Carlos Who? My ST185 GrpA GT-Four Rally car

I bought this car back in Nov the week after the Adelaide Rally but figured I'd hold off starting a thread until I had stuff to say... but the car was washed & loaded up onto a trailer in Perth this weekend & today she started here 3500k towing trip across to me.... to say I'm excited & that I probably won't sleep this week is a massive understatement.

I've tried to hold off buying stuff until the car is here in my shed for obvious reasons.... but as it's wired for Stilo helmet comms & both Dru & I aleady own the right helmets I've bought a set of Stilo headsets as the road noise in this thing is another level & we're never be able to chat on road transport stages... plus we'd go deaf.

I will of course be removing all the stickers currently on the car & I've decided to go with the iconic & I think best looking GT-Four layout of the Castrol car

To that end I ordered a complete set of said stickers out of the UK whilst on my flight home from the test drive in Perth back in Nov... so that's waiting to go right on 

I'll leave it there for now, but I'll share the list of things that I know for a fact I need to do around upgrading my racing license & getting Rally rego for the car & the things that I know I must do during the week... the expected ETA should be next weekend for having her in my shed in the metal.... can't wait!

Things are progressing a little faster that I thought they would which is awesome. I wasn't sure how far he was going drive each day, but I got this pic sent to me this evening as I was cooking a steak on the BBQ... this is a location just inside the South Australia boarder, it's about 100k's off being the mid point between where he started & my house.

I had assumed that he'd take it easy & I wasn't really expecting him to arrive till Friday, but he's done about 900k's a day so far so at that pace I could well have my car in my shed Wednesday evening now... assuming he doesn't slow up on the second half of the trip. 

She's here!! so far she's a huge hit with everyone who's seen her. 

​​​​​​​Tested the lights out the first night as you'd expect, I hope to have full vision back by the weekend now...

I got some other bits with the car... first up is a set of 4 spare wheels (not including the actual spare in the boot that matches the set on the car now)

There is still some life left in them but they are date coded March 2016 so I doubt they are as soft & sticky as they where new... plus tyre tech has improved so I might use these hard on a track day & then replace them with something newer.... all the tyres are 235/45R17's front & rear. The Rears on the car are late 2017 & the fronts are mid 2018 vintage.

I've got a Carbon bash plate for the front & a carbon rear diff bash plate incase I want to take up dirt rally at some stage... I'll leave these off for now.

Also have a Turbo heat shield, that I probably will put back on 

When the previous owner ordered the light pod for the front, he also ordered a set of Carbon side skirts... I'm not sure just yet if I'll stuff around adding these to the car

I've been checking over the tyres tonight, the tyres on the four white wheels on the car have about 50% thread left & the rears are dated 2017 & the fronts are dated 2018... the spare in the boot is like new but it's dated 2012...

​​​​​​​The tyres of the 4 spare wheels I have are also about 50% thread but they are all dated as 2016...

My thought process now is to use all of these tyres for track days only & to get a new set of competition tyres for the first Targa/Rally that we do as I've no idea how many heat cycles these have had & how much life is left in them regardless of thread wear.

I've confirmed that the seats & the belts all have a long life left in them yet, well so long as they don't shift the rules anytime soon they do.

I've been reading up on the regs for the seat mounting brackets as I'll have to modify mine to shift the seat forward for me... when I'm fully strapped in I have to stretch my arm into full lock to grip the top of the wheel & I can only get the clutch all the way down with the tips of my toes.

For the Nav side the seat is as far back as it can go so that's fine but this foot rest needs to move, the Nav for the guy I got the car off was his wife & she must have been short 

Sitting in the seat my knees are up in the air & there is a huge gap between my legs & the actual front of the seat, so I'll need to sort that as it's not comfortable nor safe

I think my interior must do list is actually pretty short, move the drivers seat & move the Nav's foot rest but the other stuff I'd "like" to do can wait till I've had a bit of fun with the car. Tomorrow evening I'll take the wheels off & go through the brakes & the suspenison stuff... might start peeling off the old stickers too

I've jacked up the front & pulled the wheels off as I want to raise the suspension height, looks like a simple enough job... I've soaked the threads with WD40 so it shouldn't be a nightmare of a job in the morining now, I'll put some anti-seize on it when I'm adjusting the height tomorrow

