King RA

I've been in Adrians car and it's a monster. Sick power and has got me saving towards 500bhp

How you doing Rod?? It was me that went out with you and Adrian round Marks that time when my 2wd saff was being sorted. Currently has a broken diff not going anywhere quick!!!

Scott.

MADRod

[QUOTE=Redkop]Kev, I do know Rod. Have met him a few times now.

We were also parked next to him at TOTB 1, unfortunately some of the things overheard, when he and Mark were talking have left me with rather a sour taste in my mouth.

Aren't we all passionate about our cars? Rod shouldn't dismiss other cars so lightly and get over his dislike for anything that is NMS related.[/QUOTE

I dont dismiss cars that perform to claimed Power, ever seen Martin arrive & not perform. If a car has 500 bhp it will run 180 at Brunters ,fact, mine was timed in mags 4 times past 181 with less than 500. Rrunters dont lie.
Anything said between Mark & I would have been the truth & on that day it wasnt wanted.
Before that event we were told that we did not have enough Power to be in the Cossie team.(we were a reserve at first ) On the day we had failed water Injection, a must when running 40psi.
So Mark ran 37psi & took out 3 deg igmition probably a loss of forty Horses so we had a max of 465bhp. We reached the RWD Final & with the exception of Gareths Rally car were over .7 quicker than all the other Cossies including a 550 bhp 4x4 Escorts in the sprint. Lots of talk of 500+ bhp engines on the day well it was just that talk. Only Gareths car had that. 176.9 means a max of 450bhp in the car, Thats what the facts say, if you ignore those fact your car will continue to run in the pack.
Adrians car has proved what a real 520 brake will do & it was also wet as the mag will reveal, that car will do 188 in the dry, same as Martin did with the same Power.
As for Karl hes no longer a full time tuner he has revealed on PF.
Karl had a lot to say including doing 220mph, however he had to withdraw that remark, 200mph requires circa 700bhp a 10% increase in Power would require 30% more Power so thats over 1000bhp to
do what Karl originally claimed, if he believed that then hes more stupid than I think.
Rod

johnfelstead

Gareths car isnt a rally car, its a saloon race car which amazingly is road legal if need be. It's a really well sorted car, not just in terms of engine power, which isnt that extreme at all in terms of outright power, its the attention to detail in every area that makes it such a great package. I know Gareths car quite well and on track would choose it over any other cossie i know of. It's not setup with top speed or 1/4 mile in mind, its setup to win races and championships which it did very regularly. I personally dont get the atraction of using a car like a cossie for top speed running when you could buy something else and easily achieve 200MPH, but each to their own.

Going back to the original posts, i used to run a H plate 2wd Sapphire cossie, one of the last 2WD cars which is now owned by one of the RS Owners Club regional reps, it was a cracking car running a T34B and about 350BHP. I spent a fair chunk running it but ran it daily taking it upto 99K miles, the leather Recaro's in it were fabulous. It had a superbly balanced chassis you could really throw about, you had to have your wits about you in the wet but you could have a great laugh with the rear end out pretty much anywhere.

I also mechaniced on one of the top national forest rally sapphire cosworth 4x4's which then became an escort cosworth 4x4, under the skin that was very diferent to the production cars, it became a very expensive exercise to keep up with the latest generation Impreza's and EVO's, it's posible but takes big money. In some areas the sapphire was an easier to use rally car base, to make the escort cosworth work needed an expensive lightweight shell, the sapphire was easier to get lighter and when we retired it the car was still capable of matching the latest works spec Escorts on some of the events where the active transmitions didnt offer much of an advantage, such as the north humberside event where we finished 2nd overall 6 seconds behind the last Escort WRC to leave MSport. The Escort was much better for sponsor image though, but the sapphire could be made just as quick and was a lot cheaper on repair costs.

Cossies are great cars, the 2WD sapphires in particular are huge fun, its a shame the 4x4 version had such a weak gearbox and crap front brakes, the 2WD had a much better brake setup. I have lost track of the tuning side of cossies these days, but they seem to be going a bit mental, it seems a bit of an issue to make them genuinely road usage reliable at these levels though.

I considered buying another 2WD sapphire when i sold my RA, but its quite dificult to find a really nice one for sensible money compared to alternatives when you are looking at running one as a daily driver. I saw my old saph recently and it was looking great though, a well loooked after one is still a fantastic car.

S.B.

You sure?

GTTurbo

Anyone have more stories of people buying them from new or nearly new or buying one and finding that it was in fact two cars?!

Was trying to work out the cost of a sapphire in todays money and think the Evo FQ400 money is about right.

MADRod

Hi John
Agree that Gareths is a well set up car even if he was on cut slicks at Totb1

Out of interest I would be interested in this long list of cars that could easily do 200 down Brunters.
In the last year Rocket Ron is fastest with 205.8 & Norris Designs 200.3 the world record breaking Ultima managed 204. a Tuned RUF Porsche did only 197. The Ultima has been timed at close to 230 so Brunters sorts the men from the boys. Its very short.
My 201.8 stands comparison with these times & by March , i hope to eclipse the Ultima although the Rockets time may be out of reach.
Rod

GTTurbo

Can I ask, do you actually ever drive the car on the road or is it one of those cars that spends its time in the garage waiting for the moment?

I spend a lot of time around the maidenhead area, see some MADevelopment cars being 'road tested' but never seen yours.

Is the turbo so large and clutch on off that it is not worth the effort?

scoobyjohn2000

was at the pod last year at a rwub day was watching scoobys,evos,skylines,and pulsers all day just after dinner a white 2wd saff came on up with a skyline for company with in the next 10.98 i could not believe a cossy could ever go like that it must of been 6 car lenths ahead it only did one run and left after that day if i am ever at the side of one it always makes u wonder......not a car to be taken likely????

johnfelstead

Gareth was using fully road legal E marked tyres as per the regulations of the event on his car at TOTB1, he was not using cut slicks.

Where did i specify "down brunters"? It's just a personal thing about the atraction of doing this kind of thing, it's not really what cars like the cossie are about for me. You had production Fords doing a lot more than this back in the 1960's. Like i said, each to their own.