The race car idea thread
 

Continuing the discussion from both this week's SCCA meeting and SECCS meet, let's talk about race cars.

Specifically, I'm trying to figure out what the best car is to go club racing with, and have a blast driving at track days. So, I'm talking about something that's competitive in its class, with a power/weight ratio that's near the WRX I've got now (so it's as much fun to drive as my current car), but is also somewhat reliable (we're talking race car reliable, not daily driver reliable, of course stuff will break, I just want something that gets through a whole season w/o needing a motor or something), and not back-breakingly expensive to operate.

Of course, Spec Miata is nearly always the 1st thing that comes up. Problem is, I don't fit in one.

Vintage racing is another popular suggestion, but keeping with the vintage rules means old technology for simple stuff... like no ventilated brake rotors... which means maintenance is expensive due to all the bits that need to be replaced perpetually.

Lot's of swap type ideas come up as well... and I'm all for swapping a simple, powerful SBC 350 or Ford 5.0 into something light-weight, but then what class does that run in? I've already got an ITE car (ITE is SCCA's "catch-all" class for production based cars that's currently being owned by a 500hp EVO with 6" of wide-body on it). Plus, swaps are expensive, and finicky to maintain.

So... with all that in mind... is there anything out there? Or is going racing for say $5,000 a season in a 300 hp, 2500 lb, reliable race car impossible?

I thought of something after the meet last night.

S2000???

Science of Speed S2000
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/revolu...ges/header.jpg

I thought of that too. The problem of course is fitting in one. I've driven Pat's, but to really be comfortable in one, I'd need to gain a *ton* of space by going to a race seat, and I get the feeling that a shell won't gain me the space considering a cage would have to go in over my head.

Plus, the S2000 is pretty much the epitome of high-tech, high-reving, high-strung motors... I'd much rather go the other direction and look at low-reving, big displacement, lots of torque. In short: I'd be afraid that I'd be going through motors just as often in an S2000 as I am in the WRX.

Shoe horn me in and drop a 5.0 in there, and I'm sold. But now I'm back to racing a $50,000 car.

I have a 5.0 for sale.

I don't think you can plan to be competitive in any race series involving swaps if you're trying to stick to a hobbyist budget. Like the speed/cost/reliability sum, you have to choose between speed, cost and competitiveness. Spec 7, Formula Vee, and maybe even Formula Ford might work for you though. They are (relatively) inexpensive and you don't fall too far behind the leaders if you're getting outspent. The downside of course is slower laptimes than you turn in your WRX.

What are you looking for in terms of initial investment?

Aug sports car:
T2 Pontiac $19K
Solo Vee $6K
F500 12.5-16K
SSB BMW Z4 $23K

More will pop up at the end of the season.

http://members.rennlist.com/tweedt/s2khoodup.jpg

WCM Ultralite basically a "seven" design with an s2000 motor in it I think you can even buy a roller or kit with no motor. I've always wanted one :D

more info here:
http://www.wcmultralite.com/

I'll give you $8000 for it. But first I need you to:

Rebuild the motor to make 350 hp / 350 ftlbs al day long under race conditions.
Dry sump the oil system, install an oil cooler and large radiator.
Weld in an SCCA legal roll cage, add race shell seats, harnesses, nets, and fire system.
Strip everything not needed for racing, reduce the weight to 2700 lbs or less.
Convert the car to IRS, add fully adjustable coilovers.
Add big brakes, brake bias controller, and brake ducting.
Add front splitter, fender flares, rear extractor, and wing.

You know, make a race car out of it. :P

Dean, Kevin, I pretty much won't fit in anything open wheel. And a Touring class car isn't quite what I'm interested in... I'm more interested in Improved Touring... you know real race cars, not full interiors at stock ride-height.

And David, I certainly don't want to race a $40,000 kit car without fenders! :lol: That's not at all fitting the criteria. If I was looking for that sort of ride, I'd get an Ultima or Radical.

I don't know where it ended up, but Sid's Z is out there somewhere I think.

Randy's BP corvette?

:lol: I actually though of Randy's Vette last night on my drive home. To be frank, the though of hustling that beast through the esses at RFR at 130 mph scares the shit out of me. Plus, it's pushing "vintage" as far as maintaining it. And I'm not sure I could afford to keep tires on it... what's a pair of 395 width rear slicks go for? :lol:

probably should've read the first post

but its still awesome......do it :lol:

oh and if I can fit in an open wheel car I think you can too :p

I'm 6'4", 210 lbs. I know you're about as tall as me, but I don't think you're as big around... (just wait 'till you hit your late twenties though :P).

But the problem is not really that I don't fit in "any" open wheel cars... it's that I don't fit in any open wheel cars that I could afford. I could probably find a Formula Atlantic or something, but the older cars that I could afford are all *tiny*. Like scary tiny. A Formula Ford, or Formula Vee... they look like big RC cars.

But mostly, while an open wheel car would be a fun way to go stupid fast with a small motor, I want to race production based cars. If I could pick any US pro series to race in, it'd be ALMS GT2.

