pretty reasonable when you're sharing with someone else although by the time you've added fuel and other costs in, it's near enough £300 per race.

[Piggy]

Ouch

You may want to try the stiffer springs and TBs without fatter ARBs initially. Just a thought

[DemonDriverDan]

Too much body roll at the moment which will partially be helped by the stiffer springs but want to try the ARB as well. That plus I'm too lazy to take the beam apart again...

[Toms306]

Looks good Dan...your camera even manages to make cherry look nice!

[Eeyore]

whats with the tape on the bonnet? Is it a scrutineering thing to make sure you don't change anything under there?

[DemonDriverDan]

Looks good Dan...your camera even manages to make cherry look nice!

Haha, sod off, it's the best colour

whats with the tape on the bonnet? Is it a scrutineering thing to make sure you don't change anything under there?

We had issues with the front of the bonnet flapping as it's fibreglass and no front catch, it's just held on with aerocatches. The tape held it down until I came up with a better solution which you can just about spot in some of the end photos. I've drilled a hole through the bonnet badge and replaced the central bolt that holds the grill on with a longer one which goes through the bonnet badge hole. Not perfect but looks a lot better than tape!

[Hdi and proud of it]

Just got to read this, wow, excellent stuff Dan, best of luck with your racing mate.

[DemonDriverDan]

Another update, this time from Snetterton. Last time we were up there I ****ed the engine so was hoping to not repeat that this time!

After a nightmare journey up and a cold night camping, qualifying kicked off at 9:55am. The track started out damp with dry patches which made it awesome to drive, the car handled like a dream. It was so controllable when it started to slide and when I pitted at the end of my stint (cut slightly short due to a safety car), I was 2.7 seconds faster than anyone else and sitting in provisional pole. Ben went out on to the drying track and maintained pole for a few laps until a mistake put him way on to the grass going on to the back straight. Since that lap was a write off and other cars were going faster we dropped down to 9th place, it wasn't looking good! Fortunately he got back on track and quickly made amends, putting us back on pole and successfully keeping cars behind. Pole position was pretty damn awesome!

Starting the race on pole was pretty nerve wracking, it was odd being able to look down the start finish straight and not see another car. Unfortunately my start sucked, lots of wheelspin and not enough go. I went in to the first corner about 4th then lost the back end on cold tyres and lost even more positions, now down to about 6th. I fought my way back through to get past a few and finished the first lap 4th on the road and 3rd in class. From this point on I was hunting down the cars in front, catching second by second. I caught all bar one car, the class leading Clio although we were both overtaken by a crazy fast Seat Leon Supercopa. When I pitted I was inches from the bumper of the Clio with another Clio catching from behind.

Ben came out ahead of the Clio after they had a slow pitstop and proceeded to put the hammer down to build a gap. The quicker Clio that was catching passed to become the car behind but Ben had plenty of pace in hand and maintained an 8 second lead to the advantage.

In the end, we won! 1st in class, 2nd on the road, can't complain

[Dum-Dum]

WELL DONE MATE!!!!!!!

You must be absolutely buzzing after that win

[Poodle]

Congratulations! First win must be a great feeling.

[Piggy]

Big congratulations!!

[bashbarnard]

congratulations great track Snetterton nice and local. Next time your gonna go put it on here. Would love to come help

[Eeyore]

I want a go D:

[DemonDriverDan]

Thanks all, it was great to get the first win and taste the champagne!

The car's going really well, setup feels solid. There are some improvements I'd like to make although this is a bit of a risk as it feels pretty good at the moment.

Final race is at Brands on the 22nd Nov and I'm fairly certain it's going to be wet.

[1616six]

Ah gutted I didn't know you were at Snet, I live 20 mins away.

Let us know next time!

[DemonDriverDan]

Probably won't be up until next year now unless I particularly need to test anything on a different circuit.

[DemonDriverDan]

Race video is live. Takes a minute or so to get going. The first stint is really interesting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PqWMCbtNSo

[1616six]

Corr that first bend was a bit hairy!

Good effort though guys, soundtrack is lovely.

[Orta]

Wish I the bottle (and cash) to do a race series. So awesome!!

[Janne L]

Wonderful read :-) must say I'm really jealous of the amount of races you've got in the UK, and at such a decent cost! But then again I can't remember when I heard of a race over here with 44 cars on the grid...

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