Rallying a TR4

[Nigel A]

Hi Folks

Dazzer told me about this forum, so here I am.

I've been rallying since the early seventies but can't seem to give it up.  After a brief (20 years) break in the world of offroad racing I've returned to my first love, but this time in the historic events.  I'm currently contesting this years' HRCR Historic Stage Rally Challenge in a 1963 Triumph TR4.   Here's a link to some photos of the car taken on our last event, the Rally of the Midlands three weeks ago:
http://www.rallygallery.com/2010_MIDLANDS.aspx?Page=37

I did do the Ilkley Revival last year, and the Tour of Cheshire regularity rally earlier this year, but I really can't do without the sheer adrenaline buzz of special stages so it was always going to be those.  However I enjoyed the road events and would like to do more, so as the TR is an out-and-out noisy, harsh stage rally machine I'm thinking of buying a Mk1 Triumph 2000 for road rallies (encouraged and advised by Darren of course!), or maybe a Vitesse. We will see if a suitable car materialises.

In the meantime we will be out again on the Neath Valley Historic Stages on 14 August; by then I hope to have a newly-built TR Enterprises competition engine and gearbox installed, replacing the rather tired old donk which has been on borrowed time for too long.

I only bought the TR4 a year ago so am new to the marque, but am thoroughly enjoying driving it.  It had been prepared for road rallies but I have brought it up to full stage rally spec and am now using this year to develop it into a hopefully competitive category 1 rally car.  The Neath Valley will be our first event on forestry tracks - all events have been tarmac so far - so another learning curve there then!  

Will keep you posted.

Regards

Nigel

[Raider]

WOO-HOO -go for it Nigel and keep us updated

[TRad]

Best of luck! 🙂

[Nigel A]

Thanks, guys!

The new engine is being a little tardy arriving - not TRE's fault, the usual parts suppliers problem -  I may be faced with doing the Neath Valley with the old unit, which is well down on power.  It doesn't burn any oil, more just leaks it out of the joints.  I take the sumpguard off after every event and tip the oil back into the engine....just joking!

The new unit will need fitting, running in and then dyno'ing before any serious thrashing occurs, so I don't want to rush the job.  A rebuilt non-o/d strengthened close ratio box will be going in at the same time and I would like to get some road miles on the car after it's all set up before any competition.  I was hoping it would be ready by now and was going to do the North Yorks Classic road rally to settle it in.  However I may do it anyway on the old engine as a late entry if I can find an experienced regularity navigator.

The new engine, I'm told, will rev to 6500 and be putting out somewhere in the region of 180 bhp on 45DCOE Webers: not bad for an old 4-pot pushrod Ferguson tractor engine and should put a lot of 'moderns' to shame!  (I just need to remember I'm still on sixties brakes and suspension).  Even the old engine was driving the TR hard enough to match an MG ZR on speed down the long straights of  MIRA last time out!  He caught us on a 2-lapper merge but hadn't enough speed to complete the overtake so we ended up braking to let him past before the next 90 right!  It was my first time on proper pacenotes but by the second day I was getting the hang of them OK.

I'm also in the middle of sorting the brakes; historic rules say I must keep the original discs and calipers but can use bias-adjustable dual circuit pedal boxes. There's so much to fiddle with - master cylinder sizes, rear wheel cylinder bore, bias adjustment etc, but it's getting there.  Another reason to get some road miles in.  No servo, so it's big boots time!  What with no power steering and a quick rack (homologated) it's a real culture shock after getting soft on modern cars!  But believe me, you get some real 'feel' and feedback when you are pushing it hard.

It's surprising just how much rally stuff is on the FIA papers for the TR4, and you can still buy the parts new today.   Standard-Triumph did rally the model quite seriously back in the early sixties, when the four blue works 'VC' cars were doing Alpine Rallies and the like.  Three of these cars are still running, Neil Revington's '6VC' did the tough Three Legs of Mann rally earlier this year.  Museums. pah!  

More to do this week, I'll let you know how I get on with the brakes.

