So here it is (cars are always ‘it’ to me, never ‘she’) and since it’s a bit of a weapon which I treat with the utmost respect, we call it The Beast.
This rally car is non-historic ‘hybrid,’ which means the spec isn’t confined only to bits and pieces used in the day. Rather than a Ford engine, it uses one of the favourite rally engines around today, a 260bhp, 2.0-litre Vauxhall red top racing engine from John Read Racing Engines of Cornwall (JRE).
The bodyshell is full Gp4 which means it’s substantially modified and strengthened and has a welded and bolt-in full roll cage attaching to the front suspension mounts for extra strength. The doors are lightweight with all the guts taken out and boot and bonnet lid are Kevlar, saving several kilos compared to steel. The transmission tunnel is widened to take a larger gearbox at the front and limited slip ZF motorsport differential at the rear. There’s also an exhaust tunnel to allow the massive 3.5-inch exhaust system to be tucked up tight under the body and not left behind at the first jump.
The engine is rev-limited at 9,000rpm and is the single most valuable component on the car costing as much as an entire Ford Focus when it was brand new. I can’t afford for anything bad to happen to it and although it’s been protected by Millers 10W 60 synthetic competition oil in the past, I’ve upgraded that to the last word in race engine protection which is Millers new Nanodrive synthetic. It contains even more robust additives and should reduce friction enough to increase the power by a percentage point or two.
The engine drives through a Drenth, six-speed sequential ‘dog’ gearbox so I’ll only use the clutch when pulling away and on downchanges, upshifts just need a split second lift on the throttle and a firm tug on the stick. The rest of the driveltrain is old school, power getting on to the road through the traditional Ford, ‘Atlas’ live rear axle located to the body by five links. AP Racing tarmac spec brakes are specially designed for Gp4 Escorts like this one, four-pot calipers at the front and ventilated discs all round giving massive stopping power.
Conventional brake pads would fade to smoke because of the heat generated, so I’m using Ferodo DS3000 racing pads all round. The suspension comprises Bilstein coil-over struts all round, with steel rose-joints replacing rubber bushes and a front anti-roll bar. There’s a high ratio ‘quick’ steering rack and electric power steering developed from the Vauxhall Corsa system especially for cars like this. Without it, tarmac rally cars on eight-inch slicks can be a hefty to steer and with it, steering while shifting becomes smooth and easy.
As for those slicks, I’m using 200/530R13 Kumho Ecsta tarmac rally tyres. In the dry, we’ll run C03 slicks, using a softer compound for the front to give crisp turn-in and a medium hard on the rear to cope with the power. Even so, the likelihood is that a pair of rears will only last one event, or 40-60 stage miles. For the damp and wet, we’ll fit TW02s. They can be cut if necessary for extremely wet conditions but Kumho’s tech guru, Mark Hamnett, reckons conditions would need to be pretty grim before we needed to resort to that so I’ll leave well alone for now.
The last two months since I got the car have been spent preparing it and bringing it up to scratch and I have to make sure it meets the MSA technical regulations for rally cars. The Escort has to meet MOT ‘construction and use’ regulations which despite appearances, means road legal. It has to have a current MOT and for some events, be taxed as well. For 2012, tyre and wheel assemblies cannot exceed 8-inches in width so I’ve had to replace the 10-inch wide rims that were on the back and that means giving away a fair amount of grip.
A lot of Mk 2 drivers now opt for 15-inch wheels to get a bigger contact patch and this shell is ‘tubbed’ to take the extra diameter within the arches. But I know this car has already been successful with the existing setup and 15-inch wheels don’t have a great effect on the handling. The tyres alone weight an additional 1.6 kilos each more than 13-inch, the suspension would have required a complete new setup up, so I decided to stick with what works on this particular car.
There’s lots of detail to check under the MSA technical regulations. A few examples are that the seats have to be FIA approved, so must the six-point harnesses which also have to fall inside the expiry date marked on them. The car must have mud flaps fitted, carry a warning triangle and a first aid kit and pass a noise check. Default on any of the above or turn up with a blown bulb or dodgy wiper, and we won’t get a scrutineer’s ticket and if unable to fix it, wouldn’t be able to compete.
Safety equipment includes a Lifeline 360 liquid gas hand held fire extinguisher and a plumbed-in Lifeline Zero 2000 foam extinguisher which can be operated by the crew as well as by a cable pull from outside of the car. These are specialised motorsport extinguishers designed to meet the usual stringent regulations and having fresh ones inside the car makes me feel a whole lot better.
I think The Beast is ready now and ready to be let loose. I’ve done enough fettling. Next time you hear from me it’ll be after the event. Wish us luck and keep an eye on my Twitter feed at Twitter.com/jessecrosse, I’ll be chirping from the event on the 27th.
Find out more about going rallying at: http://www.msauk.org/custom/asp/home/default.asp
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JesseCrosse
I have always reckoned (and always will) that actually taking part in any form of motorsport however low rent it may be, is 10 times more exciting that sitting on my arse in front of the telly watching other blokes have all the fun.
It starts this Bank Holiday Monday, 27th August, at the Brands Hatch Stages in Kent. In doing so, I’m coming full circle because rallying is where I started as a kid. Then it was road rallying in the home-built Escort that you can see a picture of here in black and white. This time I’ll be driving an example of the sort of car I always lusted after, a rapid ‘Group 4’ Mk 2 Ford Escort tarmac rally car.
A couple of years ago I started back in the sport having met up with an old mate, David Jones, who used to navigate for me back then. These days Dave is a veteran co-driver with immense experience and having done a few fairly sedate historic road rallies he suggested we tackle the January Brands Hatch Stages in his beautiful FIA historic spec Mk1 Escort tarmac rally car. It was a blast but I’d forgotten one crucial fact. Rallying gets under your skin and the bug had bitten.
Rallying is easy to get into and at the entry level doesn’t cost a fortune. You can join a local RAC Motor Sport Association affiliated club near you (there are dozens throughout the country) and start doing 12 car road rallies on a Sunday in a pretty well bog standard car. There are special categories for classics and the Historic Rally Car Register (HRCR) runs events specifically for them. Road-based club events are where you learn how rallying works, the navigation, the timing and so on. You can move up to more serious events if you want to and the great thing is, the same basics apply to both club rallies and international events. If that sounds appealing, you can find a list of clubs and how to get started in rallying on the excellent RAC MSA website.
Stage rallying is more expensive but you can run anything from a Mini to a WRC Subaru Impreza or Ford Focus. Why have I chosen a Gp4 Escort and not something more modern? Gp4 is the class that preceded the infamous Gp B in the early 1980s and in this form, the Mk 2 Escort has never stopped being ‘current.’ Given the right specification they’re still good enough to take on all-comers. The very best Mk 2 rally cars can and do beat WRC cars in a straight fight and above all they’re brilliant, agile, howling, chuckable things to drive. I love ‘em, always have.
A single venue rally is just that, instead of being spread around the countryside, all the stages are based at one venue and generally start and finish in just one day. This makes it more affordable and there’s less wear and tear on the car since they’re usually between 40 and 60 miles each. Tarmac events are also a lot more forgiving on an expensive bodyshell than gravel which does a pretty good job of trashing the underside of a rally car fairly rapidly.
So that’s the plan and I hope you’ll come along for the ride via this blog. Next time I’ll introduce you to ‘The Beast’ and tell you more about the anatomy of a Gp4 Escort and what makes it so special. See you tomorrow.
Find out more about going rallying at: http://www.msauk.org/custom/asp/home/default.asp
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JesseCrosse
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