Ideal Rules For A Modern Racing Series.

[gtstcruiser67]

I'm with GTRgeoff. that would be very expensive racing and has some controls that are very difficult to police. I'd vote for all panels to be of original material, all glass must remain. No flares or wide bodies. no metal removal except unused brackets. If you want a silhouette series with spaceframe chassis, free suspension, composite widebodies, wings and perspex there is already a category for you - 3D Sport Sedans.

I'm not looking for a sittouette racer. Marque sports is in between IP and SS. It is more friendly to sports cars. IP can be very expensive.

If you allow only metal being a limited production car you will end up with the same problem as HQ's if not worse.With fibreglass panels there can be a limitless supply based on the demand. It should be given more consideration at least

here's the IPRA regs. a couple of years old, but you get the general idea

http://www.ipravic.com.au/other_content/IP...203J%202004.pdf

[gtstcruiser67]

good points, but without some measures to limit power (other than tyre width) nothing apart from awd turbos would be in the running.

The reason I am against a rim or tyre width limit as IPRA currently has, is that the heaviest cars (which need the most power) would be hardest hit, and it hurts their cornering performance too much - which is already their weakness. And also hurts more the longer the races go for, or in warmer climates - and I live in Brisbane...

boost limits are harder to enforce, and encourage expensive engine development to get more power from the same boost level. But I was thinking of free engine internals/porting anyway... So you might be right - it might be a better way than restrictors. The more i think about it, the more I'm starting to come around on that one.

Gald to see you are coming around regarding power limitations. I'm not 100% but I'm lead to believe that the use of restictors actually add the cost of the racing due to the effect on the power band. It seems to work in complete contrast to the orginal gearbox and diff settings. Frustrating. Why spend vast amounts of money to build a weapon then block the hole up!! It really is something to move away from. At least with the bov,fuel control there would one set supplier,tagged, logged, off you go and work within some decent peramiters.

A control computer will also save on development costs. i'm basing this off the nissan which is a program which improves as time goes by. No sitting on dyno's blasting $$ away all day. It's an idea to balance out the tuning houses and everyday ameteur racer have a good day out with a chance of a result.

Tyre control via width is to improve the racing. Sure the GTR,wrx gets away for the first few laps then the GTS/GTT,supra comes back in the last few laps to provide a close finish if they can get past that pesky NSX.

The parity I came up with is a pliable model which can be molded to provide close racing at a reasonable cost.

Are we talking about establishing a new series based around running Skylines and everyone else has to fit in ,or try and fit in with existing series?

I'm for option 1 as we are going to face frustration and unnessessary expense with option 2. This is my opinion and may not be right but my point of view and what I would like to see.

[hrd-hr30]

stuff that - I don't think anyone's talking about a parity class of racing. just some checks/controls to limit outright power and rules that don't unnecesarily disadvantage any group of cars (such as late model turbos).

control ECU for every different car that ends up racing???

[Beer Baron]

control ECU is really unfeasible. so many different configurations, and for some people it would me more than they wanted to spend, for some less.

[Sydneykid]

good points, but without some measures to limit power (other than tyre width) nothing apart from awd turbos would be in the running.

The reason I am against a rim or tyre width limit as IPRA currently has, is that the heaviest cars (which need the most power) would be hardest hit, and it hurts their cornering performance too much - which is already their weakness. And also hurts more the longer the races go for, or in warmer climates - and I live in Brisbane...

boost limits are harder to enforce, and encourage expensive engine development to get more power from the same boost level. But I was thinking of free engine internals/porting anyway... So you might be right - it might be a better way than restrictors. The more i think about it, the more I'm starting to come around on that one.

I don’t think 4wd is much of advantage when the main problem with huge power is turbo lag. Sure the tyres will last longer as the torque is spread over 4 driven wheels, but the throttle response is the real limiter. As many of the guys have found out in sports sedans, I know of 4 cars that were originally built with 1,000 bhp turbo engines and all of them now have N/A 6 litre V8’s.

Tyre/wheel width is tricky, if you allow unlimited width you end up with guard flares wider than the car. Or, even worse, tubs like a drag car. Consequently I reckon there has to be a limit, maybe tie the rim width to the cars weight. So you don’t get go karts with 750 bhp and 20” wide tyres.

