Henry Webster

Indi is certainly a better way to go for speed events, but alot of work if you are starting with a production car as opposed to building something from the ground up. Most of the top off road damper technology in the UK comes from the USA any way, and sadly there has been very little time and effort spent in the UK in reducing unsprung weight of live axles to the levels that you are thinking about. Most here use beefed up LR axles, and the more advanced/recent beam axle cars all use Disco II axles which are a little lighter and wider. There is some machining that can be done to the hubs, brake disc bells etc. to reduce unsprung weight, but few people seem to go to the effort. For my part I use fairly standard axles and have tried to add as little weight to them as possible. I have some thin diff protection on the front and a rather over heavy brace on the rear (which was there when I bought the car and I haven't yet replaced!). I use 4x 12" Milner Varidamps, and standard coil springs. I thought about going coil over, but decided that without radically changing the amount of travel available, by space framing or notching the chassis it was not going to be worth it and there are lots of spring rates off the shelf and cheap for the standard set up. I don't currently have hydraulic bumpstops, but know alot of people who swear by them, not least Steve Hiatt who lurks hereabouts. I still have the A-Frame at the rear, which is not the sexy thing to do, but it works well on my car. I am not sure you'd save much in weight by replacing it with radius arms. The benefit in the radius arm set up is that it lowers the roll centre when done right, but can also introduce some nasty bump steer on heavy landings. Alot of early RR chassied Bowler type vehicles tend to go a bit sideways when they land, but mine tends to land four square. If/when I do change I think I'd look at doing the watts linkage thing at the back. I have anti roll bars front and rear too. However what works well in the UK and Europe may not be the best approach for US events. Rally car style handling is important for our stages which range from flowing gravel tracks to rutted fire breaks mixed in with a few quarries and moor land.

P A Turney's at Middleton Stoney would certainly have some proper hydraulic oil, but possibly only in much bigger volumes than you need. Any agric dealer should be able to help. You may even find that Halfords have some for topping up trolley jacks. H

Strongly agree. Spending sometime in an empty car park in these conditions will be time well spent (and whisper it - it'll probably be more fun in the Fiesta!) Otherwise heed the warnings. Racing on snow like we did on the Border's Hillrally last year certainly reminds you that the inertia of two tonnes of LR is likely to be more difficult in icy conditions than less than a ton of Fiesta. Tyres are a big consideration too - contrary to popular opinion the usual chunky tyres that we love to fit to our LRs are not the best in snow and ice. Sipes are your friend and mud tyres don't have them. H

I too like polybushes in their place - and have a mixture of them and genuine ones on the racer. However the one place I've had problems with polybushes is on shock absorbers. We used to use eye-to-eye Procomps and quite regularly 'shattered' polybushes whilst the rubber variety just wore out!

I imagine it is the same as we have on the racer/ later Disco 1s. There's a sender unit in the transfer box, which sends a pulse to the pack. We had quite alot of hassle getting our Terratrip to work properly with it and ended up needing to buy an interface similar to the one on the Brantz page if I remember correctly. I left this one to my friendly electronics engineer!

Thanks for the read Nige. Went through similar process with mine to see what to do, despite not changing the tyre size from standard. We changed the transfer box gearing as we only use low box in emergencies. I could still do with going lower as we rarely get into fifth on events and certainly never top out! However I have taken into account that we always carry two spare diffs so the investment in a CWP set gets quite pricey when you have to double it! On the BW front - Tomcat Motorsport do a conversion to a lower ratio a new gear and chain. We have it in the racer. I don't think it is as quiet as standard, but is otherwise excellent!

As usual depends on the sort of competitions that you want to do. For speed events, comp safaris, hillrallies or XTC, I would highly recommend spending the extra and at least getting 5 point. The crutch strap makes a world of difference and stops the lap belts riding up as you tighten them, which could lead to broken ribs in an accident. Ask me how I know! ;-)

It was a brilliant event, thanks to everyone who helped make it so! Mr Cockburn's pit area did begin to resemble an expensive scrap yard towards the end - 2 or 3 of his customers had sizeable offs! As always with the Borders it can easily lull you into a false sense of security with its mix of fast tracks and rougher bits, but it needs to be treated with respect, its a tough event. We didn't have our best ever run, electrical problems plagued us with a misfire for much of Saturday, but we bounced back to 20th overall and 2nd in class with a smattering of times in the top ten. Can't wait to go back and hopefully have a clear run at it, the stages were excellent and the organisation was slick. Cheers H