Nigel

[Tim Bancroft]

Fascinating stuff, lets have more pics.

One of our more prominent members James Shackford works at TR Enterprises, top lad-has a nicely sorted mk1 pi.

[GTRoger]

Good to see the old car being used!

Also check the gallery in the requested proofs section. Some nice pics of the works 2.5PI in action!

[Beans]

Good stuff, indeed what has a car to do in a museum 🤔

Enjoy the car as much as you can 🙂

[Nigel A]

Well, I'll give it a try....see how this goes: (photo credit: http://www.edpphoto.com).  'Get It Sideways' stages rally, April 2010 -  well, it's not too difficult on broken old airfield concrete when the car's on forest tyres.....!


Nigel

[StagNL]

I like that sump guard!  Good show on using the car in a spirited manner.

[Nigel A]

Time for another quick update!

The brakes are getting better as I have found a good balance on the adjustment and they are getting bedded in now.  A damn good thrashing on the TR Register's autest at the recent Malvern International Weekend showed them who's boss; the fact of the matter is that it's down to those big boots!  It stops OK if you just press the pedal hard enough!  Here's a pic of the testing process....

I mentioned previously trying a road rally; I found a guy who's a very experienced regularity rally navigator and he agreed to enter the North Yorkshire Classic rally with me yesterday.  He really knew what he was doing so I just drove to his directions and made sure I didn't make any mistakes on the tests.  We came away with 5th overall, and Darren (Dazzer) took home a first in class award in his Triumph 2000. Another TR4 was second overall.  Good days' sport for the Triumphs!  Still dithering between a 2000 or a Vitesse if I do any more road rallies, though!  Either way, the TR4 stays and stage rallies are my first love.

The new engine will be ready this week but it's too late to install and test before the next rally in just under two weeks so the old plodder will have to keep going one more time.  Let you know how we get on.

Nigel

[Nigel A]

628 WKE ran faultlessly all last Saturday to finish the Neath Valley Historic Stages Rally.  Our first forestry stage rally, based in South wales,  using well-known stages from Wales Rally GB.  The old engine struggled for power and the gearing is still way out but we got there, and the new proper competition engine and box have arrived from TR Enterprises ready for fitting.  Hopefully the car will be a lot more competitive soon and we can actually start beating someone!  Will post a report later this week when there should be more pics, meanwhile here's a shot in the service area before the start, while still clean!

Nigel

[Nigel A]

An update on the TR4 rally project.

The new engine is still being run in; I've been away on the Pharoahs Rally in Egypt so both the TR4 and the Mk1 2000 have been ignored for a while.  The final two rounds of the HRCR Challenge were just before and just after my trip so I had to give them a miss.  Having heard of the weather conditions on the Trackrod and seen the conditions on the stages on the telly report perhaps it was just as well the poor old TR wasn't there!

Anyway, we finished fourth overall and first in class in the championship  (OK, not a big entry and first out of a class of one!); but we only did three of the eight rounds and this was the 'experimental year!  The TR has been 100% reliable on all the events I've done so far.   I've enjoyed it, and have some plans for big improvements over the winter ready for a more serious 'go' next year.

Nigel

[dazzer]

Well done Nigel.

If thats what you can achieve this year with the technical probs and a limited entry... next year... Theyd better watch out!

Cheers

Darren

[Nigel A]

Update for 2011!

Well, we didn't get to any more events in 2010, and the work I was going to do over Christmas got snookered by the bitter cold weather - I'm not as keen to go out working on cars in the cold like when I was a lot younger!

The TR is all set up and dyno'd, and runs smooth and quick on its TR Enterprises rally engine and gearbox.  Steve Hall and his team really know how to build a cracking motor, it sounds glorious on full chat.  The axle is off to TRE for an LSD rebuild to comp spec plus a much lower CWP ratio - 4.55:1 from 4.1:1.  This is the lowest available homologated ratio, and should give me much better acceleration, the new engine has about an extra thousand rpm to cope with it now.  Chucking out the overdrive has saved lots of weight too.  I shall get the other work done in the next few weeks ready for our first rally in it's new, hopefully much more competitive guise, which is going to be the EROMC's Oak Leaf Stages on February 27th.  I am registering for the HRCR Stage Rally Challenge again but intend to concentrate on tarmac events this year; the first round is the Rally Sunseeker Historique in Bournemouth on the 26th but it's gravel, a long way from Cheshire, and

[Nigel A]

It's been quite a while since I reported on progress with the TR4, so just in case the odd person may be interested here's an update on what's been happening so far this year.

