Gearbox freedoms for the future

[dazzler]

Hi all

Probably sick of people trying to change the regs :o all the time but here goes.

I have been trying to decide whether to go excel or other FWD for about 18 months now. Have been to three excel series events the latest yesterday at the Manning.

Almost sold on one. But for that gearbox. :whine:

So I took my sisters twin cam 95 for a play.

Can I put up with a three speed rally car again?

How frustrating is it going to get? 2 -3 - 2 -3 - 3 - 3 - 1 - 2 - 3 -2. Rev/lug/rev/lug..... and so on and so forth :potstir:

The overall package of the excel is really really good. Okay twin cam. Great suspension packages available. Brakes are good. Good modern shape.

In the past I raced a group g escort with c/r box and it was great :hail: .

Raced a LA lancer with a standard box and it killed it.

There are ge****ts available for excel out of some mitsu boxes. Would the series ever contemplate opening up gearbox freedoms (even restricted to another more suitable ge****t)?

Do you think a cr gearbox would "complete" the excel and bring in more competitors?
Cheers

dazzler

[Glenn]

I know where you're coming from Dazzler, but I can't see it ever happening. It would be nice to have more than a two-speed car, but it's not too much of a problem. They've got a reasonable amount of mid-range torque,

There's two reasons that I reckon it's a no goer.

1. A CR gear set (presumably with an LSD too and a good final drive) would cost more than some people have spent on their entire car!

2. You would HAVE to have the gear set to be competitive and that's not in the spirit of the series where you can turn up with a standard car and be competitive. A good ge****t and LSD would be worth 1-2 sec/km.

On the other hand, I have toyed with the idea of having a hot motor/gearbox combination to drop into the car for non-series events....but it's probably too much effort.

Cheers

Glenn

[bek82]

The excel series is designed to be a low cost series with minimal changes to the cars to keep the cost down and to keep it a level playing field. If you start changing the gearboxes whats next?:confused: If you want to change your gearbox don't be in the series. We are going quite fine as we are thank you!:wiggle:

[dazzler]

The excel series is designed to be a low cost series with minimal changes to the cars to keep the cost down and to keep it a level playing field. If you start changing the gearboxes whats next?:confused: If you want to change your gearbox don't be in the series. We are going quite fine as we are thank you!:wiggle:

Hi

Maybe the series is going fine, maybe it could be going finer :wiggle:

What next? Nothing. :wiggle:

[Crazy Dave]

I am with Glenn on this that I have contemplated having a hot motor gearbox combination set up ready to dro pin and change for non excel rounds as it is easy to do the swap. The cars handle that brilliantly that they would be a pleasure with a bit more poke, but the cost is pretty big (which is why I haven't done it yet) and considering how well they go out of the box, hard to justify for the one make series. If you had one and didn't want to swap engines you can do that still for non excel rounds as maintenance stuff in these cars is easy.

I think that is one of the great things about these cars is that you can have an excel series car and transform it (within a couple of hours with a good crew) to be a good P2 car.

And we use 4th gear at most events. My original 1600 had only 4 gears. Close ratio is great but good suspension is better. You can see by the results that the cars are quick as they are. I can think of a lot cheaper freedoms than a c/r box that would give us some more performance first, but thats really for PRC anyway. And then there is the problem that I saw recently of someone that used to win fairly often start to get caught by some people, so they went out and spent another 10 grand on their engine to give them a bit more advantage again, which means the others need to go out and do that now to keep up.