Your favourite 'cheats' in motorsport

Your favourite 'cheats' in motorsport

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Discussion

sniff petrol

13,105 posts

211 months

Sunday 29th June 2008
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DrTre said:
Not strictly cheating as it was legal but I always found it weird that in the early 90's the BTCC Mondeo engine was based on a Mazda 2.5 litre V6 from the US Ford Probe ..an option that was not purchasable in the UK.

It was then stroked down to 2 litres...an option not available in the US (IIRC and stand to be corrected)

(I daresay Ford weren't the only abusers of this loophole)
It was a 2.0l Mazda V6 that was available in certain markets, and being part of the Ford group was good enough to pass the regulations.

The most illegal thing about the car IMO was disconnecting the front drive shafts from the Mondeo 4x4 to make it a RWD 2.0l V6 Mondeo - very unlike anything you could buy in any country.

sniff petrol

13,105 posts

211 months

Sunday 29th June 2008
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AMD87 said:
Didnt MG do that with the ZS's?
You could actually buy a 2.0l V6 Rover 45 and MG ZS in the UK, must have been how they got away with it, don't think many were sold though.

Red Firecracker

5,276 posts

226 months

Sunday 29th June 2008
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sniff petrol said:
How did the FIA become aware of it then?
To be honest, I haven't a clue how the FIA actually discovered the infringement, but a quick Google shows this from a WRC forum;

WRC Forum said:
I always thought it was at the superspecial in Australia when Auriol pulled away from someone else at the stage start. Probably a combination though

and the reply

Yes that was what I was told from someone at the Australian Team. The cheat was discovered by studying the turbo under a microscope and a 'hair' could be seen where it shouldn't have been.....
(That thread then descended into a slanging match for some reason)

So looks like suspicions were raised byt he performance levels initially.

niva441

2,003 posts

230 months

Sunday 29th June 2008
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sniff petrol said:
The most illegal thing about the car IMO was disconnecting the front drive shafts from the Mondeo 4x4 to make it a RWD 2.0l V6 Mondeo - very unlike anything you could buy in any country.
I don't think they actually raced in this configuration, only tested. The power losses in the transmission nullified any advantage of RWD.

MrKipling43

Original Poster:

5,788 posts

215 months

Sunday 29th June 2008
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sniff petrol said:
Red Firecracker said:
Mannginger said:
Can't say I understand what's going on with that Turbo picture though headache
Here ya go, here's a page explaining the ins and outs;

Toyota TTE's Illegal Turbo

It really was a work of art.
How did the FIA become aware of it then?
IIRC it was greed that got them busted. Instead of going for a 10 or 20bhp increase, they went for 50 - 70bhp (or whatever) and, on a stage with some long, fast sections they were an inexplicable amount faster than the rest of the cars. This lead to a far more thorough investigation and, ultimately, them being banned from the sport.

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 30th June 2008
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They were a mile off the pace that season with the new GT4, then Kankunen put in a stunner of a rally on tarmac, blitzing everyone before crashing out, Kankunen wasn't any good on tarmac normally. Nicky Grist (his then co-driver) talked about the pace saying he couldn't believe how quickly they were going and how improved the car was. Cue the scrutineers stripping the engine. The rest is history.

CanAm

9,092 posts

271 months

Monday 30th June 2008
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I can't claim to be mechanically minded but I seem to recall that Toyota "cracked" the housing apart and then machined over the outside so that the join was virtually invisible, hence the comment about microscopic investigation apparently showing a 'hair'.
Unilke Ferrari with their bargeboards and McLaren with their overly wide car, there was no way that they could claim this was just a manufacturing error. I can't believe they got away with just a 12-month ban to be honest.

CNHSS1

942 posts

216 months

Monday 30th June 2008
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niva441 said:
sniff petrol said:
The most illegal thing about the car IMO was disconnecting the front drive shafts from the Mondeo 4x4 to make it a RWD 2.0l V6 Mondeo - very unlike anything you could buy in any country.
I don't think they actually raced in this configuration, only tested. The power losses in the transmission nullified any advantage of RWD.
at the time the regs were you could have a 2wd or 4wd variant of the car if one was sold globally, but it wasnt specified whether it had to be fwd or rwd, so not actually a 'proper' cheat.
an ex customer of mine had a fair bit to do with some of Andy Rouses mechanics at the time and they reckoned that try as they might, they couldnt get the rwd to handle as well as the fwd version anyway, and as has been mentioned, the additional trans losses killed it before it ran

Hubcao

1 posts

188 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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I reply to the allegation that our Dodge was not legal at the Richmond race in 1998 please read the NHRA account of what really happened. We were the only Dodge on the tour that was qualifying that season, we were the first Dodge to run over 200mph and the only Dodge without factory backing, that is why Mopar was so embarrased at this race and all of the other races that season. The NHRA as well as a few other teams consulted with us before qualifying in order to know how to easily determine if the engine block was legal. Thanks, D.E.

