What makes it a rally car? The suspension.

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I’m going to break into a topic that is critical for your success in rally, costs a lot of money, was once a bit controversial on rallynotes, and a subject I’m still learning about after 7 years in the sport: Suspension.

Suspension makes the car a rally car: Regular street car struts / shocks are just not designed to take the abuse and friction that rally cars can see. First is the springs: Often 100+ pounds more force then a street car with more inches of travel. Second is the side loading: Engineers wish for a strut centered directly over the wheel that only travels up and down at a perfect 0° angle. The reality is camber, caster, toe, rotation, and side loading. The center of the tire is 4″ from the bottom of the strut, it’s at a 10° angle to the ground, the pivot for the control arm changes this angle as it goes up and down, etc. Then you go over a giant jump into a tight right hand turn – fully unloaded to fully loaded in 2 seconds. All of that energy has to go somewhere.

The first way to overcome these issues is with an inverted shock / or strut. This takes the single point of stress that is a narrow 14-19mm rod, turns the assembly inverted (upside down) and protects the damper. Now the side loading is spread over a 50mm housing and the damper piston is happily sealed from the elements. The second way is to give the damper a higher volume of fluid with a separate reservoir. It takes longer to heat up more fluid and it cools outside of the strut. You can control how fast or slow that fluid moves into the reservoir giving you adjust-ability. This is why ‘remote reservoir inverted adjustable struts’ are used in rally.

“But Kris said that he finished a rally on stock struts!” Yes. I did. It sucked. You just can’t go anywhere near as fast as you can on a proper rally setup. Unfortunately it took me a long time to get there with the P-Car (Ze’Neon). I was making a pretty good show in rallycross and had survived my first two rally events on stock dampers when I started to work with Bilstein in 2006. Their sponsorship for us consisted of a set of inverted motorsport inserts. (Just the part on the left, not the whole strut on the right.) It was up to us to have the strut housings machined as Bilstein did not make 1st Gen Neon struts. With a budget of “less than no money” I had someone with some experience build a set of housings out of stock struts. This was a miserable failure (Read the complete Rim of the World 2006 story here). Looking back, I downplayed it as much as I could to not let my new “suspension” sponsors down. The truth was the damper rod bolt shot out of the bottom of the strut INTO the CV joint on one side after the housing failed. I lost all the seals and bearings on all 4 struts, and my buddy Harry became my personal hero for rescuing us with stock spares. As far as Bilstein is concerned, their equipment is awesome! It was the cheap housings that caused all the drama. Bilstein replaced the broken rod for me, later re-valved the rears, and those dampers are still on the rally car to this day! The combination being a set of Bilstein PT cruiser fronts (that accept the motorsport inserts) and a reworked set of rear housings. Even though it works, and was able to get us a championship winning setup, this hodge-podge mismatch of housings and inserts is not something I ever want to go through again.

What should it cost? What should your budget be? I’d start at $1500 – $2000. If someone says to you they have a new rally suspension setup for less then $1000, you are going to get what you pay for. Non-inverted, junk coil-overs, with thin metal housings. Save up for the real thing!

Being able to open up a catalog and order rally struts for the 2GN (after the fiasco with the P-Car) was rewarding. Hot Bits has a ton of applications for all kinds of cars. Their full on rally setup is expensive, but you get a lot for your money. Hot Bits RSI Rally includes Camber plates, bound/rebound 35/40 way adjustable, inverted dampers, adjustable coil overs, and an out of the box rally setup that helped us set 3rd fastest times @ NNR in a brand new rally car! If you’re considering building a car, consider very carefully what options you have for an “off the shelf” rally suspension setup.

TEAM WARMS UP NEW CAR FAST AT NORTH NEVADA

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Rallynotes selected to run Saturday for the North Nevada Rally on July 7th, 2012, on roads they last raced in 2008 located near Gerlach, NV. This was the first competitive stages that the Marciniaks have run since winning the USRC in 2008. This was also the first competitive stage miles the new rallynotes.com 2GN (Soon to be SRT-4) Dodge Neon would tackle. Kris tells us more: “New car, new suspension, new everything! We wanted to shake out the bugs and test the handling before adding 150+ HP. We also wanted to shake out 4 years of not competing by not jumping into a really powerful car!” The team by no means has been absent from rally; They volunteer for the California Rally Series and organize their own event – The High Desert Trails Rally.