We did the Oak Leaves stages and had a good day, despite there being no Historic class the old TR put up a good performance against all the modern cars although naturally we couldn't compete on level terms: let's just say they didn't beat us as easily as they may have expected to!  We could hold some off on the straights but they had the measure of us under braking every time and as for WRC cars we just concentrated on getting out of the way!  The rear axle had been rebuilt and set up with a new Tran-X LSD and 4.55 CWP by James at TR Enterprises so the gearing suits the new engine and gearbox well and the car is great fun to drive.  However, an issue with the new engine forced me to change the Tour of Cheshire entry the next week to the 2000 saloon, which I have mentioned elswhere.

Then, at the beginning of April, out of the blue I came down with a very nasty gastric bug and pneumonia which laid me out for two weeks and took even longer to recover from.  The Doc says I've still got a bit of pneumonia and am still being pumped with antibiotics, but you can't let all that stop you rallying for too long so in May I did the HRCR Championship Leukaemia road rally in South Wales in the TR4.  We had a fairly good day, finishing in the mid twenties.  In between we also took the Mk1 2000 on some HRCR Scenic Tours, which kept Linda happy - in fact we had her brother and his wife in with us too for four-up days out, which the 2000 takes in it's stride and are an enjoyable opposite from the serious business of stage rallies in the TR4.

Unfortunately, I missed the Get It Sideways rally thanks to being ill, and chose to do the Jim Clark Rally which clashed with another round of the HRCR Stage Rally Challenge.  I didn't want to enter the next round at Caerwent until we had survived the JCR in one piece, and now the entry is full anyway!  So my 'Challenge' hasn't even started this year and looks as if it may stall altogether.  Best laid plans, etc....

The trip to the Scottish Borders for the Jim Clark Rally was a fantastic weekend of motorsport.  Entered for the Historic rally, we did three stages on Friday evening, starting with a race round the streets of Duns town itself (packed with spectators and a real carnival atmosphere), then a full Saturday flat out on the country lanes of Berwickshire.  All of it on pacenotes on closed public roads!  The only rally in the UK  where it's possible to do this apart from going over the water to the Isle of Man or Ireland.  It took my new codriver and I until Saturday morning to 'click' together, but from then on we started to get faster and faster, clocking well over 100mph on many occasions down bumpy country roads, which is well scary in an early 60's sports car with 50's suspension!  Taking blind bends at 70 -80mph on the wrong side of the road without lifting, trusting the notes and knowing nothing is coming the other way takes a bit of a leap of faith in this country.  Luckily we dodged the occasional rain shower and had dry roads all day.  The TR4 ran nearly faultlessly all through, except for my eagle-eyed service crew spotting and changing a cracked disi cap on Saturday afternoon after the TR developed a slight misfire on idle.  Hard luck to our TR compatriot Steve Hall (TR Enterprises) in the TR7 V8, a rear wheel came off when the studs sheared only a few miles from the end of the last stage.  Steve was standing by the stricken car, waving us on; he'd just got the car up amongst the Escorts in third place too.  

We finished the rally 2nd in the pre-1968 class and picked up a rather nice trophy; the only disappointment was again the poor entries we are seeing in Category 1 on stages nowadays, and despite our throwing the little TR around as hard as we could, we still cannot hope to keep the more modern Cat 2 & 3 Historics in sight.  However we did score one victory over the usual hoards of Escorts: the support from marshals, spectators and even the scrutineer ("I prefer to scrutineer the historics: proper rally cars!") absolutely made the weekend for us.  The car was complimented on and photographed constantly, they all loved to see it out competing, and on the final stage there were people clapping and cheering us on to the finish on every junction.  Marvellous..... learning the rally on Friday night's stages and getting caught by faster Cat 3 cars was a bit demoralising and I went to bed dreaming of selling the TR4 and going Cat 3 - the Kadett GT/E or Ascona would tempt me - but by the end of the rally I'd decided to stick with the old Triumph for a bit longer!

