The Peugeot 206 WRC part 3

The 206 WRC follows the new wave (fashion?) in rally car design in that it is, like the Toyota Corolla and Ford Focus, very compact. The car has a lot more in common with its illustrious predecessor, the 205T16, than with the commercial Peugeot 206 range. Its engine block, for instance (made in aluminum die-cast), is the same as the one used in the 205T16 15 years ago! Most other engine parts in the new car are direct successors to their equivalent in the 205T16. The engine displacement is compliant to FIA WRC car regulations i.e. less than 2lt (1997cm³ to be precise). The 205T16' engine displacement was 1775 cm³ at the time GroupB regulations had set a maximum of 1.8lt displacement for turbocharged engines. You can review the disclosed specs of the new car here.

The suspension layout has to comply with the FIA regulations and thus not be radically different, in its principle, than the one fitted on the commercial, basis, model. The 206 WRC uses a McPherson suspension layout all around with lower wishbones. McPherson struts have the advantage of being rather compact and not necessitate a large volume around them for their fitting thus allowing more space to fit other parts of the car. Peugeot is the only manufacturer involved in the World Championship to build its own dampers and this approach has apparently proven the good one. However the budget required to develop, test and implement in-house dampers only comes to prove how significant is the underlining financial support of the Peugeot team. A final world on the 206 WRC suspension to point out that the car was the first, in late 2002, to introduce a hydro-electronic anti-roll control effectively suppressing anti-roll suspension bars and the related weight.

The 206 WRC architecture favors versatility over stability. The car's wheelbase, although sufficient at 2468 mm, is not one of the biggest in WRC. Only the Seat Cordoba WRC car has a smaller wheelbase (at 2443mm). All other WRC contenders display a wheelbase above 2500mm. Note however that, following the current trend in rallying, the car does have its wheels at each corner, no overhangs whatsoever, in order to reduce inertia to the minimum and help its dynamic characteristics. According to the latest rumors on the evolution 2 of the 206 WRC, due to appear in 2001, the new car will have a longer wheelbase and this will be the object of a new homologation sheet by Peugeot to the FIA.

The transmission layout and implementation, according to the latest data, was initially based on a central hydro-electronically controlled differential while the front and rear ones were using mechanical self-locking types. Starting with the 1999 San Remo rally the front mechanical differential was replaced by a hydro-electronically controlled one. That's to say the 206 WRC used a differential layout similar to that found in the Toyota Corolla WRC which went out of production by late 1999 and consequently its development was halted. Ford in the Focus WRC car, Subaru in the latest Impreza WRC and Mitsubishi in the Lancer Evolution VI, only since the 1999 San Remo rally for the latter, use hydro-electronically controlled differentials all around. The Peugeot team targets the use of actively controlled differentials all around for the first time at the 2000 Catalunya rally in Spain. One can count on Peugeot when it comes to electronically controlled differentials. The company has already proved it masters 2 wheel drive drivetrains in the 306 Maxi kit car which, in its "works" layout, already used an electronically managed differential. A lot of this experience has been beneficial to the development of the 206 WRC although it is not directly applicable. In the 306 Maxi kit car, when wheel spin is detected, the engine management stopped firing 1, 2 or even 3 cylinders until wheel spin stopped. A similar mechanism would not be adequate for a 4 wheel drive car where differential management is much more complex and traction is always superior to that of a 2wd car. Peugeot, like most other WRC car manufacturers, use hydro-electronic differentials in the 206 WRC that have less impact on the engine's output when wheels spin, thus reducing the power loss, but act directly on the spinning axle and, progressively lock it, until the torque distribution is ideal.
Note that the Peugeot 206 WRC slides a lot less around corners than other WRC contenders and is, thus, less impressive to watch but far more efficient and fast than other cars that are driven with constant trajectory corrections. This behavior is due to the extreme care taken in the design of the car's suspension and drivetrain and, apart from preserving the tires, has made the 206 WRC very hard to beat on any surface.

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