British Rally Championship Car Build

[myerscoughBRC09]

Hi all, I'm Jay, currently finishing my degree at Myerscough College (part of UCLAN) in motorsports and business management. I'm project manager for our rallycar build which started back in september and is currently in the final flourish towards completion (9weeks left to get it all done!). The car we are using is a 53 plate red Skoda Fabia VRS hatchback and will be built to group N specification to compete in the British Rally Championship on tarmac events only. I'll try upload any pics and more details when i can but bear with me as i have an audit trail to maintain and detailed investigations into the build project to write up. Anybody with any advice or links to similar cars and builds please feel free to post. So the base car as it was circa 10/2008.. Then we took a base weight and stock measurements of suspension geometry and the shell/tracking before we began stripping down the interior and the external panels (doors, bootlid, bonnet, front bumper). All wiring was removed and bagged for rollcage fitting.

[myerscoughBRC09]

Once the interior was cleaned of glue and residue and all small grommet holes were welded up, the shell went for its cage at Protection & Performance in yorkshire. I've cluded the schematics of the cage but please bear in mind these are property of P&P so copyrights apply.

Car is returning from painting this week and then brake lines will be measured and made up and internal fuel lines the same. Polyflex bushes have arrived and will be fitted, and the suspension has gone off to Proflex in holland to be custom made for the car. Does anybody know a source of bonnet pods for lighting? And also a Sump guard if possible, if not one will have to be constructed from scratch. Any comments welcome, sorry for the essay, tried cramming 3months into a page missing a few bits along the way.

Edited 26 January, 2009 by Bigw2069
Fixed [img] tags

[BigW]

Maybe worth having a chat with John Mulholland, He rallies a fabia vRS http://briskoda.net/motorsport-discussion/john-mulholland-donegal-rally-2008-a/113955/

Welcome to the forums

[BigW]

Fixed IMG tags, and worth a PM to a member Shifty as he may still have, or knows where to get a lamp pod.

[westyRS]

Hi could you find out how much the cage was please?

[myerscoughBRC09]

Fixed IMG tags, and worth a PM to a member Shifty as he may still have, or knows where to get a lamp pod.

Cheers, internet seems to be slow so had to try and copy and paste the full write up again which may have caused the errors. I'll send him a PM thanks for the heads up. As for cage price, P&P have done 10 shells for the skoda main team and I believe it came in at £1600 mark for Mild steel, but i will check for you tomorrow.

[andy2407]

Good luck with the project, and keep us posted on developments please.

What else is planned?

Here's Shifty's lamp pod advert - http://briskoda.net/items-sale/wrc-lamp-pod/126983/ - if he's still got it he's not far from you in Blackpool.

[Gillywibble]

Interesting stuff

[Skodaboy1983]

Welcome to Briskoda

[KenONeill]

Hiya.

Can I just point you to the Members' area, and specifically the Motorsport forum? There's a fair bit of Skoda related stuff on there, amongst the MotoGP and F1 threads.

[sms]

welcome

[myerscoughBRC09]

just an update, car is back from paint and the front end has been stripped for bushes and brake line work as well as painting components and general tidy up. Had a front N/S wishbone bolt shear due to an impact in its life at some point (crap design with single shear point).

[mdk1]

Welcome to Briskoda, car looks fantastic.

What is the overall budget for the build? and what other rallies are you entering?

[faboka vrs]

Excellent thread. Keep the updates coming.

[gadgetman]

Looking good. Welcome.

[KenONeill]

I like the "corrugated Axminster" floor trim!

Ref the sheered bolt, can you name a wishbone (or similar) mounting bolt with more than one or 2 sheer planes in the pivot?

[myerscoughBRC09]

I like the "corrugated Axminster" floor trim!

Ref the sheered bolt, can you name a wishbone (or similar) mounting bolt with more than one or 2 sheer planes in the pivot?

Two sheer points is different to a single sheer point. The wishbone bolts to the outside of the alloy housing so will shear between the joining faces, most wishbones fit into the subframe and have a shear face either side of the wishbone bush section, this is far stronger... The hardened steel bolt into an alloy housing is a weird configuration as well but this is down to safety laws and impact crumple areas.

Apologies for delay we've been held back on a few areas. Suspension from proflex should arrive within the next two weeks. We have a test session at mintex's test track first week of April so its all hands on now this month. Budget I dont have figures on to hand but i'd say total budget for build is nigh on £20k once completed, this incorporates the purchase of the base vehicle.

Some small updates then:

Rear bumper removed to fit springed retaining pins..

Front subframe built back up and refitted. Really not that happy with powerflex rear bush fitting, fitments aweful and the design is abit half arsed...

Refitted the drivers seat but need to remanufacture the seat basemounts as one of ours became damaged whilst off the car :thumbdwn:

Wiring Loom laid out and in the process of refitting all this along with heather unit whilst modifying the dashboard (very tight fit with cage not fully fitted in photos, some more cutting has been done to sit it flat).

Fire extinguisher system laid out ready to be built up and fitted into car.

And finally the custom sill stands back from plating by P&P.

[KenONeill]

Makes more sense now; this is the sort of design detail you need to know when discussing things like accident damage without access to the vehicle involved.

[faboka vrs]

Replace the powerflex rear bush with the rear bush from a Seat Ibiza Cupra. Much better design. Most people find the powerflex fall out it the bush arn't in good condition to begin with.

[mattm555]

Cracking thread, keep us posted

[team_ellis]

hiya Jay its not as good as our Jamun :P

[myerscoughBRC09]

hiya Jay its not as good as our Jamun :P

Andrew for the sake of my professionalism and general maturity please refrain from homosexual comments on my build thread

Ken - Yes once you pull a car to pieces the engineering behind things really shows, hopefully everybody with road cars may be able to look at these pictures and understand the cars setup... I'm more than happy to offer large res images for anybody.

Dashboard and heater unit and loom all back in now.... If that has to come out again i'm passing the buck.... 3hours inside a car and mostly on my back upside down to get it all in along with 2 team members was not my idea of fun... Needless to say most of the loom now hooks up but there is a single connector we're struggling to ascertain its use. Purple connector, drivers side dash.

minor cutting behind dash covering to get it in.... I lie, it was a royal BS Tard and took about 5hours in total to get it to fit ok...

Ok so next two weeks should see fuel lines made up and fitted, brake lines made up and fitted in. Also will have bodywork back on and the small rewiring sections done and hopefully ready to start her up and make sure everything works.