Life in the old girl yet !

[blackvr]

Guys, thought I would share the news ( and give other punters some hope) that our Group A VR4 ( Brown/Dale ) has just won its second consecutive SA Rally championship round in a row. This last and 4th round was held in Kuipto forest on Sunday , and against some pretty late model and stiff opposition, we controlled the event and won by a margin of 57 seconds . If we hadnt had DNF'd the first round in May (after completing all stages but not quite making it to Parc Ferme), we would have won the the State title ! Its a pretty well developed weapon... Dog box, AP's all round, big vents, E85 tune ( torque Monster!). I tune it using the original Ralliart management, albeit with an ECMLink chip. The launch control/Stutterbox makes for awesome stage starts... and in the Adelaide ARC round this year, it was quick enough to have placed 6th outright if we had entered that component, and not just State points.

I've attached some photos of us in action ( one is of our sister team car)

Cheers Mike

 

[bazeng]

Looking good!!

Great pictures!
Nice jump on the last one!

What are the specs on the beast?

 

[Jonson]

Awesome work. It's good to see that it still punches well above its weight class. I'm assuming that's you as co....can just see your head above the dash

 

[blackvr]

Yeah, thats me Jon... if you look carefully you can see me giving Gary a touch up with the whip to get a move on... I have him so well trained he wont back off unless I "allow" him too....
We have been working together for 7 years, so we have a pretty good mutual understanding , and a pretty good pace note setup.

We liken the VR4 to Harrison Fords old clunker hyper drive ship in the Star Wars movie.. its rough, its not pretty , but its hell quick ! Theres not much of the original car left, as its had so many big crashes and rolls ( since we've run it) The reality is , theres nothing really special about it. It has lots of spherical bearings, chrome moly arms, brake pedal box with balance bar, big brakes, Chrome Moly cage, Albins Dog box that I freshen up every 3 or 4 events, forged bottom end engine, a head that so standard apart from HKS cams, its not funny.... Evo 3 turbo , Ralliart 34 mm restrictor and cast alloy intake pipe , fuel cell and twin external pumps , Velo seats... and half the time it doesnt even have any distance measuring device ( because Gary forgets to bring it !!).

It makes 190kw at all 4 wheels at 21 psi boost @ 3900 rpm, and its "all over" at 5000 rpm. It was around 170 kw on PULP. My next development will involve a larger MAF sensor, as I suspect the standard VR4 MAF is holding airflow up a bit... but I'm not sure if it is restrctive at 4500 rpm. I suspect it is, as the EVO3's with bigger MAF's I tune keep making power at 4600rpm, whilst ours is falling over at 4000 rpm... Since the E85 tune, its been a bit like driving a diesel... pick any rev, any gear and it just grunts. Its taken a bit of coaching to get Gary to leave it in that taller gear, and just let the torque drive the wheels. It really keeps the wheel spin down. I had to put a taller 5th gear in it, as it kept running out of revs too early. It was geared for 175km/h, now its around 190 km/h. I want a taller 5th again, but Garys happy to leave it maxxing at 190 km/h....

I believe Bob Rileys nephew Darren built it side by side Ross Dunkertons VR4 in 1994. We bought it from Frank Barkers Rally school as part of a package deal several years ago.

 

[htgsr]

Thats awesome! Whats the landing like after one of those jumps?

 

[blackvr]

You brace for it.....

 

[Velocity Racing]

We liken the VR4 to Harrison Fords old clunker hyper drive ship in the Star Wars movie.. its rough, its not pretty , but its hell quick

haha thats classic Mike...

Mike is right tho, it is a bloody quick car! and witht he E85 it is a real Torque Monster!.. I think its nearly got twice the torque of ours tuned on 98.. (admitidly ours doesnt have some of the extra go fast bits like the cams, forged bottom etc.. but still for a 20yr old car its a rocketship!

Garry and Mike have done very well this year, big shame about the result at Adelaide Hills Tarmac Rally meaing the task was going to be a tough one... Still I think things are looking good for 2011!!

We entered Kuitpo Rally as well, we were well out of the running for the championship (as we'd only done one other state round this year which ended with a DNF).. but still were keen for a good result.. We set a pretty careful pace to make sure there were no mistakes, with stage times around 3rd to 4th outright about 1 - 1.5sec per km off the pace of these blokes above.. In the end we finished up with 4th outright,.. We did hold 3rd going into the last 2 stages, but dropped a little time over the them(not really sure why I just didnt find the grip/confidence that some of the guys around us did).. so ended up loosing out that spot by around 10sec.. After comming off a crash last event (stupid pace note error on my part) it was great to have a clean event with no mistakes or issues..

here are a few shots of us.

cheers
Lewis

 

[JayRome]

those are some awesome shots!!

 

[MattL]

Congrats

Pity to hear about the DNF, next year eh!