Two Guys Rally

The Volvo Chronicles: CBV Diaphragm II [ October 16th, 2008 ] By:Mark Ozimek

It seems like all I post about these days is my own car. Hopefully Charles and I will get our hands on a rally car to work on, but for now, the Volvo will have to do as my source of entertainment. Anyways, a long while back, I ordered a CBV diaphragm to replace the old one in my car that I had suspected to be worn out and torn, allowing boost pressure to leak out.

I finally got around to replacing it last weekend. The old diaphragm was in much better condition than I thought it would be, however, the rubber was definitely worn. The sealing lip that gets compressed against the turbo was leaking, creating the huge mess on the turbo:

(click for larger)

However, there was something very significantly wrong. The hose that leads to CBV that supplies pressure or vacuum depending on throttle position had torn almost all the way off. Unfortunately, I missed this when replacing the vacuum hoses, so a new hose got put on with the new diaphragm.

After driving it for a week, there is a pretty noticable difference in power in the mid rpm range and top rpm range, though more in the mid than the top, which is opposite of what I expected. The turbo flows more air at higher rpm, so perhaps the leak, which would remain constant due to constant pressure, became less and less noticeable.

So in the end, the top rpm range still isn’t making the power it should, and I need to figure it out still. I have a new turbo control valve (TCV) that controls the wastegate actuation on the way, and I’ll try that out too. If the stock unit is fine, the new TCV has improved response over the OEM unit. At the very least, it should be able to control boost more precisely.

However, an important lesson can be learned from all this: Turbochargers are complex systems that have many parts to wear out and cause poor functionality. In a rally car, these components wear quickly due to the demanding conditions, so make sure you stay on top of the little small things in your car!

WRC Corsica 2008: Results [ October 14th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

Rally France (Corsica) was this weekend. Results were not too surprising (with one exception). Sebastian Loeb continued his domination with a podium finish over the weekend. However his teammate Sordo decided to ruin Citroen’s chances of yet another 1-2 finish by crashing. Sordo took a corner not so correctly and ended up in a rock wall. Taking Sordo’s place was Mikko Hirvonen giving him much needed points in the race for the championship (14 points off of Loeb overall). However his second place was a team effort as Francois Duval checked into the time control early, on purpose, in order to take a 2 minute penalty to push Hirvonen into 2nd, while taking 3rd for himself. 

Petter Solberg, one of my favorite drivers, placed fifth in this event. He earned himself some much needed points to pull in Latvala for 5th overall (2 point difference). Here is a video of some of the highlights (wow they pump these videos out quick): 

Link for you RSS peeps.

Startling Trend: Go To Every Competition and Rank Higher [ October 13th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

Rally America is what I consider to be the top Rally Racing competition in the United States (probably North America). So while looking into the standings of the drivers, I decided to check out how and where they were getting their points. What startled me was how few of the competitors make it to every single event. 

Kyle Sarasin, for example, is in 2nd place overall with 66 points and even he has not made it to every event. He missed out on the New England Forest Rally. But he is not alone in missing events. Andrew Comrie-Picard has missed two events (although ACP races in the Canadian Rally Championship also). Matt Johnson has missed two. Antoine L’Estage has missed FOUR! He has missed out on half the season! Tanner Foust has missed three events (I think he was competing in Drift events for those misses but that shouldnt excuse him). Patrick Moro has missed two events. Kenny Bartram has missed one event. Carl Jardevall and William Bacon each have missed five events. Travis Pastrana has missed none along with his teammate Ken Block. Andrew Pinker has yet to miss an event this season also. That rounds out the top 12 competitors overall.

I think that is ridiculous! Only three of the top 12 have been to every single event. If the top rally racers in the US cannot be expected to show up to the races how can spectators? I do not enjoy writing this criticism, but it is a huge problem in the world of US Rally. Could you imagine if Petter Solberg, or Sebastien Loeb had taken one WRC race off? 

Hopefully the missing races is a symptom rather than a cause of problems in Rally America. I get that there is not a lot of money pushed into Rally and that is a huge reason most of the competitors do not go to every event (as they cannot afford to). It just makes me sad that only 3 of the top 12 have made every event. However it brings up a way to start placing higher (and solve the problem): compete in every single event. That will get you points just for showing up (and finishing). If you just show up and finish every event (placing outside points for positions) you would be in 18th place overall. Time to get a bankroll.

Rally Michigan Next Weekend [ October 10th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

Rally America’s 9th and final rally of the season is next weekend (October 17th, 2008). It is called the Lake Superior Rally, but I like to refer to rallies by the State they are in or a convenient abbreviation (LSPR would be this rally, but that is not as fun to say as STPR). So I call it Rally Michigan as it is more fun and I’m sticking it to the man…YEA!

Racers will be swept off to Houghton, Michigan. It will be a race for the podium, but only the last two spots as Travis Pastrana locked in his 1st place this season with 116 points overall. Compare that to Kyle Sarasin’s 2nd place of 66 points overall. But watch out for Ken Block and Andrew Comrie-Picard too, they are not far off of 2nd with 64 and 62 points respectively.

Enough people are within points ranges for 2nd and 3rd place that this Rally will be an all out race to the finish line with only 1st place being locked in. There will plenty of broken hearts (and cars to go with them), and hopefully some upsets leading up to the final podiums. Unfortunately for Tanner Foust, it is not possible for him to get 3rd place overall, even if everyone DNFs but him. So expect to see 7th place overall and up fighting it out for the podium in Houghton, Michigan next weekend. It is going to be fun and your final fix of Rally America until 2009.

Group B - Finally Getting Beat [ October 9th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

Group B, introduced in 1982, was considered “Formula 1 cars with mudflaps” (Jeremy Clarkson). They are the most memorable rally cars in existance. This includes the iconic Audi Quattro, which resulted in Audi being banned by the FIA for an unfair advantage with the Quattro AWD system. 

