A new car

I had spotted a Rover 25 which was up for sale which has a 1.6 engine in it, it wasn’t too far away and I got it at a decent price.

The 1.6 K series engine is quite rare, and will be kept for a future engine project, probably in 2025. The ultimate future for the rest of the car is that it will be stripped of all useful parts, as MGZRs/Rover 25’s (under the skin the are all the same!) anything which isn’t useful will be sold off to offset the cost of the car, and the shell will be scrapped.

However I spotted a car trial in the region, and thought this would be an ideal chance to abuse the car and test the engine/car before stripping it down for parts.

The weather this winter meant that the field being used was really quite muddy, and with the car pretty much as I bought it I would be up against a field of mostly specialist cars.

After a couple of hills, I got my mind back into how to approach getting up hills most 4×4’s would struggle to get up. My approach isn’t always the most subtle but I found by using second gear, and a lot of revs you could get a fair way up the hills.

The car held up very well with only minor prep work (new earth straps, a radiator fans over-ride switch and removing some weight i.e. rear seats and sound proofing), the engine pulled well and used very little water given the previous owners suggested the head gasket had gone on the car.

By the end of the day, we finished up 9th overall and 5th in class. This was much better than I would have predicted, especially overall given the quite large entry by the more specialist cars and crews.

Now the car has some competition history, I quite like it and given the ZR is still off the road for its conversion to stage spec. I think I will keep the car as a whole for a bit longer until the ZR is back up in action.

Rusty the Rover 25

Going staging….

The ZR is off the road for a little bit now, to enable works needed to convert the car from Targa Rally spec to full stage rally spec. The car will still stay road /targa rally legal, but will have all the necessary extra safety bits needed for stage rallying.

The car is now almost stripped out, ready to have a full roll cage fitted by Performance Automotive (Ian Mepham), whilst the car is away with Ian it will have the sills welded up, and welding two harness eye bolt mounts. Plus the rear beam bushes are to be replaced as they didn’t enjoy the Preston rally much and allow the rear of the car to move around quite a lot!

To make the car stage rally legal, requires the following items fitting to the car :-

• Full MSUK spec roll cage – Safety Devices 6 Point bolt in cage
• In date FIA spec seats – Atech Target XL
• In date FIA spec 6-point harnesses – TRS Magnum Ulralites
• In date FIA spec plumbed in fire extinguisher – Lifeline Zero 2020
• In date FIA spec hand held fire extinguisher – Lifeline Zero 2000
• FIA spec electrical cut-off switch
• Peltor Intercom
• Harness cutter
• MSUK Spec Mud flaps
• Fuel sample point

Before the car heads off to Ian, I have removed a LOT of mud from under the car after the Silverstone Rally School autotest, a win is a win but man it left a lot of mud on the car! Cleaning the floor, painting it and resealing various holes which had appeared took quite some time.

I have also used the chance whilst working on the car to repair and tidy up the wiring for things like the radiator cooling fan switches and controllers.

During the Preston rally, we had a slight ‘moment’ with a tree which left the navs wing all rather battered. Luckily I picked up a pair of black ZR wings locally at a good price, and a quick couple of coats of rattle can gloss black later they were ready to be fitted. This helps make the car look a little more presentable. The old wing is now up on the wall in the spare room, next to a photo from the rally celebrating a strong result on the event (6^th overall).

Starting the right way….

The first competitive event of the year and it was back to Silverstone Rally School for a South Oxon Car Club autotest.

The rally school provides a great selection of tight roads combined with a muddy surface makes this one of the best autotest venues in the area. Lucky the weather was ideal with rain overnight before the event, and it stays dry until I was returning the trailer at the end of the day.

The event ran smoothly for us starting off with a few seconds lead from test one, and then we managed to build on this on most of the tests during the day, to finish up with a overall lead of just under 15 seconds to take the overall win / FTD.

As you can see the venue was properly muddy, but this meant many great fun / sideways moments.