There were 8 cars in the CRS-2 (Group 2) 2WD class at this event, which meant there was ample competition to judge stage times. Right off the bat the team set 3rd fastest overall on SS9 (the first stage on Saturday). On their second stage, SS10 “Purgatory Pass,” a small mistake over a sharp left hand turn pulled the car into a soft berm. Kris struggled to keep the car’s momentum, but they got stuck in what would become their own personal “Rally Purgatory.” Kristopher describes the scene: “Going over the berm de-beaded the front right tire. We went into the scenery a little bit and almost made it back onto the road, but got stuck on the berm coming out of the corner. It then took us 30 minutes to dig out the front right and get a spare on there, while car after car continued by us. It sucked, but the car was fine, the team was fine, and the competitive pressure was off. Now we just had to have fun and finish.” Pressure or no pressure, the rallynotes.com team proceeded to set the 3rd fastest time on the last 3 stages of the day! “The last stage we made a personal charge to be fast. The car was running great, Christine was once again used to the pace that we set in the notes, and we set a fantastic 10:03 time for SS14. We missed 2nd by only 1 second, and were 32 seconds off the rally leader Andrew Lockhart, who won the event overall.” said driver Kristopher Marciniak.

The team would like to thank Kevin Patterson for his tremendous efforts in helping to service 3 teams at North Nevada!
Our next event: The Prescott Rally in Prescott, AZ. Join us!

Husband and wife team, Kristopher and Christine Marciniak, have been rallying together since 2005. They are three time USRC Production 2WD champions. Kristopher handles technology and operations at Warm Your Floor in Laguna Hills, CA. Christine has a PhD in molecular biology and is working in the field.

New rally car debut: North Nevada Rally

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The updates on here have been a little sparse, but you may have noticed the constant stream of images uploading to Flickr. 😀 Here she sits, ready after hours of prep and fabrication. We are going to be racing at North Nevada on Saturday 7/7/12. Here’s the NNR Scoring Link for those keeping up with us. We’ll have APRS tracking, but no guarantees as we’ll be racing where the wild horses still roam free. We’ll be tweeting and facebooking as well!

The best money you’ll ever spend on rally.

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For the 15th consecutive year, the California Rally Series is presenting the CRS Rally School on Saturday, February 18, 2012 with the Ridgecrest RallyX rallycross event, the following day on Sunday, February 19, 2012.

The School’s goal has always been to present an affordable and convenient way for people to get off to a great start in the sport. The 8-hour class is packed with information and covers topics including: car prep, timing, stage notes, team management, and rally driving techniques. There is also plenty of seat time for drivers/riders and co-drivers on practice courses designed to give them the “feel” of real competition. Experienced rally competitors will ride along with you and show you how to use the practice areas to develop and hone both driving and co-driving skills.

Students must provide their own vehicle for the driving practice but any standard street vehicle is acceptable. Properly equipped vehicles will be provided for the co-driver practice sessions. Two or more students may share one car for both the school and the Sunday rally cross. A helmet with a Snell 90 or newer sticker is required for the driver’s practice.

The Ridgecrest RallyX is a timed, speed event where competitors race both street stock and prepared cars and trucks around a coned closed course in a huge dirt lot. The tight course controls the vehicle’s speed while making driver control and skill a greater factor than raw horsepower. The RallyX is open to almost any vehicle meeting the minimum requirements. Drivers must be at least 16 years of age and minors must have a parent or legal guardian present to participate.

The school’s enrollment fee is only $120. Your entry includes a “working sack lunch” Saturday afternoon and Mexican buffet Saturday night. along with an extensive set of classroom materials. Entry in the Ridgecrest Rallycross on the following day can be added to the enrollment fee for only $20 more. Regular entry to the Rallycross is $40. Both events take place in Ridgecrest, California. Complete details and online registration can be found at CRSRallySchool.com.

If you just joined us…

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If you’re a beginner and you just found rallynotes.com, keep reading, your quest starts here.

