Mooseykins posted:

Absolutely agreed.



I used to have a customer who had a Lancia 037, but he never brought it to show us at the shop.
He did tell us about how utterly terrifying it was to drive though!

InitialDave posted:

Homologation should never have gone away, especially with rallying. "If you don't sell it, you can't race it" is such a good rule.

GramCracker posted:

100% agree. I think we need a new spec series that incorporates the best rules of old series. Then again, we couldn't exactly EVER sell this to the public:



People would wrap the 12 of them around trees SO fast.

Octopus Magic posted:

I wouldn't say the Homologation ST205 is a built out rally car by any means (considering they did a bunch of changes to the suspension to get it to actual good prep). That's like saying you bought an STi or an EVO, or poo poo even an old Galant VR4 and it's a "race car" because those were also basically the same thing.

Butt Wizard posted:

I'm not aware of any specific limited edition homologation Subarus or Evos with trick bits. As far as I can remember, the 22B and the 6.5 TME were both just production cars.

Butt Wizard posted:

The beauty of the homologation cars is that they have poo poo that serves no purpose other than so the rally cars can have it. Big stupid wing? Yup. Intercooler spray bar and pumps? Yup. Factory anti-lag system components? Tiny little wing on the bonnet? Ahuh. None of this makes any difference to the car as a normal every day runabout, but the only reason it's there is so Juha and Didier could have them on theirs. It takes your huge boot spoiler from "boy racer" territory to "actual functional device with competition DNA".

There's some other cool homologation cars out there - the early R32 GTRs were built to a slightly different aero spec, the GTIR homologation cars don't have air conditioning and the ST185RC/CS came with a different type of turbo to the standard ST185.

I'm not aware of any specific limited edition homologation Subarus or Evos with trick bits. As far as I can remember, the 22B and the 6.5 TME were both just production cars. Hell, I don't know if there were any specific homologation Group A Lancias.

Also re: the ST205 suspension - they just used conventional suspension in the competition cars. The Super Strut system is so firm that any extended driving on rural roads can leave you with a back problem and the components eventually shake themselves loose over time. One day I'll have to replace the lower arms in mine and you'll be able to hear my cries of financial pain across the Pacific.

sofullofhate posted:

The 22B had a seam-welded chassis, to begin with, but also a wide body (fairly impressively beefy flared fenders when compared to the STI), a hand-built version of the 2.2l closed-deck engine vs. the normal Impreza STI at the time with the 2.0l. It also had 235mm wheel/tire vs. 205, a bunch of trick aluminum bits in the suspension and the first implementation of the DCCD that modern STIs have...

They're very special cars, and not just because there were only 400 of them built.

Butt Wizard posted:

The beauty of the homologation cars is that they have poo poo that serves no purpose other than so the rally cars can have it. Big stupid wing? Yup. Intercooler spray bar and pumps? Yup. Factory anti-lag system components? Tiny little wing on the bonnet? Ahuh. None of this makes any difference to the car as a normal every day runabout, but the only reason it's there is so Juha and Didier could have them on theirs. It takes your huge boot spoiler from "boy racer" territory to "actual functional device with competition DNA".

There's some other cool homologation cars out there - the early R32 GTRs were built to a slightly different aero spec, the GTIR homologation cars don't have air conditioning and the ST185RC/CS came with a different type of turbo to the standard ST185.

I'm not aware of any specific limited edition homologation Subarus or Evos with trick bits. As far as I can remember, the 22B and the 6.5 TME were both just production cars. Hell, I don't know if there were any specific homologation Group A Lancias.

Also re: the ST205 suspension - they just used conventional suspension in the competition cars. The Super Strut system is so firm that any extended driving on rural roads can leave you with a back problem and the components eventually shake themselves loose over time. One day I'll have to replace the lower arms in mine and you'll be able to hear my cries of financial pain across the Pacific.

Slavvy posted:

A good summary. The story I got told about super strut vs conventional is that the trade-off wasn't worth the extra time and complexity involved when making changes/repairs. Also IIRC the 3SGTE they came with was different internally to the more pedestrian versions founding in the caldina turbo and such, specifically for homologation reasons.

Butt Wizard posted:

The beauty of the homologation cars is that they have poo poo that serves no purpose other than so the rally cars can have it. Big stupid wing? Yup. Intercooler spray bar and pumps? Yup. Factory anti-lag system components? Tiny little wing on the bonnet? Ahuh. None of this makes any difference to the car as a normal every day runabout, but the only reason it's there is so Juha and Didier could have them on theirs. It takes your huge boot spoiler from "boy racer" territory to "actual functional device with competition DNA".

There's some other cool homologation cars out there - the early R32 GTRs were built to a slightly different aero spec, the GTIR homologation cars don't have air conditioning and the ST185RC/CS came with a different type of turbo to the standard ST185.

