The Foci aren't based off the production car like the Mitsu's and Subie's. They are pretty much facades of the fwd econo-car the public gets. Homologation needs to be reintroduced to rally so that you and I, the consumer can enjoy cars like the Galant VR-4 and 323 GTX again.

 

did anyone notice how many sti's took a **** in the X Games?! lol. It was one after another. I forgot which driver, that had all of his back up subies die on him.

 

The driver your referring to is Travis Pastrana, They only had one car for him, his motor went south during the rally car event ( not a surprise, these are very high compression motors that are running a 40+ pound boost spike off the line, making 600+ horse and most likely and equal or greater amount of TQ through a 45mm restrictor) After that they had an hour to swap a motor into the car, the motor that they swapped in with the 4th motor that they brought, one was the one Travis blew, one was in Daves car, and there was an issue with motor number 3. After they got the motor into the car in under an hour, there was a small fire in the engine bay on start up ( due to rushing to get the motor into the car)

The Fords and Subarus did have a lot more problems then Evo's, but the Evo's were on average making 200HP less then the other cars ( this is not including Travis Hanson's car as it is a stock motored sp car with a bigger restrictor.

 

The Fords arent the Focus. They are the Ford Fiesta platform that Ken Block drives in the WRC , and Rally America Series.

 

Ken drives the Focus in WRC and the Fiesta in Rally-America

 

Sorry about that, you are correct about Block driving the Focus RS in WRC. Ford is supposed to be making the group 2 Fiesta rally available for sale at local ford dealers in the near future. Pretty nice deal for anyone looking to get themselves into rally racing.

 

I was able to drive one a bit over a year ago during Fords Fiesta Movement program, they are really nice cars to drive. If i was in the market for a new car i would be picking one up.

 

The 8 also has our turbo kit

 

The Fiesta will be the WRC car next year thanks to the FIA's new rules, they are letting Ken do the fail testing for them before they give it to drivers they care about like Hirvonnen, of course Hrvonnen did win IRC Monte Carlo with one this year so maybe its just Ken....

The whole thing was a huge fail. The rallycross was at least entertaining.

 

This!

What we really need is an even smaller Mitsu that we can cram the Evo X drivetrain into. Of course, there are different rules for RallyCross if you're making a frankenstein car, namely 2.0L displacement limit, no variable valve timing, and no active diffs. So, Mitsu, if you're listening, bring over a MIVEC'd micro car with AWD and active diffs.

FWIW, my Evo was out at X-games all week as a backup for ACP, so if any of you were wandering around in the pits, its likely you got to see it. Glad to say he never needed to use it, as he had the jump dialed in! Was very surprised that Pastrana of all people didn't have a backup car.

Dave

 

I think alot of that has to do with the cars normally running 34mm restrictors, which works out to ~300hp and 450tq for the top level cars. Have the drivers swap to a 45mm restrictor and the power is now waaaay higher. Seems like when pushed to the limits, the subies are more problem prone, but I suspect the shop that prepped them just needs more time figuring out the weak links at those power levels.

Dave

 

I am surprised they did not bring his stage car down just in case

 

All homologation does is raise the costs, so here in the states you would have less cars running because only a few could afford to run AND maintain a full spec homologated car. Leave the open AWD and 2WD classes the way they are.

 

I can't speak for eric on this one, but I'm assuming he meant at the top levels, not necessarily that US rally needs to allow GroupN cars exclusively. I don't think there are very many who have converted 2wd to AWD, but the Fords are a clear case of taking advantage of the current rule set. Not saying they are doing anything shady (they are not), but taking their lightest econobox and completely redoing the chassis to accommodate AWD gives them a huge leg up on the competition which actually offers a roadgoing AWD car.

No road going AWD versions of WRC cars means they put more $ into develpoing a great race car (citroen, ford), but there's no cool car for consumers to purchase. I'd love to see a production awd chassis used as a starting point...otherwise, from the car standpoint, wrc is just nascar in the woods.

Dave

 

+1 well said!