Skoda Rally Blog

… well, the new gearbox is in, and it works – the first time I’ve had a box in the car with all 5 synchros working properly. However, it wasn’t that straightforward. First up, the end mounting had to be changed to my new “uprated” one. Which meant the end casing of the gearbox had to come off (10 bolts), and when putting the new one on, one bolt felt a bit dodgy…. and then broke off flush with the casing it screwed into. Off with the end casing, and then 10 minutes with the hammer and centre punch eventually persuaded the bolt out enough to get a pair of pliers on it. Next up, the gearchange linkage was seized on, which eventually was rectified by butchering it with an angle grinder. Then the speedo cable drive wouldn’t come out, which took much hammering to remove it, and finally there was an extra dowel fitted to the gearbox….. which we didn’t notice until it was in the engine bay and engaged onto the block. Out again, and after much swearing the centre punch came through again to remove the offending dowel. Ended up being out there until midnight and giving up, and finishing it yesterday morning. It’s all good now, so that’s a plus, and the original clutch is back in there, and hopefully will keep working unlike the new one which started slipping after just 6 stages. Very very poor!

I’ve also moved the intercom so it’s on the dash as it was a contortion act to turn the volume control up. It looks a bit good, like. A few hours’ work on Saturday morning and we’ll be ‘ready’ for Longcross. I think…..

Well, some progress has been made on the engine front.

Firstly, I’ve found a company in the Czech Republic who do tuning on the Skoda engine, and can do all-in packages, at what seems like a good price. But I’d rather build the engine myself, so I’m looking for getting some choice bits; they do long-stroke cranks at a decent price (?150), which will knock the capacity up to just under 1400cc which is ideal for the rally car – keeping it in the lowest class and yet adding some power. They also say that the head can take 37 and 31 mm valves, which is handy, as the originals are 34 and 30. So I’ll see if I can get that done locally.

Anyway, in the meantime my bits I got from the German company on eBay have arrived – the crank (standard) –

This is a bargain – they’re ?175 here, but this and the liners below cost ?80 including postage. This might not get used though if I go for the long-stroke crank, but anyway, it’s a bargain. Next up was a set of liners and pistons:

Now these were bargains too – a set of pistons and liners is ?175. But here’s the punchline – that’s without rings or gudgeon pins. And I wasn’t expecting to get them, but what turned up? You got it – a set of rings and 4 new gudgeon pins. Which would have cost me ?50 for the rings, and I don’t know how much for the pins. Splendid. So, I got about ?400 worth of stuff for ?80. Ah, good old eBay. Pure luck – no parts have been on there since. And believe me, I’ve checked….

And the other thing is that I have got my MegaSquirt (ECU) kit, and got a bit carried away; I had no intention of building it yet as I haven’t even started on the manifold and didn’t see the point. But a long evening and early morning later, and it’s built, and works like a dream – connects to the laptop, is programmable, and so on. If only the rest of the installation was going to be that easy……

Well, due to a sudden influx of finances, I’m in a position to do some more to the car, and really it’s only speed that it needs. Not lots of it, ‘cos I still want the car to be reliable and capable of being driven to the events. But anyway, here’s the plan:-

Throttle body injection. This will be the GPz1100 throttle bodies I’ve already mentioned, tied to a home-made manifold and injection system from a DIY system I’ve found on the ‘net. The parts for the ECU and test gear are on their way as I type, and the main problem is making the manifold. But I have a spare head to work with which will make things a lot easier to fabricate. Should make tuning a lot easier when the next phase comes along….

Big valve head. I’ve got to look carefully into this; a lot of people talk crap about this that and the other, but I think that the Skoda will need a bigger valve head to make more power. Again, not a huge amount in absolute terms, but if we can get around 110bhp out of it then it should be good. And as I’ve heard tale of over 140 from the same engine, it should be doable.

Bottom end. Had a bit of a find on eBay – a brand new crank and a brand new set of pistons with new liners, all for ?66 including delivery from Germany. Bargain – that’s about ?400 worth normally. So I’ll need a block to get building into. I’m only planning on fitting this if the other bottom end expires as it shouldn’t owe me too much money.

So that’s it really. There are other little things that need doing, such as a decent intercom instead of the utterly tragic OMP one that’s currently fitted and is worse quality than the ?5 transistor radio I had when I was a small boy. I mean it – we’re talking LOW quality here, which is no joke for something that cost ?70. And a few other little bits to make things sweeter.

As far as events are concerned, we’re definitely in the Spotted Dick and Custard stages on the 5th September, and hopefully should get an entry for Caerwent on the 26th – regs should be with me tomorrow. That should be good fun, if a little tiring. Power steering, anyone?

…. Having dismantled the first gearbox, I decided that there was too much to do to rebuild the Estate one, as I’d need some more specs than I have (i.e. any) and there’s a shim for the input shaft play that would need to be correct and I don’t have the shim or the sizes. So I managed to get a gearbox from an M-reg estate car, with a 90 day guarantee (although I think that it might not cover use in a rally car!), so that can be fitted at some point – it turned up bright and early this morning. However, there is work to be done before that. The original engine mountings have a lot of air gaps in them, so the engine can move about a fair bit. I got an “uprated” one from Chris Bennett, which replaces the mount with a Ford leaf-spring bush and uses an aluminium sleeve to reduce the size down to fit that. I think the gearbox needs that doing to it too, so I’m going to get one made for the end housing I’ve already removed and then put that on the new box. Finally, I’ll make up a new tie-bar (at the bottom of the engine) which controls how much the engine moves under accelerating and braking torque – again at present it’s about 50/50 air/rubber so that can be improved; I’ll make a new piece for that from some parts I have in the garage, and hopefully things should move around far less – at Fat Albert the gearlever was moving around a fair bit and making selection difficult, although the demise of 2nd might have had something to do with this…..

