We took the 3,500km trek from Sydney to Alice Springs in the centre of Aus to do The Finke Desert race... Needless to say a biiig couple of weeks. My apologies to my american friends who might miss some of the aussie references.
When we left the car had been dynoed, but not tested. So we decided that as we were going to be driving past the Oodnadatta track tomorrow night....
Late arvo we unloaded the cars at Marla, behind the servo/caravan park and took off up the track. Never thought I'd say this but we were overtaking road trains in the dark in the racecar on the Oodnatadda track! haha!
Got to alice and the car still hasnt launched off a jump yet. Oh well. See how we go.
Prologue was no-where. 56th out of 78 vehicles and slow as due to it just not handling. Not happy! So off to Alice Offroad Club in the arvo for testing. And we met some locals. And had some beer. And more beer.
Sorted out the rear end OK thanks to externally valvable shocks and dual rate spring setup - the front though, no bypass shocks. so, run what you brung! Front was wayyyy to soft, not good for the 4 feet deep whoops.
Leg 1 is 250km from Alice to Finke. We made it 45km down before we succomed to a booby trap. Someone had removed the warning/danger signs from a dip/washout in the road and we hit it flat out in top. So we smacked the backside of the dip at 200+km/h and took off. The front end hit the dirt and the rear end went skywards - we almost endoed... but luckly didnt. Unluckily the car went right, through a fence then mowed down a grove of trees. 10km later the front end collapsed, out of race.
Up to the 45km mark we had passed 8 cars on the track and had another 3 in our sites in front of us. The car was simply screaming. Talk about adrenaline!!!!!! The track is barely even a track, its rough as guts and is 200km of 2 to 4 foot deep corrugations. Mental.
Happily, mechanically the car was great. We were having gearbox issues (jumping out of 5th when backing off) so alot of the run was done with the engine bouncing on the 7,000rpm rev limiter in 4th! Engine never got hot, oil pressure was fine and the engine note was brilliant. When we did peg 5th I had to hold the gear stick to keep it in - disconcerting when you're hitting jumps at mach 1 and have nothing to hold onto! haha!
Heaps of people commented on the engine note - At full noise thanks to the crossover and no exhaust it barks brilliantly. No one believed it was a jap motor! haha!
The damage bill isnt huge - A large section of the floor under our feet got torn off when we hit the dip, the rear skid plate got mashed, some bent bracing in the front of the chassis and some cracked welds and we need to make a new upper control arm after the offside one snapped off. All in all its just time and steel, not big $$$. At least all the expensive stuff was ok! Shocks, gearbox, steering and plumbing.
Here are a couple of youtube vids from the event of people getting caought out by a booby trap. Freaking idiots camped by the track changed the jump profile with shovels after we did recce and caused carnage. Idiots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u978LQC_h0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OJWIKAowE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBFmuk8ST48
Anyway, gotta do some work. Damn it.
When we left the car had been dynoed, but not tested. So we decided that as we were going to be driving past the Oodnadatta track tomorrow night....
Late arvo we unloaded the cars at Marla, behind the servo/caravan park and took off up the track. Never thought I'd say this but we were overtaking road trains in the dark in the racecar on the Oodnatadda track! haha!Got to alice and the car still hasnt launched off a jump yet. Oh well. See how we go.
Prologue was no-where. 56th out of 78 vehicles and slow as due to it just not handling. Not happy! So off to Alice Offroad Club in the arvo for testing. And we met some locals. And had some beer. And more beer.
Sorted out the rear end OK thanks to externally valvable shocks and dual rate spring setup - the front though, no bypass shocks. so, run what you brung! Front was wayyyy to soft, not good for the 4 feet deep whoops.
Leg 1 is 250km from Alice to Finke. We made it 45km down before we succomed to a booby trap. Someone had removed the warning/danger signs from a dip/washout in the road and we hit it flat out in top. So we smacked the backside of the dip at 200+km/h and took off. The front end hit the dirt and the rear end went skywards - we almost endoed... but luckly didnt. Unluckily the car went right, through a fence then mowed down a grove of trees. 10km later the front end collapsed, out of race.
Up to the 45km mark we had passed 8 cars on the track and had another 3 in our sites in front of us. The car was simply screaming. Talk about adrenaline!!!!!! The track is barely even a track, its rough as guts and is 200km of 2 to 4 foot deep corrugations. Mental.
Happily, mechanically the car was great. We were having gearbox issues (jumping out of 5th when backing off) so alot of the run was done with the engine bouncing on the 7,000rpm rev limiter in 4th! Engine never got hot, oil pressure was fine and the engine note was brilliant. When we did peg 5th I had to hold the gear stick to keep it in - disconcerting when you're hitting jumps at mach 1 and have nothing to hold onto! haha!
Heaps of people commented on the engine note - At full noise thanks to the crossover and no exhaust it barks brilliantly. No one believed it was a jap motor! haha!
The damage bill isnt huge - A large section of the floor under our feet got torn off when we hit the dip, the rear skid plate got mashed, some bent bracing in the front of the chassis and some cracked welds and we need to make a new upper control arm after the offside one snapped off. All in all its just time and steel, not big $$$. At least all the expensive stuff was ok! Shocks, gearbox, steering and plumbing.
Here are a couple of youtube vids from the event of people getting caought out by a booby trap. Freaking idiots camped by the track changed the jump profile with shovels after we did recce and caused carnage. Idiots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u978LQC_h0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OJWIKAowE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBFmuk8ST48
Anyway, gotta do some work. Damn it.
