BRZ Rally Car

engiekev said:

Those tires are TOAST! What compound do you use? I've heard the Hoosier and Cooper really are one step softer than advertised.

Making it to LSPR? 

Those were Hoosier hard compound, which is definitely more of a medium.  They were cooked before the sprint started though, this just finished them off- generally once they've had a rally on the rear of the BRZ they're done either way.

I won't be at LSPR but Sara will most likely be codriving for another team.

It's crazy those wear so fast. I literally have two full stage rallies and two rally sprints on the federals that I used last weekend (plus a couple rally crosses) And I would say they are still at 50% or more in the tear and 70% up front with fairly sharp edges. 

No it's a trade off of grip versus longevity, So I hope those Hoosiers are head and shoulders grippier! If I went through tires that fast I would have already quit rally for lack of budget lol

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

We could probably get 3 rallies out of a pair of fronts, but the rears don't hold up so great.  They do have really excellent longitudinal grip on gravel, though- I may try MRFs again now that Hoosier contingency is more restricted and see how they do, but we've got enough Hoosiers to get through STPR comfortably first.

Photo from the sprint because why not:

I'm a fan of the MRF and they worked great in the wet/cold. I had soft compounds. Originally got 12 tires I think and i only had 1 failure. one delaminated in transit and the tread wanted to leave the tire. 

Testing the lights again since STPR usually has night stages but we don't have a schedule yet with the event coming up fast.

Yep they're still bright:

STPR is this week- this is the last event of the Eastern Regional Championship, and we're leading L2wd but need to at least finish this 5th in class (or higher if a certain Honda does well) in order to lock that in.  I intend to try to go fast anyway, because just cruising for an entire rally would be lame and we haven't managed a class win this year.  We're also going to see if we can hang onto the Big Nutz trophy, which will mean staying ahead of several O2wd BMWs and a Lexus- we'll see what happens!

Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally 2022 Setup:

Front Suspension:
Damping: 300/70 Bilstein (Freshly built pair after NEFR breakage)
Spring Rate: 225 lbs/in
Ride Height (pinch weld): 7.75"
Bumpstop:  3" soft rubber
Toe: 0" to maybe ever so slightly out
Tires: Hoosier 185/65R15 Hard Compound, used day 1 NEFR on front

Damping: 3p-8 AFCO
Spring Rate: 250 lbs/in
Ride Height (pinch weld): 7.5"
Bumpstop:  2.75" soft foam
Toe: 0"
Tires: Hoosier 185/65R15 Hard Compound, used SOFR as fronts and day 1 NEFR as rears

Other:
Bringing our last pair of fresh Hoosiers in case current tires wear beyond use.

Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally 2022

Recce

STPR is our "home" rally at only 3.5hrs away, so for the first time we actually got to use Sara's Impreza which we added skidplates to specifically for this purpose several years ago.  This was also our first encounter with a full STPR schedule, since last year it was mostly repeats of the Waste Management stage, and we learned very quickly that we were in for some ultra fast, high commitment, high risk stuff- nearly all the other stages are nothing but 1.5 car wide stuff on the edge of a cliff, with a select few hairpins to keep you on your toes.  Lots of cautions, and I've never had to determine what was a 5, 5+, or 6 so much in a single rally.  Overall we're getting quite good at recce, though, and I think it went really well.

Least favorite stage feature?  A single lane hairpin with a massive drop outside, covered in mud- we marked it as "no fun hairpin" in the notes.

Our shared airbnb with the War Weasel and Beetle teams was right in Wellsboro so we got some dinner and ice cream in town before returning to finish up the notes.

Bonus picture of the Beetle first in line to shakedown because it's awesome:

STPR 2022

Day 1

There was no Parc Expose on the first day so after a brief time in the service park we were off to the first stage, Asaph, which was fast with a lot of crown to the road and a neat spectator bridge in the middle.  We got up to speed pretty nicely right out of the gate despite the high consequences for a potential off, setting the fastest regional L2wd time and executing a nice handbrake turn onto the bridge:

For a reference of how fast STPR is, the average speed of our stock engined BRZ on this narrow road first thing in the morning was 55mph.  Average!