Rally car jump

Building a rally car is something that is very rewarding, time consuming and expensive. My formula is: Take the cost of ANY car and add about $8000 and you will have a good budget for your first rally car. Did eight grand scare you a little? Good, because used rallycars can be found for $5000. That cost doesn’t include the $2000 each of safety gear you’ll be wearing. ($ in USD)

You’re going to want to prioritize your to-do list and start by gutting the car. Any mechanical issues that the model has will need to be solved. (AWS on VR4, Neon head gasket, Rear beam brake bias on VW’s, etc.) This stuff involves lurking on car forums and doing research on what works and what doesn’t in racing. Talk to people who have actually rallied. Don’t spend 1000 hours re-engineering something from the factory. The manufacturer spent a LOT of money to ensure the gas tank was in a safe place. Why are you spending hours setting up a fuel cell in the spare wheel well? You’d be surprised to see how much factory stuff is just fine working under rally conditions. Don’t run too many rally experiments your first time out.

Find a reputable roll cage fabricator. You could do it yourself, but I don’t recommend it. These guys have rally experience, they know what works and what doesn’t. At least consult with one before you start cutting tubes. A basic cage that will protect you in a crash is going to be around $2300 – $2800.

friendsGet some friends to help. Your mechanic buddy might groan when you ask him for help on a Friday night, but secretly he loves it. He loves knowing everything about your rally car, he talks about it at work, and he’ll love when you finish your first rally and bring it into the winners circle with his help. Compensate these guys by paying for their rally weekend. Cover the hotel and food.

Once the cage is in and seats are installed. Upgrade the suspension, and come up with a clever way to attach some HDPE plastic and 6061 3/16″ aluminum skid plates to the underside. I used angle iron on the side sills and some metal skis off the K-member. Then take it out for testing at a rallycross, dry lake-bed, or closed dirt road. You should have already had a conversation with a sanctioning body rally car inspector. Getting a logbook for your first rally car is a major milestone!

Going to start with a brand new co-driver? Go to a rally school that teaches co-driving skills. Rally volunteers have some patience for noobs, but getting 10 minutes of road points because you don’t understand how a time card works is embarrassing.

Read rules, rulebooks, and car classes. You’ve read them once? Read then again. Now all the little details need to get in place. Your orange triangles, your first aid kit, tow hooks, extinguishers, etc. Only after this is all figured out should you sign up for your first event. Do you have everything you need to pass tech at your first rally? I highly recommend hanging out in tech a few rallies before your first one. I learned a lot just watching the scrutineering process.

Your goal is to finish your first rally. You will learn an amazing amount of stuff about your car and yourself in one event. Now you can go forward and refine your driving, your car, and your rally skills.

Want an idea of what it’s like to build and race a rally car? Check out some of the highlights of the rallynotes.com archive. Goals Achieved at Gorman – The Olympus Story – The Black Canyon Video – The 2008 USRC Production 2WD Champions – Rally car project number 2
Thanks for joining us!
– Kris

The Prescott Rally 2011

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The Prescott Rally in Arizona is a fantastic event. The roads, the volunteers, the organizers, and the stages are awesome. This year the organizers gave us the opportunity to test out our new rally car on the stages by running zero car.

How did it go? Great! The chassis feels solid and the steering modifications are amazing at speed. Tossing the car through the end of Witty Tom South (a stage with lots of 4’s and 3’s) had me turning the wheel no more then 90 degrees. A big plus for the quickener experiment. The rallycross suspension setup was decent, but not ready for cattle-guards at 70+ mph. We embarrassingly nosed in a couple of times, and after the third time hopping the rear end through a ditch, I slowed for the remainder of them. This 2.0l n/a motor feels stronger then the one in the Production car and it will be fun to rally on for a couple more events before swapping a turbo SRT4 power-plant in.

As I feared, the stock engine mounts are completely unable to cope with this kind of abuse. The motor mount rubber on the passenger frame side ripped about halfway through stage 2. This added to the noise in the cabin and kept me from really putting down the throttle. It was a mistake not to address this before Prescott. Solid “dog bone” mounts are on order and I’m going to poly fill or weld (haven’t decided) the engine and trans mounts before the Glen Helen rallycross on October 16th.

We have a laundry list of things to fix and change, but overall it was a very successful test!

