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Henry Webster

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Everything posted by Henry Webster

  1. New project is looking great Nick. Will you be at round one of BCCC with it?
  2. Not this nice man from Oxfordshire, he has other Discovery racers! ;-) As much as I enjoy hooning through French villages at full opposite lock on tarmac, I'm not sure that a Land Rover would be my starting point if I wanted to build a tarmac rally car. You also need to be aware that to get a Land Rover logbooked for stage rallying could be challenging. Engines with over 4cyls are only allowed as exceptions and the MSA are not all that keen on Land Rovers rallying in the first place. Off road for rallying/Racing, 110 is easier to handle and better in the rough, but 90 is a fair bit lighter.
  3. I think Fridge hit the nail on its head with his reply. I evaluated moving to an AJV8 last year in the racer, and although the initial purchase cost was pretty reasonable, working through the whole conversion and thinking about how much of the drive train would need to be beefed up it just didn't make sense. Of course a Lexus with a drive train swap would be cheaper, but that is still a lot of fabrication work. I rebuilt my 3.9 RV8, for a realistic £1100,im sure it could be done a bit cheaper, including an uprated cam, but I've now done, I think 5 seasons on it without touching it mechanically. It produces a good 225bhp and is now even more driveable as I've latterly moved from 14cux to Omex 710 and distributorless. Revs to 6.5k, is good fun, great value, fantastic noise, relatively quick and forgiving on the drive train. There is some life in the old dog yet.
  4. Pretty much, and as motorsport goes not at all bad value! We've had great fun this year in a Tdi Discovery that owes me less than £3k. Expensive as old Discoverys go, but this one is rot free and is doubling as a great road motor too! For the miles per grin factor its worth the hassle of five point harnesses and having to climb over the cage to go to the shops!
  5. Here are some shots of my two! Bought this one off ebay last year as a 'stand-in' whilst I complete the rebuild on the other. 300Tdi Standard Production Class car. Very civilised on the road as well as competing - a little bit harsher than standard because of uprated shocks, but not much. Not nearly as fast as Muddy, but we won our class with it this year at the Borders Hillrally. This is my 3.9 V8 Super Production car - MuddyMoo, doesn't currently look much like this as it is having a axles up rebuild to be lighter and faster. This is a out and out rally car, thirsty, noisy and uncomfortable on the road, but fast both on and off it. For those of you who haven't seen it - this is what it is like inside of MuddyMoo With the right pads - brakes are rarely a problem on the stages with a Land Rover. MuddyMoo runs 110 front calipers (grooved and cross drilled discs) and 90 rears with EBC Greenstuff. We saw a little bit of fade in France after about four or five 100-20mph stops for chicanes on fast sections, but never anywhere else. Looking to investigate some Mintex compounds after Muddy's in-train rebuild is completed.
  6. Lot's of options, but Maverick's question is key. What is the problem you want to solve? Lots of the 'racing' shocks, Fox, King, Milner etc will probably do the job and can be valved to suit. I moved from having two shocks per corner for racing, to having a single rebuildable off road racing damper - in my case Milner Varidamps. H
  7. I would say it depends a bit on how highly tuned it is and how hard you are on it. Use the best oil you can afford and change it as often as you can afford and you won't go wrong. For me that means... I change it after every event, I tend to do the bigger more mileagey events anyway, but I do use cheap mineral 20w50. I suspect if I used a better oil I might be able to get away with leaving it longer, but cheap 20w50 is very cheap in my experience. Mine is a standard 3.9 Serpentine with a Piper cam and running Omex 710. Rev limiter is set for 6500 and we use it a bit. My dad uses Valvoline VR1 in his historic rally Hillman Imp, but that is a highly tuned engine and revs to nearly 10k!
  8. Brilliant, they worked very well using the base settings that Andy specified straight out of the box and have enabled us to go significantly faster in the rough stuff than ever, whilst holding on to the handling on the fast tracks which was always my car's strength. I can only really compare them against the ProComps that were on previously, which did a phenomenal job for such a budget damper. I haven't experienced any fade to speak of and they all maintain gas pressure well. H
  9. I was using 8 Procomps and had a huge deal of success with them, but they suffered badly from gravel rash so needed replacing fairly often. For me that meant a set every year and a half on average. All the proper racing dampers are rebuildable so you may even save money in the longer term. I've had excellent service from my Milner Varidamps!
