Grp C/Grp A – "Tricks of the Trade" (Merged)

[Denosaur]

Originally Posted by Gaz170

Wasn't that why Mick Webb used to get in Moff's mazda at the end of every race win - to disconnect all the illegal stuff?????

So how would he have disconnected the rumored sealed and pressurized roll cage that Allan had filled with Nitrous?? Fair effort for the fabricators to build a cage that could be filled with Nitrous and hold it.

[Tony C]

In group A days it wasnt a case of what car was illegal, more a case of which one was legal.... answer.... none. Everyone had there own 'modification' depending on what drand you ran. Commodores could not fit the max sized tyres inside standard rear gaurds so they were all tubbed to some degree, the other brands were the same. Everyone knew what was going on and it was condoned as a way to get everyone on the track. almost self regulated. but there were a lot of non standard items.....

[JT.]

One trick I heard of in the VK group A era was that teams would cut the inlet manifold in half, port it right out & then weld it back together.

[RotorFan]

I don't want to take this great thread off topic, but does much of this happen nowadays? These ingenious designs are part of motorsport in my opinion, but I guess if you don't know its happening, you can't get much of a thrill out of it. You only find out years later.

[HDTVKSS]

what was it?..... " turn your oil pump off craig"..... has to mean more than meets the eye

[Kingair]

A friend was a crew member on a very quick "rail car" 6 cylinder Torana Hatchback at Liverpool speedway when it was ashphalt in the early 80's. The car was very quick and was purchased from the current owner and turned out to a good race winner, unfortunately new owner got turned around one Saturday night and went into the fence backwards and the bar work crumpled up to the drivers seat, when they had a close look at it in the pits they found the back of the car was made out of exhaust tubing.

[Denosaur]

Originally Posted by RotorFan

I don't want to take this great thread off topic, but does much of this happen nowadays? These ingenious designs are part of motorsport in my opinion, but I guess if you don't know its happening, you can't get much of a thrill out of it. You only find out years later.

Nowadays, well not exactly, but recently it was said that one of the top teams did employ a form of launch control. Don't know if it was true or not, but it is said that the team worked out a way of killings cylinders on the start line and making it sound like it was miss firing as per a normal start. Once the car launched then the dead cylinders would come back and everything would be normal again. All speculative mind you.

[Malfunction Junction]

Originally Posted by Denosaur

Nowadays, well not exactly, but recently it was said that one of the top teams did employ a form of launch control. Don't know if it was true or not, but it is said that the team worked out a way of killings cylinders on the start line and making it sound like it was miss firing as per a normal start. Once the car launched then the dead cylinders would come back and everything would be normal again. All speculative mind you.

No I think that's just the drivers being unable to get it off the line...


OK I'll be good.

[bdwoody]

i heard a story a few years ago where tom walkinshaw had taken the twr sd1 rover cast exhaust manifolds and put them on a sand/slurry pump machine to "port" the inside of them which was against the rules,this sounds very like the story of Smokey Yunick
and the hudsons.great minds think alike me thinks....

[Woolley]

Originally Posted by Denosaur

So how would he have disconnected the rumored sealed and pressurized roll cage that Allan had filled with Nitrous?? Fair effort for the fabricators to build a cage that could be filled with Nitrous and hold it.

I've seen that story in print, but it was a NASCAR, not V8 with the nitrous roll cage

[StuiE]

Fred Gibson had some great ones, here is one article about them, I've got the magazine at home, I've read it so many times, I love these stories. My favourites would have to be the Oil pressure guage/boost control and the 'standard intercooler in factory packaging', fire extinguisher one is good too..


http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/d/dd/Gibson1.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/7/77/Gibson2.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/6/68/Gibson3.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/3/37/Gibson4.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/a/aa/Gibson5.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/7/75/Gibson6.jpg



Not a GrpA/C one, but Bill Elliott's 7/8 scale Nascar is a legendary cheat.

[racer69]

Originally Posted by Woolley

I've seen that story in print, but it was a NASCAR, not V8 with the nitrous roll cage

The one of Moffat's discussed here was a rotary Mazda with nitrous roll cage

[Driver TBA]

Thank god we did'nt have internet forums back in group C & A days.

If we get our knickers in a knot over an extra plug on a wiring loom, data sharing between 4 cars and who owns what franchise.

Imagine discussing these 'Technical irregularities' as they happened

[Driver TBA]

Originally Posted by StuiE

Fred Gibson had some great ones, here is one article about them, I've got the magazine at home, I've read it so many times, I love these stories. My favourites would have to be the Oil pressure guage/boost control and the 'standard intercooler in factory packaging', fire extinguisher one is good too..


http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/d/dd/Gibson1.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/7/77/Gibson2.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/6/68/Gibson3.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/3/37/Gibson4.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/a/aa/Gibson5.jpg

http://wiki.r31skylineclub.com/images/7/75/Gibson6.jpg



Not a GrpA/C one, but Bill Elliott's 7/8 scale Nascar is a legendary cheat.

So if Fred's spilt the beans on the Nissans, I wonder if he will about the 94 Commodores and the alleged traction control?

I've got the 94 ATCC on video and I've never spotted anything unusual with the cars. So was it actually true?

[jezz]

My dad was racing at Amaroo as a support when moff ran the RX-7 and remembers watching moff STRUGGLE to keep with brocky lap after lap then by some form of miracle just happen to pull out and blast past on the last lap. Apparently someone then placed a hand on a VERY cold roll cage after the race.
Brock was supposedly found to have the extinguisher nozzle pointed at the intercooler on the sierra.
The ford panels i have heard about. i heard came about after one car broke down in pit lane and a few marshalls helped to push the car out of the way and severly bent the boot lid.
A few others i have heard of are grpA rally cars with exhausts with vavles to keep noise under the limit at scrutineering while out in the forest are well over 100db, moveable air restrictors on turbo cars (Toyota were the only ones caught),wiring changes and switches to change boost from standard to upwards of 30psi.
quite a few others but can't remember them all now, too much booze been swallowed in the last few years.

