thread for my rally Focus

[kimbo305]

I attended Team O'Neil Rally School a while back and loved it. I also had a taste of motorsport when I went to an 2-day HPDE at NHIS. Both things told me that I wanted a caged car that I could go to the occasional track day with, and then swap off suspension and eventually do a stage rally with.

Taking a look around on Special Stage, I noticed a Group 2 Focus for sale. And this was a WHILE back, something like August, to give you an idea of how long it's taken to set this all up. And after talking to the owner for a while, it seemed like we were going to be able to trade my PWSC SVTF for his rally car.

Then there was the matter of setting up the deal and physically trading the 2 cars. Eventually that all got squared away, and now I'm the proud owner of a SCCA ProRally era rally car.

There's plenty of things to work on, but I made sure I knew what I was getting into.
- I had a NASA Rallysport scrutineer check out the car's cage. He said he personally would let the car run unmodified in 2009, but that there would be a few recommended updates to the cage. The 2 biggest ones I'll probably go ahead and do are a full diagonal on the main hoop and a roof brace.
- tons of suspension modifications that I'll need to learn how to service. Let's just say there's a lot of zerks down there where there didn't use to be
- Some drivetrain modifications that disqualify the car for Rally Spec Focus. The most expensive of which to fix is a straight final drive gear.

I'll be sure to get pictures up and a to-do list of things to work on for the car. The plan is to have it all examined and all the documentation read over for a rally cross in early January.

[jgustafson]

Pics or ban

[fhg959]

any pics of the car?

[mlbbaseball]

heck ya, post pics!!

[kimbo305]

I'll get to it. I dunno why pics are so important for a rally car. It's got the worst paint, which is cracked in one place by a deer that tried to hop in the car during a rally. I will post some pics of the interior, which is much much more interesting.

[mlbbaseball]

ya, i wanna c the interior, not so concerned about the xterior. i wanna see the cage

[kimbo305]

Originally Posted by mlbbaseball

i wanna see the cage

According to the PO, the cage is a duplication of the early Group N cages Foci ran when they were first rallied in Europe. It is not as safe as it could be. In addition to there being V braces for the main hoop instead of a full diagonal, the door bars are very low.

[dhardison]

By "straight final drive gear" do you mean the final drive has gears that are straight cut for strength vs. gears that are cut at an angle? Any idea of the final drive ratio?

[kimbo305]

Originally Posted by dhardison

By "straight final drive gear" do you mean the final drive has gears that are straight cut for strength vs. gears that are cut at an angle? Any idea of the final drive ratio?

Yeah, it's a straight cut gear with a final drive ratio of 4.50

[egman2005]

pics???????????????