Obviously I wasnt there for the intial conversation

But as Dean mentioned before how much is your intial investment in a car going to be?

5-10k?
10-15k?

Used full slicks are relatively cheap compared to DOT tires. Even new aren't that bad

And I think it is more race car than vintage

Can't hurt to talk to him this weekend about the car.

I'm not so much looking at a particular initial cost. I'm really looking more for an answer to "is there something out there that's fun, competitive, reliable, decently fast, and not outrageously expensive to operate?"

Or more specifically, is there any reason not to just go racing with the WRX I've already got, or is everything that's at all comparable just as retardedly expensive?

I probably won't be out there this weekend.

Plus, I don't really want a Corvette of any vintage, let alone a C3 which is my least favorite.

I don't see what's wrong with your existing car. Isn't a dependable, race-ready motor setup available?

I was just going to suggest an IT (or similar) Corvette. C4s are cheap, you fit in them, and they have the characterisitics you're looking for. I may be wrong about the "cheap" part though, just basing that on the price of your average street-driven C4 these days.

No, at least not near his current power levels. Scott's creeping close to 200bhp/liter at this point. A race-built but stock power output EJ257 would be close, but cost more than a V8 making the same or more power and not be as long-lasting.

I've heard that '86 MR2s make awesome race cars.

I'm no big-power guy but what about a stock STi motor with forged pistons, GT30R, external wastegate and run it on race gas with a conservative tune (350+ whp).

Since Scott sees seriously high G's, you'd want to drop the dough for a dry sump and throw an oil cooler on since it is a race car after all.

What am I missing?

IBAlot

The big catch is that it's either an STi Scott has to buy, which is out of his desired budget even before cage and all that crap, or a further jaunt into FrankenSuby land with his WRX. He either has to drop $30k+ to build a race-competitive STi or take his WRX to ITE where he will never catch up, not without high 5 figures from where he already is with that car. It's also not going to be a light car. For a given power/weight ratio, lighter and less power is generally better. Tires, brakes, fuel, oil, all that stuff costs less to run an event.

But back to the original point, a 350whp STi-powered car is generally not going to be as reliable and long-lasting as a 350+whp LSx.

p.s. Scott, feel free to not swallow these words I'm putting in your mouth. :lol:

Well, there's no perfect solution, and I don't even know what ITE is other than it sounds like a class, but I still say the best bang for the buck (including the notion of dependability) is going to be a conservative race gas tune, rotated mount turbo, EJ25 with CP pistons.

The alternative is a Vette (RE: $$$) and Scott said no to that.

Um, I *have* an EJ25, with forged pistons, and a 20G at 22psi on race gas making 350whp. I'm already doing what you're suggesting, and it's expensive. Blowing that motor costs between $4,000 and $10,000 to repair.

I should be able to make 350whp on an LS1 or 302 for a lot cheaper, and without pushing the motor. Keep in mind, making 350whp on an STi motor is easy... on a dyno, on a street car... but doing it all day long at the race track is a bit different. At least it's been my experience that after a few laps at those power levels, things tend to get hot and not cool down.

Scott, do you think the problem could be that you're getting tuned at sea level and when you run up here, things get a little lean? When Ed retuned my car up here recently, he mentioned that if anything, my car will run rich at sea level, it seems the inverse would be true for you. You do any datalogging (including AFR's) up here?

Ed admitted to me that there are some maps that Cobb hasn't unlocked, that would allow better control over how the ECU controls things at different elevations...there's only so much a tuner can do, even if they know how to tune a car for different elevations. Basically it seems safer for a car to be tuned at the highest elevation it will be run at (regardless of the elevation is like octane thing).

That's interesting, I always thought it was the other way around because of the extra boost at sea level. I guess there will be a lot of retuning happening if Mike ever opens his shop up here.

There is certainly something going on with my car, though I don't know what. Altitude would be a common denominator, but on the other hand, so are the high temperatures the car has to run at (plus the less effective cooling due to altitude).

I'll be datalogging the car to get a better idea what's really going on as soon as my wideband shows up for my Hydra. But keep in mind: I'm tuned on speed/density (MAP, no MAF) so altitude shouldn't really make much difference... absolute manifold pressure, air temp, and rpm... things that don't really change due to altitude. 22 psi (well 37 psi absolute) at X degrees is the same amount of air, regardless of the starting pressure on the uncompressed side of the turbo, know what I mean?

But, I'm a tuning n00b... I'm just teaching myself this crap. Mike Warfield, who tuned the car, has tuned race cars that have run at Miller Motorsports Park without issues, so I can't imagine the culprit is the tuning as much as it's the driver pushing the car too hard. Besides, Mike's seen what I do to cars, I get the feeling he's not pushing my car all that hard on the tune 'cause he knows I (unintentionally! :() beat on it.

Though, it would be nice if the problem was something obvious in the tune at altitude, 'cause that's easy to fix. If the issue is lateral G's, or oil starvation, or lack of cooling, or something similar that will require reengineering the car... that's when making the car reliable becomes really expensive.