You can see a short video here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCwHkR4zO_U (right click and open in a new tab)

The ZR will now be ‘off the road’ for a little whilst it gets some work done to convert it to stage rally spec. The car will still be eligible for Road and Targa rallies but will have all the safety kit required for stage rallies.

2023 Review

2023…. That was a roller coaster of a year!

My first Interclub (Nat B ) targa rally win on a BTRDA championship round started a year of strong driving results. Rounded off with 6th overall on the Preston.

Plus 5 autotest FTDs.

Thanks to all the drivers/navigators I have teamed up with during the year. Plus many thanks to all the organisers and marshals on the 22 events I have completed on this year.

Preston Rally 2023

Preston Rally 2024….

Having not driven on the event since 2007, I wasn’t quite sure what I would find, and similarly my nav Tom Ward hadn’t done the event since 2010. So we were both ‘new’ to the new generation of the event as run by Dave Taylor

Car prep was a through shakedown as Car 00 on the SOCC Targa Rally this had a few ‘Preston style’ parts and got my mind back into it.

On to the rally, we both said we were out for an adventure and to try and finish. So no heroics on the really rough parts, but to push on where we felt we could.

The first few sections all ran smoothly (well as smooth as the Preston can be) and we got into a good flow. It felt like we were going well, but you never known how it really is on a road event.

So coming out of Petrol 1 it was pleasing to see we were in 10th overall. We both agreed on continuing the same pace and to just ‘keep going’…. the mid section of the event was classic Preston country with epic lakes that a) soaked my feet and b) were properly rough and tough but the car lapped it all up.

Petrol 2 a chance to dry out a bit and refuel both us and the car. Leaving here we were up to 7th overall. This was now a case of continuing the same pace, but with a real need to finish.

Then on to the last part of the event, mostly a second run of the first sections across Stanta which were a real mix of some very quick parts on tarmac to rough, tough and muddy. The last few sections, the lack of sleep (and my advancing age!) were catching up with me, so the pace probably dropped off a little here but the finish and a decent breakfast was calling.

Driving back to the finish, the car felt just as strong as at the start, just a bit noisy (missing bolts from a exhaust clamp), and of course missing the rear bumper.

Then it was on to an excellent breakfast at High Lodge, and then waiting for results to go final, where we finished up 6th overall.

To be honest I was pleased just to finish the event, but to have been consistently in the top 10 all rally and finish up 6th overall was way more than I expected.

So that’s the last event of 2023 done, and one hell of a challenge it was. Thanks to Tom for telling me where to go, you were spot on with the calls all night long and great at getting me to push on where needed.

Finally many many thanks to all the organisers and the army of marshals/recovery/course cars/other support crews who make the rally happen. It really is run to such a high standard.

Photos thanks to the ever great M&H Photography

A bit of a catch-up….

After leaving this blog for a fair while, I have finally caught up with things.

Probably a bit too late to catch up with everything missed. So lets start in 2023.

The start of 2023 has seen me involved in running a few rallies (navving in a course car on a 12 car and helping equipment movement duties on the Brands Hatch stages).

However I have also been busy working on the MGZR converting it run on a new IB5 gearbox. This has a 5.1 final drive and 3J ‘Torsen’ type slipper diff.

The conversion required a new flywheel, clutch, chassis/gearbox mount, gear linkage. The gear linkage took a few attempts to get working, and a second standard one was fitted which was much better than the modified one!

Whilst this was being done, I also found a number of places which needed welding up (sump guard mounts, and chassis legs)

The new gearbox works well, and a fair bit of testing on the road and on a local farm track it certainly goes well. The lower final drives brings the gear ratios closer together which allows the engine to stay in the power ‘zone’.

In less than week we get to try the upgrade box on the Bath Festival Targa Rally based at Castle Coombe race circuit.