That’s one of the problems with IP regs, the max rim size is 8”. So you get 950 kg cars with 8” rims competing against 1600 kg cars with 8” rims. It would be easy to fix, allow 10” wide rims on cars over 1350 kgs (about what you can get an R32GTR down to without driver). Let’s face it, plenty of road cars come with wider than 8” rims standard, so there are Production Cars with wider rims than Improved Production Cars. Dumb huh?

cheers

[hrd-hr30]

I don’t think 4wd is much of advantage when the main problem with huge power is turbo lag. Sure the tyres will last longer as the torque is spread over 4 driven wheels, but the throttle response is the real limiter. As many of the guys have found out in sports sedans, I know of 4 cars that were originally built with 1,000 bhp turbo engines and all of them now have N/A 6 litre V8’s.

Tyre/wheel width is tricky, if you allow unlimited width you end up with guard flares wider than the car. Or, even worse, tubs like a drag car. Consequently I reckon there has to be a limit, maybe tie the rim width to the cars weight. So you don’t get go karts with 750 bhp and 20” wide tyres.

That’s one of the problems with IP regs, the max rim size is 8”. So you get 950 kg cars with 8” rims competing against 1600 kg cars with 8” rims. It would be easy to fix, allow 10” wide rims on cars over 1350 kgs (about what you can get an R32GTR down to without driver). Let’s face it, plenty of road cars come with wider than 8” rims standard, so there are Production Cars with wider rims than Improved Production Cars. Dumb huh?

cheers

yep, that's one of the many dumb things about Improved Production. It was a good set of rules for its day, but that was 20 years ago. It need to be modernised IMHO.

tyre/wheel width - I'd favour limiting cars to whatever fits inside the standard bodywork. No Flares (or widebody kits) allowed. Lipping is OK.

on the power issue, I've seen R32 GTR track cars in Japan claiming 800ps, and they certainly didn't have lag problems even on a tight track like Tsukuba. Allow that much power and the only things that will be capable of winning are the awd vehicles. No rwd is going to be able to get that kind of power to the ground on semi's that fit inside the standard bodywork, let alone for a whole race. I think outright power should be limited to around 600bhp by some means. injector size limits for particular cars, pop-off valve, or restrictors.

[gtstcruiser67]

stuff that - I don't think anyone's talking about a parity class of racing. just some checks/controls to limit outright power and rules that don't unnecesarily disadvantage any group of cars (such as late model turbos).

control ECU for every different car that ends up racing???

stuff that!!??

Bit of passion there mate?

It's all good.

All racing is paritised, with the lesser degree being SS. IP is heavily paritised as you have mentioned primary against AWD turbo's and this is what you want to fix.

They has to be parity, detailed rules and reg's and control if you want to run a series, any series. If want a basic check on power and that's it, stick to a track days or a supersprints but it won't work in circuit racing.

I thought this was about running a new series, if so you can't just do some basic checks and off you go as there is much more to it.It will not work.

I don't mind the IP reg's as they are very similar to Marque sports but Marque sports cater to sports cars not so called family cars, sedans and don't allow engine swaps along with some other variations.

Well I aggree now that the ECU idea will not work if there are varied makes in the field. If there was a one make/model series of say GTR's for group one and GTSt/GTT for group two the control reg's I mentioned in an earlier post it would work and save costs.

[Sydneykid]

yep, that's one of the many dumb things about Improved Production. It was a good set of rules for its day, but that was 20 years ago. It need to be modernised IMHO.

tyre/wheel width - I'd favour limiting cars to whatever fits inside the standard bodywork. No Flares (or widebody kits) allowed. Lipping is OK.

on the power issue, I've seen R32 GTR track cars in Japan claiming 800ps, and they certainly didn't have lag problems even on a tight track like Tsukuba. Allow that much power and the only things that will be capable of winning are the awd vehicles. No rwd is going to be able to get that kind of power to the ground on semi's that fit inside the standard bodywork, let alone for a whole race. I think outright power should be limited to around 600bhp by some means. injector size limits for particular cars, pop-off valve, or restrictors.

Sure there are 800 ps GTR's, but the 600 ps Mines R34GTR street car beats almost all of them. From memory the JUN Hyper Lemon Evo V has the time attack record with a 55.9. It has around 560 bhp, so a 600 bhp power limit is going to advantage the lighter cars like the Evo. The problem is power to weight, not simply power on its own. If all cars weighed the same, stopped the same and handled the same, then a power limit makes sense. I reckon if someone wants to run a 1,000 bhp GTR let them do it, it won't win anyway. But it would be fun watching them try.

cheers

[tacker]

Have to say very appropriate as what you all are talking about is going to happen here in Dubai.

