First order of business was to see how bad the engine was.  With the help of a mate, it was pulled apart and was in a very sad state.  Note to self – you have a second to shut the engine off when oil pressure is low, if you spend a few seconds thinking about it, then its too late.

Have two options now, put in just enough money to replace what I have to, and get it back in the car, or wait a bit longer and make it even better than it was.  Either way, the standard engine needs to go back in, as 3 weeks is not enough time for me to build a new motor, as I need a lot of external help.

I have taken the decision to build something more serious, but this will take me more time to afford it all, and to run the rest of this year on the standard engine.  It was a hard decision as the standard engine is over 50hp down on power compared to the good one – it is a lot!

The Boddington event was next.  The event has a slippery surface, and a lot of tight corners, and so the power deficit wasn’t that noticeable – other than the 2km straight run down the fence line, where the car topped out at a speed well below the previous events!

In terms of the 2wd class, we won the first 4 stages and had a bit of a lead.  The next two stages were a repeat of the first two, and they were now very rough, so I backed off on these two stages to ensure that we didn’t get a puncture, or do anything silly to damage the car and loose the lead.

We pushed again on the last two stages, with another two stage wins, retaining 1st two wheel drive, very happy with the car and its performance and had a great time at the event.

Thanks to Blake Rattenbury Photography for the image.

 

Over the next few weekends, I did nothing to the car – it was all in good condition.

Its now the weekend before the Kirrup rally, so I completed the usual routine, checking and changing the required oils, making sure everything is still tight, making a couple of performance enhancements.

Pretty much finished checking everything, its Sunday night, all looks great, until…

Long story short, this piece here is the part that attaches the wheel to the rest of the suspension, and that large crack in it should not be there.

It would have been really nice if I’d seen this 3 or 4 hours ago – #rallylife

So it’s well after midnight, but there are two new knuckles back in the car and its now really read to go.

The week before the event saw a lot of rain fall, but after Recce the roads looks really nice.  A couple of very vet/muddy corners, but 99% of it looks awesome.

Stage one, first real corner, got off the road – it looks nice, but it’s really greasy at speed.  Stage two was no different, with me making lots of small mistakes, getting very wide, small overshoots and even a spin – first one in this car.  Was worried that I may have lost a lot of time one these two stages, but it turns out everyone was having similar issues.  5th outright and 1st two wheel drive at this point.

Stage three was a very different feeling surface, and was so much more fun to drive – the first two were more scary than fun.  Stage 4 was a repeat of stage one, and this time it was a little slippery, but more consistent with grip than the first pass.

The last two stages were a repeat of stage two, again more fun this time, and then a repeat of stage 3, but in the dark.  Came close to throwing it all away on the last stage of the event, overshooting a junction and lucky not to get bogged.

Finished 4th outright on both of these stages, and ending up 4th outright and 1st two wheel drive.

On the last transport back to the finish she would not shift into 6th gear, so something to fix before the next event….