Two Guys Rally

Loeb Wins Again!

The WRC was tearing it up through the beautiful German countryside near Trier over this past weekend. The course has an interesting variety of surfaces; back-country roads that are covered in leaves and dirt on Friday, concrete roads on Saturday, and asphalt on Sunday. Through all this, the terrain varies from being in the woods to out in large fields to being in an old city. If you haven’t gotten a chance to watch the race, I highly recommend finding a way to watch it as soon as you can.

So what happened? Well, Loeb managed to snag 1st place in the first 13 consecutive stages! By the end of stage 13, he had a 43 second lead over Sordo in second place, who managed to stay in second place overall throughout the race, aside from temporarily losing it to Hirvonen in stages 5 and 6.

By the end of the rally, the podium was taken by Loeb in 1st, Sordo in 2nd and Duval in 3rd. Unfortunately WRC hasn’t made their official highlights video, but this one is pretty cool, and shows the German scenery well.

Gorman Rally 2008 - This Weekend

The 2008 Gorman Rally starts this weekend, Saturday, August 16th. A combo NASA/USRC/CRS event there is a lot of variety in what you’ll see out there. Only 25 teams are entering but only 9 of which are Subarus, which is not what you normally see in an American Rally.

NASA is a nice change to watch compared to Rally America. The rules are different so you will see competitors with different setups and very different cars. I know of at least one Ford F150 competing, which I don’t think would fly in RA. Chrissie Beavis (most famous for co-driving for Tanner Foust) will be driving, not co-driving, a VW Jetta in the event.

This event usually pops up all over YouTube and Specialstage, so keep a look out. I think DirtyImpreza is sending two cars out into the event too, just one more thing to look out for (at least for me). I’ll be watching intently from the other side of the country.

Oh Yea! Loeb Finally Won Finland

This is not news, but Loeb finally won Finland. There was a win that was eluding Loeb and I bet he loved this win more than many others. Unfortunately the famous stage ‘Ouninpohja’ was dropped this year because Petter Solberg was too fast four years ago. Either way, watch this highlight video of the event:

Link to the video for you RSS people, and there are more of you! That reminds me, it is FREE to subscribe. There is even an email option in the menu, enter your email and subscribe to this site’s updates for free.

5 Sites I Find Informative (Rally Wise)

I spend so much time not talking about sites that I really enjoy and frequent related to the world of Rally. I figured taking one post to go over some sites would be worth it for all of us.

• DirtyImpreza - Its main feature is its forum. There is a surprising amount of intelligence that comes out during posts over there, and because of that I participate in the conversations. While it may sound like it is only for Subaru Impreza drivers, it really is for anyone who likes playing in the dirt with their cars (rallycross especially). Aaron, the owner/admin of DirtyImpreza, is one of the nicest guys I’ve eMet.
• RallyNotes - What I consider the first blog related to Rally Racing. It is run by a husband-wife pair, Kris and Chrstine Marciniak respectively, that mostly just enjoy telling the world about their time rallying. They go over quite a bit of info and they’re partly responsible in getting Mark and I to choose a blog format.
• Rally411 - A site run by two brothers in their spare time. I use it to figure out the not so common news going on in the rally world (their front page), especially American Rally.
• WRC(dot)COM - The official site of the World Rally Championship. They have really awesome videos that are updated often. The only problem with them is they tend to crash my firefox and I don’t understand why. I find the videos to be worth that hassle though.
• SpecialStage - Last but not least is SpecialStage. They’re a great outlet for American Rally news and they aggregate rally team’s ‘press releases’. Lots of rally related stuff on there and even some forums (but I mostly stay front paged).

Yep, those are some sites I have found to be really useful/informative. The only site I have an account with is DirtyImpreza because it was worth it as I have an Impreza and I like to play in the loose stuff (I tend to hate registering for things, that is one of the reasons you do not have to register to comment on this site). Either way, check those sites, I do.

Mmmm The Olympics

I realize its not Rally, but the Olympics is a huge worldwide competition that I think is extremely impressive. The opening ceremony started tonight in Beijing, China. It was quite a spectacular show.

Check it out on the NBC networks. Sports will be aired daily including things that I used to compete in like Riflery. Gogogo, watch this international sporting event 24/7!!!!

Perhaps Rally Racing should become an Olympic Sport? I know BMX racing just became one. (hah! pipedream)

Why All The Safety Equipment Matters

In keeping up the trend of posting YouTube videos that I find I’ll post a good example of why safety equipment matters:

I usually hate crash compilations (not the reason I watch motorsports) but I think it serves as a great example of what can and will go wrong in a Rally. The video works just as well on mute.

Link for you RSS readers out there.

Anti-Roll Bars

Without an anti-roll bar, when a car turns left the inertia of the car would cause the right side suspension to compress and the left side suspension to extend. This is primarily due to the center of gravity (CG) being above the axis about which the suspension rotates. A higher CG means a larger tendency to roll, as many of you have probably experienced with driving different sized cars. A roll bar keeps the suspensions at similar compressions/extensions and that makes the car body roll less in corners. It is a pretty simple concept.

However with any simple concept there are many implementations of it in the real world. Sway bars, another name for the anti-roll bar, connect the left wheel to the right wheel (front with front and rear with rear). Most of them tend to be torsional springs (springs that are designed to resist twisting rather than compression) but there is at least one electronic method.

