Group B Rallycross cars

[Peter S]

First of all in relation to what happened to many of the Group B cars, there is a museasm at Loheac which is owned by Michel Hommell. He also owns the rallycross circuit at Loheac. The last i heard he had the following rallycross cars in his museasm:

Jean Pierre Beltoise (1979 French championship winning Renault Alpine A310)

Jacques Aitas Audi Quattro (1985)

Jean Luc Paillers Citroen BX (1989) and Xantia (94)

Matti Alamakis - Peugeot 205 T16 E2 (88-90)

Bruno Sabys - Lancia Delta S4

This sounds like a good place to visit for rallycross fans sometime, as he has around 200 cars and more rallycross cars are being added by the day.

[Peter S]

As for 1987 then Nitymaki had fully rebuilt his Escort thinking that he would easily win the championship....until Alamaki bought his Delta S4. Nitymaki then pinched Jorma Hannula who was regarded as the top mechanic from Martin Schanche. There was a bitter rivalry between them and seppo was megerly jealous that alamaki had a new Group B car to play with and was very worried.

Thats when he went to France (not long before the start of the season) and introoduced himself to Peugeot Talbot sport. Thats when he was offered the deal for 87 season.

Seppos new mechanic then effectively moved in at Peugeot in France

In return Peugeot gave Seppo the 1985, Timo Salonen Peugeot 205 T16 rally car that had been used on the San Remo rally. Developments were then put onto the car that were going to be used orginally for the RAC rally in 1986.

at the start of the 1987 season, using a turbo boost of 2 bar, it produced 540 bhp at 8500rppm. This was from a 1775cc engine. The torque it produced equated to 610Nm at 5500rpm.

This was in fact 50bhp more and 100nm torque more than the rally car produced.

[Peter S]

For 1988 with alamakis it was different as the turbo factor of 1.7 was introuduced. this put up the weight to 960 kgs. Therefore the T16 had to be reduced in capacity to 1760cc. This was in equivalence to 87 when nittymaki raced with a turbo factor of 1.4 while using 1775cc and racing at 890kg

[chunder]

I am also sure that Matti then spent c
hrist knows how much money converting the engine to a smaller cc so he could still run at the lighter weight.
As you say he had to run at 1760.
Think Terje actually went ahead and ran a big 1.9 litre lump with help from PTS and the rally raid engines, but his car or maybe he was nevcer as quick.
Interesting to note that the engine is still being used in the Xsara's Hansen motor I think, or maybe they now have to use a homologated engine. Surely not as all the Focus's bar Gollops run YB Cosworth engines.
Will actually ran a Peugeot 405 16v motor in the 306 used now by McClkuskey but also used a littlke version of the 205T16 engine in thje 309 he built if I remember.

[Peter S]

The engine in the cars have to be homologated now. Gollop will have a big advantage soon as the Cosworth engines homolgation is up in the near future apperently meaning that the Zetec will become the virtual only viable option for the Focus drivers.

I have got qutie a bit of stats on the two peugeots which i will dig out when i have finished my uni work!