Whilst here I noticed some additional bracing has been installed here

Decided to pull a brake pad out to see what they are, sadly no part number on this one, I'll pull the others tomorrow.. looks like they hadn't been seated all the way in & that's resulted in a lip forming, I've never seen this before but it seems to be on both front pads on both sides... I think I'll sand this off before reinstalling them tomorrow

You can see how the disk is rusted on the inside too as the pads wheren't far enough in

There was no part number on the pad I pulled, I hope there is on one of the others when I pull them tomorrow... I'd like to know the wear rate ect for them

Then I decided to fix a silly little detail that's been bugging my OCD since I got the car.... I don't know why but sometimes my brain just won't let go of little things. I've had a few mates sit in the car now & they all want to start it & when I tell them they have to turn the battery isolator on they ALL went to turn it the wrong way... no idea why, also the chips in the paint have been bugging me... so I did a thing

Stupid little detail but it made me happy, distracted me from the bigger job of making new seat rails as I wasn't happy with the clutch travel with the seat where it is, the brake & throttle pedals are fine but I wanted an extra 1/2 or so of travel on the clutch & when you're fully strapped into the seat that 1/2 makes a difference, whilst looking for other tint pointless jobs to avoid the real task of removing the seats I decided to remove the pedal pads to clean them up & apply a new layer of grip tape to them 

It was at this moment I had what alcoholics call a moment of clarity.... I only want an extra 1/2 of throw on the clutch pedal, why am I going to move the seat forward when it's already hard to get out of the car & moving the seat forward will make that 1/2 worse... so I simply put a 1/2 inch spacer under the pedal pad & bingo problem is solved, not perfect but good enough for the girls we date... I'm not happy with the wheel, that could be closer to me, but once my removal wheel boss turns up I'll remeasure that & will probably end up with a dished wheel to solve that issue. Not sure if I need to put grip tape on the foot rest or if I should leave that as it is?? 

Now I want to focus on sorting the stone chips on the lower sections of the body... once that's done I can get the Castrol stickers put on & then it's onto track work for setup & getting comfy with the handling at speed etc... then I can look into what's the next Tarmac Rally event I can enter... thinking I might have a play at hill climbs too?

I'm going to paint the lowest section of the sill my self here with that same Raptor Ute liner paint I put on the underside of the XB & the Challenger... I have a bottle of White Raptor paint ready & waiting. I'm going to paint up to the factory stone guard paint water mark. 

I'm thinking of continuing that Raptor paint line around the very lowest level of the front bumper bar too as it's badly scratched up as it is... then I can get my painter to do the tiny repairs to the guards... he's happy that he just has to blend in some tiny sections & understands that it's a racecar so we're not looking for perfect here, just an afternoon job whilst drinking a few beers is the plan.

Thanks.. have no fear as with all of my projects on here I'll keep the updates coming

The weather was pretty good this last week so took the opportunity to pull the car out of the shed, get her up on stands & masked off

As well as sanding the painted areas to be covered they also recommend that you use their adhesion promoter stuff... so I did

It came out a much closer match that I thought, from a few feet back you can't even tell that it's painted... very happy with that outcome 

Spent an hour in the shed tonight after work & got a few little jobs done... I can't refit the OEM rear vision mirror as the roll cage is in the way & it just won't go back on. I guess I could glue it on or screw it on but I didn't like the idea of either of those options. 

I got a really wide angle 14" mirror that mounts to the roll cage bar & I'm really happy with how that went it

I'm still waiting for my quick disconnect steering wheel boss to be delivered but in preparation for that I've also fitted a steering wheel hook to the roll cage so the wheel can be hung just in front of the mirror when it's off

I'm now thinking that I might get some more of those wheel hooks & use them in the rear of the cage to hold the Stilo headsets that we'll be using on the transport stages 

In the last Rally we did they actually wanted us to have our mobile phones to hand at all times in case we needed to contact the organisers or vice versa so I figured I'd need a phone mount as there is ZERO storage in this car with the interior ripped out like it is. I liked the look of the Quad lock stuff as they have an anti-vibration option for their mounts... they don't sell a roll cage mount for Quad lock but they do sell a motorbike handle bar mount so I gave that a go.... sadly it's just too small to be locked onto the roll bar. 