Incidentally, Raider, I got talking to the navvy of the Cat 3 Talbot Sunbeam, Martin Knapp, who's building up a Triumph 2000 for rallying, and he told me he rallies a 16v Sprint engined TR7 on the stages too.  You probably know him.

We will be back next year!  Saving up to do a few really big rallies rather than more smaller ones now seems a good idea to me, I'm even considering going for an entry in the National Historic event at this year's Wales Rally GB...

In the meantime, here's some nice shots of each of the historics on the Jim Clark: http://www.pro-rally.co.uk/gallery/2011/2011_jim_clark_historic_rally_photos/index.html

Nigel

[Raider]

Great to hear of your exploits Nigel.

Re Martin Knapp - yes I know him and have had some spares off him in the past as well as being part of his service crew once.

And the Jim Clark, yes that was in my sights before the stage rallying came to an end   Enjoy it Nigel

[Nigel A]

We are still out playing..... here's a nice pic from the 2011 Neath Valley Stages just over a week ago.  It almost looks as if we are going fast, doesn't it? http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=344012 , third pic down (as if you wouldn't recognise a TR4 amongs all those Escorts....)

Unfortunately the rough and slippery forest tracks took a sad toll on the poor old TR's aging, rusty and much-patched chassis, the front suspension turret cross-member bending and ripping out of both sides and allowing the turrets to bend in. Plus it now has a big kink thanks to the unavoidable rock I found whilst ditch-hooking at speed!  The last 14-mile stage was completed with excessive negative camber and huge toe out but we got it home despite an 'off' down a steep bank to keep our 100% finishing record.  A replacement chassis is being readied for the long-overdue swap, in the meantime the turrets have been jacked out and re-welded so it will be ready for this weekend's Oulton Park Historic stage rally demo.

It took two days to clean it afterwards, removing around 90 kilos of concrete-like South Wales mud......

Nigel

[Raider]

Great picture of the TR4 Nigel

I do like Escorts and have owned a Mexico and an RS2000 (mk2) in the past but stage rallies do get boring from a spectator point of view when the whole field seems to be made up of them

Well done for running something different

[Nigel A]

Doesn't time fly?   Can't believe it's been two years since my last post, but the TR4 is still going strong!

Last year was quiet, various other commitments saw us only doing a handful of events.  2013 has been the same so far, despite planning to upgrade to the BHRC this year it hasn't happened.  the TR4 did get an airing (and a good dousing!) at the 'Get it Sideways' rally at Down Ampney again last April; Peter Baker covered us in his online historic motorsport magazine Retro-Speed.
Report at:  http://www.retro-speed.co.uk/showreports.asp?art=7783
More pics at:  http://www.retro-speed.co.uk/gallery.asp?ip=galleries&gid=galleries&pid=7780
We were also joined by Michael Hunter in his immaculate blue TR4 - at last, two TR4's together out on the stages!

Once again it has been other commitments spoiling the fun.  I've been searching for a good replacement chassis for ages; I have finally found a rust-free ex-USA 'dry state' chassis which is like new compared with the old one despite being the same age. The old girl (50 this year) is about to have a skeleton transplant together with some further tasty mods!  I've been sticking to tarmac rallies recently, but am pleased to say the car still has a 100% finishing record over all types of events in the last five years and is still mixing it with the 'moderns' on occasion.

Unfortunately one of the reasons for my lack of events is the spiralling cost of stage rallying nowadays.  The BHRC rounds are all at least

[Raider]

You now have 5?

You may need to check out the "Triumphs Anonymous" thread

[Nigel A]

The TR4 has been out again on yet another 'last rally before the big rebuild'.

