Got my body back..........!

Cooling pack and plumbing going in for a final size up of the pipe runs etc!

coolingpack1.jpg


coolingpack3.jpg


coolingpack6.jpg


I have to say i had forgotten just how small a Mk2 'beeza actually is these days! i'm not entirely sure that all the engine and transmision stuff will actually fit into the car! (well of course it does, but it's a bit of a big packaging exercise!

:)
 
Jun 28, 2001
1,533
0
I think that Pauls car stands in the same grey area as does mine.At the moment the way it reads that no parts can be changed excessively like the above but can be inspected and passed by the MSA to get it logged booked.
I know that Andy Burton has given up on his latest project because of K37 and I really hope that the 2010 rule is cleared up quickly, because ive spent too much time and money doing my car over the last few years to be told that al it can be used for is hillclimbs or sprints:(
 
Good to chat yesterday - great day. DR knows how to throw a 'party'.

It occured to me whether the K37 regs may have thwarted the potential usage for the car in rallying?

yeah it was a good time at the now yearly Prodrive openday, not sure how much was raised for charity yet, but it will be a decent sum of money. It was pretty hectic, especialy in our herritage museum where we chatted, but nice to see the smiles and thanks of all the peeps we had clambering in and out of the famous cars in there!

K37 wise, basically i have until JAN 08 to get the car an MSA logbook, which i effecively i can do because it meets all current rules for technical & safety etc, which means it will just become an over 2litre 2wd non-homologated car, and as such is eligble for lots of national events etc. After Jan 08, all cars must be based on a production shell, and the maximum mods you can do to the "sheet metal" are those allowed currently in WRC, i.e. certain sized tranmisison tunnel etc etc (which my car doesnt meet)

K37 is basically just a way to try to get everyone to race / rally production cars, lumped on the back of so called "safety" concerns with people modifing cars. Its all bo**ocks, cause any modern car is designed with airbags and crumple zones primary in there design, and allow significant progressive deformation in control zones to work with airbags etc. What happens to this when you remove the airbags/pretentioners/ and fit huge great rollcage is anyones guess. TBH, even fitting a non standard tyre size or make (like you do for say a gravel rally) voids the manufacturers controlled safety systems as wheels / tyres now form a significant proportion of the front and side impact progresion!
 
thought it was 2010????

full K37 rules come into effect on Jan 1 2010, but the break point for non homologated "specials" is 2008 (although there is a failry significant lobbying to make this '09)

even when it does happen i dont actually think the end result will be too bad, it's just that clubman rallying as we know it will be seriously damaged, special stage rallying under the MSA will just become GpN scobies etc and the odd 2/3 rd hand WRC car for those with a bigger bank balance. Like in Circuit racing (think LMA special saloons etc) i see lots of alternative championships growing up that will cater for the vast fleet of non homologated cars. What it might be though is the death nell for the RAC MSA as a clubman organisation, i cetainly am not interested in supporting them when there basis for change is such a poor argument. (if they had been honest and just said " look peeps, it's really difficult trying to control you lot with all your engineunity and rule bending, so cant we please just have homologated cars only?" then i would have probably supported them, but to dress it all up as a fake "safety" argument just makes them seem so 2 faced. (and when it comes to safety its about time they there finger out an got up to speed with modern (i.e. post 1990) passenger car technology, cause if one more scrut tells me i need to add a return spring to my BMW electronic throttles them i'm gonna flip!!! lol

RANT MODE = OFF ;)
 

ibizacupra

Jack-RIP my little Friend
Jul 25, 2001
31,333
19
glos.uk
"safety" rule changes often seem a good vehicle to introduce mods, so they cant be questioned. (or they rather they were'nt)

Had a "safety" change on tech regs last year in combe saloons, which effectively legalised non-legal bumper trimmed pugs. Laughable, but it stuck.
 

Chris Eyre

The Voice of Reason
Apr 2, 2003
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0
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K37 debate is wide, but indeed LMA could well be a good place to resort to, albeit against Super Tourers, it could be that another berth is required.

