Hello from the UK

[Soul-UK]

Hi I'm Stu and I run the UK Hyundai Accent club (UKHAC.co.uk - the X3 Excel is known as the Accent in the UK).

I'm not involved in Rallying (mainly as there is no rally class in my area of the UK for anything like the Excel), but am interested in the subject as the club I run covers both standard and modified Hyundai Excels and Accents.

Personally I own a 1999 registered X3 1.5 litre, 16v DOHC engine ... which with just a custom backbox (rest of exhaust system standard), 195/45 R16 TOYO T1-S tyres (on 16" OZ Superturismo Alloys), Magnecore HT leads, BOSH 4-point spark plugs, and a full cold air intake system have managed to get my 0-60 MPH time down to 9.25 seconds (which I think is good, but comments are welcome if you think otherwise). Here's a pic of mine...

http://www.soulaccent.com/pictures/myaccent/shoot4/19.jpg

I am very interested in performance modifications, and I like to fully research modifications before buying them to make sure I'm getting good bang for my buck ;) (and understand why they will work, rather than just trusting what the local "boy racers" say works).

I was brought here by a member of my club finding some information about this site on wikipedia, and after a quick scan about your forums I'm impressed by what I see.

Unfortunately in the UK the rally scene is very limited (and practically dissappearing in the economical downturn at the moment) - and as far as I can see there are no rally classes which the X3 cn get involved with on a competative basis (they do an "upto 1.4 class", and the a "1.5 to 2.0 class" ... which means I'd be screwed ... plus I'd have to travel about 150 miles to get to the nearest circuit) :(

However, I do like to attend various modified car shows around the UK, and I like to show that Hyundai's are understated by going up the drag strips - and so far I've done pretty well against similar engine sized cars (in fact I beat a 1.8 vauxhall [opel] vectra last year on a 1/4 mile strip ... but I think he had badly tuned his car!)

Anyway, enough ramble from me. I hope I can offer some help and advice on here where possible, and the best of luck to those of you competing in OZ at the moment - sounds like great fun, just wish I could join in.

- Soul

[Crazy Dave]

That sounds pretty quick for an essentially stock car. What did you find made noticeable improvements? As for performance mods, our cars are essentially stock with manifolds and valves having to remain stock standard, straight away your horsepower is limited by the amount of air flow available through the engine. We can replace the filter, inlet, and everything behind the exhaust manifold. We have to keep the timing between the 2 camshafts the same but can adjust the timing to the exahaust cam from the crank. These engines are sensitive to cam timing though so a set of vernier cam gears would be a good place to start and a set of cams (Something we can only dream about). Hyundai performance forums are another point to look at for Hyundai enthusiast.

Maybe you should get a copy of our regulations and take them over to one of your controlling bodies and suggest a cheap way to help revive rallying there as it seems to be doing that a bit here, giving people a reasonably cheap way to go competitive rallying.

[Soul-UK]

Sounds interesting, so if I understand you correctly then you can fit any intake kit you like to the throttlebody on the intake manifold, as long as you don't physically alter the manifold or TB itself.

As for what modifications I found that seemed to work, when I replaced the rear silencer, I used one of these "universal stainless steel" backboxes which basically has no baffles inside, just a perforated tube and the sound deadening outside ... this actually dropped the performance in the lower revs range. After fitting a customised induction kit which comprised a cone filter on the end of a duct, which positioned the filter in front of the gearbox, pretty much below the battery tray, the performance picked up a little. I have yet to dyno run the car (mainly due to funds as have recently bought a house), but I notice that the car really starts to pull from about 3500-4000 RPM. You notice it in a drag race, as at first similar sized cars will pull away from you, but by the time I hit about 6500 RPM in 1st I'm already level with them or in front - so it's just a case of keeping the revs up high.

I was lucky to have the DOHC 16v 1.5 "MVi" which doesn't have a MAF or a temperature probe in the intake ducting.

As for starting a rally series in the UK, it's highly plausable as the X3 can be picked up relatively cheaply nowerdays, plus I'd like to read through the regulations to see what can actually be done as I don't want to bore you guys with constant questions on the regulations.

I know about Hyundai Performance Forums, but I love the idea of X3's rallying in their own class which is why I'm here :)