Skoda Rally Blog

I had a phone call last night from the entries secretary of Smeatharpe – he started with “I’ve got a bone to pick with you”, and then my signal went bad. I was worried, and phoned him back. And he was winding me up! Turns out that the Uno in our class (which was as quick as hell) only did one lap instead of two on the last stage (setting a faster time than a WRC Impreza in the process….), and therefore got a stage maximum time in the final results. Which moved us to 2nd! We got an award! I can’t believe it! Kev’s got to go pick them up as they are glass! I’m really shocked! I’ve never done anything like this in anything competitive. Not that I think it’ll happen again, and not that I’m going to turn into some “win at all costs” gumbie, just that I’m stoked that we did well! I don’t think we’ll be needing a trophy cabinet just yet though.

…. I’ve always maintained that the Skoda will stay as a reliable and inexpensive rally car. Yes, this has its disadvantages, as of course I’m never going to be a “front runner” in any class. But I don’t have a great deal of money, and certainly not to spend on the car at the moment. So this really is going to limit the performances that we put in. But it will have some big upsides. Firstly, the car doesn’t owe me a great deal of money; if something really unfortunate happens and it gets written off, then it won’t be the end of the world. If it ‘just’ needs re-shelling, then we’re only talking about £500 if not less to get a good car, re-shell the current mechanics into it, and get some money back for the other standard bits (or have a big bonfire). So that’s good. The other main upside for this is that the car is only mildly tuned – it goes very well for a Favorit, but compared to some of the other cars in the field (well, OK, compared to all the other cars in the field), it’s not quick; something that was accentuated by the nature of Smeatharpe (i.e. some long straights, and good weather).

But I’ve always wanted to have a car with programmable injection on it. Don’t ask me why, ‘cos I don’t really know. it’s just always been something that I’ve wanted to do, so I could plug a laptop in, set the car up, and get the best out of it. So I’ve done a lot of looking, but all the commercially available aftermarket ECUs don’t come cheap; ?600 is the bottom line, and that’s just for the ECU kit. Then you need throttle bodies and injectors, a manifold and all sorts of other gubbins. Which basically is too much money, especially if it’s going to be spent on the “cheap” Skoda. I’d seen a couple of “DIY” projects on the net, all of which seemed to be half-baked at best; some of them were still in the “mixing the dough” phase of the project. Boo hoo!

The thing I like about the Internet is that it works a bit like my brain does; it can go off at tangents. The reason being was that I decided to look on eBay for throttle bodies, and saw something that looked ideal; they are throttle bodies from a Kawasaki GPz1100. I thought these could be ideal (especially as they start at £4.99), but didn’t know the internal bore. Spent some time googling to find the internal bore, and found a guy who was cobbling them onto another motorbike engine. And in his links page was the holy grail!

Yes, a DIY EFI system that actually works! – it’s easy to build, you can get a complete kit, and there are lots of people who are already using it successfully. This is great. And it gets better! They do a kit for a scrolling display of all vital settings and readings! This is just wonderful! It looks like it’ll cost about ?180 or so. Which is doable. All I’ll need is to make an inlet manifold. This won’t be easy, but it will be possible. As it’s a weird set of injectors/bodies to put on such an engine, it’ll obviously need to be a one-off, but I think I can do it; it’s basically a flat plate that bolts to the head, with four tubes coming off it to the injectors.

First up, I need to win the auction for the injectors/throttle bodies. Once they are with me, I can make the manifold; handily I have a spare head for the Fav, so I can make it fit that. This should be interesting.

On the downside, the front shock on the Fav is knackered – it’s sicking out everywhere, so I need a new one. Which is going to be £150 minimum. Bugger. And this is a cheap rally car!