Now they do make a RAM adapter mount for a Quad Lock & I know that RAM make a rollbar mount that works as the car already has one on the Nav side for the Rally Safe box to mount too 

So I've ordered the RAM roll bar mount & the Quad Lock RAM mount with the anti-vibration adapter so I should be able to Frankenstein the phone securely into the car when all of that arrives later this week.

It was 35 deg today so I wasn't in the mood to do much in the shed as it was hot as balls as they say... but my to-do list on all the cars is too long so I have to just keep getting stuff done. Got too simple jobs done today... first up was installing my new removable steering wheel hub... it's a lovely piece of kit.

Very straight forward job, just pull the old wheel & old hub off.

The hub is a 3 part unit... the base that bolts to the steering shaft 

Then install the car side of removable hub 

​​​​​​​Then the wheel side

Getting in & out of the car is so much easier now with the wheel out of the way

Last few little jobs done today before taking the car off the hoist for what will hopefully be a long time. I needed the steering wheel rim to be closer to me, so I got a nice Sparco deep dish wheel to replace the old flat one.

I also refitted the black plastic trim that sits on the front lip of the bonnet, that gets removed to allow the light pod to be installed. But the car goes to get her stickers applied tomorrow & the Castrol sticker on the front of the bonnet also covers this trim piece I believe. Without the stickers & the light pod she's scrubbed up to look like a nicer driver quality Carlos Sainz GrpA I think.

Last two jobs I wanted to do was to replace the two fire extinguishers with the new ones with the double latch brackets & to move the Nav's foot rest forward a few inches... 

In the end I moved it a full 7 inches forward... it's in a much better position now & it's also much easier to get in & out of the car too on the passenger side. I've also replaced all the nut & bolts used for nutserts & bolts... slowly over time I will look to do replace as mush of the old owners installs with nutserts. 

Right... Sorry, I was on a flight to the US the morning after the track day for a combo of two weeks of work & a bit of a roadtrip… so I’m only getting around to updating you all on the trackday now.

The car went down well & everyone at some point came past the garage to have a look & take a pic or two…. seems most people remember this from video games but also because one of the most famous Australian rally family's the Bates ran & still sun Toyotas in the Castrol colours.

Long story short the day was awesome & the car ran pretty much faultlessly.. the format of the day was a full open pitlane from 9am till about 4pm & I think I must have done 80 laps or so by the end of the day. I had a few friend come out & I was able to take them all out for a few laps each which was a nice thing to be able to share with them. The car handles great, really planted in the bends & as expected when you push on a bit too hard you’re met with understeer but that’s easy enough to plan for & to sort out so it’s just a nice car to drive.

The brakes where great & never really felt like they got too hot & had no fade at all to speak off, the pedal is a little softer & a little longer that the one in the Bullitt so that took a bit of getting used to but she behaved fine. I do have some Castrol racing fluid in the shed so I’ll look to flush the whole system before the first rally event anyway.

The only issues that popped up where the catch can would fill on long runs & couldn’t drain back quick enough thru the pipe it has back to the sump so it would put some oil spray on the side of the engine bay.

On the last two runs of the days she started to backfire & break up on the last laps but would come good if I backed off & gave her a cool down lap or two…. My first thoughts where/are plugs or something in the ignition system breaking down but I’ve been noticing that she takes a while cranking at starting up too so I do wonder if I have a fuel pump/filter issue maybe? I’ll look to sway out the filter soon & see if I can hoot up a pressure gauge to see what’s going on too.

But all in all…. Any track day when you can drive the car back up onto the trailer under it’s own power is a good track day.

I've been seeing theses ads for prewired GoPro kits out of the UK everywhere the last few weeks, I had been planning on getting a new GoPro to run the car anyway & I was looking for ways to hardwire this to the cars battery so another check item could be removed from the rally check list in the same way the check comms battery task will be removed from that list.

Looking at the ads & the reviews for this wired GoPro stuff I was impressed at the simplicity of a singe dash mounted switch too that could be used to start the GoPro's & kick off the recording... there have been a few cases where the simple task of operation start GoPro recording has failed dismally so hopefully this will help with that.

