Down to the Wire

Well, the Painless Performance wiring loom arrived, and shortly thereafter the repaired Monit tripmeters from New Zealand.  Monit, bless them, had not only replaced the PCBs on each unit, but also clearly given me new cases for them as well.  So the only original bit was the screen – effectively they had saved me about £800.  Any company that serves their customers that well – on 7-year-old equipment – deserves a massive vote of thanks.

And so Jason and I (OK, mainly Jason) set about re-wiring the Beast.  Nanjgel had already modified the rear wings and installed a pair of Hilux rear light clusters, which look really good.  Jason did the clever stuff – like figuring out where all the wires go, and what extra bits we needed.  I fabricated and painted a couple of replacement dash panels to accommodate the new switches and indicators, mounted some relay bases in a weatherproof enclosure and generally shouted encouragement from the touchline. 

The job ended up being rather more of a challenge than Jason had anticipated.  The loom and fuse box is designed around American wiring practice, which (it turns out) is not entirely compatible with non-USA vehicles.  Being unable to persuade the ECU to come to the party cost us a couple of days which we could ill-afford, before Nanjgel’s electrician finally came to the rescue.  However, around midday on Friday we decided it was sufficiently ‘finished’ for the following day’s event, and we blatted off to Siyouh to recce the stages in Sheila’s Prado.

The Mobil 1 Rally is the 4^th round of the Emirates Rally Championship, organised by the EMC.  It comprised two gravel stages, each run three times, in an area where we’d previously competed.  Saturday was almost certainly the hottest and most humid day in the last few weeks, which made the event hard work.  Starting 16^th out of 17 cars, we completed the first two stages around midday, and on returning to service were shocked to discover that we were leading T1, by a massive one second margin from Ali Al Shawi.  (Ali, who was already leading the T1 championship, has spent the summer upgrading his Chevy Silverado to multi-link suspension and pruning back the bodywork to pickup-style to make it even more competitive, was pretty shocked as well.)

Low flying

On the second go-round we extended our lead on SS3, before losing it all on SS4 where he went quicker and I pushed too hard and made a few errors.  So after four stages we were 5 seconds adrift from Al Shawi.  We pulled back a second of that on SS5, and did our fastest lap of SS6 – but it wasn’t enough to catch Al Shawi who was a massive 14 seconds quicker on the final stage.  We ended up 18 seconds behind him, 2^nd in T1 and 6^th overall – which coincides exactly with our overall standings in the championship.  17 cars started, 11 finished.  Shk. Abdullah Al Qassimi won the event in his Ford Fiesta, and Sheila once again took home a ‘special trophy’ for being the top lady finisher!

There is still work to do on the wiring.  Despite the repairs to the Monits, Sheila still found them unreliable, with both the trip meters and timers randomly re-setting.  However, the next couple of events are the opening rounds of the Emirates Desert Championship, which I can manage without a co-driver.  The amount of oil the engine consumes is also a concern – I got through at least half a gallon in two top-ups.

Summer Update

Summer is not the time for rallying.  It is the time for repairing, upgrading, and regrouping, which tends to make uninteresting reading.  However, there have been a couple of highlights.

 

30^th April was the annual awards dinner for EMSF, and marshals’ party.  I received the winner's trophy for theT1 Championship for the 2^nd year running, which is very nice, as well as one for 2^nd place in the team awards.  Much alcohol was consumed, I seem to recall.  And there’s a video compilation of the 2014-15 Championship here.

 

6^th May saw Newtrix on set at a desert video shoot for a commercial.  Mobily, the Saudi Telco, sponsor Yazeed Al Rajhi, the well-known rally driver, and the storyline needed a second rally car and driver – which was me.  It was one of those rare occasions when the Beast actually earns money, and as such I seized it with both hands.  But bloody hell, it was hot, and a worse day to be wrapped in a rally duvet in the middle of the desert would be hard to imagine.  But the crew got the shots they needed, I ended up towing Yazeed’s Robby Gordon Hummer out of the desert, and I got paid.  Hurrah.  Of course, to get to this point we really needed some power steering, which (if you’ve been following the plot) you’ll recall was notably absent in Ras Al Khaimah.   So finally, Mebar got to fit the GM power steering pump (which Kate and Rick travelled about 800km to fetch).

The Ras Al Khaimah Rally video is now on YouTube, and it does contain glimpses of the Beast – as well as Sheila getting her trophy!

We happened to be in Spain in July while the Baja Aragon was on, so we headed up to Teruel to spectate.  What a brilliant event!  Some 200 competitors (bikes, quads, cars, trucks) and crowds of spectators at every viewpoint.  Our main focus was our mate Emil Kneisser in his Y62 Patrol, who is currently lying 2^nd in T2 in the Cross Country World Championships.  He ended up 3^rd in Spain, but we also got to see Harry Hunt (who we’d previously met at Goodwood), Marek Dobrowski, Khalid Al Qassimi, Nani Roma (who won), Denis Berezhovkiy, and Nasser Al Attiyeh (who DNF’d).  Great event, and great atmosphere.

 

A certain amount of fettling has been done, and more is in process.   I replaced  a smashed headlight and bodged together the damaged front wing (a legacy of the ADDC), with a rather excellent adhesive called Weicon Fast-Bond.  I fitted a heatshield for the clutch cylinder, and new high-temperature ceramic coated spark plug leads are awaiting fitment.  Nanjgel have been tasked with overhauling the front axle and brakes, and finding out why the starter doesn’t always start. 

Both of the Monit rally tripmeters have been misbehaving, and I finally traced the problem.  Monit used a surface mounted socket for a short time, before realizing that this was a Bad Idea and reverting to the pin-type mounting.  And of course, the law of Sod dictates that mine have the unreliable surface mounted ones.  Well, actually Monit have them at the moment, and will hopefully either fix or replace them - watch this space.

But the Big Job is re-wiring the Beast.  I’ve taken the plunge – egged on by Jason – and ordered a Painless Performance wiring loom, which he reckons will take us two weekends to install.  The wiring is a mess, and getting it right will give us reliability and traceability, because all the wires are pre-printed with their function.  A second (scratch-built) loom will supply all the various in-dash electrics for tripmeters, GPS etc.

 

Apart from that, I have completed the documentation now required by ATCUAE for all race cars, and the Beast has the sticker to prove it. Hurrah again.

 

We have a calendar of EMSF rallies for the coming season, and dates for the EMC events till the end of the year – as follows. 

EMC: Emirates Motorsport Club

EDC: Emirates Desert Championship (EMSF)

2-3 October:       R4 EMC (Night Rally)

9 October:           R1 EDC

23 October:        R2 EDC

13 November:   R3 EDC

20-21 November: Dubai Int’l Rally (R5 EMC)

11-12 December: R6 EMC (Fujairah)

29 January:         EDC Single Day Rally

12 February:       R4 EDC

4 March:              R5 EDC

So October will be a busy month – watch this space!