Last week my friend and fellow Triumph enthusiast Les McGuffog had an entry for Saturday's Vale of Clwyd Classic, an HRCR Clubmans Championship round (historic road rallies) but his driver had to drop out at the eleventh hour, so I volunteered at short notice to take over the entry with the TR4.  Les and I have rallied together on several previous events.

Not having done a road rally for nearly two years I was a rather rusty on the tests at first but shaped up a bit better after lunch.  We had an entertaining day, the threat of heavy rain failed to materialise so the detailed exploration of the more obscure of North Wales' lanes was completed in mostly fine and sometimes sunny weather.  We were leading the Category 1 Expert's class near the end of the rally when we missed a control which dropped us to eighth, blast!  In our defence, the day's navigation had a real sting in the tail which caught out several experienced crews who also missed the control.

For once I drove the TR to and from from the rally instead of trailering it, so the total mileage was quite high but once again the good old '4 never missed a beat, retaining it's 100% finishing record since I built it over five years ago.  I do wonder if the TR7 I'm now building for road rallies will be able to match such reliabilty, despite it being a far more modern engine design.......

Some photos at     http://www.gss-photography.co.uk/p884489380/h7656F15B#h7656f15b  
and also at     http://www.gss-photography.co.uk/p608440954/h769a48e3#h769a48e3

Clicking right or left brings up more photos.

Nigel

[Nigel A]

The lack of comment on my posts (apart from Raider - thanks, Martin!) has given me the impression that no-one in Club Triumph world is much interested in my rallying exploits in my 50-year-old TR4, which is why I gave up posting for two years until recently breaking my silence!  However I can't fail to notice that my thread is currently approaching some 5,000 views so there must be someone out there who bothers to read them........  

My first thoughts on starting to compete with the TR4 were that people - especially enthusiasts - would consider that my risking the car for serious rallies constituted such a heinous crime that I should be summarily shot for 'ruining' a valuable classic, but no; I have always had support for my activities, even from the spit 'n polish brigade.  I fully appreciate that few owners will be interested in competing with their pride and joy, it's just that I've always been involved in rallying so when I got the classic car bug I just had to rally it!

The compliments we get on stage rallies, especially from the marshals, are always encouraging.  "Great to see these old cars out competing, much more fun to watch than the boring identical modern tin boxes" etc:  no wonder historic stage rallying is so popular nowadays.

The car is finally, definitely, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, going to be rebuilt better than ever with it's new chassis over the next few months ready for 2014 - hopefully for a few outings on the BHRC (or the RAC Championship even though it's all gravel rallies!) so do I keep posting news here, that is the question......  I shall be posting regular progress pictures of the rebuild on my Facebook page.

In the meantime, here's a nice image from the recent Vale of Clwyd road rally, taken and shared on Facebook by William Murfitt, featuring the lovely North Wales countryside which we never get to see whilst competing..... the lack of sideways action on gravel, and Les' head buried in maps/speed tables/tripmeter/stopwatch/route book etc, suggests we are in the middle of an average-speed regularity section.  Which is why I prefer stage rallies when I can afford them!!!

Nigel

[Jason]

I'm always interested in hearing news of Triumphs and I'm not alone You might not get much in the way of replies but people do read this stuff. I know from my Blog that there are probably 99 people who read and say nothing then 1 pops up with a comment or answers a question every now and again (OK so sometimes it's a negative comment but we just ignore them).

[Raider]

Absolutely - always interested in what's going on

My own health and budgetary circumstances (plus a dangerous condition which means I keep buying cars ) means I can't compete as much as I used to, if at all - for now

[Wilfrid]

Nigel
Keep posting your stuff - I love reading it, especially as I own a 50 year old TR4 and am the car's only owner. Used to Club rally it in the early days plus autotesting but am now, and have been for some time, too old and decrepit! CT members will have been able to read things about the car in our magazine "Club Torque" - indeed it was on the front cover in July. I have always loved Triumphs and have owned or driven most models, but TRs are the tops.

Derek Pollock
President, CT