Otherwise, the rest of the car is looking OK. We’re looking to rally next on September 5th at Longcross (I heard a rumour that it might not be used after this year; I don’t know how much truth there is in that, but I would be kicking myself if I didn’t take the opportunity to rally there), and hopefully 26th at Caerwent, which apparently features over 100 turns per 7 mile stage. That should keep Kev busy! The kerbs there are supposed to be 11″ high, and if you go mental it’s a car wrecker, so a ‘slow’ pace for a finish would definitely be in order. Oh, that was what I was doing anyway. Well, sort of!

Well, just seen the final results, and in fact we came 52nd overall (although there were only 5 finishers behind us), and 8th in class. But importantly we beat a Ka rally car, and also number 17, which was a black Mk2 escort who really annoyed us on a couple of stages with his overtaking/harrying antics. He got 35 minutes of road penalties! Which is nice. There were big gaps ahead of us, so clearly we’re wasting our time trying to get any further up without a majorly faster engine. Which isn’t going to happen! The results for the rally are available here.

…. so the gearbox goes in, and I drive down the road….. and the synchro on 2nd is screwed, just like the old box. Great. So (a) I need another box and (b) I need to get the money back from a a-hole who sold me it. I phoned him in a less than pleasant mood, and he said it was “OK when he broke the car”, er, no. And he said I should take the box out, and bring it back and he’d give me another one. Yeah, I’m going to drive another 220 miles because you’re a lazy twat. No, really. So I’m not sure how/if that will get sorted, but I am going to get it sorted. In the meantime, it could mean that Fat Albert will involve a retirement, as 2nd gear will be needed a lot.

On the plus side, the ‘box is from an Estate, and lower overall gearing, which means the car will really pull well in 3rd (75mph!) and pulls 4th out of the power. This should mean more top-end, which will be a good thing at Keevil as it’s another airfield. Everything else is set, and the stickers are on the car. So even if it won’t go, it’ll look better than before…..

… well, I’ve been left to change the gearbox on my own as Kev “forgot” that it needed doing, and has buggered off to Ireland with Tracie. At the moment I’ve managed to get the box out (which has actually been easier than I thought, mainly because most of the suspension, etc, has been on and off a couple of times already, so it’s not rusty or anything, and the gearbox is fairly light compared to, say, an Escort one), and I’ve got a new clutch to go in, just in case. I’ve given up for now as I was getting annoyed with it, and I’ve got all weekend to sort it out. I’ve never been a huge fan of being under a car that’s up on axle stands, and having to hammer the roll pin for the gearbox linkage out wasn’t something that I’d like to do for a pastime. But hey ho, it’s out now. Just got to remember how it all goes back together….

Got the results from Smeatharpe today, confirming our 43rd overall, and 2nd in class. And that our times were very s-l-o-w! Still, we finished!

With the results came some proofs of photos from the official photographer, which I’m pleased with as it looks like we were going fast at some point. I knew that we were making some kind of an effort….

There are some others – one of them we both look to be concentrating far too hard – very serious indeed…… So I’ll keep that to myself.

I worked out that John has done me enough “V”s to do two bonnets, so I stuck the rest on the car. It looks much better than it did – no longer just a plain old white Favorit, but a bit more jolly now. I’ve just got to finish off the nearside rear door, cutting the perspex and then putting our names on that side, and then we’re done. I may even put take some pictures of it later on.

Oh, and then I’ve got to change the gearbox. That’s a bit more of a job, and I’ll have to make up something to support the engine while the box comes out. I’m not exactly looking forward to changing it, as supporting the car will be hard – there’s nothing really to support it on, which is a bummer. Still, never mind…..

A while ago I met a guy on the Britishrally.co.uk forum who does vinyl graphics. He needs a website, I wanted some stickers, so we came to an arrangement. He sent them a couple of weeks ago, but they only turned up yesterday. So I set to making the car look a bit better. I know that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter one bit what it looks like, but I thought I’d make it look a bit nicer, so I went for the “works” look – the works favorits had green “V”s all over them, and I thought they looked good, and would also be simple to reproduce. So I’ve got a bunch of green Vs with red edges, and a nice new sunstrip (instead of the tank tape that was there before) with my work website URL on there, and driver and co-driver names for the rear doors…

… Ah, the rear doors. I wasn’t really happy with the lightweight ones I had fitted, ‘cos (a) they were the wrong shade of white (yes, I know, I know), and (b) I didn’t like the way the perspex windows fitted, just being screwed in, and looking tatty. So I cut the guts out of the original doors, and made the perspex fit into where the original windows did. It looks a lot better, although the perspex I’ve used is crap, ‘cos it scratches if you just look at it. Not good, especially at ?30 a go!

I can’t put all the stickers on though, ‘cos I’m going to replace the bonnet with a lightweight fibreglass one. Pity.

The throttle bodies arrived yesterday, and they’re going to be great. Biggest problem will be making a manifold though – that looks like a major undertaking, especially as the inlet tubes need to go from 35mm (throttle body) to 28mm (inlet port). That could be tricky. Answers on a postcard, please….