Ti Motorsport

Ulster pre start

Sponsorship Opportunities

Exciting sponsorship opportunities exist for the British round of the the World Rally Championship at the end of November. What better way to entertain your customers or suppliers than to become involved with a high profile event which carries global marketing. You will have the chance to see worlds top drivers taking on the famed Welsh forests

The Citroen C2R2 Cup which has it's own television coverage within the main event is a high profile manufacturer backed championship which culminates on Wales Rally GB.

The Ti Motorsport C2 will be driven by rising Japanese star Kazutomo Kusama. This in itself generates interest & the cars colour scheme  is eye catching. Branding to your requirements can be arranged & the car can be made available for demonstrations & pre & post event displays

While the latest World Rally cars battle it out in Wales the Historic Rally Circus start one of the most famous rallies in the world. The East African Safari Rally attracts drivers from all over the world. The entry list reads like a who's who of rallying,all eager to take on the challenge of some of the greatest stages on earth.

The Ti Motorsport prepared, Sira Racing entry has already competed on such classic events as The London Mexico Rally in 1995, the London Sydney rally in 2000 when it was owned by Charters of Aldershot now one of the largest Peugeot dealers in the south east. In 2003 it competed for the first time in Africa and again in 2005. In 2006 it was used by Peugeot Sport Sweden for the Midnight Sun Rally. This year it will be powered by a V6 engine for the first time. Although not as powerful as the works cars of the mid 70's the car is now in the same configuration used by the factory to win the event outright. 

Looking forward to next year and the latest running of the London Sydney Classic we have a Peugeot 504 Saloon in preparation and are seeking a major sponsor, driver & co-driver for the event.

In 2008 we are seeking  partners for our British Rally Championship C2 entry as well as our Junior World Rally entry. Further details of these will be available shortly

Gordon Nichol who will be driving one of our C2's next year is already making his voice heard on Radio Borders

To become involved in the team you can contact us by phone 01491 671200 or e-mail info@timotorsport.com

Safari Rally Update 2

The build is now well underway and today [Sunday] the engine was dropped into place. We still have stacks to do but are further on than one of the Datsun crews who have only just got their shell to Gogi for painting. You can follow the progress of the build by looking at the Safari Photos feature. I thought parts for the 4 cylinder engine were hard to come by but the V6 is proving even more difficult. In the interest of reliability we have made several changes to the car, the organisers of the event having cut the service time in an attempt to make the drivers conserve their cars. We are hoping to finish the engine installation tomorrow with a view to running the car on Tuesday.

Otterburn

The next round for the 1400's is Otterburn on the 8th / 9th of September. At present it seems very unlikely that Barry Tottie will compete although he has put an entry in. His ongoing illness means that this will be the second round he will have missed this year.

We wish him well and hope that he will be back competing soon.

Rob Russell will be flying the Ti flag again and I might actually manage to get to a round myself.

Ulster Rally Update 1

If you read the event report you will know that apart from a split breather hose the car behaved itself on The Wuggings Stages.

Both Kaz & Stefan had reported that the car seemed a little down on power on the Manx & our session at Power Dynamics [Power Engineering re badged] confirmed their suspicions. We are 7 or 8 % down. Everything checked out but we ran out of advance on the inlet cam while the power was still climbing so we will have to reset the pulley position.

Kaz Stefan travel out next Wednesday to recce while Mike & myself will take the service van & car over on Thursday. More details are available at Ulster Rally

Jersey Rally

Martin & Neil's next round will be the Jersey Rally on the 12th & 13th of October, the round at Longcross having been postponed due to contractual problems.

Our ongoing gearbox problems aren't helped by the news that our second Quaife box still isn't ready. It's only been on order for about 4 months.

Martin & Neil will use a new car for this event, giving our new enduro MG its maiden outing.

Safari Rally Update 1

The 504 is now back with us and the build has started. We are once again using the Proflex suspension that worked so well last time although our rear spring rates will be somewhat higher.

The engine was put on the rolling road at Power Engineering last week and despite having a problem with one of the twin tripple Weber carb barrels put out 171bhp with over 180lb/ft of torque. We will have to try to sort the carb out otherwise a new one costs somewhere in the region of £600 & we will need 2.

We have been let down badly by Laranca who were supposed to be modifying some steering racks so are now stuck with using power steering racks which give a 2.9:1 ratio but without the power assistance. At least we will a bit better than the 4:1 of the standard rack.

The Wuggings Stages

Based at Colerne in Wiltshire the Wugging Stages was the latest round in Martins championship and we were also using it as a shake down event for the C2.

Mixed fortunes on the first stage when the C2 came in early. It was overheating & throwing oil out all over the place. Kaz & stand in co-driver Ric Wood being unable to see as there was so much smoke coming into the car. Martin on the other hand appeared to have a super quick time but there was a little concern over a strange clicking from the front diff. We checked the MG and could find nothing out of order and as the car appeared to be going fine on the stage we sent him out again.

The C2 appeared to be losing its oil from around the oil filter so we checked the sandwich plate & changed the filter. The overheating was just an airlock in the cooling system so they also headed off into the second stage.

The MG didn't turn up at its due time and a phone call from Martin confirmed our worst fears. No drive gearbox failure so early bath for them.

The C2 did turn up still dropping oil but the overheating was cured so we looked again for the cause of our oil leak. The stage time however was excellent just a couple of seconds adrift of the class leader. On looking closer the leak seemed to be coming from above the filter and on closer inspection we found a split in the crankcase breather pipe. Problem solved and off they went again.

Throughout the day Kaz set ultra competitive stage times and had it not been for the first stage would have been fighting for the class win

We checked our gearbox mounting alteration at intervals through the day and that appears to be doing the job. Now perhaps we can get on with a bit of development.

Fat Albert

The latest round in the Wallis Wagons Championship took place at Keevil near Trowbridge in Wiltshire last weekend. Martin Head who currently leads the up to 1400 class was in his usual MG ZR and was co driven by Neil Billingham.

Following the success of the Geartronics system on our troublesome Quaife sequential gearbox we had high hopes of a top finish. With our newly installed paddles replacing the buttons used last time everything was set. As a result of some niggles with the down shifts the gear shift ECU had been altered to accommodate our requirements.

With service after every stage it very quickly became obvious that we had a problem when No's 49 & 50 came in, we were no 47. Sure enough the crew eventually pitched up, stuck in  6th gear. A quick check revealed a broken gear position sensor. It took all of the service time & then a little more to free the shifter but as we are chasing the championship it was imperative to get a finish so with 18 minutes of penalties we started a damage limitation plan.

With a split on every stage we opted to do just one lap on each & take a stage maximum. This would put the least strain on the car whilst getting valuable championship points. It also gave us a chance to learn how to over-ride the normal ECU program for gear shifting & control it manually.

At the end of the day we had a finish with 9 maximum stage times out of 10 but we had those all important championship points.

Next outing is The Wugging Stages at Colerne next weekend

East African Safari Preparation

Suddenly there is a bit of a panic on as the shipping date for transporting the cars to Mombasa for this years event has been pulled forward a month. We are expecting the car back from the paint shop on Monday & then it will be amassive push to get the car built in time.

Our V6 engine is going on the rollers on Tuesday and all being well we are expecting somewhere in the region of 180bhp. We opted for relatively low power, the works cars had about 220bhp in the interest of reliability.

This years Safari Rally will boast the longest stage of any event and the event will be a massive test for cars & crew.