Hyundai Excel Build Update #12

The Suspension is starting to see some visual progress.

Hyundai Excel Build Update #11

Co-drivers seat is in and the brackets were made so that the seat could be swapped over easily into another car, pretty much 4 bolts holding the seat in and it comes out. Also the roof vent was put in.

Hyundai Excel Build #10

Thanks to Stu for the help with painting the cage. I got the paint matched up with the colour of the outside of the car, so it is a Nobel white colour. I purchased the paint from Spectrum Car Paints.

Huon Howler Rallysprint

On December the 2nd 2007 I navigated for Scott Newman in the Huon Howler Rallysprint. We competed in a Dihatsu Charade. It was Scott's first time on a gravel rally and first time driving a FWD competitively. We finished 2nd from 8 competitors at the end of the day.

Hyundai Excel Build Update 9

The dash has been cut and temporally bolted in so I could drive the car back to Hobart for pre-log book inspection and to be painted. The wiring needs to be sorted underneath the dash so it causes no problems during events. The car also received a full engine service with all belts, fluids and filters being changed. Next on the list is to finish the suspension

below: the dash temporally fitted

above: vehicle service and inspection

Khanacross 24th November

below: Finished and packed up for the day.

below: in action


Today was the final round of the southern Tasmania khanacross series. I placed 7th out of 35 competitiors. The weather was very good (hot) and it managed to get a bit dusty towards the end of the day. My Father and Brother also came out for a run in the toyota, Aaaron (22nd) and Alan (21st). The car will get some modification over summer to keep up with the fast field of cars that arrive each event, bring on next year!!!

Excel Build Update 8

I have removed everything off the damper body and now it is nice and clean, ready to be adapted to the Excel suspension system. The damper body has a nice wall thickness, so it will be nice and strong. I can't wait to try these out.
They will need to be re valved shortly.

Hyundai Excel Build Update 7

Another week, some more progress. Although school has restricted the amount of time I can spend on the car, but I will have holidays after exam period which I'm looking forward to.


The past 2 weeks I have researched and thought about suspension. There isn't much options in the suspension department for The Excel rally cars, so we (Peter Eastly and myself) have decided to create our own suspension design, mainly due to cost restrictions. What I have in the pictures is the Damper housing and Dampers to suit a Holden Commodore which we will be converting to suit our Excel. Our main goal is to make the suspension strong, reliable and lots of travel. These dampers are slightly longer than the standard excel dampers, which should give us more travel. I will keep this blog updated as I go through with the suspension conversion.

Thanks to Imparts Hobart for supplying the dampers, can be contacted: (03)6231 9000

Build Update 6 cont

I have finished the cage it is all welded in (note, the pictures below are not the finished cage). the dash was cut and trial fitted and it will be wired up next weekend. I need to get the cage log booked by cams so that will be happening as soon as the dash is in.

Shanons Car Expo

Hi, last weekend I took part in the Shanons Car Expo, which is the largest car show in Tasmania. I entered my VW Golf with the OzEdition VW club. There was a total of 600 vehicles at the expo. The weather was good and there was a lot of interesting cars that you don't get to see often. This event is great for exposure and next year I will definitely be entering my Hyundai Excel rally car.

Hyundai Excel build update 6

Progress is showing with the cage all welded in and only the rear legs to be cut and welded in, and the side intrusion bars. After that the cage is finished and it is ready for paint. My next job is to cut the dash a little bit to allow for the cage tubing to go through. Then the dash can go back in and the car is ready for seat mounts to be fabricated. The cage has taken me and my cage builder together about 40 hours up to date, which is pretty efficient. We have been very lucky because everything has gone to plan and there has been no mistakes in measurements.

Khanacross 29th September

Had great fun, I got 9th out of 29 competitors. I competed in my AE82 Corolla with the twin cam engine, really great car with plenty power for the khanacross track.

I knew the result at the end of the day wasn't going to be fantastic because I hit 3 cones during the day which accumulated to a 15 second penalty and I had problems with the handbrake only locking one wheel. So I knew it wasn't going to be the best result but when I found out that I got beaten by a Volvo. yea.... I wont say anything

cant wait till the next khanacross


below: The lightweight spec Corolla

Hyundai Excel Update #5

The Cage has started to show some progress with all the bent bits of tubing in place. My Cage builder and I designed and made this cage from scratch. It has been a huge learning process building a cage from scratch and there's still lots to learn. The rest of the cage shouldn't take long to finish because the rest of the cage is just measure cut and weld no bending required.

