Preparing a car for the Targa
What kind of car can compete in the Targa Newfoundland rally? Well, what kind of car do you have? Chances are if it has four wheels, we’ve seen its like in the first 13 years of this unique-to-the-northern-andwestern-hemispheres event.
There’s been everything from a 1938 Alfa Romeo Mille Miglia Spyder to a Citroen Traction Avant (the French gangster car), to a MercedesBenz S-class Sedan, to the other end of the Mercedes-Benz model spectrum, a tiny little Smart car, to the more usual suspects like Porsche 911, Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, Mini, Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi EVO. Even a 1971 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck entered one year. Yes, you name it.
How do you prepare a car for this gruelling five-day, 1,600-plus km event? If you are running in the so-called “unequipped” category in the Grand Touring (Time Speed Distance) division, you pretty much just have to pump up the tires and do the requisite calculations for average speed, etc., on your phone.
By contrast, the “equipped” category of Grand Touring by definition means installation of a rally trip computer which keeps track of your distances times and speeds to a fraction of a klick/second.
Couple hundred bucks, couple hours labour for installation.
That — OK, plus pumping up the tires — and you’re good to go.
Now, if you plan to run in the Targa division, the high-speed category, it is a somewhat larger kettle of fish. How much should you budget? It’s sort of like the new two-part income tax form: 1. How much money do you have?, and 2. Spend it.
Minimally, you have three sets of criteria to satisfy. The first two — make it legal, and make it safe — are mandatory. The third — make it competitive — well, that’s where it gets interesting.
I have known people who spent less than $20,000 to prepare a safe and legal Targa car. Competitive? Hardly. And that low cost level can be achieved only by doing a huge amount of the work yourself and enlisting friends and family as crew.
I have also known people who have put six figures into a Targa run, with none of those figures to the right of the decimal point. In all cases, it was well worth it. I wouldn’t tell you what the budget is for the 2014 Nissan Juke NISMO RS Turbo that Nissan Canada entered for me last year and will again this year, even if I knew. But through the words of Frank and Dan Sprongl of Four Star Motorsports in Georgetown, Ont., who have built and/or prepared all but one of my 13-andcounting Targa rides, I can at least outline what went on.
Said Frank, “We take all the stuff out, and put all the stuff back in.”
OK, he didn’t exactly say “stuff,” but you catch my drift.
And that jocular little summary greatly simplifies the detail that is involved. By far the biggest component, both in cost and in time, is the roll cage. And this is not an area where you want to scrimp.
When I first met my co-driver, Brian Bourbonniere, — my original co-driver in Year Three had fallen ill, so the Nova Scotia champion navigator jumped in to help — he looked at the car and said, “Oh, it’s a Sprongl cage. At least I’m unlikely to die!”
Frank and Dan were longtime and very successful competitors on the Canadian national rally scene, and have built a lot of strong and successful cars. That gave Brian the confidence to climb in. We’ve been together ever since.
The first step in building the cage is “taking all the stuff out.” The doors, tailgate and windshield are removed and the interior stripped.
Says Frank, “Every modern car has pretty similar crash structure. Through years of experience building these things — and seeing how they perform when something goes wrong on a rally — we have a pretty good idea of where to put the reinforcements. We use 4130 chromemoly steel and have our own tube bender. We measure every piece, and cut and weld them into place.
“It’s all about triangulation, putting the strength where it’s needed.”
The Juke is, in Dan’s words, “quite square” in cross section, so it was a relatively easy project to gut and refit everything.
The Juke is also quite tall, but quite narrow. Fortunately, Dan sourced some Sparco racing seats that were narrower than usual; neither Brian nor I am particularly broad of beam, so we fit nicely in them.
These seats have big side panels on the upper back rests to protect the head against side impacts and rollovers — been there, done that. Fivepoint harnesses complete the major safety pieces. The TerraTrip rally computer is installed, then most of the interior is replaced — although the rear seat was removed and some trim bits sacrificed to fit the cage.
Dan also noted that the finished car looks remarkably stock, apart from the cage and seats.
We even kept the air conditioning, satellite radio and backup camera, the latter particularly useful when trying to back the car up while parking in the crowded hockey arenas that are our overnight stopping points. Sure, several hundred kilograms of weight could have come out of the car, but some of those transit stages are long and hot.
Last year’s car was extremely reliable. After a week of pounding on what Newfoundland sometimes generously calls “pavement,” there wasn’t a squeak or rattle in the car.
But you can never be too thin, too rich, have too much horsepower or too good a suspension. So for 2015, Dan built some adjustable suspension units, beefed up the brakes and rejigged the intake and exhaust systems to give a few more ponies. Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires are our rubber of choice.
A test day at Toronto Motorsports Park a couple of weeks ago showed that the car is indeed quicker, the brakes are epic, and it is much easier to drive hard. Compared to a Targabound Mitsubishi EVO IX which was also testing that day, we were giving away about 100 horsepower and two driven wheels yet our lap times were only 2.5 seconds slower than the EVO.
So, not bad. Even with better go, better stop and better cornering, we aren’t promising to add to the three Open Division championships we’ve racked up over the years. But we think we’ll give a decent account of ourselves.
Targa Newfoundland XIV starts Monday. Please follow us on my Twitter feed @Jim_Kenzie, on Nissan Canada’s Facebook page (facebook.com/nissancanada), or on the Micra Cup Facebook page (facebook.com/CoupeMicraCup). Freelance writer Jim Kenzie is Toronto Star Wheels’ chief auto reviewer. To reach him, write to wheels@thestar.ca and put his name in the subject line.