Broke it again..

[welsh_roadrally]

Oh dear more problems with my 1.4 SR road rally car,Took a lad i work with out in it for a play,too harsh with it coming down the box and ive over reved it and bent a valve,got the head off and another one to go tomorrow if i get time.Seriously thinking of selling it now and building something newer like a Proton Satria GTi or converting an EK4 civic with a B18C4 engine and LSD'd box
Dont get me wrong as a beginners rally car you cant fault the nova,easy to work on,plenty of performance parts around,easy to control,but without spending a fair amount of money on it upgrading the engine,box,suspension e.t.c i feel very limited with the car and pushing it as hard as i do reliability has become a problem so i think its time for a change...

[peester]

aye.. just remember not to over cook those 16v satria/ civic engines either.. you'll end up wanting to go back to a bread n butter 8v nova, lol..

[LUV2XLR8]

gutting, i'll have another 1.4 head spare in the next few weeks. are you doing the 1000 lanes?

[Welsh Dan]

Can you add a rev limited to the carbed engines?

[Dar]

To be fair to the engine you mechanically over revved it and bent a valve. That’s hardly the engines fault. You can break any engine by doing that. Maybe you should try learning a bit of mechanical sympathy before going to more exotic machinery. Good luck with the car and the rallying though.

[Adam]

Can you add a rev limited to the carbed engines?
You can, but its not much use coming down the box, the engine would still rev off the clock if you went into 2nd gear at say 80mph.

[Lee]

Is there an engine that wont slap valves when over revved?

TBH, think you got of lightly there, one bent valve is a testament to the vaux lump. A jap engine probably would have quite literally eaten itself lol

[welsh_roadrally]

The point being that a jap 16v engine is better balanced i.e capable of withstanding 8k rpm and its a long time since i've had a car with less than 120bhp and of such a small capacity engine.
I'm not knocking the car or the 8v small block vauxhall,i had an SRi Nova years ago and gave it what i thought at the time to be 11/10ths but going back to a 1400 after bigger engine cars was not such a good idea.
I dont like Corsas or the ecotec engine so that isnt an option,a friend of mine rallys a satria and its proven 100% reliable and thats with being drivin hard 90% of its life,Hockley Motorsport now specialise in these so they cant be that bad can they,as for over cooking a vtec i'd have to be really on the limit to be doing that to be honest,i've used an 1.8 vti as my main car for the last 18 months and even after some serious abuse hasn't let me down once that why i mentioned one as as an option.

[Stuart]

yes but you can still overdrive any engine if your determined to be a cnut with the loudpedal and gear stick

[welsh_roadrally]

yes but you can still overdrive any engine if your determined to be a cnut with the loudpedal and gear stick

Couldnt agree more,need something 1.8 2.0 really i'd be happy at that,trouble being that trying to compensate for a lack of torque i'm pushing the engine harder than i should be from a reliability point of view,and i dont really see the point in owning a rally car to nurse it around.
i dont want to go down the route of fitting a bigger engine or spending as much as the car is worth on engine work to then make the gearbox/driveshafts/suspension the weak link,for ?3800 i know where theres a 1.6 16v nova stage rally car on 45's with a 5 speed straight cut box,bilsteins,4 pots etc etc but i cant and wouldnt at that price take it road rallying.
All i want is something with decent performance in standard form,new enough for parts to be in decent supply,and a car thats going to take a fair bit of hammer,i've used a vti civic for a fair length of time now and the performance and reliability has been unquestionable,i'm swaying more towards a proton because a friend of mine owns a breakers yard that specialise in them,harry hockley motorsport is 15 miles down the road and they built the works group A cars,mechanically they're 100% mitsubishi based and early Lancer EVO (up to 3)brakes and suspension is a straight forward conversion!

[LUV2XLR8]

thers a tidy satria on rally used parts, mint condition.

[stuartp]

Couldnt agree more,need something 1.8 2.0 really i'd be happy at that,trouble being that trying to compensate for a lack of torque i'm pushing the engine harder than i should be from a reliability point of view,and i dont really see the point in owning a rally car to nurse it around.

i can under stand what you mean there i use to really drive my corsa 1.6 8v hard past it reliable point of view. My temp car c20xe nova, i dont all ways have to drive it hard because the power is there i can travel at a certain pase easier.

[welsh_roadrally]

Fixed the beast today with a kindly donated 1.3 SR head,Renewed all the top end seals/gaskets,fitted new:water pump,cambelt,tensioner,thermostat,plugs,leads,dizz y cap,rotor arm,oil+filter,fuel filter.
Runs spot on again now however the gearbox is chucking a lot of oil out so i'll have to pressure wash it off and have a look where its coming from,i've been told it could be the breather on the top blocked?.
i'll have to get some pictures of it as i've decided i'm definatly selling it...
Havn't bothered puting any entries in for any rallys LUV2XLR8 as i havnt had my licence through,sent off for it 4 weeks ago.

[welsh_roadrally]

thers a tidy satria on rally used parts, mint condition.
The burgundy one for ?3500?,thats my mates,trouble being is its only a 1.3,100% reliable though and handles spot on with the Ralliart suspension:thumb: