Almera GTi Rally car build

M

maddog

Well, first of a brief introduction and some insight behind the project!

Always had a love of motorsports from going to ministox at a young age watching my cousins competing, to developing a painfull and thankfully brief interest in bikes, to watching RAC rally (now Rally GB) and other stage rallies with dad to finally getting to build...and break and build cars to hopefully compete (probably badly lol) in!

Right now to the cars :)

Been banned for a few years for being 'naughty' and only recently last two years got my lic back since then i've went through a few cars, Nissan 200sx s13 (a few of them) S14, Evo1, Discovery, Scooby, astra Gsi..more of that in a bit!, T5 v70 (the family hack :) ) and now the latesst rally car build an Almera GTi 2.0!!

The Astra was bought half built a couple of months later and a lot of skint knuckles and swearing it was almost competition ready and was hoping to enter it in the Galloway Hills Rally last year..then oooooops....

Bear with me here...it's not a drivel and sh1te!

S14
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Evo...prob the best handling and quickest car i've had.
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Now...the Astra...still gutted it's gone!
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So that should explain the reason for new project!
 
The Almera!!

Well it lived round the corner from me, I've always liked them and this was a very nice example of one, low miles, well looked after, then some lovely lady decided to use it as a bump stop and done the o/s wing, headlight and wishbone in!!
Now it's mine!

so far i've only started to strip bit's. The accident dameage has been teased to size and place that inner wing headlight mounting panel was, some seam sealer removed, and full o/s 'leg removed'

Pics will follow later today!
 
The circled bit is where the car had took the bump, i've rougly teased it to where it should be, I'll spend a bit of time on it tomorrow, started to stitch weld the seams but the wire in the mig is needing replaced it's old and bit of surface rust, means i'm not getting a clean weld.

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Weather permitting I'll have the engine and loom out tomorrow and all sealer off, steam cleaned and ready to weld on Tues!
 
Cool, are you going to be strengthening the chassis?

Sparcoxs's friend rallied a near standard almera GTi with very good results.
 
Yes, the chassis will need to be strengthened. Seam, or stitch welding is the way to do it along with some additional bracing and a few extra strengthening [sp] plates, as well as the obvious rollcage, and front and rear strut braces. It's a tall order to ask a factory (normal use) car to do stage rallies, It'll primarily be forest stages I'll be looking towards....more fun and easier to set car up on loose surface.
Hopefully I'll also be able to get hold of either a set of dog gears or a full crash box for it as well.
I'm hoping to be just over 200bhp with it, and take a lot of excess weight out of it.
 
HOLY SHIT!!! What did you hit in the Astra then? Looked like a serious off and huge impact.Glad you came out ok thought

Cheers,
Rob
 
Looks like you had a lucky escape from the astra. I was talking to a guy in irvine today who said his brother crashed his gti and sold it to a guy whos turning into a rally car immediatly thought of you! lol
 
steve55 said:
Any progress on this mate. Looks interesting

steve
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Well......................after all this time....





It's nearly finished :rolleyes:

Had a great year of 'incidents' which all seemed to eat any spare cash inc 3 engines in my scoob I was driving a local road when a combine harvester ploughed into my Catalunya with wife and kids in it :eek:. All ok but wasn't pretty!

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The scoob is where i pulled in to get out the fkn things way (it's the one behind the scoob which hit me not the one parked directly in front of me!!)

Outcome I lost job through not having transport ins co wouldn't give me courtesy car due to said farmer taking a week and a threat/promise to even inform his insurance company about it.

so cash was tight after that but looking good for the snowman rally in Feb :biggrin::biggrin:
 
Sparcoxs said:
HOLY SHIT!!! What did you hit in the Astra then? Looked like a serious off and huge impact.Glad you came out ok thought

Cheers,
Rob
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It was a vauxhall Movano.....full of builders gear best set of brakes I ever had xxmph to 0 in less than a metre! It was filthy at the back and couldn't see it on an un-lit road half on and half of the pavement/road.

bboy90 said:
Looks like you had a lucky escape from the astra. I was talking to a guy in irvine today who said his brother crashed his gti and sold it to a guy whos turning into a rally car immediatly thought of you! lol
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That'll def be me!
 
You've had a very eventful history with your cars mate, that's for sure. Looking forward to reading more, especially the rally car!
 
stufagti said:
why build something thats gonna be really special an let it end up like the others :(
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It's not going to be really special, it's just going to be a stage rally car that'll get thrown through a forest as hard as I can possibly manage. Now if it were being built to wrc standards and spec, then it'd be a different ball game.
With any rally car, whether it be an ex works evo,scoob,focus etc the minute you post/e-mail your entry you must accept that whether car cost £20, £20,000 or £500,000 it could all be lost in the first corner. Can't build a car for that and drive it like a concorse show car, hopefully finish a few events in it without any serious off's but it'l be a learning process of how both car myself and when I find one my navigator can work together.
 
Holy shitleopard, I bet your other half shit a brick...

Will she get in the car with you any more?


Get plenty of onboard vids of your rally exploits please!
 
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