Yeah, boo.
Eden Mini Rally, 12km into the first stage and we have no compression.
It was running poorly, got hot and (I assume) collapsed the piston rings. It was running ok, but very flat power until an uphill where it began misfiring worse and worse until it stopped.
It died just short of 303,000km, with the last ~9,000km being rally kilometres, so I can’t pretend that I am surprised or disappointed.
While we were waiting on the side of the road, another car fired itself into the bushes. Turns out that it was the Fiesta XR4 being crewed by young (by rally standards) siblings Robert & Sarah.
This photo (taken by The Boy) make it look almost flat, but it was a reasonably steep embankment made of loose dirt, so they were definitely stuck.
We MIGHT have been able to get them out, if not for a bent front control arm that was pushing the LHF wheel into the inner guard.
The Recovery vehicle dragged them out and they were able to limp out to their service crew and fit a replacement arm and rejoin the event.
Meanwhile, the BMW was flat towed back most of the way through the stage, where a mate (Andy P) came to collect us and the dead rally car.
This is the car’s second DNF out of 16(?) rally starts, which is not too bad… especially when you consider that the previous DNF was from me hitting a rock.
Anyway, this has made the decision to fit a 6-cylinder motor much easier!
