Stick with an Exige you say?? Well stop sending me links to incredibly tempting super 1400 puma rally cars on pistonheads! You know my powers of resistance are weak.
You know a Super 1400 Puma rally car is where your heart lies! Or should I say at a level to match your driving ability. Fibreglass clad aluminum race cars were never really your thing? How about a good spec MK2 like Adrian suggested?
Mk2 Escorts … bloomin lovely … and expensive , a Manta is a real sister ship to a MK2 imho … Again getting rare… had some great times in mine …
Love “Monta’s” too. The boot version was soooooooooooooo much sexier than the hatchback!
Sean, not sure if you can help on this - as a result of ‘continuous improvement’ (= never satisfied) I can’t help thinking what the next step is to get closer to the top of the results sheet. As I’m giving away at least 80 bhp and a lot of torque to the podium guys I’m thinking longer term about engines.
For rallying the rules dictate running an intake restrictor with a maximum diameter of 34mm. Do you have any idea what size the standard Audi inlet is? If I go the supercharge route on the Toyota then I’m faced with a similar issue so it’s a case of which forced induction engine would be least compromised by a 34mm restrictor.
As much as I like the NA engine there’s not much more to squeeze out of the Toyota and a strong Duratec is mega bucks. I also want to keep the car driveable, I’m taking it on a 4 day driving tour this weekend 
The 150 and 180bhp Audi engines come with what is called a K03 turbo on them and the inlet is 38mm on those and by upping the boost you are looking at about 250bhp, with awesome low end torque.
The 225bhp Audi engines came with a K04 turbo, the inlet of that is 43mm. you are looking at about 320bhp from that. The boost is full on at about 2800rpm, so loads of low down torque etc.
We have engine mounts etc all ready to drop the audi lump into a Toyota powered Exige, so feel free to give me a call if you want to chat about it.
The gearboxes are pretty bomb proof and if you are going to build an inlet restricter engine, I would go with a bigger turbo that can handle restrictors better, they have different inlet blade angles etc. Anti lag and launch control are both toys that will help out also.
Ive never really heard of anyone inlet restricting a super charger. I reckon it will strangle it to the point that at higher revs, you may as well of left the SC off.
Thanks for the rapid response, you’ve certainly been doing your homework! I’ll now have to do some studying myself. I’d never really thought about a turbo engine as the way forward but it might be the most cost effective solution.
My other thought is related to the VX220 powertrain, whether that is an easy transplant. I hear the 2.2 Vauxhall is a poor base for tuning but there are many sources for a well tuned Vauxhall 2.0 redtop at sensible prices.
I’ve got plenty of time to think about the options and check out the rules as I can’t fund an upgrade this season having just built the car (unless Gareth is going to fund it 
). Meanwhile I’ll enjoy wringing the neck of the Toyota n/a for now.
Thanks for the details, hopefully get chance to meet up at Oulton soon and chat about it.
There are other choices as well, the SC inlet is exactly the same as the NA, do you need to run a restrictor for the NA? Also it is reasonably easy to turbo the Toyota engine but you will be limited to around 200lb/ft of torque due to the fragile gearbox
There is no regulation for inlet size on a N/A but as soon as you use forced induction then it is limited to 34mm and the engine capacity is multiplied by 1.7
With the restrictor I suppose the only option is to run a larger turbo at higher pressure. The WRC boys seem to make it work, their 2 lt engines knock out huge torque figures vs a quoted 300 bhp ( like Sean ).
I thinking it could be as expensive to turbo the existing engine as would be the net cost of an Audi build after selling the Toyota engine and box?
I’ve got plenty of planning time as I’ve spent this years budget on wheels and tyres, got to have the fundamentals in place first !
I have spent the day working on the geometry setup of the Exige. It’s never really had a proper setup so I gave it a thorough examination.
The first job was to ensure the car was loaded with a driver and passenger for weight distribution. With no volunteers opting to sit in the car for 6 hours while I frigged around I had to think of another solution. Two sacks of rubble in the seats was a worthy simulation of Gareth and I (in more ways than one).
The first job was to check the ride height, the results were:
Front 108mm, Rear 123mm
This is more front biased than I expected. The Ohlins came off Sean C’s 240PP so I can only guess that the extra rear end weight of the Supercharged car drop the rear height more. After some adjustment the final height is now:
Front 106mm, Rear 116mm
The next job was to check the camber using a camber plate gauge. I had already removed the shims from the front of the car to increase negative camber. The measurements were:
____Near side Off side
Front -1.5 deg -1.25 deg
Rear -2.0 deg -2.2 deg
I decided to try the 211 spec as my target settings. However, the front camber adjustment is limited as I’ve already taken all the shims out and I need to balance out the errors. The final measurements were:
_____Near side Off side
Front -1.25 deg -1.25 deg
Rear -2.5 deg -2.5 deg
For the wheel alignment I decided to try the box string method. I think the neighbours thought I was going fishing with the selection of rods and line spread out across the driveway. Although it took some time to setup the poles and string I was impressed with how useful this basic technique is.
The near side rear had 2mm toe out which probably wasn’t helping stability. The off side rear had zero toe. Most alarming was the front end. I measured 6mm toe in on each side! This seemed crazy so I checked all the setup again, lengths of poles, centrality of the wheels… and the result was the same, huge toe in. This must be a combination of removing the front camber shims, lower ride height of the Ohlins and performing the setup with a loaded car. I previously set the front toe after fitting the Ohlins but with no load and using a Longacre tracking gauge.
The final setting is now zero toe on the front and 1mm toe in each side on the rear.
All in all a very valuable and interesting exercise. I’ve just got to test it now! If I get chance then I may do a track day at Angelsey on Thursday to check out the difference.
Actually I think I could have made a serious error in my weight calculations with the bags of rubble. So I’m going to try it again tomorrow with a more appropriate substitute for Gareth
Should be tons better now, Wes.
You two remind me of
Your probably right about the front toe, mine was the same when i dropped the front and added the drivers wight, it affects it a lot.
Mike
You have no idea how long it took me to explain this, which I also think is a “simple” tool, to my Chinese engineers
With a few mods to the kit I can now rig it up in a couple of minutes. It’s much better than my aluminium slider tracking gauge, thats heading for eBay.
I can imagine the fun you had explaining it to the Chinese engineers. I bet they were taking notes while you explained.