[chavez]

Originally Posted by jezz

My dad was racing at Amaroo as a support when moff ran the RX-7 and remembers watching moff STRUGGLE to keep with brocky lap after lap then by some form of miracle just happen to pull out and blast past on the last lap. Apparently someone then placed a hand on a VERY cold roll cage after the race.
Brock was supposedly found to have the extinguisher nozzle pointed at the intercooler on the sierra.
The ford panels i have heard about. i heard came about after one car broke down in pit lane and a few marshalls helped to push the car out of the way and severly bent the boot lid.
A few others i have heard of are grpA rally cars with exhausts with vavles to keep noise under the limit at scrutineering while out in the forest are well over 100db, moveable air restrictors on turbo cars (Toyota were the only ones caught),wiring changes and switches to change boost from standard to upwards of 30psi.
quite a few others but can't remember them all now, too much booze been swallowed in the last few years.

Not to cast doubt on your story, but did Moffat ever race his RX7 at Amaroo Park?

[racer69]

He did the opening Amscar round of 1982 there, in the rain. But he wasn't a regular (infact that could have been it)

[David Towe]

I heard of a Falcon in the mid 80s that would regularly have the scrutineers ask for a head to be removed to measure the bore and stroke. The team politely obliged and every time removed the same head, apparently they would have been in trouble if the other head was removed and the bore and stroke measured on that bank of the engine.
Polyurethane injected into roll cages to stiffen them up even more was apparently another trick.
The 323 (ex Longhurst 1885) that I used to own is now in NZ. The current owner sent me an email a couple of years ago about some empty plastic bottles in the fuel tank. I knew nothing about them but recently found out it was a trick to reduce the capacity of the fuel tank prior to the long races, then remove them after the scrutineers had checked the capacity, thereby giving 10 more litres of racing between pitstops.

[platinum motors]

Originally Posted by racer69

The one of Moffat's discussed here was a rotary Mazda with nitrous roll cage

I had heard that story too.
Don't know how true it was though.
Would love to know or at least see it proven on how it could work.

[A9X05]

The great Harry Firth built a lot of great cars over the great early years of Aussie touring cars, Including the later years of the H.D.T. and the great
A9X's!
As most of us old blokes know Harry retired at the end of 1978, from the H.D.T. and in 1979 took up the new posisition of the head scrutineer for Touring Cars?
I remember reading, and the story goes something like this! That in early 1979, the H.D.T. DSQed for ineligibiltys of the A9X for whatever, and when the H.D.T. protested to the new head scrutineer pleading," Harry you built the cars! " Harrys answer was apparently "Thats how I know they are illegal!"
I am not entirely sure if its all true? But makes for a great read! Anybody out there confirm this story!

[duke_toaster]

Originally Posted by Woolley

I've seen that story in print, but it was a NASCAR, not V8 with the nitrous roll cage

Sorry if I'm talking out of my arse, but wasn't nitrous in the roll cage speculated during Group B rallying? I remember hearing something about Henri Toivonen's fatal accident and it making the car a bit more flammable (but I can't find a source).

[racer69]

Originally Posted by A9X05

The great Harry Firth built a lot of great cars over the great early years of Aussie touring cars, Including the later years of the H.D.T. and the great
A9X's!
As most of us old blokes know Harry retired at the end of 1978, from the H.D.T. and in 1979 took up the new posisition of the head scrutineer for Touring Cars?
I remember reading, and the story goes something like this! That in early 1979, the H.D.T. DSQed for ineligibiltys of the A9X for whatever, and when the H.D.T. protested to the new head scrutineer pleading," Harry you built the cars! " Harrys answer was apparently "Thats how I know they are illegal!"
I am not entirely sure if its all true? But makes for a great read! Anybody out there confirm this story!

Don't know if this is the one you mean, but;

Brock got disqualified from the 1978 ATCC round at Sandown for running an illegally modified anti-sway bar (they'd drilled for fitment purposes, but it was outside the tolerances allowed)

It was abit of a murky ruling though. The HDT cars had run them in that configuration since 1976 according to the June 1978 edition of RCN, and John Sheppard had been trying to get a ruling on the matter since the beginning of 1978 when he took over the team, John Keefe had even inspected the cars personally and told them "we'll let you know".. meaning the cars ran meetings in the 'illegal' spec until the ruling was made post-Sandown.

Brock and the HDT copped a 4 week suspension for it.

Incidently Moffat was also disqualified from the same event, for running his cars with those infamous roller rockers (he copped a 6 week suspension)

[FIRE]

Great stories

[jezz]

Originally Posted by chavez

Not to cast doubt on your story, but did Moffat ever race his RX7 at Amaroo Park?

yes he did, only amscar series though as pointed out by racer69, the 3rd round on the 23rd may 82,

good point though, just had a look back through my race yearbooks and couldn't find both moffat and brock racing at Amaroo. Might have been at Oran but i will ask my dad tomorrow and see if he remembers what circuit it was.

[bdwoody]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

Sorry if I'm talking out of my arse, but wasn't nitrous in the roll cage speculated during Group B rallying? I remember hearing something about Henri Toivonen's fatal accident and it making the car a bit more flammable (but I can't find a source).

i may be wrong but i thought nitous oxide was an exelerator that needs a fuel to work, on it own it wont burn.