Rat_Fink_67

2,309 posts

205 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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Hubcao said:
I reply to the allegation that our Dodge was not legal at the Richmond race in 1998 please read the NHRA account of what really happened. We were the only Dodge on the tour that was qualifying that season, we were the first Dodge to run over 200mph and the only Dodge without factory backing, that is why Mopar was so embarrased at this race and all of the other races that season. The NHRA as well as a few other teams consulted with us before qualifying in order to know how to easily determine if the engine block was legal. Thanks, D.E.
Thanks for taking the time out to reply Dale, so it was another case of NHRA/Mopar skullduggery then?!

williamp

19,205 posts

272 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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Thanks Dale. Going back to the thread title, I'm sure you have a few good stories you could tell about clever cheats. No names, etc etc.....

skwdenyer

16,101 posts

239 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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An old friend used to work as a part of the pit crew at Le Mans in the TWR years. He claimed that his job at the first pit stop was to remove the unnecessarily superfluous fire extinguishers, and that at the last pit stop was to replace them.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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no chance.

skwdenyer

16,101 posts

239 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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johnfelstead said:
no chance.
Of...?

Ahonen

5,015 posts

278 months

Tuesday 1st July 2008
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skwdenyer said:
An old friend used to work as a part of the pit crew at Le Mans in the TWR years. He claimed that his job at the first pit stop was to remove the unnecessarily superfluous fire extinguishers, and that at the last pit stop was to replace them.
I'd be a teensy bit skeptical about this. Pit stops at LM in the '80s were slightly chaotic, but not chaotic enough that one could simply remove a few, presumably rather heavy, fire extinguishers without attracting the attention of the press or pit lane marshals.

skwdenyer

16,101 posts

239 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2008
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Ahonen said:
skwdenyer said:
An old friend used to work as a part of the pit crew at Le Mans in the TWR years. He claimed that his job at the first pit stop was to remove the unnecessarily superfluous fire extinguishers, and that at the last pit stop was to replace them.
I'd be a teensy bit skeptical about this. Pit stops at LM in the '80s were slightly chaotic, but not chaotic enough that one could simply remove a few, presumably rather heavy, fire extinguishers without attracting the attention of the press or pit lane marshals.
Yes, hence my emphasis of "claimed". But given the team involved, not entirely beyond the realms...

GravelBen

15,641 posts

229 months

Thursday 3rd July 2008
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sniff petrol said:
DrTre said:
Not strictly cheating as it was legal but I always found it weird that in the early 90's the BTCC Mondeo engine was based on a Mazda 2.5 litre V6 from the US Ford Probe ..an option that was not purchasable in the UK.

It was then stroked down to 2 litres...an option not available in the US (IIRC and stand to be corrected)

(I daresay Ford weren't the only abusers of this loophole)
It was a 2.0l Mazda V6 that was available in certain markets, and being part of the Ford group was good enough to pass the regulations.
There was a 2.0V6 (KF) available in some cars/markets, but as far as I'm aware the BTCC cars were using a stroked-down version of the KL-ZE 2.5 as it was a much better motor. The Probe(Mazda MX6 under the skin) and other Ford products including the Telstar(aka Mazda 626) used the lower-spec KL-DE version of the 2.5.

rubystone

11,252 posts

258 months

Thursday 3rd July 2008
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Ahonen said:
skwdenyer said:
An old friend used to work as a part of the pit crew at Le Mans in the TWR years. He claimed that his job at the first pit stop was to remove the unnecessarily superfluous fire extinguishers, and that at the last pit stop was to replace them.
I'd be a teensy bit skeptical about this. Pit stops at LM in the '80s were slightly chaotic, but not chaotic enough that one could simply remove a few, presumably rather heavy, fire extinguishers without attracting the attention of the press or pit lane marshals.
Even in '88 when security was so lax that I spent the whole night in the pit lane, with no credentials, there were observers; not one per garage though, as there were in the '90s - so I guess timed right, one could get away with it...

Ahonen

5,015 posts

278 months

Thursday 3rd July 2008
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skwdenyer said:
Yes, hence my emphasis of "claimed". But given the team involved, not entirely beyond the realms...
hehe Oh yes, I agree.

Silent1

19,761 posts

234 months

Friday 11th July 2008
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Has there been any other 'creative' rule interpretations in motorsport?