No difference in the diffs between those models other than no of splines and prop flange. The flange can be 3 bolt or 4 bolt and half shafts 10 or 24 spline. Check those are the same and you'll be fine. H

I'm for two/three day with road book, all special stages. Drive as fast as you dare, the fastest is the winner. I'll leave my winch at home! ...I'll get my coat! H

This is turning into a really interesting debate, although a little bit beyond the original topic. Its also one that I have strong views on, but very few answers. In my opinion one of the reasons that the 'challenge' scene has grown so quickly and strongly is because it has been broadly based around standard cars and some bolt on bits. Buy a 90, fit some winches to it and some chunky rubber and away you go instant challenge truck. Until recently if you added a couple of lockers to that mix you could be winning events. Now the top level of the sport is very specialised and with a few notable exceptions very expensive. There are lessons to be learnt here from the comp safari/hillrally scene, which has been comparatively been struggling of late (although not as badly as some have reported!). My view is that this is in part due to the sport becoming viewed as increasingly specialised, the perception becoming that you can't compete without tens of thousands of pounds worth of specialist buggy, which is of course nonsense! Its a difficult conundrum to solve, because we all love the innovation, but we also want to see new blood in the sport.

Or even just use a free web blog from the likes of WordPress or Blogger. My site is a free WordPress site, gives me more than enough for what I want to do, but is ultimately fairly limited if you have big ideas!

Agreed I've got drilled and grooved discs on the racer, but even on a heavy and spiritedly driven road motor I've never needed them!

That's the key. Good quality pads! I've had brake fade on a number of cars with what I would consider even quite light use. I used to smoke the brakes on my friends old VW Golf Diesel every time I got in it (It did have a suspension upgrade, but was only a 70hp car!), but equally I use the racer hard on stages (1850kgs and 190ish BHP - and very hard usage) and have very few brake problems! Not all manufacturers work well on all cars either. EBC are fantastic on the Discovery racer, but my mate with his Peugeot rally car won't touch them and uses Ferodo DS2000's. I've had good results with Mintex 1144s on my old Sierra 4x4, but could get nothing but genuine standard pads to work properly on the aforementioned Golf! H

I've had fantastic success with EBC Green Stuff on the racer, they seem to work from pretty cold, but are excellent when hot. They do need some bedding in, though. However for a road application if you don't need/want more braking power little beats genuine pads. I am considering trying out EBC's next pad up (Yellow Stuff) when we go to France again next year as we were beginning to get some fade after braking to a crawl from nearly 100mph four or so times in one stage for chicanes on a straight tarmac section! This is the only time we've experienced fade apart from after poor bedding in practice. Aragorn - I don't think you'll have too much problems with appropriate pads and 110 calipers. They do alot of stopping.

Thanks Mark, I'm really after 200 ones cause they are a bit neater and lighter.

I'm planning to be there, but have run out of old tat to sell - so I'll guess I'll have to buy some. Please save any straight cheap 200 series Disco front bumpers for me! I've run out again!

Yes definitely go out and give it a go. Drive at your own pace and back off if it becomes a problem. If you get the comp bug, then doubtless you'll ultimately want something with a longer wheelbase, but there is certainly no harm in getting out there with what you've got. Pitching will be one problem, the ability to swap ends in short order another, but as long as you are prepared you can deal with these things. It'll be fun! But as has already been said you'll win in the twisty bits!

I'm a big fan of the BW. I run one in the racer and find it really suits it. If your forum nickname is anything to go by I'd plump for the BW. The handling balance is better, because it is not always locked up, but when you need it it just works. I also reckon that it might be a bit more forgiving on the rest of the drivetrain when used hard. Worth checking the splines carefully when you rebuild it. I don't think that they are especially complicated or difficult to rebuild, and as an added bonus, they're lighter too!

The type of competition that you want to do will help define the best place to start, and also having a look to see what the class structure is in the events that you fancy, because it is always more fun to go up against trucks of a similar state to yours. In speed events and trials there are often categories for production based vehicles and more modified cars/buggies. In winch challenges its often based more on the level of modifications. Whilst the modified classes tend to attract the guys with the big wallets the production categories often don't and you can compete on a level playing field without spending so much dough! H

Welcome, you'll have fun safari-ing! There are a few SCOR types around these parts so I'm sure they'll know the car. I'm afraid I don't!

There's no advantage to early Disco II lights, they are almost identical except they have a black surround instead of a silver one! Later Disco II lamps are not quite so straightforward. H

If I can get the car back together in time we'll be competing so see you there!

Excellent news, wish I could say the same!

So wasn't just the beer talking? You definitely doing it this year?