Always been interested in group B massively for obvious reasons and after viewing a few videos tonight just wondering what those into rally driving (i know theres a few on here) would think would happen if group B cars were to enter a current WRC event?
Have advances in suspension/engines/brakes/ALS accounted for that much (or anything at all?) over the years or are they quite meanial in comparison? I know WRC cars have restricters and so on but realistically and honestly would a group B 205 T16 Evo 2 wipe the floor completely at every level with a current WRC Focus? Guessing obviouslt from common sense it would of course win just wondering to what extent? Is there any rallies that are still very very similar to 20 years ago?

I notice privateers still enter metro 6R4s (which i know were allowed to compete detuned with smaller capacity or single point injection) but how do they get on in current rallies? Do they wipe the floor with everything still or hold there own?

Obviosuly looks/sound/crazyness are now where near each other but nice to dream

Views please

 

i'll be keeping my eye on this thread

will be interesting to know how they compare

 

I'd put my money on current WRC cars. 20 years of development in every aspect (tyres, diffs, gearboxes, shocks, chassis, etc) will easily make up for being 200bhp down.

Wouldn't be supprised if the torque levels were quite similar either.

 

Everywhere where braking and cornering is involved any modern WRC will wipe the floor with GrpA, B whatever you throw at it that is more then 5 years old. Also Grp.B car fitted with modern tyres would have massive brake problems, compared to even modern Grp.N cars they didn't have any brakes at all.


Grp.B stage times were first beaten by late Grp.A cars in Celica S205 time, todays Grp.N cars are faster on those stages then Grp.A ones used to be. You cannot cheat 20 something years of technical progress, and even with restrictors WRC cars still develope incredible torque and quite a lot of horse power, if you add semi-automatih electro-hydraulic sequential gearboxes they are almost as fast in straight line and go much faster out of corners.

 

if you look at what the group a cars were in the day of the group b you will see how much of a gap there was,,remember the audi entered and beat it nearest competitor by 9mins!!

if you want to compare the two(wrc and group b) i would imagine a current wrc car with a 600+bhp engine.....FUCKING AWESOME X10 !!!!
i for one would love to see more power in the wrc,the crowds on the roads in the group b days would never be permitted today anyway and i bet there isnt a driver out their who wouldnt want to drive a wrc car with double the bhp

as for old v's new i think unfortuanately it would be close,wrc handling and modern power delivery and braking v's brute power!!

but hey!! you gotta love brute power

 

Iwouldn't be surprised if they did run quite a lot more torque and absolutely no-lag + beeing constantly in the correct rev-band which is possible to ultra-quick gearchange makes them extremely fast.

Only place where Grp.B could still be fast would be rallies like Argentina with massive straightsbutwho would try to keep one of those on the road nowadays without modern suspention. How would 205 T16 equipped with modern stuff drive is purely academic matter - we won't see one. I'm sure it would be far too fast to be driven by human though.

 

It was old Grp.4 Audi, not Grp.B car. Grp.B wasn't there yet for a year or so. And the reason for such a high win was not powr but all wheel drive which was just then allowed by FISA.

 

to fast for a human!! you know what man is like they will try anything!

bring on the 600+ bhp wrc cars

 

four wheel drive was an integral part of the group b rally car tho,,,and there was little change between the group b car and the group4

if i am wrong

 

I know personally at least 2 people who would certainly try, but it doesn't mean they wouldn't be too fast. You ever been to WRC round? They are quite fast as they are...

 

Group 4 had to have 5000 models produced for homologation, group B was 200 plus an additional 20 if they wanted to produce an Evolution version.

Not all group B cars were 4wd, Lancia Stratos was the 1st group B car and was RWD, as was the Lancia 037, Renault 5, etc

 

http://www.stormloader.com/groupb/comparison.html

intersting...

Saying that in the videos they just look much quicker, WRC on ITV just doesnt seem so awe inspiring or impressive in terms of speed. Butt hen thats on telly which is why id prefer to leave it to people who actaully KNOW

 

Right. Exept for the Stratos which never had any chance of beeing Grp.B car as it was build many years before grp. B.


First car build to new rules was Lancia 037 called Lancia Rallye.

 

you know your stuff,and i stand corrected.

what do you think of a wrc car with that sorta power,,would it get the masses watching again!?

 

i know one driver who ran a wrc escort and used to get peed off
rallying against 6r4 as they had legaly more power and
point and squirt merchants loved them
pat dorans rs200 won the rallycross championship not long ago
beating some impressive stuff along the way

 

Your right, just checked, it was the 1st purpose built 'homologation special', but for group 4 rather than group B like I thought.