Well, it’s done! I’ve done my first rally. And finished it too! 45th of 60. A quick precis is in order:

Stayed at a really nice B&B, on a working farm near Smeatharpe. Great food, great beds, everything spot on. Well recommended, except I can’t remember the name of the place! Got to Smeatharpe at 7:30am, and went straight for the noise test (just 83dB, which is way under the 100dB limit), and then scrutineering, the only problem was that there were no dust caps on the valves. But they weren’t the “race” tyres, so he didn’t worry too much. Got everything set up, signed on, got everything togther (Kev marked all the maps up), and it wasn’t too long before we set out – I wouldn’t say I was “nervous”, but I was definitely keyed up and ready to go. Got quite scared as there seemed to be very little grip on the stage – we were sliding all over the place under braking and steering was difficult, with the car understeering everywhere. However, it was first time out, and we got on OK – Kev’s directions were good and clear, and I was happy that I was driving safely, if not quickly. It was all over in a flash, despite it taking 7m26s, which was the slowest of the day! Back to service, and we found that the front tyre pressure was 45psi! Way way way too much! We put them down, and the next stage (which was the same again) was much better – the car handled better and was stable (and grippy) on the brakes, and did 6m30s, a big improvement.

I won’t babble on about the whole day, but needless to say I got overtaken by someone, and happened to be able to get out of his way. And when the stage was over, he was nice enough to come and thank me! It was good when he came past, ‘cos I could hold onto him for a bit, and see how to take chicanes – he took some liberties with ’em and I followed suit. In fact, he would be the one to overtake me all day, so I took his speed as a marker; if he didn’t catch me for a bit then I felt I was going better, although it later transpired that once was because he span(!) and once was because he was stuck in 1st – no wonder I pulled away from him.

Overall, one of the most excellent experiences of my life. Much better than any “give it a try” rally thing, or a track day. This was serious stuff – really good seeing just how fast you could go; sod everyone else, really. A great, great time. I think Kev enjoyed it, and we have a massive debt to Conrad for coming as the service crew; he didn’t have a huge amount to do, but just being there was a massive boost and really appreciated, and the things he did were great too. And he got a chance to look at a whole lot of Mk 2 escorts, which he loves. Most of the videos he took were of Mk2s! There is some footage of the Skoda in action, but it’s dead short, and really looks as if we’re taking it easy; I can assure you that we were ragging the hell out of it at the time! We’ll have to wait for the photos from the ‘official’ photographer; he’d placed himself at locations where you’d be giving the car some grief, so they should be good…..

Roll on July 31st, that’s what I think!

Well, I say roll, I don’t mean “roll”. OK? Been there, done that, not planning on repeating it….

Well, I think so. I had a bit of a “how did I miss that?” moment earlier. I’ve got the new lightweight rear doors on (saving 18kg for the pair, which isn’t the earth, but it won’t hurt, will it?), and everything else is right; the First aid kit is fitted, everything else is done. So I go to collect my freshly-cut wets from Steve, and get the numbers for the doors. And then I put the road tyres back on the front as it looks like it’s going to rain and I don’t want any issues with either grip, wear or the law on the way down! I stack the tyres I have ready for Con and Kev to pick up tomorrow, and then I realise that I’ve not got any inters to go on the front! And that’s most likely what I’ll be needing! D’oh! So tomorrow’s “relaxed” morning will now turn into a bit of a rush to find a tyre place to pull a pair off some rims I already have and bung ’em on the Skoda rims! D’oh! What an idiot!

Apart from that, everything is sorted – the spares and tools are in the garage ready to be collected, the car is sorted, everything is fine. All the paperwork is all in a neat little “Skoda” folder. Everything is good to go. A full 24 hours before it needs to be.

Except there’s always something you’ve forgotten, isn’t there?

…. OK, so I didn’t buy the gearbox. Mainly ‘cos ?900 is a lot of dosh, and I’ve just been hit for a ?600 tax bill! But I did get another 12 wheels (4 with pirelli corsa tyres that look sticky as you like, 5 with colway forest and three bare), a kevlar/carbon sumpguard with alloy crossmember that looks fantastic and weighs next to nothing, a pair of front calipers, a pair of footwell treadplates, an exhaust, a pair of lightweight rear doors (which are seriously light), and a pair of driveshafts. So I think I’m fully sparesed-up for the next year or two there. If anything else breaks, I’ll cry!

Got the wheels balanced on the car, which made a huge difference; one was 85G out, and now it drives really smoothly at speed, which will make a big difference. Only a few days to go now, until it’s ‘own up time’ as it were. Saturday is looking stupidly busy for me though; hardly ideal preparation for a first event, but life’s like that…..