The Prescott Rally 2011 – Some last minute drama…

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Last Tuesday after a marathon weekend of mounting seats, belts, lights, etc. I wanted to drive the 2GN rally car to work and get some miles on it before the rally. I start her up in the garage – *blub *blub *blub *blub “Why does that not sound right?” *blub *blub… Sounds like it’s running on three cylinders. I open the hood and the engine is bobbling around pretty good. Rev the motor, drive it around the block, no power, call it done, and park it back in the garage.

In the evening I pull the code P0202 from the computer. This means the “Fuel Injection Circuit has failed on cylinder 2.” Only three things to check and replace. I swap injector 1 and 2 and nothing changes. I test the wiring going to the PCM with a meter and it’s fine. The only thing left is a bad PCM / ECU (Power Control Module / Electronic Control Unit) and I have no idea why it failed. Right now I think it had hesitation issues when I bought it and they got worse. Plus the wiring loom in the front went into the AC compressor, remember?

Wednesday morning, worst nightmare happens – no one has a computer in stock. The last one in the US (you think I’m kidding…) is sent over-night to Tustin Dodge for Thursday. I formulate a backup plan and find one from a junkyard for an automatic (I confirm that it will throw a code, but still run). To add to the drama, you can’t just plug in an old ECU and expect it to work in a car from this century. The dashboard and key module are aware of the VIN number and won’t start without re-programming from a dealer. 😡

On Thursday morning we are all packed on the tow dolly and ready to head to Arizona with a car that only runs on three cylinders. 😐 I drop the 2GN off at the dealership at 7am and go to work. I finally receive a phone call later in the day. The part is in, and the tech I know there (who is a past Neon Owners Club member) has installed the new PCM and was able to re-flash the junkyard one (sometimes it won’t go). The car is running great and we are good to leave for Prescott after work. Now the real adventure can begin. 😀

The rally car experiments

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When you build your own rally car – at some level – you have no idea what you’re doing. Whether or not you meticulously plan it all out, at some point you’re going to have to just try it and see if it works. This is the only way you’ll ever get onto the stages.

One thing I suggest is not running too many “rally car experiments” at one time. Using a scientific method you should only change 1 major component at a time. Get some feedback, get some data – mark it off as successful or try again. This is one of the reasons we didn’t jump right into a turbo motor for this car. Lots of stuff to test and tune before changing the motor over to an SRT package. Here are the current experiments on the new rallynotes.com rally car:

LED Lighting
I figured that a car that was built in the 21st century would be able to snap in LED lights. But that’s just not how it is. I’m looking at LEDs for their longevity, durability, and power savings. Using resistor blocks that trick the relay is unacceptable. Turns out, weird stuff happens when you switch over to all LEDs and modify the relay. The car has circuits that rely on that power load, and a diode to ground confuses them. At this point, I am unaware of a setup without “load resistors” that will give the 2GN all LEDs. Right now I have a modified aftermarket relay and stock front turn bulbs. The rear lights are all LED. The experiment continues.

Power Steering Pump
As you have probably seen my work with a steering quickener, this experiment involves getting more fluid through the stock pump. A condition autocrossers are aware of is when you steer so much left to right that the fluid boils and then no-longer fills up the steering assist. You get a condition known as “pump catch” – this is where you’re working faster then the fluid can pump into the rack. So far, all that was done is a change to open the flow valve diameter a tiny .01″. Doing just this gets a lot more fluid through the pump. I haven’t changed any springs or shimmed any valves. Steering pump pressure is extremely high (1200psi) so be careful here. This experiment took a lot of research and appears positive on the street, but I’m not going to call it successful until a full rallycross workout.

Rallycross Springs
The first thing you notice when looking for suspension mods is that practically no-one RAISES their car. Searches always yield lowering springs, and “how much drop from stock” numbers. If you want to rally or rallycross your car you’re going to have to lift or raise it. Taking a page from the Subaru guys, I decided to test something out. You see the Forester (that fat little SUV) is built on the same platform as the Impreza. It uses the same strut design, yet has more ground clearance. Turns out Forester springs are a great start on an Impreza rallycrosser. The springs are “heavier” (spring rate in lbs.) to accommodate the heavier SUV and that means you get a harder spring with more ground clearance. The Forester version of this equation is the PT-Cruiser. PT’s take the same strut design (in the front at least). They are heavier and have more ground clearance. This weekend I changed the front struts over to OEM PT-Cruiser front springs. I gained at least 2″ of ground clearance and didn’t notice any adverse handling issues (not bad for $68). As for the rear, the clearance remains high here as the Neon is always sort of “nose down” from the factory. I’m entertaining ideas as this experiment unfolds. A full on rally suspension this is not, but I needed something while the budget recovers from 2GN rally prep so far.