Lockdown works

During the enforced lockdown, I have been busy working away on the ZR, whatwas set to be a few little jobs soon became a much bigger task. So over the last couple of month the following works have been done :-

• Fully seam welded both front sub-frames, including sump guard mounts
• Gearbox fully rebuild by the Rover Centre
• New clutch
• New lightened flywheel ~3.5kgs
• Repaired cracks in the front chassis legs
• Fitted new steering rack
• Ported the exhaust manifold, removing all internal seam welds, then seam welded it on the outside
• Fitted hyd handbrake & bias valve
• Welded up and plated the handbrake and hyd handbrake mounts
• Removed the AC pump, and all A/C parts from the heater unit
• Removed the dash to remove sound proofing weight
• Had the dash professionally flocked, and refitted the dash
• Fitted lighter and more supportive seats
• Fitted safety film to the side windows
• Fitted poly bushes to gearbox linkage
• Fitted quick shift to gear linkage
• Welded in bracing under the front wings to strengthen the front chassis
• Designed and made my own rear ARB
• Completely heat wrapped / lagged the exhaust manifold and downpipes to the cat
• Converted the navigators electric window to ‘one-touch down’
• Added a cooling fan to the injector rail
• Relocated the horn to a more central location
• Replaced (where possible) all nuts and washers to aluminium items
• Front suspension struts have been back to Gaz for a rebuild
• Lightened the tailgate
• Converted drivers side window to manual from electric

Thorough these works I have removed over 31kgs of weight from the car

The Final Three ????

When I started writing this blog post (I’m not very good at staying focused and writing them), none of our planned motorsport events were cancelled and the world felt slightly more normal….

 

After over two months of no competing it was time to get back out competing. January and February I was on the other side of the sport helping support events like the stage rally at Brands Hatch and the Bath Festival Rally.

After a long drive after work round the M25 to Kent, it was time for some good ‘pub grub’ at the start and then on to the event. The clues were soon on the map and then it was on out into the lanes of Kent. Kent has some great quality lanes, which has mostly been lost to the world road rallying, but a small scatter allows us to use them. The weather on the run up to the event and even whilst plotting was very very wet. The lanes were probably the wettest I have seen for a long time on an event. Many had large puddles and many had large flooded sections. Kevin (my nav) asked me at the start how good the car was in the wet, I said not really sure but we will find out tonight! Luckily the car performed faultlessly. It felt like a tough night as some clues were hard to find, and some we couldn’t find at all, and some we couldn’t get to as the road they were on were just too flooded. We got back to the finish quite early having given up getting to our final point due to flooding. As the results came in it turned out we got one more point than the second placed crew and we had won overall. This makes my third 7Oaks MC Scatter win in a row now as a driver 🙂

After driving home from the Scatter I got home at 1am, which wasn’t the best prep for less than 24hrs later when I was out navigating for Suze on a Boundless (nee CSMA) 12 Car rally. The event was starting about an hour from home and we got there with plenty of time to spare. As a novice navigator I had to do plot ‘n bash navigation i.e. this is fine when I can get it to work but does often mean we have to stop to allow me to plot the route but this clearly costs time. The rally didn’t start well with us losing 10mins on the first section due to me mis-understanding one bit of navigation. This then set the tone for the rest of the night. We ended up OTL at two controls but we got all boards and were only OTL by a handful of minutes. Other crews found it a tough night (many others were OTL as well), though more sleep may have helped me get round it better. We ended up 5th overall and 2nd in class.

A week later it was on to a brand new event a South Oxon Car Club 12 car, this is a new club and their first 12 car. It had a full entry and plenty of marshals supporting the new club. I was out driving with Suze on the maps. The night really did ‘just click’ right from the start, the navigation was tough but do’able. Suze did a top job of getting it to work, and I did my share of ‘making back time’ where required. The lanes around Witney were new to me, but they are mostly open fast and flowing, which made for some really enjoyable driving and allowed me to open up the ZR. By the end I was just happy to get round, we made all our slots, enjoyed the roads and got all the boards and only dropped 3 minutes. As ever on road events you never really know how others are doing till the results come out. This time it was pleasing to find out we had come 1st overall Novices.

So within a week it had been two overall wins as a driver, and a mixed night on the maps.

