Chris' Rally Car build / Rebuild

[cb_motorsport]

Hi Folks,

My name is Chris, I'm new to PNG (have been registered on migweb for a while) and thought I'd share my rally car build / rebuild with you.

I have been co-driving for the past 12 years up to National C'ship level, made my debut as a driver last year, got a good result, got hooked on the drivers seat and bought the Nova in October.

It's an ex-forest car so is far from mint, but the plan was to tidy it up a bit, convert it to Tarmac spec and go and have a play. It's now ended up as a full on rebuild, so thought I'd share it on here.

The car is a bit of a hybrid and I know some of you will frown.....it is running a Rover K Series engine in it, along with a close ratio Rover box and LSD. It was a standard engine with a GEMS ecu when I bought it, but I'm putting it on throttle bodies, a set of decent cams and adjustable pulleys, 4-2-1 manifold and OMEX ecu and an aircraft spec loom. Suspension wise it's running Bilstein adjustable coilovers on the front and Bilstein dampers and springs on the rear. Astra GTE front brakes and VW Golf discs on the rear.

Anyway, please see a few pics and I'll keep you updated as I go!

P.s I have got to know tomfromdelmonte through here, top bloke!

When I picked it up:





Work I've done to it / how it sits today:
Cage boxed in & proper seat rails fitted


Engine bay stripped


Throttle bodies trial fitted


Interior as it stands today (note MK2 flocked dash, stack dials, carbon dash inserts etc etc, massive change to how the inside was before!)

[burgo]

No mk1 left now poor little A reg. Although knowing the rallying world I doubt they are the plates for that shell anyway

Anywho im going to say good choice of engine in my opinion and now sit back and watch all the experts bang on about head gaskets because that's so hilarious and we've never heard it before

[cb_motorsport]

I was confused as to why it had a K Series engine fitted to start with, but apparently as standard it's one of the most powerful and lightest 1400 engines made. Yes the head gaskets are fragile if they are not warmed up and looked after properly etc, but on the whole they are not a bad engine (well the 1400 version anyway!).

Besides, it's something a bit different too

[Benn]

Nice car, is random to have that lump fitted. But then again they are prob cheap to buy too.
Nice dash, mk2 is so much nicer.

[chrisd1986]

No mk1 left now poor little A reg. Although knowing the rallying world I doubt they are the plates for that shell anyway

Anywho im going to say good choice of engine in my opinion and now sit back and watch all the experts bang on about head gaskets because that's so hilarious and we've never heard it before

Coming from the man with a nova chop shop

[Connor]

Never seen that combo before but i'm suprised no-one has done it before, those lil 1400 k series are good and class competitive with the right car and setup.
Be interested to know how it compared to a 14xe. Will be watching this one

[chrisd1986]

Never seen that combo before but i'm suprised no-one has done it before, those lil 1400 k series are good and class competitive with the right car and setup.
Be interested to know how it compared to a 14xe. Will be watching this one

Its definitely different I was going to chuck in a head gasket comment but he has obviously thought of that. I wouldn't mind seeing it head to head with a 14xe with similar mods and see how much of a difference there is

[cb_motorsport]

Never seen that combo before but i'm suprised no-one has done it before, those lil 1400 k series are good and class competitive with the right car and setup.
Be interested to know how it compared to a 14xe. Will be watching this one

Hoping it will be fairly competitive. Near standard 1400 MG ZR's are reasonable competitive in the class, this should hopefully have around the 140/150bhp mark and weigh around 800kg which is a couple of hundred kg less than a ZR!

[cb_motorsport]

Regarding going head to head with a 14xe, I know of quite a few people who obviously rally with this engine, a good friend of mine competes with with one that is on DTH Jenvey 'bodies and decent management, will be interesting to see side by side. Trouble with comparing them though is that there are so many variables in engine spec, gear ratio's, weight etc etc and on a rally stage you're not side by side racing either. And driver skill comes into play too (to a certain extent!)

[Connor]

I'm not saying 14xe vs k series, think it was just the way i wrote it, i just would be interested to compare how well they compare to similar modifications and headwork etc, never played around with a 1400 k series before but i might have to get one into work and have a play I'm doing alot of development with 1400 engines this year at work, and at autosport people were screaming for bits for 1400 vaux ford rover all kinds of engines as the 1400 classes are going to be more competitive and people are doing new things with them.
Yea will be a very good setup with 150bhp and 800kg and will be easily achievable with throttle bodies and decent mapping. I serviced for someone at rockingham the in december who was running a 1400 in a rover metro, that has around 150bhp on jenveys and flys he had gearbox issues though but we did an overnight gearbox change from a gearbox we sourced from the local scrappy ! Either way its looks to be a decent put together car, and will go well. You competing in any tarmac championships, hopefully will see it out in the near future, would love a nosey about it
Next rally i'm off to is eypnt in march.