This website seem quite comprehensive... http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/Homologation.html

 

People kind of enjoy watching spectacular accidents

 

I always suggest it as first reading to everyone. And the owner has quite a nice Escos

 

"To give you an idea of the kind of performance GroupB cars were capable of I'll mention that in the 1986 season Henri Toivonen made two laps around the Estoril circuit, during a stage of the Portuguese rally, the fastest of which, in 1 minute and 18,1 seconds, would have qualified him in the sixth position of the F1 Grand Prix that same season. Ayrton Senna had the Pole Position in the 1986 Portuguese Grand Prix in 1 minute and 16,7 seconds...Toivonen was using the Lancia Delta S4 and was accompanied by his usual co-driver Sergio Cresto. Keep in mind however that current GroupA and WRC cars are even faster, overall, than GroupB cars used to be. This is mainly due to technology advances in tire formulations and suspension technology leading to GroupA cars being faster around corners but losing on straights as compared to GroupB cars"

cut out from this page http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/Cars_Background2.html

 

They ran a F1 car of the time against Will Gollops 6r4 in Fast car in the 80s, I vaguely remember the F1 car went onto something like 170mph in 17s and the 6R4 kept up with it to around it's own top speed. I should still have the mag in the loft somewhere. I'll have to dig it out one day (if they don't fall through the ceiling first )
Obviously that was fast for those days, but not that special now. In fact quite a few road cars could probably match it.

 

To be fair wasn't Will Gallops twin turbocharged as well?

 

How sad it may be 6R4 was nowhere near as fast as Pugs and Audis.

 

Indeed never really put the results in on the rallies. Reliability problems as well if i remmeber correctly. Read an article about the 6R4's from the guy in charge of the motorsport division at the time who said they were considering turbocharging it but obviously never had the time.

Also read ages ago that audi had a near 1000bhp prototype of the S2 in the pipeline in order to keep up with the Lancia S4 and 205 T16. the test driver apparently commented it went straight on corners no matter what you did on boost.
To think how group B would have evolved

Audi were behind on the times with there chassis design and engine layout too, which proabably didnt help.

 

Audi had driving prototype of centre engined car. Walter Roehl only driven it once and on public road (whole project was kept secret from Audi menagment and they couldn't their norrmal secret testing site in Czech Republic for some reason) but commented it was great on it's first and last outing.

Grp.B was to be replaced with Grp.S with 300bhp limit but FIA panicked after Grp.B accidents and revolution came. First Grp A Lancia had about 260bhp

 

..as said the Grp B cars looks MUCH faster!...I guess thats cause its all so ragged with that much power.

I dont watch rallying now since the Grp B ban.

 

no doubt that the wrc cars of today would win easily.
Remember they are pushing around 800nm over a wide range.
and also all the technical aspects are superior.

But the downside is that you dont get that aggressive and insane sound from the big hp engines, and as the wrc cars today has such advanced differentials and suspension they will only loose time if they where supposed to go as sideways as the grp b cars had to.

if i remember right a friend of mine who is co-driver on a 2004 impreza read 0 to 60 in 2.2 seconds on a tarmac event earlier this year.

 

A couple of years back remember reading that the Group b cars were still 2secs a Kilometer quicker than the modern machines. Today I guess it would be closer so I guess not a lot in it.

 

The Lancia S4 was quoted as hitting a 2.3 second 0-60 on GRAVEL

 

one place to see a couple of old metro 6r4s vs new cars is at the new brighton promenade rally which just passed 2weeks ago.

even with a couple of ex wrc subarus about and the odd 6r4 (not as many as in previous years it was infact a millington diamond engined Darrian T90 which taken this years overall result



a pic of one of 3 6r4s that entered this year


a few scoobies and the 6r4 again

 

yes, grp b will still be quicker from a standing start, but the wrc's are getting there..
with only half the horsepower and ~300kgs more weight

 

ALS + launch control + modern modern differentials + ultra responsive turbos do the job even with the restrictor. Remember then none of Grp.B cars had ALS system as we understand them today. They had some ultra advanced technology (magnesium engine block on the Audi) but they lacked some stuff you can meet on tuned road cars nowadays.

 

so this what u do on ur saturday nights then is it si?
sit thinking if old is better than new.

i got an idea for u.

move ur mum and dad to greece and sell their house. then buy both cars and see what one is really better.

or if u cant do that sell everything u own and pimp emma out to get the money and then buy the cars.

 

Grp B just LOOKS SO much faster on TV

 

Looking fast and going fast are two different things. I can drive to look fast easily, it's harder to drive to go fast

 

...but as said a scooby on tarmac 0-60 in 2.2secs...the Grp B's where close to that on GRAVEL!

Rallying died with Grp B imho.

 

You ever seen any modern rallying on top world level?

 

I know the first 6R4s weren't so good, but when they added the aero package as shown in the picture above, they picked up the pace abit.

 

I know. But N/A engine was simply wrong idea.

 

i think you'll find that a modern WRC machine will do a faster 0-60 time on ANY surface than a group b machine

phil take a trip to wales for the british WRC,,, you will be shocked at the speed these machines can carry down a single pass forest road

 

GARETH T by the way - is it realy that hard to move between the stages in Wales? I was lanning to come over but I read that it's adviced to stay on only one stage during the day and also rally-pass is incredibly expensive compared to other WRC rounds and I'm becoming more and more discouraged.