The regs are not finished yet but from what i know is that the biggest issue is going to be safety, no discussion entered into on this topic FIA all the way.

And after that they are going to run one race with several sub classes, something like up to 1.6 litre, 2 litre, 3 litre and then an open class, and ratio of 1.4 for turbo cars so a 1.6 will have to run with the 3 litre class. Weight will be looked at in this case as much for safety as for performance.

The open class will be for turbo and AWD cars and you can do what you like to engines but the must run standard blocks, stroke/bore, gearbox while heads, cams, turbo (s) and brakes are free. AWD cars will have a weight penalty and there will be a weight assigned to every type of car as well as a control tyre and width for each class, standard plus 2 or 3 inches (yet to be decided)

The shape of the car will have to remain as standard and replacement panels are allowed but will still have to make the minimum weight after each race similar to karting, so not much point in carbon everything.

A rear wing will be permitted but will have to be limited to 1200mm length and 150mm wide and a single areofoil only unless standard from factory. No front splitters allowed and no undertrays. Ducting is allowed for cooling purposes only like brakes and oil coolers.

ECU are free for all except the open class as its near impossile to check... just ask the FIA LOL but no ecu's with traction control will be allowed in the open class. ABS will be allowed as there is no sand or gravel traps on the circuit ( big smile ) as its an F1 rated track and has huge run off areas. ( check it out its called the Autodrome )

http://www.dubaiautodrome.com/autodrome/default.htm

Feel free to pick it apart but the general idea is to just get it started and tighten up the regs when we see how much performance difference we get betwen the cars.

I do think that the tyres will limit the cars performance, it has too. Only 1 set of tyres per day so you need to look after them and they will be provided by a sponsor. So hopefully cheap BE 55 i am told

Edited June 30, 2006 by tacker

[EfiOz]

I was talking to a front running IPRA guy not long ago who said they were looking at fixing the regs so that late model cars aren't so disadvantaged. th eproblem they have is that no one will build a post 86 car as you get slugged with weight straight away. This is leading to a grid packed with old RX7's that are running on budgets of up to 100K per season!

Capacity classes under 2L, under 3L, open or soemthing like that with inlet restrictor against minimum weight. Easy enough to police and keeps everything fair.

Oh, and a control semi slick tyre.

[tacker]

At long last we have got our race series together has been a hard slog but we are there now with the new format being ran this weekend.

Have upload the rules for your comments i guess and thoughts

DAMC_Open_Saloon_Championshp_Regs__Published_Issue_1.pdf

[Hardman69]

Many good points from all sides, it's a hard line to tread, getting close racing between models, without getting crazy with the rulebook (late 80's->90'sGroup A anyone?).

My 2c is that you can't make hard & fast generalised rules on bodywork, tyres, brakes & such things - otherwise you'll get 1 particular model dominating, 'coz it fits the rules best (e.g. RX7 in I.P, R32 in GrpA). Weight, tyre width, engine capacity & aero are where rules can realistically get laid down, the trick being to circumnavigate the politics of hobbling 1 car which is winning 'coz of clever engineering & big CA$H.

Glad I'm not a rulemaker!

[NickR33]

what about weight penalties instead of restrictors... easier to enforce? (based on power to weight or even race performance a la JGTC)

tire width is then limited by standard body work so no point running over 600hp anyway because you will be struggling to get it to the road efficiently without destroying tires... going for heaps of power is pointless because you're just going to cop weight penalties and end up running heavy, going through brakes and tires too quickly?

[Beer Baron]

JGTC (well Super GT) have inlet restrictors as well as minimum weights. they don't add weight based on power though, they have a success balast system to add weight based on results (or remove weight based on lack of!). they have a matrix for minimum weights. this is based on type of engine, engine position, driveline.

[Beer Baron]

At long last we have got our race series together has been a hard slog but we are there now with the new format being ran this weekend.

Have upload the rules for your comments i guess and thoughts

looks good. best of luck

[lofty]

looks good

i run in IPRA with restrictors and it sucks

lofty

[tacker]

yer lets see how it turns out