All the major components are in place and tested for our trip to Prescott Arizona this weekend. Some additional wiring and safety items need to be installed, but I’ll have time this week to button it all up. See you there!

First test drive – 2nd Gen Neon Rally Car

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The other day I was pretty excited to pop the axles in and go for a spin. Unfortunately I still had to re-attach the front bumper, lights, and hood. There was also adding fluid to the transmission and the modified power steering pump.

Monday, I wrapped up all these tasks and set the car back down on the wheels. The steering made no argument turning rally tires on concrete. No noise from the pump and the steering felt light. I idled slowly out of the driveway, listening for any weird noises from a car that I’ve taken completely apart and put back together.

Ferrari F355 ChallengeMy first reaction to the quickener is that it drives like a video game. That tight – instant steering you get from your Logitech Gaming Wheel. It feels natural and I didn’t even think about adapting to it. You just drive it like you would Sega’s Ferrari F355 Challenge. The car drives straight and I didn’t tax the steering pump puttering around the neighborhood swerving around trash barrels. The real test will be at speed – and at a rallycross in 3 weeks.

The plan has been finalized to be ‘Zero Car’ at Prescott. This is a lot less stressful then competing and will be a great shakedown of the systems and setup so far. For those of you unfamiliar with the term: 1 or 2 course opening cars are sent down the rally stage to make sure it’s clear and the time controls and signs are in place (000 and 00), then the 0 car (usually a rally car) is run at a fast pace before the competitors. The zero car reports any change in conditions to the drivers, any potential safety issues, and declares the stage “hot” and ready to run. The Prescott Rally is September 30th – October 1st, and we have one last weekend of prep to get the new rallynotes.com Dodge Neon rally car ready to run. See you on the stages!

The hard work of putting it all back together.

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2GN roll cage paintThe first thing on the agenda was to paint the cage. This is like building a paint booth – – inside your car. After mistakenly buying (and spraying) silver metallic, I went back to the store to pick up a flat ‘granite’ grey. As I’d be painting the roof, floor, and side pillars, I wanted to go with something darker then primer. I think the color is perfect for the interior of a dirty rally car. With a respirator on, I did two coats of grey and then I sprayed a clear coat on the floor and the door bars that would see the most abuse. Allow 3 days to dry, then begin.

The HVAC system was a bit of a fuss to get back in, but eventually I coaxed the blower motor under the bar going out to the front strut tower. The flap that controls air from the cabin and air from the outside was compromised, and we’ll have to see about sealing that up better. The 1stGen only took air from the outside, so being able to control that even partially is better then nothing. The dashboard followed quickly afterwards and heavy modification to the vents were needed to make them operable. I used pop rivets to secure the tubes that push air to the cabin. With 70% of the original dash gone, you have to be resourceful if you want the remaining bits to stay in place.

The wiring is underway with the stock dash harness back in. I found an old phone charger cable that I scrapped to make a coil cord for the horn. I pop riveted the original interior light back in – a little further back, and replaced the bulb with an LED replacement. Red and white LED strips are in place above the driver and co-driver. Their location will be finalized when Christine’s seat goes in.

Dry cell Optima Red Top in Rally CarI mounted an 1/8″ plate with four bolts into the frame rails behind the co-driver’s seat. This fixed, flat location was used to mount an Optima Red-Top battery inside a plastic box. The plastic box will keep spares or tools from damaging the battery, and adds very little weight. I had enough wire to put the battery all the way in the trunk, but I prefer to keep the weight between the front and back wheels. There is a handy rear seat belt bolt near there that I re-purposed to be the main ground for the chassis.

The next big step will be to get the body wiring harness back in, battery connected, and tested. This will allow the stock motor to return and we’ll really start pushing for Prescott.