I'm not aware of any specific limited edition homologation Subarus or Evos with trick bits. As far as I can remember, the 22B and the 6.5 TME were both just production cars. Hell, I don't know if there were any specific homologation Group A Lancias.

Also re: the ST205 suspension - they just used conventional suspension in the competition cars. The Super Strut system is so firm that any extended driving on rural roads can leave you with a back problem and the components eventually shake themselves loose over time. One day I'll have to replace the lower arms in mine and you'll be able to hear my cries of financial pain across the Pacific.

Human Grand Prix posted:

I wish group S was given a chance because then the MR2 222D would exist in production form.

Human Grand Prix posted:

This is good. I'd also like to bring some attention to the Silvia 240RS - it seems to get overlooked quite a bit, though it isn't as impressive as the later rally cars.

Butt Wizard posted:

From memory one had to be crushed in the US after some journalists drove it from one side of the States to the other as part of a road test.

Still though, I don't think it's strictly a homologation car - I'm fairly sure that was the beginning of the WRC era where you didn't have to homologate anything anymore.

Pretty much one of the best ever road cars to come out of Japan though.

sofullofhate posted:

IIRC they produced the 22B as the last homologation platform for that era of STI, and as a celebration of the end of homologation requirements due to the introduction of WRC.

But whatever, this is pretty major on my part.

Octopus Magic posted:

http://gtfour.supras.org.nz/superstrut.htm for more information on the "Super Strut" system. Just from seeing the mounting points/ball joint setup you can see why they went to a straight McStrut setup, I can only imagine how many DNFs that double ball joint would cause, kind of like the Audi/Mitsubishi double lower arm multi link setup, too complex for its own good.

Octopus Magic posted:

I can only imagine how many DNFs that double ball joint would cause, kind of like the Audi/Mitsubishi double lower arm multi link setup, too complex for its own good.

Human Grand Prix posted:

This is good. I'd also like to bring some attention to the Silvia 240RS - it seems to get overlooked quite a bit, though it isn't as impressive as the later rally cars.

Night Danger Moose posted:

It Came From Imgur:

Collateral Damage posted:

sofullofhate posted:

IIRC they produced the 22B as the last homologation platform for that era of STI, and as a celebration of the end of homologation requirements due to the introduction of WRC.

But whatever, this is pretty major on my part.

Octopus Magic posted:

http://gtfour.supras.org.nz/superstrut.htm for more information on the "Super Strut" system. Just from seeing the mounting points/ball joint setup you can see why they went to a straight McStrut setup, I can only imagine how many DNFs that double ball joint would cause, kind of like the Audi/Mitsubishi (edit also BMW now!?) double lower arm multi link setup, too complex for its own good.

Butt Wizard posted:

It's fine for smooth highway driving and on a circuit it's great, it gives the car pretty rapid turn in which is quite something given how front heavy the ST205 is and how big the car is as a whole. There's still oversteer and you're still limited by a 50/50 drive-split but it's incredibly responsive all things considered.

The only downside is driving it on rural NZ roads for extended periods of time is almost impossible. We have great 'driving roads' here but I made it about two hours into a planned six hour drive before giving up and turning around. Partly out of discomfort, but also because I was worried I was going to shake the entire thing to pieces over the course of one journey.

Slavvy posted:

NZ has awesome roads if you have a supermotard or automotive equivalent. Not so good if you have something that handles like it's on rails bro.

eyebeem posted:

Come on, man.

Preoptopus posted:

]

Octopus Magic posted:

http://gtfour.supras.org.nz/superstrut.htm for more information on the "Super Strut" system. Just from seeing the mounting points/ball joint setup you can see why they went to a straight McStrut setup, I can only imagine how many DNFs that double ball joint would cause, kind of like the Audi/Mitsubishi (edit also BMW now!?) double lower arm multi link setup, too complex for its own good.

Mooseykins posted:

Or that Group B was never cancelled.

Friar Zucchini posted:

If those cars made 250 hp in 1981 and 500 in 1986, that's an increase of 50 hp per year, so by the math of 50 horsepower per year, they'd be making 1,950 hp by now. If they just ban spectators from the curves, the only thing they'd have to worry about is gravel kicked up from the tires so fast it kills people, and that's... not a big deal, right?

Tire shrapnel.

eyebeem posted:

I still can't believe they actually sold the CLK-GTR as a road legal car.

It's just bananas.

Human Grand Prix posted:

I would have just used a conventional Double Wishbone at that point, the slight weight penalty and re-engineering might have been worth it.

Mooseykins posted:

That would be good. Even in the 500bhp region those cars were insane. And Delta S4s weighing under 900kg!

Tire shrapnel should come under "goes with the territory" and spectators accept the risk and waive any liability by being there.


That was the rule of the class at the time. There are also road legal Nissan R-390s and Porsche 911 GT1s, among others.

Preoptopus posted:

Isnt the story that they made the bare minimum you had to make to enter the race series but by the time those cars were deemed road legal, the race series was canceled.

Preoptopus posted: