ants Posted April 9, 2008 Report Share Posted April 9, 2008 I am looking to purchase a trip meter to use on tours (tulip road books) and possibly the occasional regularity rally. Can anyone suggest what I should go for. I realise some types are not allowed for historic regularity's. I want something that is easy to use. Also what type of sensors are most suitable? Wheel, speedo etc. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tr4Tony Posted April 9, 2008 Report Share Posted April 9, 2008 Hi Ant From my experience there are only really two decent options - all the others have foibles of various types, some which you might be able to live with others you wont. The holy grail is the mechanical halda twinmaster, together with a full set of gears plus the t pieces and cables that they require to run off the speedo. Once set up they are very reliable and actually quite easy to use, but calibration requires the replacement of gears which is a fiddle. The cost however for the full package (even just a decent Twinmaster and the bare minimum kit) is over £1000. However, this set up is eligible for everything. I use a Halda in 3VC and BST82B where necessary and have had no problems with either the kit or eligibility. Other mechanical tripmeters are variously noisy, small digits, spares hard to get etc. etc. The twinmaster is a fairly universal currency and on event youll find lots of spare bits if you ever need to go begging. With a Retrotrip, Belmog, Aifab Gemini, GTITwin etc. youll be lucky to find another competitor with the same kit. If you are not likely to do Classic Rally Association or other events which either forbid or penalise the use of electronic tripmeters (and you may just choose to accept the penalty if they do) my advice would be to use a Brantz 2 Tripmeter, with cable sensor (splices into the speedo cable) - make sure its not the PRO as this measures average speed which is forbidden on almost all historic events. You can kit a car out for £300. Its a very simple meter to use and calibrate (using a punch in number set on the front, so only one calibration run is required) and is very good at night as it has an LED display. I have a Brantz 2 in BST82B and again its been great in use and no problems at scrutineering. There are other modern units out there (Terratrips etc.) but those which are eligible will be elderly (i.e. the ones that cannot run average speed calcs) and may be unreliable and harder to get spares for. I chose not to go down this lines as the Brantz kit is reasonably priced and absolutely spot on. If you are doing mainly touring events I would suggest the Brantz 2. You may in fact be able to do a lot of the events on just the odometer if its calibrated well, so I would sort this first. Hope this helps you. Regards Tony Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ants Posted April 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2008 Hi Tony, Thanks for the advice. The Halda is way out of my price range. The Brantz 2 seems a more suitable choice. Regarding the cable sensor, does the speedo have to be accurate? as part of the problem at the moment is that the speedo and odometer are way out. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tr4Tony Posted April 11, 2008 Report Share Posted April 11, 2008 Hi Ant No the Brantz works directly from the speedo feed from the gearbox (the sensor is spliced into the cable betwenn the gearbox and the speedo head) and you calibrate against an 'actual' measured mile on the road, so you dial out any inaccuracy by inputing a number 000 to 999 on the meter itself. The speedo / odo will still read as they are. You can calibrate these separately to reflect the rear axle ratio that you are running my measuring a distance on the road, taking the speedo out and attaching a paper clip to the end of the cable ....... drive slowly along the measured distance (say 10m) and count the number of revolutions of the clip. You then have the ratio of speedo cable turns per metre required. If you send the speedo off with this information to someone like REvington TR, Richfield, Speedograph etc they will return to you for a small charge a calibrated speedo. Or you can have a go yourself by trial and error .... or just run on the rev counter and the trip meter, ignoring the speedo except for a general guide. Regards Tony Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mark Rodbert Posted April 14, 2008 Report Share Posted April 14, 2008 Ant, Just a few points to add to Tony's excellent reply. The Brantz is absolutely the right one to go for. Now HERO are accepting it on their rallies (new for 2008), the CRA Rally of the Tests is the only one I can see where you wouldnt be able to use it. Tony got the details a little wrong though - typical Halda owning driver The one to go for is the Brantz International 2 Pro; it has 2 distance displays, and importantly NO average speed display. The one with the average speed display is the "2 S Pro" which is to be avoided, unless you're Irish (the're allowed there - which explains why everyone beat us on the regularities on the UAC retro) If you've got a TR its definitely easiest to put a sensor on the speedo cable. I did it from the gearbox on my MX5 (dont ask) and there is really no advantage. The only thing to avoid is using a wheel sensor, which is banned in historic rallying. It takes courage to cut the speedo cable casing, but just grit your teeth. Once you've done that you can plumb in the trip. Just remember that electronic trips dont like variations in voltage and current. My first rally with our new Brantz was made harder than it needed to be by the trip resetting itself every 2 mins as the electrics fluctuated. we had to rely on zen-navigation as I had no idea how far we'd travelled before the next tulip. Moral of the story - you're power fluctuates all the time and much more than you think. The answer is to get a Brantz Power Conditioner/ booster which will make sure the electrics stay constant. Alternatively do what we did - connect it directly to the battery. This has the two advantages of saving you forty quid and that the trip doesnt reset when you stop for petrol - sometimes quite annoying. You just have to remember to switch it off when you park up to save the battery. Then you're sorted. The way these