Skoda Rally Blog

… take a long time.

At present, aside from the sumpguard needing a bit of welding and then re-fitting, the car is mostly ready. OK, at present it has a standard gearbox in there, but as I’ve still drawn a blank on getting new plates for the diff, this could be how it ends up (not something I’d be happy about, but there you go). But there are a lot of little things that are needed to get the car ready to use, and one of the first was sorting out the tickover – as the engine is using management which doesn’t control the idle setting then it was currently stalling even between slow gearchanges, and definitely under braking (when you’re dropping down the gears). Clearly this is no good. I’d spent a LOT of time looking at electronic means of how to achieve this, but the first circuit (the ‘classic’ PWM control) didn’t work well at all. No, that’s not right, it did work, but the throttle valve sounded unhappy about it – it was making a nasty whining sound, no matter what frequency I used. Next up, a variable voltage source, which worked OK, but wasn’t straightforward; I thought it would just be a simple case of a certain voltage would equal a certain throttle opening. It didn’t, and would mean a three-setting system – one to hold the current opening, one to close and one to open the throttle a bit. A bit complex, but doable. But I spent a bit of time looking at the throttle body and saw that it would be possible to drill and tap for a bolt which would hold the throttle open, and an hour or so saw the car’s throttle body modified like this as well as the spare which I have in the spares box (indeed a complete manifold with uprated injectors, etc., after last year’s problems). The next thing was something I’d not planned on doing for weeks – sorting out the sumpguard on the recce car, which took one really big hit on one stage and was quite bent – an hour straightening this and the chassis rail saw that bolted back in place and ready to go – all that’s needed now on the recce car is a change of tyres.

But the morning had already gone, and it was now chucking it down and freezing cold. Time for some electronic work, and in this case looking at more 5v supply via USB sockets for the Navigation system which is on the car’s dashboard (which can also record and track stages as we go, as can Paul’s setup which he uses), and replacing the original mounting from last year (which was a hurried job with, er, gaffa tape and cardboard!), and also supplying power for the remote extender which will allow control of the dashboard.

Sunday was time to sort out a bunch of other little things on the car, first of which was go for a reasonably long drive, and to set up the tickover, which makes the car a LOT easier to drive as you don’t have to concentrate on keeping the engine fired up as well as everything else. Everything else feels good; there’s still some mapping to be done on light throttle/midrange (for road sections) as it’s a bit rich in places, but that’s easily done with someone sat in the passenger’s seat; an hour’s work will see that taken care of. Next was adding a dimmer and on/off switch to the red illumination for Paul’s maps – I’d added this a long time ago, but the LEDs were too bright, so now it’s adjustable and switchable as well, so that should keep him happy. Making up a plate for the WRC tracker console was another thing that took a while, but finally it’ll be a straightforward “screw in” job rather than the afterthought it’s been in previous years. Adding the life hammer too – I’ve heard that this is a requirement since the addition of window film, but I can’t find it anywhere. Better to have it though, for sure.

There’s a short list of things to do on the car now – nothing major at all, really, just things like getting rid of rattles and so on, which is good, but all involve being under the car and so on, which isn’t an option today, but should be on Tuesday afternoon, when I’ll also be fitting an Oil Temperature and Pressure gauge as I want to investigate further the cause of the low oil pressure after a thrashing. I’m going to add the oil cooler anyway, but I want definite figures rather than speculation (which was all I had before!)

It’s weird – I feel like I’ve achieved nothing this week as I’m just “on schedule”. It’s funny how quickly the hell of engine death and replacement can be forgotten – I’ve done loads but I feel like I’ve slacked off. Anyway, I’m back to work this week, so things will no doubt become more hectic over the coming weeks….