When we were planning these three events, I could never have known that they would be the last events we would do for quite some time. We should have been doing a targa rally at Wethersfield with two new navigators, and then our first British Rally Championship round at Clacton. With all motorsport stopped until May (as of 17th March), we really don’t know when we will be back out competing or taking part in motorsport.

This will allow me time to get jobs done on both cars including some jobs I have bee meaning to do for a while (yes I have been stock pilling car parts!). I will try and do some car work progress updates (see ‘the list’ for what I will be doing) and we have bought a PS4 and DIRT 2 to keep our eye in, so watch out for us online!

Stay safe out there, and hopefully see you on an event soon.

Three at Christmas – Twelve in Total

The gap between Christmas and the return to work is often a chance for some time off and a holiday, however no break this time with three different events in three different cars planned!

First up was a autotest with the newly form South Oxon Car Club at Oxford’s Football ground car park. Although damp and cold there was a lot of grip on the tarmac and the tight tests showed up the lack of steering lock and effective handbrake with the ZR. This meant some reversing. However it was some good practice for tight tests in the ZR and by the end of the event I finished up 5th in class and 6th overall.

The next day it was an early start for the Mini Tempest Stages at Rushmoor, this time I was navving for Suze. The Newton brothers had saved us a spot in service so we could be together and we unloaded, passed noise and scrutineering, signed on and we were ready to go.

It did help a little knowing the venue (we had some great results here just a month ago!), but conditions and the new bits were also an unknown. The organisers had recommended walking to see the split/flying finish/stop as they said it was tricky though it was simple enough to call it certainly caught out many drivers….

The next couple of stages went well, but then SS4 was a little interesting. We came off the start and through the merge and all was fine, but then I couldn’t see anything except white smoke. It then became clear there was oil down and we tiptoe’d round the bend and I spotted the car in front (on their second lap) was on fire. It wasn’t a nice thing to see as we were completely helpless to warn them, but it seemed to self extinguish and they pulled off albeit leaving their mark with a trail of oil!

Coming round for our second lap, a Fiesta came through the merge just in front of us. He of course did not know about the oil… so having dropped back ready to tip toe through the 90 degree right hand bend and hairpin left, we watched him sail straight off when his car would not stop. We found out afterwards they were fine and continued after meeting the kerb and a couple of pallets.

The Newtons in the Nova unfortunately had to retire with diff pin issues around this time, which meant we knew we were second in class; dropping a few seconds per stage to the class leaders but with a comfortable gap of over a minute to 3rd in class. Aside from a rather interesting tank slapper over a crest on SS7 (which thankfully came back), the rest of the event was fairly uneventful for us.

Finishing second in class and with over a two minute gap to third and just over 40 seconds off the class winners was a good way to end our 2019 season.

Then just into a new year and new decade it was off to do a Car Trail in the Rover 25, this is our ‘freebe car’ which after the trial as destined for stripping for parts and the scrap man. So this meant we could abuse the car and have a bit of fun. Although a Rover 25 is not a big car, on Car Trails it really does feel big. The ‘red shed’ as we named the car performed faultlessly all day, taking all the bumps and bouncing off the rev limiter we could give it. We were never in contention against the seasoned crews who seems to just trickle up the hills with ease, but we had a great days fun.

During 2019 I competed in my highest number of events and disciplines, I competed on 32 events and 12 different disciplines, on my way to hopefully securing the Chelmsford MC Clubmans (All-rounders) Championship for the 12th time.

Over the year I competed as :-

12 Car Driver & Navigator, Road Rally Driver, Stage Rally Driver & Navigator, Targa Rally Driver & Navigator, Autotest, Autotest, AutoX, Sprint (Hill-Climb) and Car Trial

Results on these events varied, but clearly the highlight of 2019 was winning the Rushmoor Targa Rally!