Nick Bukky in the Fit ended up about 10 seconds behind us, with the rest of the class falling in behind him.  I really wanted a win, but crashing the car would mean potentially losing the regional championship, so we decided our pace was probably leaving about the right margin and decided to try and keep it there.  We didn't immediately get to test that theory, though, because the next stage (Ridge) was scrubbed due to Brandon Semenuk's car winding up perched in a tree like that one scene in Jurassic Park:

Luckily everyone was fine, so we transited that stage and used it as an extra recce pass.  Next up was Dewey, which starts out a little rougher than most of the forest stages but speeds up and smooths out as it works its' way down the side of a mountain.  Same pace, same result, no incidents, and we were happy and off onto the next transit- the speeds were scary, sure, but it felt like we were in a good groove.

Then a stage we know all too well, Waste Management; the total opposite of all other STPR stages, rocky and muddy and tight deep in the woods near a giant landfill.  With the exception of wimping out a bit on the spectator jump, we ran about as fast as I judged to be possible without hurting the car thanks to the nasty surface- the Darrow brothers in the rental Lexus got us on this one, though, and were picking up speed after a slightly slower start to the day.  Back to service to check things over.

Our car was totally fine and after a quick checkover by bluej, Andrew, and Julia it was declared good to go, the Beetle was running great despite the fact that the guys had swapped that engine only a few days prior, and the War Weasel was running well but Nate (codriver) was really sick.  He took some more dramamine and decided to push through.  We topped up the tank at refuel and headed back out.

The afternoon loop was a repeat of the morning, so it was back to Asaph.  We improved on our morning time, partly thanks to the last bits of mud drying up, but making line choices was getting a little strange- the roads had a ton of crown to them, but based on where the gravel was swept it seemed like the really fast (aka aero dependent) cars didn't use the inside of the crown on some corners and just drove right up the middle of the road instead, which made for a skatey and slightly unnerving time in a rwd car that really always wanted to be on the correct side of things for a little extra banking.  We also slightly overcooked the spectator bridge and nudged the curb on the way into it, no damage though.  The Darrows got us again on this one, and it was becoming clear that whatever had slowed them down in the morning was gone and they were getting faster.

This time we got to run Ridge, and it was the scariest stage yet- the end section is just fast FAST two track with a grass center that we sometimes found the skidplate riding, and we were shifting back and forth between 4th and 5th for most of it, which would mean the majority of that stretch was in the neighborhood of 100mph.  We managed a class win on this one, though, it was just pretty unnerving.

Back to Dewey, and at some point Sara snapped this picture- Dan Downey and Sammie were conspicuously absent from this event since their wedding was happening at the same time, so it was only right to wear my Downey Dirty shirt:

We ran another clean, competitive time on Dewey and it felt good, although it really seemed like the rear shocks may have been overheating on the rough section immediately after the start.  At some point on this transit we gave a spare bolt to Oliver Smith for the Impreza he was codriving- their alternator tensioner consisted of 7 zipties after it worked itself loose and they didn't have any spare hardware.

For the second pass of Waste Management, things were even nastier and we had the added fun of hitting the big jump in a full dust cloud- still went for it though and it felt great, although whatever time we made up on the jump was effectively canceled out by a massive rock in the middle of one of the hairpins which we luckily managed to miss by nearly coming to a stop.  We ran exactly the same time as our first pass, with the Darrows yet again taking major time out of us.  Nicky Bukky's Fit unfortunately wasn't so lucky, with broken motor mounts letting the engine ricochet around and destroy itself, the radiator, and just about everything else under the hood- they made it to the stage finish but had to retire after that.

Luckily we still had no real damage, so we headed back to service, rotated our front tires to the back, and installed our very last pair of fresh Hoosiers up front to hopefully be able to keep the lead with some margin of safety the next day.

But of course that wasn't all!  Julien Sebot, who you may remember fondly as the guy who crashed into our door at .05mph at Sno*Drift, had a ruptured fuel cell in his last-second rental Fiesta (I can fill in that story later if needed) and Summit had the replacement but nobody could get there in time.  Calls and messages to GRMers Patrick and AxeHealy (I think?) were made but with Summit closing in 30mins and unwilling to leave the cell outside for somebody to grab it, alternate plans were persued instead.  We tried!