More pictures from CMI Domain hill climb. This is a sequence shot with the golf up on 2 wheels.

(Click on picture to enlarge:)

CMI Domain Hillclimb

On Sunday the 9th of September I competed in the Domain Hill climb with my 1977 Mk1 VW Golf. I had alot of fun it's good to push the Golf on those tight and twisty roads. My best time occured after a few tyre pressure changes to stop the tail of th car coming out I set a 44.46 on the 3rd run. Thanks to Autocraft, Imparts and E-home partnership for there support on the day. Will be good to see the Excel up there next year.

Here are some pictures;

Hyundai Excel Update No. 4

A fair bit of work has been accomplished this weekend on the excel. I removed all of the interior. After all the interior was gone the sound deadener had to go. Removing sound deadener for a whole day gets a bit tedious and can make you go a bit crazy when you realized all you have removed is about 20kg, but it all counts. The dash has been removed. The car is now ready for a cage (next weekend hopefully).

I removed the air conditioning from the engine as that is no longer needed in a rally car, and the stereo system wiring and antenna.
Pictures will be up shortly.

Hyundai Excel build update 3

Hi this is build update 3. I have finnaly found a car that has no major damage and is structually sound. This car will eventually become the rally car. The cage will be going in next month. I will be using a weld in type cage that my cage builder and I will be designing and building ourselves. It will be a great learning experience to do our own cage, I can't wait.

I bought this twin cam Hyundai Excel today. It is a bit rough on the outside but structualy the car is good and will make a good rally car. So now it is full steam ahead. I am looking at running this car in the a rallysprint type event later this year.

Keep an eye out for updates on this site.

Hyundai Excel build update 2

Hi this is the 2nd update I have been organising some parts for my car as in seats, roof vent, terraphone, lights, and other small thing.





Also I have been busy organising some spare parts for my rally car, because the gravel roads are very rough on cars it's common for standard mechanical components to fail and when they do you need some spares so you are able to continue and don't have to retire from the event. I have purchased a cheap damaged Hyundai Excel from Fowles, it was a roll over and there wasnt much body parts that I could get of it, but all mechanical compenents including the twin cam engine where fine. It is was stripped of all the valuable parts, once it was stripped I took the damaged car and unwanted bits to the scrap metal yard.

Here are most of the (spare) parts that I took off the damaged Hyundai Excel

Track Day 29th September

The VW golf was out at Baskervile on the 29th July 2007.

The car recently had a new engine installed and came up with some promising results setting a 1:10 on radial tyres.

Below: a picture from the track day at Baskervile;

also,

The CMI Domain Hill Climb is on the 9th of September

The car I will be entering is my Mk1 VW Golf.

If there is anybody interested in sponsoring the car and myself for the Domain Hill Climb please contact me (l_how@bigpond.net.au).

Hyundai Excel Build Update 1

This is the start of my Excel Build. This will be my spare bodyshell or parts, it has been damage in the front but it is repearable. I have removed the engine and gearbox, the interior and the lead on the floor. The car had a single cam engine in it originally. more information on the Excel Rally Series go to; http://www.excelrally.com.au/

Luke's Blog

Hello this is my blog which I have just created I thought it would be good to start up a blog were I can let others view pictures, read articles and keep up to date with activities/events I'm doing

I am a race car fanatic and am dedicated to pursuing a job in motorsport as an engineer.

I spent 1 year in Gemany to extend my skills and enjoy a different culture I also did some work experience for 1 year at a Berlin based team Muecke-Motorsport. They participated in DTM, F3, FBMW and Youngtimer trophy I got to visit all the race track in Germany and helped alot in the workshop before events.

Below: picture taken at Nürburgring Nordschleife.

I have raced go-karts for 4 years and participated in lots of minor motorsport events like khanacross, motorkhanas and track days

Above: Making some adjustments to the kart

I am currently building a Hyundai Excel rally car please keep a look out for progress on this blog. I will try to update the blog at least once a week

Please Enjoy and feel free to leave comments.