My first proper rally! Sideways and everything!

"Will Race For Food" (willraceforfood)
10/06/2016 at 15:49 • Filed to: Rally, BMW, e36 compact, rallytakeover, racing

You know the feeling when you’ve desperately wanted something for 10+ years and then finally make it happen? Well, I do now, after competing in Rally Tartu 2016 - my first ever proper rally with a fully caged car. There’s even an onboard video!

This is a long post with a lot of pictures, here’s a very brief summary if you just want to scroll down and see the videos (yes, there are two): Built rally car. Raced in rallysprint in Lithuania - was 3rd in class. Decided to race in my first rally in Estonia - was not last, had fun. Onboard video is from our best stage of the rally.

Photo credit: Sulev Lange

Long story (somewhat) short - this summer I decided to stop screwing around and finally made the decision to put a rollcage in my e36 compact. Naturally, the project went quite a bit over budget, but when it was finished, I finally had a full-blown rally car! Sure, it still has only around 200 horsepower, relatively stock suspension, a gearbox that cost me around 30 USD, but hey, that’s still good enough to go sideways and have fun on the stages.

This is one of the first pictures of the finished car - quite happy with how it turned out

With that, it was time for some quick testing and my first ever rallysprint (basically a shorter version of rally, around 30 stage miles in total) in Lithuania, which turned out quite well:

Pacenotes right before this corner: “150 Right 4, oh, look, there’s a photographer at this corner”

We finished third in our class (out of six, but one of them retired) and 17th out of 30 in the overall classification. Our max speed on the stages here was in the 100-110 MPH range, on narrow gravel roads.

Yep, that’s me in the white shirt. My oppo username is written on the back. I love that shirt

First thing that I understood here - braking plays a ridiculously large part in the result here. I still need a lot of stage kilometers to be able to brake as late and hard as possible, without overdoing it. Also, my front brakes didn’t really work in the Lithuanian event, so it was time to get those sorted before trying anything more serious.

One more shot from Lithuania, this is from SS1

Originally, I thought that this would be it for my rally season, but then we fixed the brakes, put new suspension at the front, so I decided to completely destroy my bank account and registered for my first ever rally - Rally Tartu 2016, where we would cover more than 70 miles on special stages.

We had initially planned to do some pre-event testing, but those silly thoughts were thrown out the window after we understood that preparing the car in time would be quite a challenge. Thursday was recce day and, since Tartu was around 3-4 hours away and the recce was set to begin at 8AM, we were hoping to get on our way at around 3:30. Planning is all nice and well, but the car was finally ready and put on the trailer at 5AM, which was when we began the drive. Up to that point, I had not gone to sleep yet, so we stopped for 15 minutes on the way so that I could get at least that much sleep and we can safely get to Tartu.

Recce went quite well, we were satisfied with the pacenotes, so now it was time to leave the car in the service park for the night. Since this was an Estonian Rally Championship event and most of the drivers were locals, it turned out that we were the only ones planning to leave the car in the service park overnight.

No, really, we were the only ones

Alright then, off to get some sleep, do some more recce on Friday morning and then the first two stages on Friday evening.

Ready to race!

As could be expected, the first two stages were difficult - I was very cautious (and just plain slow) in SS1, and we lost the pacenotes for a while on SS2. Still, we had reached the end of day one and weren’t even last!

This is the Polva city special stage

Oh, one more thing about rallying - if my car can be considered to be somewhat competitive (as in, with only a 20-50 hp deficit to the top guys) in rallysprint, the guys racing here in rally are just insane, we were competing against BMW M3's with 400 hp, sequential gearboxes, gravel suspension and really, really good drivers. The only realistic competitor in our class was also in an e36 compact, was also doing his first rally, but he had a 3.0 liter engine (so, roughly 40-50 more hp) and rally suspension (although not as expensive as on the M3's).

