Targa Regs Compliance

[Mk2RS+R32]

Not being an expert in race regs I'd like to get some advice if I may?

Ultimately I'd like to compete in Targa style events in the future. I'm wondering whether fitting a Warrior Twin-Cam head would be permitted?

Cheers

[wayovermyhead]

It's not a straight forward answer here. Basically it depends which rally(s) you participate in, who the organisers are and how they feel from year to year.

There is the targa australia run ones. which includes targa Tas, highcountry etc and then there are Mountain motorsports who do snowy sprint, baw baw sprint etc. These are the only two mobs who do anything of note in AUS. Both have their own regulations that are based on the CAMS regs. The CAMS regs do not permit enough freedom to use the connaught head. However, the organisers can allow whatever they want and as of more recently Targa aus list cylinder heads as "free" in their most modifyable catagory so yes you could. I'm not too sure about mountain motorsports but I don't think you could a few years ago, you would have to check. The catch is that this could change in the future as things change and people complain, as they have in the past. Meaning you have a very expensive engine that can't be used.

If your keen, read the CAMS regs back to front AND all suplementary technical regulations from the event organisers available on their websites. These will answer all questions you could need to ask. Oh and my 2 cents, an NA cosworth head can be built just as good and for less money than the connaught by the time you get it here, dont know if you have spoken to them but expect no change out of about 15K AUD for the head ready to go.

Cheers,
Llewelyn

[Neville Bertwistle]

Further to Llewelyn’s comments, yes Ford did homologate the Holbay 16V head in the 1974 papers but none ever ran in an Escort in a rally back in the day. Moving forward the Warrior head has no relationship to the Holbay, despite all the misconceived info in various internet forums.

What did happen in the UK was some bright spark put a campaign to the RAC to run the Cosworth head as a modern day equivalent to the Holbay and they agreed, which is why you see all those Cosworth headed classic rally cars over there. CAMS on the other hand had a different interpretation and as mentioned they did not allow them. If it’s now up to the promoter you might be lucky but if the regs change then you have an expensive hill climb engine. You might get away with it if you had a genuine Holbay head but as there were only a handful made your chances of finding one are virtually zero.

The Warrior wasn’t a bad bit of kit in its day but with the introduction of the Cosworth head in the mid-eighties this has become the standard for twin cam Pinto engines these days. Far better and cheaper in my opinion.

[PaulMK1]

Under the classic rally car regs CAMS (as of 2014) now allow a NA YB head, see:
http://docs.cams.com.au/Manual/Rally/RR ... 2014-1.pdf

[wayovermyhead]

Homologation paper 5566 is the one, but The Warrior/Holbay head was actually removed from the sheet years ago for reasons unknown to me. So there is no argument there to use one anywhere.

As for the CAMS regs showing the YB head, it has been allowed in classic rallying (dirt) for about 3 years now.... However!! the tarmac rally classic regs are separate, stand alone and clearly state that the head must have the same number of camshafts etc etc. Which rules out the head.

I would imagine it is only this way because someone successfully made a submission to cams from the land of gravel. It would be reasonable to think that given the relationship between the two disciplines and their cars that it may be quite possible to convince cams to allow it in tarmac also.

Anyone wanna try?

Llewellyn

[Mk2RS+R32]

Thanks guys! The reason I was asking that there was a Warrior head motor for sale which I was considering. As was pointed out it's an unknown quantity with expensive parts for the head when compared with a YB.

I also just heard of a bloke here in Perth putting a YB head in his MK2 Escort for this years Targa West. Seems like it's ok in that class now!

Cheers