The trick to the adjusting the bar is to allow for the “correct” amount of roll to keep the tires on ground. If you go too stiff and corner real hard, you will end up lifting a wheel off of the ground (inside front or rear, depending on if you’re accelerating or braking). If you go too soft (ie none) the car will have grip, but the car’s response will feel sluggish. In Rally it comes down to a combination of overall suspension stiffness, driver preference and style with a mixture of stage terrain requirements. While there is some science behind suspensions, a lot of it is just finding a setup that inspires confidence in it’s handling.

A final note: I have noticed many individuals refer to a strut tower brace as a sway bar. That is just plain wrong, hopefully this video can show you how a strut tower brace would not be a sway bar.

I Hope You Watched The X-Games

The X-Games this year was AMAZING. This is the third year where Rally Racing was present as an event in the X-Games. In pure X-Games fashion the crossover jump was the biggest it has ever been. It was pretty spectacular to watch. Lots of drama and lots of up and comers including a father son team that did better than expected.

Unfortunately the only non-Subaru (Mitsubishi) racing DNFd over the jump. It was driven by Andrew Comrie-Picard, who is trailing Travis Pastrana by 1 point in the Rally America series. ACP ended up coming short on the jump (just a few mph) and the impact on the rear wheels caused him to flip end over end. What makes this more heartbreaking is it was his first race (semi-finals) of the week and he had it won if he made the jump. Why would he have it won? Dave Mirra hit the wall pretty hard and knocked his steering out of alignment right before that (and he thought he DNFd). Luckily for Dave, he was able to finish albeit painfully slow involving many excursions into reverse. There are videos of it popping up all over YouTube: here and here for example. Better luck next year ACP!

It all ended with a battle between last year’s gold medalist and the original X-Games gold medalist: Tanner Foust and Travis Pastrana. Travis was racing with a new co-driver (not too big of a deal on a Super Special) as his current co-driver fractured a vertebrae in the Freestyle Motocross the previous night. These guys are super competitive in everything they do. Anyway, Travis was able to steal the gold from Tanner in their heads up. What an exciting X-Games.

The podium was filled with 4 drivers. Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust and a tie for bronze between Dave Mirra and Ken Block. I sure hope you caught it on ABC.

The Volvo Chronicles: CBV Diaphragm

Last time I posted about my S70’s engine, I had just replaced some vacuum lines. Although it helped, there’s still something strange going on. I had ordered a new Compressor Bypass Valve (CBV) diaphragm to replace the worn out one that is allowing air to escape from the compressor outlet back to the inlet. Unfortunately it was out of stock everywhere I looked, so I had placed an order and waited for the part to arrive.

Now, a few weeks later, I get home from work to find a small package at the door. “What could it be!?”, I wonder. Opening up the bag reveals the impossibly rare diaphragm:

(Click for larger view)

What this diaphragm does is open and close to allow air out of the compressor outlet back into the inlet to prevent compressor surge when there is a sudden decrease in airflow through the engine at higher loads. The actuation method is pretty simple. There is a spring that pushes the valve assembly closed under most conditions. The pressure from the compressor pushes against this spring. There is a air hose that runs to the intake manifold that allows for a change in pressure behind the diaphragm. When near or at WOT, the pressure in the intake manifold is close to that of the compressor outlet, meaning the spring holds the valve shut. When the throttle is suddenly closed so that there is a lot more pressure in the compressor outlet than in the intake manifold, the spring can no longer hold the seal closed, allowing air to flow past it.

Over time, the heat, oil, cyclic action, vibration, dirt, etc., break down the diaphragm, it stiffens up, develops holes and tears, which generally decreases its performance. When there are holes in it, air can always escape through the CBV, significantly decreasing turbo performance and efficiency.

So I plan to change the diaphragm in my car soon. It isn’t a terribly complex job, there is just very little room to work, as it is wedged between the turbo housing and engine block, with a bunch of stuff in the way from both the top and bottom.

It’ll be a fun project to work on, and I’ll be sure to make a post when the old one gets replaced!

Rally in X-Games!

As pointed out here in passing before, we’re excited for the 2008 X-Games and the rally event that it is going to have. Just a reminder to everyone, the X-games is coming up very soon, starting on July 31st, this Thursday, running to Sunday, August 3rd.

A large part of the philosophy behind TwoGuysRally is to attempt to create a larger Rally awareness and fanbase in the USA. Media coverage is sorely lacking, and the general popularity of the sport is just pathetic compared to many other countries in the world, especially when you look at European countries. How can we fix this? Well, now that the opportunity is presented to us, go watch the rally coverage along with all of your friends who have even the slightest interest in motorsport! The more people you recruit into the crazy sport where we toss cars through trees at high velocity in the snow, the better! I mean seriously, who doesn’t enjoy the insanity of the co-driver’s pace notes, and his reaction to unforeseen events, forbid they actually happen.

Unfortunately, I’m having difficulty finding exactly when the Rally is going to be shown. Anything that covers X-Games should show it, or some of it. I know that it will be airing on ABC on Sunday sometime, in the middle of Skateboarding. So make plans to sit near a TV this Sunday to watch it, I know Charles and I will be!