The car and truck both returned to the house for the night, since it was closer to the next morning's start than the service area.

STPR 2022

Day 2

Parc Expose on the green in Wellsboro is always special- the whole town seems to come out to see the cars and it's just a general good time.  We made our rounds, checked in on how our friends were running, and got ready to run another fast day:

We even got recognized by a photographer who had been at our very first rally here when we did Waste Management Winter in the RX7 6 years ago!

Soon we were headed out on a long transit to Joerg... which was a bit of a buzzkill since the stage was canceled for radio issues.  We transited that one, took it as another recce pass, and got in line to start Randall, which was another typical fast narrow STPR deal.  We settled right back into the same pace, and I don't remember anything particularly exciting happening on this one.

The next stage was Wilson, the beginning of which isn't super notable BUT it shares that ultra fast two track stuff from the end of Ridge the day before.  So you know the deal- it was fast, we were scared, I found the limiter in 5th with the mirrors brushing foliage.  The Darrows got us again too, really finding their pace in that Lexus.

The last stage was Dewey again, the only full repeat from the day before, and we ran pretty well but it was becoming increasingly clear that this was the transmission's last rally- 4th gear had been crunchy for a while, but it was getting much more difficult to shift into and 3rd was starting to go as well.  Not much to do about that other than make slower and more deliberate shifts, and we held our own but the Lexus still made back some time on us.

Back to service, and I hatched a plan to hopefully get a tiny bit more time without more risk of crashing- we would take on the minimum amount of fuel that we could for the final loop.

Service yet again found no issues, so waters were refilled, sandwiches eaten, dogs taken care of, and about 2 or 3 gallons of fuel added to the tank in an effort to hang onto those precious fractions of a second.  Back to the stages, same loop of four again.

This time we actually got to run Joerg at speed, and it went well but damn was that gearbox getting crunchy.  3 more seconds lost to the Lexus.

On the way into Randall, Zoltan Hajdu was trying to bend one of his front tierods straight after a bit of a bonk on Joerg- I went in the bushes looking for a rock to use as a hammer, but found an entire road sign complete with post.  He jammed the bottom of the signpost into the ground and levered the whole thing into the tierod to bend it straightish and was on his way again with very little time to spare.

We ran Randall with a little less margin for error than we had been leaving before, and it paid off although finding 3rd gear was getting really, really difficult- Lexus got us by .1 seconds but by our best guess with no cell signal to check times we were still in the lead.

Back to Wilson, the one with the real fast stuff at the end.  We went for it, grinding into 3rd and crunching into 4th the whole way and were really pushing in 5th gear in the fast section when we started to catch some dust- and entering the valley with the fastest stretch in it, I could just barely make out the back end of Cessna's semi-broken E36 in the distance.  By my best estimation we were doing somewhere in the neighborhood of 105mph when we entered the densest part of his dust cloud, and I kept it pinned even though I could barely see 10ft down the road... until we buzzed the embankment with the tires on the left side; I got on the brakes and slowed to 3rd so at least we wouldn't immediately die if there was a stump or a rock or something, and we stayed slow until the dust cleared a bit before pushing to the end of the stage.  I was mad, and deep down I think I knew that we lost the lead there... but that's rally, dust happens.

Dewey one more time, the fuel light was on, 3rd gear seemed like more of a question than a certainty, and we tried but the Darrow brothers got us.  Their overall margin of victory was just under 5 seconds in the end, and it's hard for me to blame it entirely on dust or the gearbox or anything- there are a million places to find 5 seconds in a rally, this is a long game and they earned it with clean fast driving in an unfamiliar car.  I handed over the Big Nutz Regional RWD trophy on the podium, we sprayed champagne, and a good time was had by all.

OK so we didn't win our class but how did we do?  Not to shabby I'd say: second in regional L2wd and faster than all the regional O2wd, 8th in regional overall, and 20th nationally.  For season points, this also means we got the Eastern L2wd Championship:

So that's this year's mission accomplished, and our best overall national rally finish so far.  The War Weasel finished, too, with Nate making it to end despite his day 1 stomach troubles, and the Beetle took the regional O2wd win by outlasting all of its' competitors... on an engine swapped the week prior.  Rally is crazy.