The K37 rules thing is a load of legal @rse covering. Here's an unedited letter I sent to Motorsport News earlier this year, which undermines the whole excercise and shows the hypocrisy in the respective FIA/MSA stances.

Version printed was sanitised and removed the Focus/McRae/Burton references.

"Rallying: K37 or KO?

Ref the the K37 issue (MN, Feb 21), John Richardson hangs the fundamental rationale for the whole issue around a legislative culture. Fine. Except the changes don’t come in until Jan 2010.

So what are the implications if, or when, the unthinkable happens, before 2010, and a legal eagle picks a blank cheque fight with the MSA or its insurer? If, and only if, the legislative risk is so high, are there any excuses for K37 having not been modified immediately? Or is this not the real reason? It needs to sound credible, and this delay doesn’t.

Rallying gets ever more expensive, so why should skilled hands not continue to convert cars in whatever innovative and inexpensive way, when the alternative of using production examples would be far more costly?

Off hand, I can think of several cars with altered floorpans, inverted chassis rails, RWD conversions, big tunnels and all sorts of innovative fundamental modifications. Andy Burton takes the headlines, but what about the ‘Rovaru’, or any number of hybrid cars in use, or mothballed and waiting to reappear? Will Colin McRae be forced to stop using his ground breaking Mk2 Escort? Will there be a raft of compensatory payments to owners of potentially redundant Escort G3 and G4s across the land?

If you tie the hands of rallyists to production-based machines, you’ll continue to drive the costs up, and everyone will be so sick of the whole thing, that they’ll all be doing rallycross or tipping the lot. If the WRC is anything to go by, this cost issue needs a rapid re-think.

Scrap this K37 nonsense, deal with the disclaimers, and logbook cars as you’ve always done, and pay the damn insurance premiums. Trees don’t get any softer, Motorsport is Dangerous, Lawyers get busier, but accidents remain accidents.

As for the WRC, I suggest you lobby the FIA to bin the WRC cars, and substitute with Super 2000. It costs less, and that’s got to be a good thing in this potty age where we’re prepared to see £450k WRC Focus’s hand constructed, panel by panel, around space-frame rollcages. Yes, panel by panel, to paraphrase Christian Loriaux from an another source (edit: a 3rd party claim which I now doubt).

All of which leaves me wondering what’s the FIA’s legislative stance is on those pseudo “production” Focuses. Pah, “production”? A rather cunning welded Mecano replica it seems, 'allegedly!', and hardly safe legal ground at all."
 
all valid points i agree!

One fundimental issue of safety, on which no one seems to have made any issue (!), is the effects of running a championship where actually the performance of the cars is very similar. this means that the winner of the event is usually the person who has managed to string together a whole rally full or "brain out" stages without crashing. You only have to witness the frequency and ferocity of accidents in both production (GrpN) rallying and S1600 to see that closely matched cars do not actually allow drivers any safety margin on a typical event at all. One reason people like Andrew Burton have been able to be competitive for a number of years is that his lateral thinking and inteligence to interpret the "rules" (be they technical, legal or safety driven) deliver him a car which due to it's inherent engineering strengths actually mean he can win an event by driving slower and safer! The danger is that this could lead to a lack of popular support if the spectical of the special stage is reduced, but if anything, the lure of cars like the Pug Cosworth has been instrumental in the revival of events like the Wydean etc!.
Typically a quick perusal of the last weeks events in Motoring news shows that of the top 10 or 20 drivers / cars on say a national rally these days, 50% finished well, and 50% are now reshelling there car (or worse) after massive smashes!:confused:
 

Guinness

Finally got the BMW
Nov 29, 2006
4,422
1
Newcastle
Im addicted to this thread. I wish I was a young school lad again so I could idolise this car, its kind of making me feel sad and weird that Im loving the pics of it so much! Really must see more of it and most of all see it when its done.

So anyway mate if you dont mind me asking how much has this set u back so far mate? and how much you reckon when its done?

Sorry if anyone has asked its a long thread and the pictures distract me lol
 
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