Yes, the co-driver really didn’t close the doors properly

Rather unsurprisingly, the M3's were way out of our league, but we were actually faster than the other new driver, which was definitely unexpected! Our pace improved on each stage, and we actually jumped in a few places as well, including on the all-asphalt special stage.

This is the jump. We are doing a bit over 100 MPH in the picture

By the last stage, we were really on it, and it showed in the results - I posted the 24th time among 39 finishers and even beat one of the M3's on the stage! Ok, he had a puncture, but that’s still amazing. We concluded the event in 28th position overall (among 39 crews) and were fifth in our class, more than 3 minutes ahead of the other e36 compact driver.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience and I can’t wait for next season to get back on the stages and, hopefully, pick up where we left off in terms of pace. I’ll most likely slightly upgrade the car over the winter, but not really planning to get too carried away with that - the engine will remain the same for now, even though I could use more power on asphalt, 200 hp is enough for now on the gravel sections.

As promised, here is an onboard video, this is from SS11, the last special stage:

The camera mounting position does me no favors here - it looks even slower than it was. Our average speed on this stage was 66 MPH. For those new to rally - an AVERAGE of 66 is a lot, we spent most of the stage doing 80+.

As a bonus, here’s a one minute long video from the outside:

This was an amazing experience, and I hope that I’ll be able to repeat this for quite a few more times in the future. Hopefully it was also a bearable read. If you have any questions, I’ll be more than happy to answer in the comments.

DISCUSSION (25)

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > Will Race For Food
10/06/2016 at 16:06

Very cool!

Ugh, I want to rally so bad! haha

RallyWrench > Will Race For Food
10/06/2016 at 16:11

Thanks so much for sharing your experience, this is great! Between you and Santiago, that’s now two rallE36s on Oppo, I’m becoming inspired to do the same with my beater 325is. It’s even the same color as your Compact. Keep up the good work and updates!

RallyWrench > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow
10/06/2016 at 16:14

I have a beater E36 and rally build and mechanic experience, you have a ZF/Sachs connection... I’m just saying. That logo would look awfully good on a blue 325 screaming through the forest.

Will Race For Food > RallyWrench
10/06/2016 at 16:19

Rallying is probably the most fun you can have in a car, so build yours over the winter and get on the stages, it’ll be great!

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > RallyWrench
10/06/2016 at 16:29

You gonna move to Illinois? Also, I get sick reading in the car, so I’d have to drive... haha ;)

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > Will Race For Food
10/06/2016 at 16:31

Awesome!

I already wanted to start rallying at some point, but reading this I want to start doing so as soon as I’ve got the funds to build a decent car for it.

RallyWrench > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow
10/06/2016 at 16:38

You guys have that winter thing I’ve heard about, right? I hear that’s good for hoon practice, you’re probably better sideways than I am.

RallyWrench > Will Race For Food
10/06/2016 at 16:39

Money, space, and time are the limiting factors for the time being, but I’d love to.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > RallyWrench
10/06/2016 at 16:42

Split the cost of building a set of studded tires and 15" wheels with me and you’re welcome to come out and co-drive the FR-Slow in some ice racing! ;)

Hell, even if I don’t run studded tires you’re welcome to fly out here and co-drive some rallyx with me. haha A couple of weekends they run double-headers with one organization running Saturday and another Sunday, you can get the most bang for your buck!

RallyWrench > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow
10/06/2016 at 16:48

Ice racing and rallycross is the biggest reason I sometimes wish I could spend time back east, it sounds like a total blast. The only sideways stuff out here is drifting and the occasional full-on sanctioned rally.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > RallyWrench
10/06/2016 at 16:55

Yeah, but I’d still rather live in San Diego. haha

RallyWrench > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow
10/06/2016 at 17:07

Eh, San Diego, and greater Southern California, aren’t as good as they’re cracked up to be. I find the sheer number of people to be stifling. I mean, if I want to paddle for a wave with 200 other guys, that’s the place to be.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > RallyWrench
10/06/2016 at 17:16

