'85 Merkur XR4Ti Rally Car

irish44j said:

759NRNG said:

CN, can you expound on "seriously fast and built from scratch/ extremely common, tough, and mostly stock" ......what possibly hits at least two of these....way curious????

I think he means "either" seriously fast and built from scratch OR common/tough/stock.

Because unless you have a E36 M3load of cash for an prepped Evo or something, those two are fairly mutually exclusive. 

I feel like something like this is in Chris's future for rally

Yeah, those were OR statements, I should have written them better.  So let's break them down with examples:

Seriously fast and built from scratch- this would mean I 3D scan the whole vehicle and start from there.  Redesign suspension, integrate the cage into everything, quite possibly move the engine around or use one not intended for that vehicle at all.  The goal would be to end up with something comparable a professionally built mk2 Escort but with parts I can make myself, with the intent to have a serious shot at winning any rally I enter provided my driving is up to par:  

Extremely common, tough, and mostly stock- the idea here would be something that, while slower, is easier to prep and can use parts from RockAuto/Amazon that don't need any real modification.  I think I would potentially build a 4cyl Tacoma or similar for this, since the stock suspension and drivetrain can take a pounding, and the bed would allow me to carry lots of spares and tools.  The goal with this vehicle would be to make rally prep less expensive, be able to help other competitors without worrying about my car, and never, ever DNF:  

Mexican 1000/Sonora vehicle- this would be a desert racer pressed into duty as a rally car.  Probably not the fastest or cheapest and definitely not the best handling, but it would be tough and capable of running some of the bigger and crazier events on the bucket list.  This is also the only option where I'd be looking at potentially buying an already prepped vehicle again and adapting it for our needs:  

irish44j said:

759NRNG said:

CN, can you expound on "seriously fast and built from scratch/ extremely common, tough, and mostly stock" ......what possibly hits at least two of these....way curious????

I think he means "either" seriously fast and built from scratch OR common/tough/stock.

Because unless you have a E36 M3load of cash for an prepped Evo or something, those two are fairly mutually exclusive. 

I feel like something like this is in Chris's future for rally

One of my childhood dreams was to build a General Lee similar to that.  

So many projects... so little time, space and money... 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Seriously fast and built from scratch- this would mean I 3D scan the whole vehicle and start from there.  Redesign suspension, integrate the cage into everything, quite possibly move the engine around or use one not intended for that vehicle at all.  The goal would be to end up with something comparable a professionally built mk2 Escort but with parts I can make myself, with the intent to have a serious shot at winning any rally I enter provided my driving is up to par:  

That sounds really close to the MkII Escort that was in the SEMA Show in 2017 (or was it 2016?). A US built car using a stock Mustang V6 engine (like the new 300 bhp one), Mustang front uprights and a 8.8 rear axle. I spoke to one of the guys in the stand - he was originally Swedish and seemed pretty happy to chat away in Swedish for a while.

He explained that their idea was to build a tough, "cheap" rally Escort using as many off the shelf parts as possible. Stock Mustang stuff meant that if they bend an upright they can just grab any Mustang from a yard or similar. Of course, making bespoke Öhlins suspension, link arms etc. is not "cheap" but well...

More about it here;

http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1344493

Maybe you know more about it than I do. Of course the shortage of MkII Escort bodies is a limitation...

Gustaf

In reply to therealpinto :

I am aware of that car but not all of the little details, thanks for the link!  That is the general concept I'd be going for, but using cheaper components where possible (Bilstein inserts instead of Ohlins, circle track parts where possible, Haltech instead of Motec, etc).  Not at all concerned about the body itself, we may be short on Escorts in the USA but there are plenty of old Toyotas and Datsuns that are about the right size and weight.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to therealpinto :

I am aware of that car but not all of the little details, thanks for the link!  That is the general concept I'd be going for, but using cheaper components where possible (Bilstein inserts instead of Ohlins, circle track parts where possible, Haltech instead of Motec, etc).  Not at all concerned about the body itself, we may be short on Escorts in the USA but there are plenty of old Toyotas and Datsuns that are about the right size and weight.

id love to see a ST185 Celica with subaru AWD stuffed under it.

With ARA now having side by side rules, it would start to make sense to build an RZR, Wildcat or YZX for rally, if you can pick one up cheap enough.

I think the trade off of top speed for reliability and maintenance would make this a good option, good middle ground between rally and enduro dirtbike riding.

https://www.americanrallyassociation.org/single-post/2018/06/26/American-Rally-Association-Finalizes-Rules-for-Side-By-Sides

In reply to olso3904 :

I have looked at the SxS thing several times- it keeps getting cheaper and more widespread, but it still hasn't hit the break-even point where I can do more, for cheaper, than I can with a car.  If I lived in one of the states where they can be made street legal it might be enough to flip that equation in favor of them, so maybe someday.

WMWR is getting close!  So, boring trailer maintenance in what is normally the "puppy/exercise/guitar" room of the garage:  

Not very exciting but it needed to be done.  We may paint the trailer this year also, assuming we have time.

