Cones on Rally Cars

[DaveFord]

What cones are you Rally guys running on your mini's for Rallying ?
I will be running 70% tarmac and 30% gravel.
Was thinking of running mini spares red spot cones up front and stock cones at rear.
What you you guys recommend.
Thanks Dave

[Spider]

I think this could be a difficult one to answer, it would depend on a number of factor, not the least of which would be your particular driving style and how you want / expect the car to handle. Other things to take in to account would be the finished weight of the car, and the particular tracks you would be using it on. Damper Rates would obviously need to be matched to that package.

I did do some tests recently on the very nicely made Red Spot Rubber Cones and I found that as a very rough guide, the rate is nearly double that of a stock one. If I get a bit of time over the weekend, I'll prepare and post up a graph to show them side by side.

From my own limited experience, I have run stock rubber cones for rally work, but with decent dampers and up-rated damper mounts. I found Hydro to be excellent, but I wouldn't be inclined to go that route these days as all the bags are just way too old.

[In the shed]

I run a set of NOS pre-1964 cones which have a higher resistance.

It sat bloody high to start with.

[Spider]

Here's the graph



I didn't take the Red Spot Cone to full compression as the rates were getting pretty extreme!

These tests were taken using a stock front trumpet, as these have a bearing on the shape of the curve and rate.

[DaveFord]

Spider, Thanks for the info, Car is just a roller without engine & gear box and it weighs in at 880 LBS on my race scales in rally trim, so i'm thinking 1350-1400 race ready (wet) I hope. On our rally cars (in the US) we always run lighter springs on gravel then tarmac. I don't have any experience with cones at all as my back ground was building and racing NASCAR late models/Tour cars, And sprint cars that run torsion bars on dirt and coil overs on asphalt. Your graph is a big help. I have a friend that works for Roehrig Engineering (www.roehrigengineering.com). They build chassis, shock/spring testing equipment for F1/NASCAR/race teams so i'm going to send him a couple of cones to test just to see what he comes up with and give me some numbers in LBS. When i find out what he comes up with i will let you know if you are intersted. They do have an English engineer that works in South Carolina that was into minis so that's a good thing as these guys don't even know what a cone looks like right now. LOL
Thanks once again for your help.