I just realised that anyone who is reading this might not even know/care what a Favorit looks like, although it’s almost guaranteed you’ll have seen one (especially if you’re in the Czech republic!), so here it is, being driven by it’s former owner James on the 2004 Wyedean Rally.

First thing this morning, the post man brought me news that (as predicted), we’re running dead last on the road in our first rally. Which is obvious. What was a surprise was that there are only four cars in our class! Now I’m not sure if that means that we’re at some kind of big-boys fest, just a statistical improbability or something more sinister, but at least we have a chance of coming third in class! I don’t know if the others are novices though, but one of them is running at number 59, so maybe we have a chance.

Yesterday’s drive showed me several things about the Fav, one of which was that the synchro on third is knackered; unless you take about 2 seconds to change gear, you get a little grind when changing up – down is no problem. Which I could live with, but then a five-speed C/R box appears on the britishrally.com forum, brand new and unused. But for ?900! The guy has a lot of other things for sale, and I spent a handy 20 minutes on the phone to him, finding out all sorts of things, such as the engine should be good to 7000rpm (so my self-imposed limit of 5500 seems a bit tame, especially as it’s just getting going at that speed), that the C/R box is a Good Thing for the Fav, and that weight is everything. He has lots of bits, and I’m going up on Wednesday to see him, and probably spend way too much money on it. But you’re only here once, and why not, eh?

Needless to say, this has led to me looking around the house for things that I could sell to pay for such stupidity. The box is totally out of the question – if it was ?500 I could just about go to that, but ?900 is half the cost of the car so far…. I know that transmissions are expensive, but this is just ridiculous. I could have a 6-speed box for “under ?2000”. Er, yeah, OK then. He has some other lightweight bits, like a fibreglass bonnet, lightweight doors, and other bits, so I’m really not sure just how full the Focus will be on the way back. Hmmmm….

Otherwise, it’s all going to plan. The car is all done, and the stickers will be with me on Wednesday morning; whether I’ll be putting them onto a new lightweight bonnet and doors remains to be seen…..

So, I got the car out, and went for a blast. Now, at the moment it’s got some Colway F2 ‘slicks’ on the front (road legal, but only just), and Maxsport Inters on the rear. Er, Grip! Stupid amounts of grip are available from those, they really are. I’m not totally convinced by the handling though; on smooth roads it’s fine, but when there have been repairs or worn tarmac, it’s a bit naughty and does what it wants, which is a tad scary. I’m no expert on handling so I don’t know what to change to make that less so (apart from the tyres), but the grip that’s there is quite amazing, it really is. In the evening went for another blast, with Kev, and all suited up. I finally think we’re ready. I now have a very short list of things to do before Sunday, and they’re all minor. This is a Good Thing.

I’m really tired though now, and I have a lot to get done before next week, so I really should get on with it, rather than babbling here.

Yeah, good. So, another red-bull-tinged Sunday morning. Nice enough weather to consider getting the bike out, not actually nice enough to do it though; it’s still wet outside, and there’s no way I’m riding when it’s wet. Yeah, I’m not a “proper biker” for doing that, but most people who say that don’t happen to own a car. And smell of wee. And besides, I’ve done all the “proper biker” bit, and it was deeply unpleasant; I ride now because it’s fun, not because I’m trying to prove I can endure arctic conditions and torrential rain while risking my neck on a vehicle that has two patches of rubber the size of a tennis ball between me and ultimate doom….

But I think I’ll get the rally car out instead, as it’s only 7 days until it will finally be used in “anger”. Although I think bewilderment will probably be more the order of the day, given that both I and Kev are complete novices. Steve Colville (rally guru and generally helpful chap) used the phrase “the blind leading the blind”, which I guess is just about accurate. I would like to think that I won’t be totally incompetent, but I think that’s probably a little far fetched. Anyway, in 7 days, Smeatharpe will be upon us (hopefully we won’t be impaled on anything), which i am really looking forward to. I’m nervous already. And I’m a bit worried that I’ve heard _nothing_ back from them, so I guess I’ll see what the deal is there…. I need to know what number I am (obviously the last one in the field, but that’s no surprise really, is it?), so I can get some big old numbers for the doors. And stuff like that.