Tools were all laid out, gone through, and a Harbor Freight run was performed to replace the lost and broken ones since this probably hasn't really been a full set for the last 6 months or so:  

Cut some nice sharp edges onto the Altimax Arctics- they work great but now I don't want to drive on them until it's rally time:  

Also made my tape-covered shift light look a little more official- Sara says I forgot a comma, but since it's a T5 I think this is still accurate as it's the only way to shift them quickly:  

Then I tested my trusty old Harbor Freight battery impact... and it took a big dump after jacking the car up and changing one tire.  Not acceptable.  Also, the current suspension setup has too much droop for the standard scissor jack to get the wheels fully off the ground.  Solution?  For the jack, a little time with the welder and some square tubing adds the extra 1.5" it needs:  

For the impact gun, I priced out the better reviewed Harbor Freight replacement options and they were within ~$150 of the real deal.  So I went big:  

The Milwaukee is so gigantic that I had to space the quickfist clamps out a bit but now it fits in the spot the HF gun did:  

Then I used it to lift the car and promptly snapped the end of the drive screw off of the scissor jack:  

After a great deal of preheating, another nut got welded to the jack:  

This setup lifted the car a few times but we're going to do tire change practice at some point this weekend.  We looked at mounting a real jack in the car but to do it properly I'd need to drop the tank and weld some serious mounts in so that the big heavy thing can't go pinballing around the interior and kill us in a crash, so for this upcoming rally I think our backup in case of impact gun or scissor jack failure will be a breaker bar and stock Merkur jack tucked away inside the quarter panel:  

Yea, but yu now have a honkin' big torque monster ready to snap bolts at your leisure back at the 'shop' 

Gotta diy the jack, get some big beefy components in there so it doesn't get torn off.

this is making me rethink just continuing to carry our lightweight floor jack that I was thinking about replacing with a scissor jack. Then again, if it breaks loose in a wreck, it can't exactly get through the trunk firewall!

btw, when I saw your "SHIFT STUPID" thing when I was there last week, I asked Sarah if you meant to put a comma there too ;)

In reply to irish44j :

If you're happy with your jack setup keep it- it's neat to be able to spin the scissor jack up with the impact gun, and it is nice and light, but I don't think it actually works any faster than a floor jack.  We timed our tire changes and it's still around 2 minutes if we start and finish belted in with everything tied down where it belongs.

The desert racer guys have some pretty slick mounts for the aluminum HF jacks, might be worth looking into for an "off the shelf" mount... They also make skids that replace/work with the wheels for dirt.

In reply to java230 :

That's probably what I would use. Then one person can operate the jack while the other uses the impact gun on the lug nuts. 

I would be concerned with what an impact gun will eventually do to that welded nut.

In reply to java230 :

I have a plan for something like that, and it would fit nicely in the spare tire well... but with WMWR less than 2 weeks away it can wait.  Thanks for the idea though, lots of neat stuff when I search desert racing jacks.

Definitely can wait.  Cant wait to se what you guys do at WMWR!

A quick google shows this one https://www.solomotorsports.com/shop/parts/general-parts/harbor-freight-jack-mount-skid-plate/

w/ handle holder 

java230 said:

Definitely can wait.  Cant wait to se what you guys do at WMWR!

 

A quick google shows this one https://www.solomotorsports.com/shop/parts/general-parts/harbor-freight-jack-mount-skid-plate/

w/ handle holder 

 

I made something like that for our HF jack, so we would'nt have to carry a piece of plywood to put under it. The main problem is that the attached plate doesn't slide well at all on gravel or any surface that it sinks into. In the end, it pretty much was a cool idea that sucked in practice.

Took it off and went back to  carrying just a regular HF jack with wheels, and a piece of playwood that is cut to fit a certain way in the trunk. It's a small extra step to put the wood down, but it's actually better than having the attached base. 

As spares/mud and slush tires, I located two of the very last original Winterforces I could find:

Hopefully we're good on tires now- I knew I needed to snag a couple when I found out the WInterforce was being discontinued and replaced by a much less knobbly tire.

^^ that reminds me that my two spare Altimax Arctics are currently out on the parts car in the shed (since its own tires don't hold air due to dry-rot). Guess I should go get them lol. 

Last nut and bolt check before WMWR:  

Everything still seems OK.  I filled it with 93 octane, and it has snow tires on it but it's anybody's guess what the actual surface will be like on Saturday so we are bringing gravels as well.  Chief is mostly loaded, including some wheels that don't fit the XR4Ti which are being handed off for another GRM project:  

We have a lot of spares, we're leaving the extra diff and driveshaft at home because we're pretty much out of room:  

We're bringing the most crew members we've ever had with us- I think despite it being a pretty small rally, our friends want to see what happens when this car hits the stages again for the first time in 17 months.  Hopefully good things!

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I mean with the service time at this one there's not really a chance to switch major things anyway. I'm definitely leaving a good chunk of my spare stuff at home. Anything we can't change in 20 minutes isn't coming.

In reply to irish44j :

I am (over)confident enough to believe that I can change nearly anything in 20 minutes 

I am also somewhat amazed that you're running out of space in the Chief, which has a much larger inside than my Sequoia it seems. We usually have plenty of space even keeping a single "jumpseat" in the middle row for the random Matt Rhoades who needs a ride home. :D

Also, so much envy that you can just pack leisurely indoors in the middle of winter. I suspect on Thursday when I pack/load up, it'll probably be sleeting out or something lol. 

In reply to irish44j :

To be fair, we're only short on interior space because we're keeping 2/3 of the 2nd row up for passengers.

Packing indoors is really nice, if only we could load the trailer in there too!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j :

To be fair, we're only short on interior space because we're keeping 2/3 of the 2nd row up for passengers.

Packing indoors is really nice, if only we could load the trailer in there too!

ah, that makes more sense :)

I think we only have 2, maybe 3 crew coming, btw, you doing recce in the Merkur?