  10. You don't mention whether or not you checked the A-Frame bushes. You will rarely notice bearing wear with the wheels off, rocking the wheels is the only sensible way of judging. Preferably with the car well supported on stands one hand on the top and one on the bottom. You might just be able to perceive movement, but you don't want much more than that. As discussed very difficult to see from photos. There does appear to be a bit of a gap in the shocker top bush which is not great, but I'd be surprised if that is the problem you are having. My money would still be on suspension bushes - possibly A-Frame.
  11. Condition of the rubber is less important than wear. You need to get a pry bar in there and see whether there is excessive movement. You need to check both ends of the radius arms and the a-frame bushes and ball joint. This is a good candidate for your problems. Wheel bearing condition is another possibility.
  12. We have replaced the 18" with 16", because I much prefer the way they ride and fitted 245/70R16 BFG ATs. Best thing we have done to our Discoverys - absolutely love them. You can make the money back on the wheel swap on Ebay. Both our Discoverys have air and ace.
  13. Of course, but they are gutless unless you put alot of work into them, and pretty thristy too!
  14. OME are fine and probably strong enough - they could possibly fade on long rough stages, but if you are talking about normal car rallies rather than off road racing then they will probably be more than up to the job. Fox, King, Radflo, SwayAway, Bilstein, Donerre, Ohlins, Reiger and a number of others (largely US inspired) all have a range of off road motorsport dampers. Milner have their own (as I use) but are also dealers for Fox and probably the best - Donerre. Generally you get what you pay for. I raced for many years on eight Procomp ES9000's which were excellent for the money, but the Varidamps are just in a different league. As for springs - if you are talking to Milners get them to recommend the spring rates to match the dampers. They got the valving and spring rates 'about right' for me first time. I use Allmakes OEM spec Land Rover springs. More information and some video on our blog: http://www.friesianracing.co.uk
  15. I run an ATB in the back of my Rally Discovery and an open 4-pin front. I find this is a great combination for speed events. I also use a BW viscous centre which also helps with the balance at speed. My ATB is the Eaton Truetrac variety, which isn't the strongest, but they are good value and have reasonable worldwide distribution. I think that when I replace it which is imminent, I will opt for the Ashcroft ATB or a KAM plate LSD. 250 BHP should be plenty - especially on OME shocks. We run amongst some of the quick guys in the UK with only 220 BHP, but we have Milner Varidamp shocks. Money spent on decent damping is well worth it!
  16. The problem is that RRC bodies rot and so do Disco II chassis! RRC Chassis are easy to find, good bodies less so. Cheap Disco IIs are easy to find, but alot of them have shot chassis!
  17. Richard Hopkins of Richards4x4.com put a Disco 1 body on a Disco 2 chassis.
  18. I drove a new 90 a couple of weeks ago, the first since a late 300 tdi and I have to say I was very impressed. It had lots of get up and go, was reasonably civilised for a Defender, but definitely still a Land Rover! I only drive it down some country lanes unloaded so can't comment on what it would be like to live with or to work, but the little 2.2 didn't seem to be lacking.
  19. I think this used to be the case, but as there are so few ALRC clubs running comp safaris these days, I am not sure its such a necessary compromise these days. Its true the ALRC comps are cheap, but many of them are inter-club events and allow all sorts of cars. The key is to work out the sort of events you want to compete on and which clubs/championship you want to compete with and build appropriately. One benefit of building a standard or modified/super production car is that you can compete virtually anywhere, always be competitive in class and on some events be competitive overall. Its easier to take overseas too, as European/FIA regs are less stringent with production cars. ...but then I am biased!
  20. Alternatively leave the body on and use a Discovery. Lose a bit of weight and with a little bit of driving attitude beating 88"s is easy!
  21. Or velcro ties. Equally they do them big enough for an extinguisher and should be more than tough enough and easy to undo in a hurry. They will be going back in my car when I put it back together.
  22. Quite neat, but how much easier is this than a standard LR bottle jack?
  23. You may find a call to German Swedish and French or equivalent Euro Car Parts operation is fruitful. You may be surprised that a pattern new mirror may be nearly as cheap as a second hand genuine article
  24. PPC (Practical Performance Car) does something similar these days. My personal favourite of the current mags.
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