London to cape town rally

[0630154]

For anyone that's interested , father and son team mike ben Dawson leave parliament square London in a mk2 prepared escort for the 13k journey to cape town sa , for daily updates log on to .

Londontocapetownrally.com

[Tim]

the cars are in Greece at the moment,you can track cars live on the website

[duratec_it]

I navigated for Mike on one of his shake down events at Woodbridge doing a Gymkana, car went well fingers crossed they get to the finish!!

[driverace]

Best wishes to Peter Scott,now of Headingley,near Leeds,who is navigating for a guy with a Merc.Older members will remember Peter from his days with Billy Coleman,and Dessie and Ronnie Mc Cartney

[Tim]

[RS_Fiesta]

Finished 29th well done chaps!had problems and had to drive 50 odd hours non stop to catch earlier in the rally!
Also congrats to Endurance championship regulars Owen Turner/matt fowle for 5th overall in the MG ZR awesome result and leading for quite a few days!
Jane Edgington in the Maestro 8th aswell,brilliant finishing on the same Tyres it started with and only having one bulb fail lol,awesome car preparation!

[neb]

I had been meaning to say thanks for the support, but work has been mental since we got back!!!

We had an epic adventure, far to much to go into in one sitting, but suffice to say we were doing the length of stage rally every day, at about 80% the same pace without helmets & in 40degs of sun.

It was great.

Car is now back in Kent looking a bit sorry for itself, requiring a bit of TLC still covered in shite as we have some shows we are going to attend.

Still not seen the Gartrac strut that was sent to Sudan then to Nairobi which it remains now (not Gartrac's fault- we can't thank them enough). The Sudanese "engineers" did a cracking job of getting us moving again. Had a look at the repair they made and it was lucky we were able to find another pair of struts in Kenya to replace it as it had started to bend down the Marsabit road on the newly machined stub axle.

We started to make our way up the leader board a bit toward the end of the event, the "tests" really suited the car & my driving style, being tighter & twister as we got down south (picture posted above - on that test we overtook 6 other competitors).

As always - we got back an had a look at the times and we may of finished 2nd in class, and well in the top ten, but as always it's an IF, and we wouldn't have so much to tell the kids about!!!!

Must say a huge thanks to Connaught CE (engine didn't miss a beat), BGH Geartech for the 'HD box, Hi Spec Brakes, Gartrac, MK2 Mania for the PAS (would have been a nightmare without it) & H&H Ignitions for all their help along the way. Also Classic Ford & Retro Ford for the excellent articles recently.

We hope to get out for the Brands Hatch Stages in the summer, but will be attending the All Fords Show at Aylesford next month if anyone wants to say hello. I'll try and get the website updated soon.....

Thanks again - Ben Dawson - Car 7

[RS_Fiesta]

Nice one Ben.
Was talking to you on the X Part rally with my dad,nice to hear the tales of the rally sounded an awesome event.
You out marshalling next week on the Bustard?
My mate has your old black rallye for sale!up at Larton Engine Developments

Matt Flynn navigator-(black 106 rallye)

[neb]

Hello Matt, i didn't realise it was you. Sorry mate.

I'm not going down to the Bustard, i can't afford it, the Britvic cost me enough at the bar!!!!

Good to see the old Pug still going, it's a 1600 now isn't it? If you have a link to the for sale page, I'd be interested to see how much it's up for.

All the best for the Bustard, never been a great event for me, Glastonbury in the dark was not my favourite when it was dry and rock solid or when it was wet & boggy, one season we ended up stuck in the field where they empty the toilets after the festival - it wasn't pleasant.....

[harry]

Andy larton wants £2500 for it, ive had a look myself, but need to sell my 205 rallye first, it is advertised on here if you anyone that might be intrested, whats the history of the 106 is it a good buy.

[RS_Fiesta]

They are good cars mate,have to rev the nuts off them to get them going but that's part of the fun.

[neb]

I can't obviously comment on it's condition now but had a lot of money spent on it when it was built by us. I take it it's L78! TVV?

The spec of it in our ownership is on our website www.dawsonmotorsport.co.uk

We built it from a decent road car in 2006, it had 2 engines & 2 Rallye 'boxes & 3 rebuilds, 4 long drive shafts (got to the bottom of that one in the end...) and a new front end following a road test "incident" with a Land Rover, the damage was a new bonnet & bumper & 2 spots - so not that bad - chassis was fine.

The last engine we had built was by a mate called Ian Mepham and it was a flyer (within enduro regs) coming on cam early all the way to the redline. Toward the end of our ownership we ran it on 13" wheels and it really went well (no drop off the cam when changing up).

It had Pug Sport Group A mounts, coil overs, PS gravel billy's etc etc. We had done some strengthening under the bonnet (top mount pick-ups & bottom arm pick-ups).

You drive Rallye's sideways, revving the T!t's off them. Not so great in the forests due to the torsion bar rear end but superb on tarmac. Great fun.

It didn't like Wales - never finished there.... on the other hand i loved Wales!!!

[RS_Fiesta]

Did you have a different ecu on it?
Just wondering because these rover/MG's are about 15bhp more with an Emerald ecu!

[neb]

ECU was standard when we had it but the Magnetti Marreli P8 is mappable with the right kit/correct people. Chipwizards are known for playing with them. Knock the centre of the CAT out on yours, that'll give you a couple of brake and no one will know...!!!

Our Rover ran a Superchips piggy back, which was £150 with a Rover centre map, or the Emerald system is approx £500 + mapping session. Emerald is the way to go, because the car is much more driveable.
BHP is increased but as we all know torque is what wins prizes (& reliability....!).

How did you get on with the Bustard?

[RS_Fiesta]

Throttle cable snapped on Keivel airfeild so by the time we fixed it had to cut and get back on time.Did a few more selectives which all went well then the fuel pump packed in so wouldn't start.So that's two DNF's now,the White rallye finished loads,don't seem to be having much luck with the black one.

Need to sort some softer springs out for the Ross endurance aswell.