Skoda Rally Blog

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been unable to put any time in on the car – this was mostly due to work commitments, but at weekends I’ve been unable to due to one thing or another (such as actually going on holiday for the weekend, heaven forbid!).  However, I now have three weeks off, and have lots of things to get on with.  This morning was a bit of a dead loss, but this afternoon I managed to put an hour or two in on the car to get the rear ProFlex finally fitted to the car – it should be a straightforward fit, but of course it wasn’t, mostly because the bottom bolts were rusty and bent (!), so it took a LONG time to get them out.

Old suspension, time to go...

However, putting the new ones in was, of course, simple.  New bolt underneath, and a new locknut on top (another odd size meaning another eBay purchase), and 10 minutes later, it looked like this:

Lovely ProFlex, all shiny and red.

The next job will be locating the remote canisters – these will sit behind the rear beam, but the left-hand one’s hose runs near the exhaust so will need to be suitably protected – I feel another eBay purchase coming on this evening.  Tomorrow will be the next big decision, where to fit the front ones; I think I will probably mount the canisters under the wheel arches, but then maybe I’ll drill some big holes in the arches instead and have them under the bonnet.

However, this is only the first thing.  The next is bigger.  MUCH bigger.  For quite a while, I’ve wanted more power.  On Rally GB 2006, the car was fine on the flat and downhill, but uphill was slow. Spelled t-e-d-i-o-u-s.  Just a lack of power meant that anything more than a slight incline and the car would struggle; remember that it’s driving through mud and gravel, not on flat tarmac, so the power gets sapped everywhere.  But the problem?  Aside from a lack of money, there just aren’t many options for tuning in the papers; the car needs to conform to the rules set by the FIA, and that means conforming to the specs submitted by Skoda.  Some manufacturers offer a wide range of alternative parts, meaning that on a Group A (or even N) car you can have all sorts of legal go-faster parts fitted.  This wasn’t the case with Skoda; unless you had a “Kit” Felicia (which featured an engine with individual throttle bodies, leading to less restriction on the air going into the engine and therefore more power), you had very limited options, and that was what I was working with.

Or at least I thought so, given the paperwork I had.  What I didn’t realise is that after my paperwork for the car was produced, Skoda had homologated more parts for the car.  Specifically, a tubular exhaust manifold, bigger valves in the head, and a bigger inlet manifold – a similar design to the one I was using, but much less restrictive.  How much?  Well, the standard car is 68bhp.  Tuned versions are making about 150bhp! Obviously this is for a full-race engine, but it shows that there’s much more potential there.  The problem is the manifolds are like hens’ teeth – the guy who told me all about this (and sent me the papers to prove it) said it took him a year to get hold of one.  I’ll cut to the chase – a number of ads placed in Czech (the wonders of Google Translate) and some research has led me to a tuning company who have a manifold in stock, and are currently making a new cylinder head with bigger valves, with everything matched up to suit.  This should lead to a much more powerful car, as the main restriction is in the head.  In addition, a tubular manifold is now OK on the car, so that’ll be fitted in due course as well.  The main problem is that I’ll have to wait a few weeks for it – it may not arrive until after I’ve finished my holidays, alas, but should be a straightforward fit-and-map job.  I can only hope, anyway.