I haven’t done any surfing, but just really enjoy SD. I used to live a 6 hour drive away so I visited a lot, but thankfully a friend of mine lived in Ocean Beach so I never spent much time in the more touristy Mission Beach area. It can get pretty busy, I’ll agree with that, but I love the more laid back vibe and talk about some amazing food.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Will Race For Food
10/06/2016 at 17:33

Awesome man, congrats! Make sure there is an Oppo sticker on you E36 for extra hp! :D

Dusty Ventures > Will Race For Food
10/06/2016 at 19:58

Congrats! Welcome to the club

Will Race For Food > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
10/07/2016 at 08:40

If you don’t really have racing experience, don’t focus on building a very expensive and competitive car - just find a chassis you like (for RWD, an e36 is probably a good bet in North America as well, although probably not a compact), weld in a roll cage, get a limited-slip diff and start racing. There’s no point in spending thousands of dollars on suspension and engine upgrades at the beginning, you need to get some time behind the wheel and can then just slowly improve the car as you get better

Will Race For Food > RallyWrench
10/07/2016 at 08:41

Money typically solves the other two problems, though - you can pay for someone to build it and have a place to leave it inbetween the events. But rally is still going to be expensive, probably a better bet to start with autox or some track days

Will Race For Food > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
10/07/2016 at 08:42

I’d need a lot of stickers to be competitive with the big boys :D
I do have some evil plans for future engine upgrades, but it all comes down to budget, so I’ll likely remain with a slightly underpowered car for next year

RallyWrench > Will Race For Food
10/07/2016 at 10:08

I’ve done all that, and built rally cars, so labor cost is basically nonexistent except for the cage. It’s the other parts, materials, fuel for the car and truck, entry fees, hotel rooms, meals, and everything else that I can’t afford, in addition to the time burden.

Will Race For Food > RallyWrench
10/07/2016 at 10:28

Wow, lucky you - without labor costs, I would probably be racing every weekend :D

RallyWrench > Will Race For Food
10/07/2016 at 11:44

Haha, without kids and a mortgage I would be too!

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Will Race For Food
10/12/2016 at 09:09

this is awesome man. You know how I feel about rally! Can’t wait to have a Rally specific vehicle to play with....soon!

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > Will Race For Food
10/19/2016 at 20:06

Nice! Speaking of brakes, I boiled the brake fluid on my e36 this weekend at LSPR. Because of some issues, I basically had to go flat out to keep the engine from overheating and I started pushing harder than I ever have been. I’m losing soooo much time in braking. Gravel tires are magic

Will Race For Food > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
10/20/2016 at 03:12

Yup, braking is where most of the time is gained in rally - this much I also know now. Unfortunately, I am also still struggling to get my mind around just how ridiculously good gravel tires are when it comes to stopping.

I’ve not had any issues with overheating, luckily. We have a manual switch to turn on the radiator fan and I do that before the start of every stage. The longest SS in Tartu was a bit over 10 miles, and there were no issues whatsoever.

As for the brakes - what brake pads do you use and how often do you change the brake fluid? After switching to Carbone Lorraine, I’m not even looking at anything else when it comes to brake pads. They also have a performance brake fluid that has a higher boiling temp, but I have not tried that one yet

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > Will Race For Food
10/20/2016 at 08:30

I flushed everything with off the shelf DOT4 when I installed my hydro handbrake. I’ll be replacing it with RBF600 or some other high temp fluid.

I can’t remember which pads I have off the top of my head.

Normally it’s been keeping cool, but a rock punctured the radiator and we tried using stop leak to fix it. It didn’t work. We got another radiator but then the thermostat was sticking. I turned off the extra fan and drove flat out so that the engine would stay hot and the thermostat would never close. I did probably 50+ stage miles like that without overheating. Even on transits I had to go 3500+ rpm, haha