things work is that you dont need an accurate speedo for them to work (ours is +/- 30%). You calibrate your trip once each rally using the organisers standard mile and then off you go. It doesnt matter how accurate their mile is as long as you calibrate to it you're fine. I repeat there is no point calibrating to a "known" mile as organisers miles vary by quite large amounts (up to 100 yds) and it doesnt matter - you're Brantz will read right anyway as long as you recalibrate. Also, if you want to get fancy, and you do another rally and a mechanical trip is really required then buy a second hand Retrotrip. The're electromechanical and cost about £200 and use the same sensors and power cables. Easy - Peasy and about half the price of a set of Halda gears. Once you've got the thing in email me or post again and I'll explain the quickest way to calibrate it in action. All the sites make it seem more complex than it needs to be. Humouress note: the calibration wheels are on the front of the Brantz 2 so easy to set. On our old Retrotrip the're underneath; which means that to change them you need to lie across the car - normally with the driver in the car..... in a lay-bye. Which is why Jon and I refer to setting the Trip as "Taillforth-ing" Have a look at the Don Barrow website. They have all the bits although are not the cheapest. Yes the "sensor clips" for £3 are two jubillee clips. Hope this helps, Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
woodward Posted April 20, 2008 Report Share Posted April 20, 2008 How about a speedpilot? What is the difference in functionality between these and a twinmaster? Myles Quote Link to post Share on other sites
david ferry Posted April 20, 2008 Report Share Posted April 20, 2008 Myles, A Twinmaster only calculates diatance travelled and offers an ability to calibrate to any measured mile used by rally organisers. It does not calculate an average speed for you, you have to do that yourself using a stopwatch. It has 2 readouts showing total distance and also a 'trip' distance. Both resettable to zero as required. However, a Speedmaster in theory will show time of day and an average speed reading. However, they are woefully inaccurate for the average speed part and cannot be calibrated to an organisers measured mile. Consequently not a great deal of use but a nice period piece on the dashboard or possibly on a desk, using the mechanical clock to show when it is time to stop work! If they were of use, they wouldn't be allowed to be used on rallies, certainly in the UK. I am not too sure if you are allowed to have one on the dashboard as they are not of a lot of use and inaccurate. In summary thay are not legal for use on UK rallies and if they weren't they wouldn't be of much use anyway. Having said all of that, they are nice and I own one, along with a Twinmaster and a Brantz International 2 Pro. Regards David Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tr4Tony Posted April 20, 2008 Report Share Posted April 20, 2008 Myles The speedpilot has a single display as per the tripmaster, but also has an internal clock (accurate to say + or - 30 secs / day) and therefore also has a display which shows average speed (calculated mechanically as the meter measures both time and distance) .... the speedpilot is typically not very accurate primarily due to the clock ......... which is fine where you are travelling hundreds of miles between controls and are arriving to scheduled times with say between 1 and 10 minutes tolerance, but absolutely no use on regularity where you need to arrive absolutely on the second that you are due. If your going to have one the Mark 5 Sports Special is the one to have as it can be fine tuned to a greater degreed than earlier versions. The twinmaster is just like the tripmaster but has twin displays and measures distance only. Alloy cased units are very sought after, but plastic cased ones are slightly better as you can advance both displays manually - with the earlier units you can only advance the top one. The twin is the kit of choice for 'modern historic' rallying by a country mile. Coupled with a set of accurate stopwatches (say a Heuer Rallymaster pair - Mastertime clock and Monte Carlo 12 hour hacking stopwatch) it is possible to arrive 'in your second' on a rally. This is what it takes to get a top 20 place on events like the Rally of the Tests and LeJog ...... and consistently over the duration of the rally. Take a look in 3VC or BST82B next time you are out as we have kitted the cars out with these units (or the Brantz units as discussed above). Hope this helps. Tony Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Menno van Rij Posted April 22, 2008 Report Share Posted April 22, 2008 For an overall collection of trip masters (and prices) Click here A Dutch seller of trip masters. Their site is in English too. Menno Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Don Elliott Posted May 4, 2008 Report Share Posted May 4, 2008 (edited) I own a Halda Speedpilot as well as a TwinMaster. I bought them about 1960 after I had started to rally my 1958 TR3A. I also used them in the Renault I navigated in during the 1964 Shell 4000 Mile Rally across Canada. This is the rally where the three powder blue Works TR4s were prepared by Kas Kastner. They have been sitting on the shelf in my garage since 1970 when I took them out of my TR. I quit rallying in 1966, about 6 months after we got married. We had a puncture on a gravel road about 3 in the morning and the jack kept wanting to slip in the loose gravel. The wet slushy snow was falling down my neck as I was kneeling in the mud, trying to jack up the car in the dark. To keep the story short, it was right there that I decided I'd rather be in a warm bed with my beautiful wife than out here doing rallies. Now you know the rest of the story. BTW, I may get them cleaned up for possible re-installation in my TR3A. Edited May 4, 2008 by Don Elliott Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tr4Tony Posted May 7, 2008 Report Share Posted May 7, 2008 Thats what rallying is all about Don ....... ! Get the Halda's back in and give it a whirl again ..... you know you really want to ....... ;-) Tony Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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