Damn, I was going to text you to see if Summit was willing to leave the fuel cell out. I understand why they wouldn't but also can't understand why they didn't given the circumstances, or "we'll leave it at the loading dock with a note, knock on door 2" deal given the nature of racing and needing stuff at weird hours. 

In reply to Patrick :

Yeah, so a slightly full-er story on that one (other than how Summit were butts about refusal to hide a fuel cell behind their dumpster).

Julien and another competitior, Roberto, are both arrive and drive guys who compete in Fiestas... but when they arrived, due to a major scheduling snafu the Fiestas were not there to be driven.  Julien managed to rent a different Fiesta at the last moment, and Roberto, never having competed in a rwd car, found himself in a somewhat questionable rental 944.

Well, the 944 blew up relatively quickly, and the Fiesta conked the fuel cell on a rock and made a big mess but at least nothing caught fire:

Despite heroic efforts by both teams, neither vehicle made it back out on day 2.

20th Nationally is nothing to sneeze at! Congrats you two.

Also forgot to mention- our dinner after the finish was leftovers that Subaru Motorsports gave us:

Apparently Pastrana runs entirely on pasta, artichokes, and green beans.  It was actually pretty good all things considered.

I saw Roberto entered with a Porsche and was like "wtf??" Should have know it was Charli's old ride. HUUUUGE surprise something broke down on it lol. But still nice to see it back in action (and not crashed).

Anyhow, once again nice job on the finish / podium finish. Dust is a killer so no doubt you lost that 5 seconds there but what can you do.....

I was thinking about doing STPR again next year, but man....if it's now an ultra-high-speed event now I may reconsider. I know damn well I won't commit at those speeds and will lose a crapload of time.....so now I may have to re-think my plan. So (though I talk to you offline), for the benefit of others here, what's the notional plan for next year? Go for a championship repeat, do a lighter schedule, etc?

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
At some point I'll probably collect my thoughts a bit better for a super thorough season wrapup, but for now-

2022 Mission Accomplished
We set out this year to try to run and win a full regional championship, and we did that- one DNF, one 5th place, one 3rd, and three 2nd place finishes added up to enough points and consistency to take the L2wd Eastern Regional.  I really wanted to win at least one to avoid feeling like we won a "towing championship" by just showing up more often than others, but it evaded us by less than 10 seconds on two occasions along the way... and it's not exactly like it was easy for us to make all of those events.  I am low on funds, out of PTO, and had to replace the tow vehicle along the way in order to keep consistently making events.

More important than the championship, though, is that we've learned a ton.  Our notes continue to evolve and get better, the logistics of getting to events/recce/etc are much more ironed out, and I'm now pretty confident that we could run an even tighter schedule if we had to (funding permitting)- the BRZ never took more than 2 weeks to get back into fighting shape for the next event, and throughout the season I spent more on oil and tires than all other repairs combined.  We can go into next year knowing that the car is solid, we know what to do when we show up, and if even one of our awesome friends is there to crew we'll have all the service support we could need.

Speaking of friends and support, this year the rally world started to really feel like home- everywhere we turn at events now there's another person we want to catch up with, whether they go back to the DC Rallycross days, NASA RallyMoto times, or are just somebody we met in the last year or two; every rally is full of friendly rivals, committed organizers, wonderfully insane competitors, serial crewpeople who can't get enough, top notch photographers and storytellers... I could go on forever.  For GRMers, imagine if the crowd at every event you went to was the parking lot build at The Challenge- it really is like that.

A quick grab of whatever neat shot I can find from each event we competed in this year:

Sno*Drift:

100 Acre Wood:

Bristol Forest Rally:

Southern Ohio Forest Rally:

New England Forest Rally:

Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally:

So Now What?

The car itself is going to get a full teardown and inspection of everything I can think of- it has 9 stage rallies and a pile of sprints on it now, and I need to replace the transmission and timing cover anyway so it makes sense to pull it all apart in what passes for an offseason in this ridiculous motorsport.

Sara isn't quite done for the year and will be codriving for last year's overall Eastern Regional championship winner at LSPR in about a month.

Our plan for 2023 is specifically not to chase a championship and instead focus on individual events- which ones are TBD.  I want to primarily work on driving faster and think that narrowing my focus to one event at a time will help me do that- we're good enough at the other parts of this equation now, it's time for me to really work on what I do behind the wheel.