I decided to order a dual GoPro kit as that way the wiring to the both would be pre-terminated into the one loom with only one activation button to worry about.

They sell the wiring on it's own without the GoPro cameras but I was in the market for new cameras anyway & this way I don't have to break open & modify anything, it's all prebuilt. There is a cable hardwired in that has the female connector for the wiring loom that goes to the dash mounted start button.

There is also a red LED that does on the dash that gets the signal from the GoPro that it's on & recording... so in theory we shouldn't miss that again... maybe

Last but not least is the power cable to wire the GoPro's directly into the 12V supply. 

One of these is going on the cage in the centre between the seats obviously... I'm not sure where the 2nd is going just yet, I might see if I can modify an external case to fit with the wiring running to the GoPro as the best place for the 2nd would be nice & low on the front bumper to show speed etc... but one rainy stage & that GoPro would probably be finished. 

I had a track day last Wednesday out at Winton here in Victoria which is a technical track I've never driven before. I had a list of must do's & like to do's for that track day. I had to go through the car & replace all the cable ties that hold wiring to the roll cage as that's no longer an allowed thing it says in the Rally regs, also non of the wiring can run along the top of the cage between the cage & any external panel such that it could be crushed in a rollover. 

So I bought a large roll of velcro ties & redid all of the wiring inside the car 

I made some new brackets to install my new Terratrip & also did a temp install of the remote display from the Terratrip that I plan to use to alert me of over speed issues for the stages we capped to 160kph. 

Installed the GPS antenna for the Terratrip also

I hard wired in the stilo coms to the 12V battery so I can remove the check/replace 9v battery off the morning rally checklist list

Installed the new hardwired GoPro too... there was heaps of wire for the dash button for turning it on & for the light that shows if it's on or not.

I'm not 100% sure where I'll permanently mount the button & light, but for now I just have a very temp bracket in a spot that both the driver & the Nav can reach 

The track day was on Wednesday & it's a bit of a hike to get there, a little of 3hrs.. but we packed both cars & trailered her up.

The morning was solo driving only, but I did have access to an instructor too so I did a few laps to learn the circuit & then did a few with the instructor next to me giving me some tips... was a great morning to be off work....

At one point when pushing on I got distracted by a current gen V8 Supercar that was there testing passing me that I missed the braking point into the second to last bend leading to a monster lock up.... lucky we had spare wheels with us & extra lucky that I had decided to not run the brand new tyres just in case this exact thing happened... 

Just before lunch they had the first of the passenger sessions so I took MrsXB out for a spin as this is a great technical circuit & the car was flowing well on it  

On the day the car felt a little down on power, oddly even the instructor commented later that when he was driving it to show me the lines he noticed that it had more power at half to 3/4 throttle that it did at full throttle. Then on lap four in the very long double apex left sweeper a huge plume of white oil smoke belched out of the bonnet vent just beside the catch can. The oil light on the dash blinked & that was all that was needed... I backed off instantly & rolled into the pits... BUT she's FUCT (Failed Under Continuous Testing).. there is a horrid knocking from the engine now, she's done a bearing or a rod or a something.... she had to be winched back onto the trailer.

This happened around 12:20pm on Wednesday & it's 3:20pm now on Saturday & I only now felt like writing this update... to be honest up till now I was still very much in the feelings stage of this problem & a big part of me just wanted to park her in the corner, throw a cover over her & just ignore here for a while & focus on the XB & the Challenger.. but this morning I've moved into the solutioning phase of this problem.

I now have a mate lined up for next Sat to help me pull the engine out, I know everyone seems to drop these engines out the bottom ( did this myself on a mates back in the late 90's) but I want to try & pull this out the top this time. I've found a company in Qld who have a 3S-GTE engine from a much newer JDM only car that also ran the 3S-GTE engine, so I'm thinking of buying that as a direct drop in now to get the car back up & running ASAP.

Then I can pull down this engine & inspect it & build this one back up as a stronger more powerful engine to go back in.

I'll also do some tidy up work on the rest of the suspension & running gear whilst the car is off the road. I'm really bummed that next weekend was going to be our first rally & now instead of sitting on the start line with my adrenaline pumping next Sat I'll be cursing rusted bolts & ripping skin off my knuckles as I pull the dead engine out... but as they say, that's motorsport...