My thoughts about different classes

[Mirek]

I don't think it's real number for Subaru Cup engine. In my opinion it has much less.

[serial jeff]

You are not going to see even one(1) evo/sti at finish with normal gear/boxes and suspension.At gravel not even at the flying of 1st ss.

Perhaps not with the extra engine upgrades and driving as fast as they can over rough terrain. There's a fairly obvious solution: drive slower. Not even world rally cars can go flat out over any rally surface without breaking. Just drive at a safe speed for the car; less power and more caution.

As its name implies, the P-WRC should be for production cars, not essentially another (albeit slightly more down to earth) racecar specification. We've already got S2000 for that.

[dimviii]

Subaru Cup in Norway are running standard/original gearbox and diffs. http://www.voldsund-motorsport.no/alias.html?id=1018631

...and the cup winner in 2009, Andreas Mikkelsen, also won the gr.N championship!

Ιf you want to see the true potential between cup cars and n4 subi/evo don t see at Mikkelsen.Mikkelsen is just a lot of steps above competition in Norway.You have to see Argentinian championship.There are day and night between them.
Cup cars are way much slower than full n4 cars.Just a dogbox is nearly 1sec/km than a normal box.Not to mention diifs(normal 9rs oem diifs are just NOT for rallying for reliability and spped)

Also dont compare Norwegian snow/gravel with other gravels.Norwegian gravel is like asphalt comparing with Greece Middle east Turkey,Portugal,south america etc.

[dimviii]

Perhaps not with the extra engine upgrades and driving as fast as they can over rough terrain. There's a fairly obvious solution: drive slower. Not even world rally cars can go flat out over any rally surface without breaking. Just drive at a safe speed for the car; less power and more caution.

As its name implies, the P-WRC should be for production cars, not essentially another (albeit slightly more down to earth) racecar specification. We've already got S2000 for that.

Rallying and drive slow doesn t go together.Maybe in 70s or early 80s for privateers.
Wrc cars of course can finish 3 days flat out driving even at Acropolis for many years.

Problem in today rallying is NOT the cost of an even brand new N4.
A new evo X or almost new evo9 you can buy it for less 100k these days.
Dont mention n15s cause prodrive want to make profits with a car that is not faster or more reliable than an evo and wants 140k from your pocket.
Very good examples light used are at 60k- 80k.
So s2000 with a cost @ 250k is noway near a full n4 car which is 1/3 of cost.
S2000 can t be serviced from a local garage as almost all n4s.
Spares of N4 cars you can find everywhere in every country at 1/5 of cost of s2000.

N4 is not the problem guys.Thousands of them for 20+years in every country,and hundrets of championships all over the world prove it.

[dimviii]

]If we don't go the way of restrictor+hight pressure turbo+ALS+special racing fuel but no restrictor (or big one)+standard turbo+no ALS+stock fuel we won't have big problems using stock parts.

In my opinion Gr.N should be like that and if Mitsubishi or Subaru or whoever wants stronger production based 4x4 why not but in different class (same with S2000 at best).

Mirek i don t know for how many years you watching rallies,but in early years N4 cars was very difficult to finish specially in gravel rallies.Going fast with normal N4 almost always finished with broken g-boxes/diffs.
Problem in rallies is not the cost of N4s.Problem is the cost of s2000 cars and i am not saying only the purchase cost.

[dimviii]

580 Nm they say, not that far away And I think with this years E85 fuel and 33mm restrictor they have more...

Best evo 9 in our team (3 items)has 580nm with 33mm and good fuel.
So dont expect a cup car to be so equal

[Mirek]

Mirek i don t know for how many years you watching rallies,but in early years N4 cars was very difficult to finish specially in gravel rallies.Going fast with normal N4 almost always finished with broken g-boxes/diffs.
Problem in rallies is not the cost of N4s.Problem is the cost of s2000 cars and i am not saying only the purchase cost.

I just wanted to point out a logical point of view - we wouldn't need 600 Nm in Gr.N for same performance. Using tiny restrictor with large possible upgrades and special fuel results in pure waste of money without giving some mind blowing performance.

[OldF]

Mirek i don t know for how many years you watching rallies,but in early years N4 cars was very difficult to finish specially in gravel rallies.Going fast with normal N4 almost always finished with broken g-boxes/diffs.
Problem in rallies is not the cost of N4s.Problem is the cost of s2000 cars and i am not saying only the purchase cost.

I think it was from the beginning of 2001 when the N-group regulations changed radically. Before that even the back seat had be in place.

But the car is only on part of the total costs. Remember reading in the Finnish magazine VM, where Juho Hänninen told that his budget for a PWRC season was 500.000 euros and that didn’t include the car.

[Mirek]

And his car was often broken anyway

[OldF]

Somehow this topic it’s linked with the one dedicated to national series future.

Correct. That thread and the “cars in 2011” was my “inspiration” for this thread.

In FIA Groupe R regulations, proposed to replace the old appendix J classes, there’s obviously a vacant space for 4wd cars, the R4 class, that simply wasn´t filled because European manufacturers doesn’t show interest to cope Gr. R obligation to produce 2.500 road cars in order to homologate a rally car!
.

And I think that was also a reason for introducing WRC. In group A, every time a manufacturer wanted to have some bigger upgrades, they had to build 2500 cars.