What makes a rally car different

Used donor cars will offer a lower cost entry point, especially as the car will be a "development platform" for both the builder and driver.

Racing parts will add to the cost of the base vehicle significantly. Suspension on a rally car is very important, and this is an area where race-proven parts are definitely worth the money.

Beyond this, if you have adequate knowledge, it is possible to select areas of modification that provide maximum value and keep costs to a minimum. The effort depends on the number of areas that are modified, which is a good reason to start in entry-level club rallying or in Autocrossing. If your modifications are performed a little at a time, the effort will also be manageable and your experience will grow along side your knowledge.

Rally racing, by nature of its more punishing racing environment, can consume a larger budget through racing tires, engine rebuilds, and damage repairs. If using Autocross or club rallies as your "school", the costs can be kept much lower initially and the feel of the car can be determined without body damaging obstacles to hit.

Ultimately, however, the rally course with its dependence on co-driver, and its on-road and off-road dangers must be run to gain rallying experience. Trailering for non-street legal or race-only machines. Drive to the rally if street-legality is maintained.

Page: 1 2. Rally Contents 1 Design and Construction 1. Design and Construction. Build Your Own Rally Car Knowledge Level There are two approaches to building a rally car: You acquire a rally car kit for your chosen donor car and assemble the car, or you design your own car from your base production model and purchase individual components.

Design Challenges Suspension: Within the regulations of the sanctioning body class you wish to run in, you will want to design your car with the following goals: Protect the driver and co-driver Maximize durability. Aspects such as suspension mounts, suspension components, skid plates, etc. Unlike the smooth, even surface of a race track, a rally stage consists of dips, large rocks, and of course, jumps.

That means rally cars need a whole bunch of upgrades to ensure nothing breaks on the move. The nice folks at Team O'Neil rally school put together a detailed video explaining all the upgrades and adjustments made to one of their stage cars to make sure it performs as intended on a closed gravel road at high speed.

Of course, like any competition car, a rally cars features a roll cage, upgraded suspension, and better brakes. But where it starts to branch off is in the parts needed to survive all the high-speed rough-road pounding. Read this page to learn some of the major technological differences between rally cars and stock cars.

This is an obvious difference, but it's one that plays an important role for both types of cars. Both rally cars and NASCAR cars are technically just modified versions of your average stock vehicle, but they are both designed on the outside to deal with different surfaces.

The outside of stock cars in NASCAR are designed to deal with the concrete of a large oval track , while rally cars are designed to handle all sorts of weather conditions, from dirt to mud to rain and more.

Rally car shells have the same steel shell as road cars, but their shells are designed to be more aerodynamic, with carbon fiber wings to deal with the downforce of having to make long jumps and a splitter right under the bumper that splits the air travelling at the car. Rally cars also have mud flaps attached to their door meant to prevent the loose gravel from the dirt roads they are constantly driving on from flying up into the car. It also keeps spectators from taking in too much dirt.

Stock cars resemble your average sedan but have been heavily modified to make them lighter and achieve high speeds. Unlike rally cars, the shell of NASCAR stock cars, along with other design decisions, make it so they aren't street legal. Rally cars have roll cages for additional safety, so the drivers are not hurt if there is a crash.

Seat and seat belts. Rally cars are fitted with FIA-approved bucket seats. Five-point harness seatbelts are used to keep drivers perfectly stationary even when the car bounces around. Meet Deepti and Shivani Pruthvi, the mother-daughter rally racing duo Just what spurs a mother-daughter duo to compete …. Suspension and suspension canister. Dean explains the suspension on his car. Rally cars are not fitted with suspension meant for long distances, which on-road cars usually have.

Suspension in rally cars are meant to help drivers take corners, hit bumps and go through ruts at extremely high speeds. Dean uses the Reigers suspension which can be adjusted to setup the height clearance of the car, the stiffness of the suspension, how much the car would lean on turns, and much more. A suspension canister with knobs is used to adjust the softness of the suspension via compression.

Rally tyres have side walls which are over one inch thick. Most INRC cars use tyres made with a special compound, especially for rallies — they cannot be used for on-road cars. Dean uses tyres manufactured by JK Tyres for rallying.