They were known for their extreme power and monsterish sound, but before Group B was stopped (for killing too many people, it was really that dangerous) record times were set on stages. Some of those stages are still run today. However, only up until a few years ago did modern rally cars start beating the times set in the early to mid 80s. 

So in respect of Group B here is an amazing highlights video to sum up some of what Group B gave to the rally world:

Link for you RSS peeps.  
What an amazing set of rally cars.

Rally Catalunya (Spain) 2008 Results - Nothing Surprising [ October 8th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

Rally Spain was this weekend. Apparently I guessed correctly. Loeb, Sordo and Hirvonen did not upset with a 1, 2, 3 finishes respectively.

Both Subaru’s main guys, Solberg and Atkinson, finished top 8 (5th and 7th respectively). They even had third entrant who managed to finish top 10: Brice Tirabassi. Who is he? He is a French dude who was the 2003 JWRC World Champion. From what I’ve figured out, he was signed for only two events: Rally Spain and Rally France (this coming weekend).

Just for fun here’s a video of highlights from Rally Spain that I found on YouTube. Link for you RSS Folks: 

 

Another Reason to Strip the Interior [ October 7th, 2008 ] By:Mark Ozimek

Rattles.

Yes, you heard me. Rattles. Many people take out the interior of a rally car to make it lighter, but there are other unexpected benefits from doing so.

In a car that is flying over rough terrain all the time, all those plastic and metal parts inside the car have a tendency to vibrate loose. Clips wear or break, panels sag, screws come out, and so forth.

While this may not seem like a big deal, the resulting noise can be pretty distracting from listening to the normal sounds your car should be making. Worst case scenario, a piece breaks free and is floating around the cabin in an attempt to beat you and your co-driver up.

Why do I bring this up, you may be asking yourself. I tend to enjoy talking about things related to my own life, and in this case, it’s still my S70. The firmer suspension I put in a few weeks ago is starting to bring out a miniature chorous of fun sounds when I’m driving over rough roads. The Volvo has always made a few noises here and there, which is expected for a 10 year old car with 150k miles on it, but now it is distinctly noticable, and will take some getting used to because gutting my daily driver isn’t really an option for me!

So for those of you considering removing the interior of your racing car, you now have a bit more motivation to do so.

What Not To Eat Pre-Rally [ October 7th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

Having encountered food poisoning this weekend, you cannot be too careful about the food you eat before a rally. Why let something you eat end your race weekend?

Things to watch out for:

• Uncooked Eggs - They are more prevalent than you think. Some examples include Caesar Salad and Hollandaise sauce. Uncooked eggs can get quite dangerous.
• Room Temperature Meat - Meat is delicious and bacteria also think it is delicious. Room temperature meats go bad much faster than refridgerated meat (unless they’re cured…beef jerky for example). 
• Unwashed Fruit - Certain pesticides can cause some major intenstinal drama. There is a simple solution to this one though: wash the fruit!
• Names You Cannot Pronounce - Exotic foods, especially ones you’ve never had, have a much better chance of not being prepared correctly and causing some pain to you. 

 By the time you’re of age to race you should know what sits well with you in general, so you may not want to stray far from the list of foods you know. But there are some good rules to follow: eat only hot foods and wash fruit yourself… maybe then you won’t end up sick on race day.

Update on New Suspension Parts [ October 2nd, 2008 ] By:Mark Ozimek

I wrote about changing the suspension parts in my S70 a while back due to the damage from the rallycross Charles and I went to. Now that I’ve gotten a little bit of road time and testing with the adjustable shocks, I want to share my findings.

One important thing to keep in mind is that the Koni shocks I got are only rebound adjustable. The resistance to compression is fixed. This means that when they are set more firm, the car has a tendency to get lower over bumps, since the suspension takes longer to expand.

As a fairly obvious trend, the stiffer the setting on the shocks, the slower the car rolled. Hard corners were more predictable on smooth surfaces, but less predictable on rough surfaces. Acceleration and shifting feels much more solid, and really enjoyable.

Overall though, the ride quality near the hardest setting is just too harsh. Althoug the car does roll more with the softer settings, the improved traction on rough surfaces (which Rochester has a lot of) makes the tradeoff worthwhile.

Although I haven’t taken it to an actual race track, this general trend makes me suspect that the firmest setting would be ideal for track use, and the softest setting for rally style environments. Having more total suspension travel would be very nice for rally too, but I made the decision to keep the Volvo on the street, so I’m not too concerned about that.

A question for those of you with rally cars that have adjustable shocks, where do you prefer the damping firmness to get the car to handle the way you like?

WRC Rally Spain Is This Weekend [ October 1st, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

I’m excited about the rally this weekend. Rally Spain (aka Rally Catalunya) is always a neat rally: big sweeping tarmac stages with great views of the coast and most of all, close stage times. This year, however, the drivers will be much more cautious in the corners.

Why will they be more cautious? Because tire mousse that seals punctures was banned from the WRC. Tarmac tires are not known for being as puncture resistant as gravel tires, so we could see a ton of flats from some great drivers. Unfortunately that also means fewer sparks from the skid plates because of the lack of corner cutting.

Points wise it is not looking good for the other drivers. While Loeb is only 8 points ahead, he has won this rally the past three years. Albeit not by much, but Sordo is not a huge threat to Loeb points wise (he is the second favorite). I fully expect to see Loeb win with Sordo coming in second while reigning in Hirvonen for a 2nd place points race. 

Rally is Rally, and that means anything can happen. Combine the ban on tire mousse with a change in venue (back to Costa Brava) and it could result in a big upset for Loeb. I really am excited about this rally and will report back when I hear/see more.