Guidance in rally rental

[pickstock]

Hey guys, been a while but figured you guys might have some guidance. We're in the planning stage of building a 73 super beetle as a rental rally car for tarmac. The business side of it is sorted but the car itself is a bit different. We have chosen the beetle because it's plain different, there are no other beetles competing and everyone will remember it over a choice of other cars I could of brought in from the paddock.

The real points of contest are between myself and my son. I feel that people will want a car thats very comfy to drive, mostly standard interior and things like that. My son thinks people would prefer something with a bit more race in it, push to start and a loud exhaust.

So I guess Im here to ask you guys, if you traveled to the other side of the country or possibly the world, to drive some great roads in a fully prepared car what would you like of it.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Wow! 50 years ago I almost did head down to Australia but my skills were only good to visit not live there.

Lee

[Jadewombat]

The real points of contest are between myself and my son. I feel that people will want a car that's very comfy to drive, mostly standard interior and things like that.

What type of tarmac rallys are these? Sanremo or road rally (accuracy vs. the clock)? If it's more like the first one, the interior is less important.

My son thinks people would prefer something with a bit more race in it, push to start and a loud exhaust.

So I guess Im here to ask you guys, if you traveled to the other side of the country or possibly the world, to drive some great roads in a fully prepared car what would you like of it.

The loudest exhaust is not necessarily the most horsepower. And yes, you guys will attract the most attention.

Not mine, but good for reference:
https://www.germanlook.net/forums/showt ... hp?t=11341

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QzQLchhHFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uSZZ4fWnPU

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I should have finished my post.

There are a several types of Rallying here in the states: "Friday night-ers" are usually "time, speed and distance" rallies where you get points (bad) to getting to the check points early, late or arriving from the wrong direction. Being on time is what you want. They are usually 2 or 3 hours long with a party at the end (survivors ). They are pretty mundane. The first sections get the different classes to match their speedo's (or devices) to the instructions then time speed and distances are the instructions. Driver and Navigator only in the vehicle.

Then there are the "road" style of rallies which take up a good part of the day. You are still given a set of instructions and, again ,get points for early and late into the checkpoints or end point. If they go through a town then there is a coverage in the instructions for that so you don't speed or make noise. Driver and Navigator only.

Then there is the pro-rally where part of the rally is closed course and the fastest through the area sets the time. Driver and Navigator with the latter usually wearing diapers only.

There is a new rally that I am not familiar with which I think they call Pro-rally. They seem to be of higher speeds through paved road sections. I was where one was being had but there had been a fatality. Most of the cars were caged and were way, way from stock but the exhaust was dimmed quite a bit. The police had been contacted and were aware of it plus they gave advice (again, I am not completely sure about what was going on other than they had suggested that this section of road was not to be used but the advice was not heeded). Driver and …?

From what little you have said it is sounding like what you are talking about is or similar to the latter. Good luck on getting insurance to cover a rental race car for something like this.

Advice: like Jadewombat said, keep the back pressure supporting the engine where is it needed rather than impressing renters with a lot of noise.

Lee

[pickstock]

I'm too used to reddit to post properly. This is one of the rallies we're thinking about, our team is actually featured a few times though the video
https://youtu.be/Z15LwcBO0XM

We think entering into the spirit or TSD class would he best. It's about the providing the racing experience not actually having a professional driver fighting for top honours. If someone finds they love it we can talk about a different car etc. The aim of our time speed distance is your still on the closed roads with a 130kmh speed limit but with a time your aiming for.

The car isn't going to be 100 grand worth to win the event outright, otherwise an inexperienced driver puts it off at the first corner and everyone's up ship creek. Mods are fairly open but I think somewhere around 80hp in a stripped out body will be enough as long as its very reliable.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Your rally is not the same as I was talking about. We had no trophies and was not on a closed paved course. What you are doing is what I would have liked to do but it just didn't work out right.

There are a couple of guys here who do run something like the video.

Lee

[pickstock]

So your the type of customer were looking at =)

Come for a great holiday and have the best experience in motorsport.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I'm almost 77 years old now so that kind of fun is kind of out of my skill level.

!cid_B6C93EBC-BC75-4D1E-AD33-78AA7BD55D46@home.jpg

This is more what I can handle now days.

Lee

[pickstock]

Never out of your skill level, as long as your can drive with consistency you'll do fine in TSD.

[Jadewombat]

Looks like the Carrera de Mexico type race, and yes quite a few VWs have been in that. Great fun. 80hp is very do able and very easy to get a beetle down to 750kilos.

Do you have the rules for the class?

[pickstock]

Possibly, I think there was another race called Targa pan america or similar which is the same sort of thing. I can't find any info on VWs in the carrera de mexico.

Ill try and go through and pick the rules that matter, rather then clogging the forum full of stuff pertaining to modern rotary engines etc. The real key is reliability, there was a lot of changes in the order simply caused by engine failure (including one of our team).
We're still going through Dave Hords build and getting some great ideas of what we need to do VW specific that we didn't think about (quick release rear valance and the ports through the inner rear wheel guards for easy access)

This is the most likely set of rules we will play with, under class C1.
https://www.cams.com.au/docs/default-so ... c856da3a_7

[Jadewombat]

Try a search again here using just "carerra". It turned up 56 pages of content. I got the name wrong, it's the Carerra Panamerica.