Congrats on a great season and hitting your goal of a Regional Championship! Being within first place by 10 seconds on TWO different events is a win. You might not have been on the top podium but WOULD have been if a thousand things outside of your control had happened slightly differently.

It's great to see the success you are having with this new chassis and I'm psyched to see what next season brings. I'm sure your teardown review will expose some wear points you don't even know about yet BUT will also allow you to address before they become an issue. Doing that offseason work will payoff in spades.

hobiercr said:

Congrats on a great season and hitting your goal of a Regional Championship! Being within first place by 10 seconds on TWO different events is a win. You might not have been on the top podium but WOULD have been if a thousand things outside of your control had happened slightly differently.

It's great to see the success you are having with this new chassis and I'm psyched to see what next season brings. I'm sure your teardown review will expose some wear points you don't even know about yet BUT will also allow you to address before they become an issue. Doing that offseason work will payoff in spades.

Well said! I'm excited for 2024, after Chris and Sara get to chase the 2023 goals, and get to learn from that. People really appreciate, and will remember, how you've taken the super champio to such a fun place, too. Keeping it fun like that is why I'm in as long as you guys will have me. Well, and for the rallypups too, of course 

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

You know full well that you're on the roster for every event you can get to!  And yes, behold the ultimate in service crew recruitment technology:

A couple more STPR pictures as they come out:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

You know full well that you're on the roster for every event you can get to!  And yes, behold the ultimate in service crew recruitment technology:

They've got me convinced.  If you need a hand at SOFR next year, I'll try to make myself available.

In reply to eastsideTim :

We've even upped the ante with another rally pup!

No updates on the car just yet, I've been knocking out some needed repairs to the truck and daily drivers in preparation for the rally car hogging the lift for a while.  The basic plan will be to drop the subframes, check everything, change the transmission, disassemble the diff for inspection, and probably a ton of other little "while I'm in there" things I haven't thought of yet- the list of stuff I know it needs is relatively small but I'm hoping I find any other issues now so I can address them before they cause any real problems.

Sara will be codriving at LSPR this coming weekend, and I'll be at home with the dogs- time to take the whole car apart and stay busy!

First step was to drain fluids- the transmission predictably pooped out a bunch of metal sludge and another detent ball:

Then a bit of a surprise on the rear shocks- they were really, really hard to get out of the top mounts!  After some prying and hammering, both sides came out with the misalignment spacer breaking free of the inside surface of the tower (previously tack welded on).  It looks like the spacers have actually been wearing slightly, and now have a bit of a cup to them where they touch the spherical bearing.  I'm hoping I can drill a couple holes and plug weld these back on, after a little clearancing with a grinder to get rid of the lip that made them grab the upper bearing in the first place:

In the future I may have to consider different misalignment spacers, since apparently these Speedway ones that I designed the towers around are made of cheese.  I think I may have just overtightened the top bolts, though, since I definitely cranked down on them a lot about 4 rallies ago when I was chasing a rear suspension clunk.

Most parts came right off the car without a fight, and apart from the expected underbody rock damage there weren't really any surprises:

Then it was time for lots of scooting stuff around and pressure washing:

Followed by near-endless time under the car with a bucket and a brush to get all that stubborn built up and caked on clay that I can never seem to remove:

The floor is a bit of a mess but at least the components are clean-ish... a rally car is never really clean but it's nice to get close:

What size is the ID of the shock eye?

I saw a fab trick on a modified F body and like it so much I stole it.  It had rod end front suspension.  Let's say the control arm bolts were 14mm.  It had 5/8" rod ends and spacers (16mm) and a piece of 14mm ID 5/8" OD tube held them together.  It was not full width, just mostly full width.  Spacers and rod ends slid into the pocket as an assembly, the inner tube held it all in place.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

1/2" ID.  There are definitely better ways to do it, but I did like having the spacers tacked into the towers just for simplicity- no little bits to lose during a quick shock change, at least until now with the weird wear they experienced.  The other problem with a setup like that in a rally environment might be all the little bits fusing together over time, although if they're cheap enough I guess you could just discard them with the sphericals once they wear out.