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I wasn't terribly excited at the prospect of driving a 13OOcc Rally car. But then I discovered that this was a Tarmac Rally car, and since I am well into Fiestas it was all looking up - Doctor Dave was about to have another fun day. Sara Church competes in the ACSMC (Association of Central Southern Motor Clubs) Tarmac Rally championship in the up-to-1300cc class.
The championship takes places in various venues about the south and as fate would have it, one of them is at the Longcross test track that CCC uses. The car is a 1979 Fiesta which was bought as a rally prepared car some four years ago for £750. It may not be technically stunning or particularly polished but it is quick enough for Sara to be consistently up at the front of the pack - to the extent that she has won the class honours this year with one event still to go. When Sara and Husband Stephen turned up at the Emerald workshops (for the dyno run and corner weighting) I could see straight away the main reason for the low-budget approach. Baby Jake is nine months old and already a veteran at rally events. It's not my place to tell anyone how to raise their children, but I do hope Sara gets him to some circuit meetings before too long, we don't want the lad growing up with a serious psychological imbalance do we? I've seen what rallying has done to Martin Sharp.
ENGINE
Starting with the engine this has been pretty much untouched since the car was put together. When Sara bought the car it came with a few spares including a set of downdraught Webers and Crossflow inlet manifold. These were bolted on and setup by Tony at Redline Tuning (01753 655522). The air filter is a production unit fitted to several cars such as the early Jaguar saloons and adapted to the Weber carbs. Set up spec is 30mm chokes, 175 air jets, 130 mains and F9 tubes. It pulls quite well from low rpm with no flat spots of hiccups. On Tony's rollers it made a respectable 98bhp at the flywheel, but a lot of miles have passed under the wheels since then.
Amazingly the cylinder head is untouched, bog standard, not even ported. The only tweak has been double valve springs fitted to eliminate any danger of valve float or bounce at high rpm. The bottom end is also standard 1300cc Crossflow, apart from a lightened flywheel and balanced crank/rods/pistons and clutch assembly. Standard compression ratio 1300cc pistons are fitted. The cam is a Burton BCF2 which works well in conjunction with the 4-2-1 exhaust manifold. At Redline the car was fitted with a single silencer, but a second one has been added since, after a close encounter with a noise meter.
On our rollers we saw a maximum of 94bhp flywheel with a very flat torque curve from 2500rpm up to nearly BOOOrpm peak. The car's tacho was playing up a bit with a distinct 'wobble' at 4000rpm but I took it to almost 7000rpm indicated where power was already tailing away-at about 6500rpm true engine speed......
Captions -
Bottom-Left - Stripped for action: Sara drives her Fiesta in the up-to-1300cc class of the ACSMC Tarmac Rally championship
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