All results from 2019 :-

Boundless NWL 12 Car – MGZR – Driver : Suze Endean – 3rd overall & 2nd in class

VCRR – ‘Bagger’ Road Rally – MGZR – Nav : Kevin Ablitt – 12th overall & 11th in class

VSCC Pomeroy Trophy Race – Silverstone – 19th overall & 2nd in class

7Oaks Scatter Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – 1st Overall

Bath Festival Targa Rally – Driver : Mark Peterson – MGZR – 11th overall & 8th in class

FDMC – Bramley Targa Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – MGZR – 37th overall & 8th in class

FDMC – Bramley Targa Rally – Driver : Suze Endean – MGZR – 29th overall & 7th in class

CMC – Wethersfield Targa Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – MGZR – 9th overall & 8th in class

CMC – Wethersfield Targa Rally – Driver : Suze Endean – MGZR – 24th overall & 13th in class

Bath MC – Kemble Targa Rally – Nav : Lizzie Pope – MGZR – 5th overall Nat B event (9th overall combined, 2nd overall of single drivers), 5th in class.

KL&DMC – Wethersfield Targa Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – MGZR – 8th overall & 6th in class

KL&DMC – Wethersfield Targa Rally – Driver : Suze Endean – MGZR – 15th overall & 11th in class

Bath MC – Long Newton AutoX – Micra – 13th Overall & 1st in class

WAC – Debden Targa Rally – MGZR – Nav : Suze Endean – 12th overall & 8th in class

WAC – Debden Targa Rally – MGZR – Driver : Suze Endean – 20th overall & 13th in class

BARC – Gurston Down Hillclimb – MGZR – 100th overall & 8th in class

7OaksMC – Brands Hatch Grass Autotest – MGZR – 3rd overall & 1st in class

Oxford MC – Grass Autotest – MGZR – 4th overall & 1st in class

MACA / Harrow CC – Bovingdon Autosolo – 9th overall & 7th in class

WAC / WSMC – Debden Targa Rally – MGZR – Nav : David Lobb – 3rd overall and 2nd in class

WAC / WSMC – Debden Targa Rally – Ford Focus ST170 – Nav : David Lobb – 8th overall and 4th in class

AMSC – Rix Engineering – Wethersfield Stages – Micra – Nav : Suze Endean – 23rd overall & 4th in class

MMKMC – Summer Slalom (Multi venue autotest) – MGZR – 5th overall & 2nd in class

MACA / Harrow CC – Bovingdon Autosolo – 3th overall & 3th in class

Chelmsford MC – Bonfire Targa Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – 12th overall & 10th in class

Chelmsford MC – Bonfire Targa Rally – Driver : Suze Endean – 24th overall & 18th in class

FDMC – Rushmoor Targa Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – 1st OVERALL!!!

FDMC – Rushmoor Targa Rally – Driver : Suze Endean – 5th overall & 2nd in class

SHMC – Harvest Road Rally – Nav : Suze Endean – 16th overall (8th Nat B) – 4th in class

WSMC – Foxborough Hills Car Trial – Rover 25 (Freebe car!) – 15th overall – 8th in class

SOCC – Christmas Autotest – MGZR – 6th overall & 5th in class

SCMC – Rushmoor Stages – Micra – Driver : Suze Endean – 28th overall & 2nd in cass

(32 events in 2019)

 

Foxborough Hills Car Trial

After effectively getting a Rover 25 for free (after a bit of Wheeler Dealer’ing selling cars), which was in a condition that it was running but unlikely to return to the road again (dreaded rust) it would make sense to use it on a car trial.

After a quick bit of work to make it usable and add a sump guard, it was off to the event. The weather leading up to the event was rain, rain and more rain and when we arrived and we saw 4×4 towing cars were having to be towed into the venue we knew it would be a high scoring day.

For car trails the 25 is quite a big car, and in standard trim not best suited to the event or venue however it was great fun to use a car you didn’t have to worry about. So we spent lots of time using the rev limiter and generally thrashing the car around.

As the car isn’t road legal we ended up with all the specially adapted cars, which meant a class result was never going to be great but it was all good practice in finding the grip.