You're on the right track, pun intended, of the thought process. I autocross raced my 1303 a few years ago and didn't worry too much about the engine as much as the suspension, aero., and weight of the car to be able to toss it around a short course.

Engine

It's pretty open it looks like. I would start as you alluded to with the needs first, not the end hp number you're looking for. As in, what is the course layout.

If it's hills and tight corners, you'll need more torque than hp. Straightaways and high speed zones, more hp and high revs. Very heavy camshafts, really big bores, and very high lift rockers don't help the reliability of the engine though.

This is a topic for a whole other discussion over in the Engine Build forum: https://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewforum.php?f=34 but in whichever engine configuration you choose:
-Use a counter-weighted crankshaft to keep the revs. up even with several up- and down-shifts
-Bigger cylinder heads (bigger intake and exhaust valves), these cars very under-powered anyway so I doubt they would have a lot of limitations here
-Dual carburetors (I highly recommended a cable linkage system, much better than conventional rod and arm setup https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds ... id=2169636 )
-A crank-trigger ignition system (these are not that tricky to setup and program, very reliable, and you gain hp and tq because the burn is a lot more efficient and it gives the spark the engine needs at the correct RPM. A conventional distributor system will NOT correct for different engine needs (2-dimensional). Example, an engine spinning at 3000rpms does not have the same spark needs launching off the line, 3000rpms going up a hill, or 3000rpms cruising on the highway. A crank-trigger map adjusts to each condition (3 dimensional). https://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewforum.php?f=63 )

Again, I wouldn't focus as much on the engine though. A very tough, mildly built powerplant you can depend on all day to get through all of the stages is a lot more important than squeezing out an extra 1,2 or 5 hp here and there.

Weight
Hardware is your enemy here. There's so much wasted weight on these cars (most cars actually). Open the trunk in the front and take one 13mm bolt off your beetle and hold it in your hand. Now imagine a handful of this steel. I bet near 50% of the threads stick out the backside and does nothing to hold that piece torqued down. I shaved a lot of weight off my car cutting that excess threads off as there's hundreds of these throughout the car. You can always add weight back into the car if they ballast you during inspection of the car.



More in a bit...

[pickstock]

Lots of hills and lots of tight corners, probably top speed of around 130-180KMH i think that equates to 70-115 or so MPH. The maximum average speed over a stage is 130KPH, and if any cars go over this the stage is either cancelled or modified simply for safeties sake.
I have seen some true vintage cars have issues even in starting the stage if it happens to be going uphill at the time, so this will need to be dealt with.

First it will be dealing with the body, suspension and brakes. I'm very much hoping to keep the engine closed as long as possible, slap on a set of dual carbs, electronic ignition and an exhaust. This isn't going to be a power house but will be enough to finish shaking down the car. I've never even started the car in 5 years of owning it, so it may need a full rebuild in which case we will probably go bigger but still that's at the end.

Iv'e dealt with weight a bit before. We can go to plastic windows and panels, windows are definite for weight and safety, as we will be adding a few other features in there. Panels i'm not sure, iv'e heard of some glass wings and hoods weigh more than steel but its got its bonus.

[Jadewombat]

Brakes
What are the rules on this? Disk brakes are allowed I hope?? Most every pad out there has a higher heat range option than stock. Ducting helps a lot as well.

Suspension and Handling

My 1303 I raced a few years ago I did short-course tarmac racing and rallycross (once). My car was very neutral because I tried to position everything I could low and closer to the center of gravity which is just behind the front seats on the floor. Some may suggest moving the battery way up front to the trunk. Uh no. It does much more good right where it is in the rear seat area.

Is a roll (safety) cage required or allowed? Triangles are your friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-p4GFL-F4E

Not mine, but I love how they tied the tubing together here:


Body and Aero

Here's a great read on the subject. https://www.germanlook.net/forums/showt ... light=aero

Every little bit helps on our cars. Of all the things I did to improve the handling of my bug through aero., punch and flaring the rear of the fenders made the most difference at all speeds. Spinning tires are very turbulent and the fenders act like wings trying to lift the whole car. I hope venting the fenders is allowed in the rules for you.

Here's my old 1303. I added fender flares made for a Datsun 240/260/280 Z car off of ebay. I would start at your tire/wheel width and wheel offset you're going to run, mount them on the car, then work backwards to mounting a set of fiberglass fenders or flares. Ideally the edge of the fender aligns with the outer of the edge of the wheel.

[pickstock]

Brakes are basically free. So we'll be running a custom disk rear end. My son wants to show off build on YouTube so as much as possible will built ourselves rather than just buying parts and throwing them on.

I may decide to move the battery to the front for easy access, it's a rally car so if we need to jump start or something it's right there. I also may have a plan for where the battery currently is.

We will be building a custom cage incorporating a few fun little things if possible to allow access to the rear end. Because of how rallies work you need to store and have access to things that a lot of bar work gets in the way.

I actually found a thread that my son (when he was using this account) started writing 5 years ago or so on STF.
I'll be honest in saying I don't really want to go to the extent of punching loads of holes into the guards, just for the look we really want. We may end up putting a plastic liner inside that's shaped to direct the air out of the side, much like the Prius and Nissan leaf have on their front wheels. I'm also thinking of doing something different to bleed some air from the floor area into the engine bay or through extra coolers.

But the options are their if we need to in the future.