And on a side note: I've never seen a Subaru with a dry sump. Hell, I don't think even the WRC cars use 'em... it's just not needed on a flat motor, since the pistons are already half in the oil. I can't imagine I'm seeing G loads so bad they can starve out the oil.

You still got that thing? If I had a shop, I'd be all over it!

Buy an old Winston Cup stock car and set it up to road race.

I was waiting for that suggestion... from you. :lol:

And I know you're kidding, but just to address it anyway, with the exception of that historics series for 'em, where would I go racing? Plus... I get the feeling keeping a 1989 Chevy Lumina cup car running is going to require either a ton of money, and/or fabrication skills I don't have. I mean, if I bend a control arm that was made by hand by some dude in Charlotte NC 20 years ago... I'm not finding the part at Kragen. :lol: Which is why I want to stick to production based cars.

Wait, if the MR2 needs a shop... what race car doesn't? :lol:

Since you run a Hydra, you should probably run a different map for this elevation than you do at sea level. It doesn't adjust for elevation. Interestingly enough, Ed said that, while stock ECU tuned cars that were tuned at seal level run leaner at this elevation, with a Hydra, it's an unknown until you log it.

The MR2 needs space to be rotisseried. It's basically just a shell that needs a ton of work, including a motor transplant of some sort.

With the amount of space I've got, I could probably only do enough work to go out and run door to door with Steve Singley. But I'm not really interested in a car that's 20 seconds a lap slower around RFR than my WRX.

Oh, what about an RX7 twin turbo? There was a yellow one that I had no business chasing at RFR last time I was there. Cool car.

:lol:

An FD RX-7 is pretty much the perfect example of the car I'm trying to avoid. It's a near super-car in cost, it's got a ridiculous motor that needs tons of boost and tons of revs to go racing with, it's notorious for blowing motors if you just think about abusing them, parts are retarded expensive 'cause it's a fanboi car... Basically, everything that's "wrong" with my WRX is 10 times worse with that car, though they are beautiful cars.

Now, talk to me about an FC with a LS1 swap, and you're talking about something I've actually considered, except for there being no place to go racing in 'cept for ITE, which I've already got a car for.

And just FYI, here's ITE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo6hCVyQOUs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94JBx4jDCvE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beX164b2GbY

That sounds like the best of both worlds. You like swaps. ;)

I think you're just in denial that you'll eventually own a Vette. :P

Scott,

Come down to Infinion for NASA on 9/22 and 9/23. You need to see what a Mazada FB with a 13B bridge port motor can do. I'm not talking about my car with the 12A, but rather a 2,000lb RX7 with a N/A rotary. Even you can fit in one of these cars, Doug Driver did. I can set you up for a ride that may change your mind about this option. You can get into these cars CHEAP and there is tons of parts and mods available. BIG HP = BIG $$ You won't be doing 130 in the straights but you'll be grinning through the twisties!

Mel

240Z with a 5.0l Ford V8. <2700 lbs in race trim, 300bhp without breaking a sweat, and relatively cheap to maintain. Your buddies in Moundhouse know exactly what to do, and I'd help.

I've seen your timing map, and you run less timing with 100octane than I do with 91 octane. I would call that conservative, and I doubt the tune killed your engine.

I am curious why a speed density system, which basically gets it's main information from the MAP sensor, would need a retune at elevation. I don't doubt it, I just would like to learn why. The only thing I can think of is that the volumetric efficiency changes in the thinner air.

Have you seen his AFR's?

Just to address the stock car suggestion: it's actually a sweet idea. I don't know where you'd race it, but in terms of purely being a track car they're pretty good values. It doesn't have to be an expensive buy like an old Cup car that has nostalgia $$$ tacked onto the price. There are plenty of old cars out there from the minor series, like Featherlite Southwest tour, etc...

You don't have to worry about minor stuff like bending control arms, you can get new ones straight out of the Coleman (or any other stock car vendor's) catalog. Pretty much any moving part on most of those cars is easily replaceable. And stock car parts are pretty cheap, because there's 23453587602348 guys racing some kind of stock car in the US. Drop a SBC 350 in it, and you've got solid power that'll run for a long time. And I know your tall ass will fit inside one. :lol:

Scott doesn't have a wide band until the near future...

Do this, and I'll help you get all the Nissan parts you can imagine! Hell, if you drop the Ford motor (:P) and put a Chebby powerplant in it, I'm more than capable of tuning that too!

what about the 924/944 spec series?

http://www.spec-944.com/info/index.htm

I don't have $45,000 for a car, or the $20,000/season in parts for the car. Remember, the goal is to find a car that's cheap than a WRX! Porsche == WRX * 3

http://motors.search.ebay.com/porsch...01QQsamcmZ6001

all less than 10gs.

they arent the turbos. and wont make 350whp so i fail nvm.

Scott, you still haven't told us what your reasonable/acceptable initial investment is... You can potentially get a whole lot more of what you are looking for if you spend $30-80K up front.

But based on this thread and your responses to everyone's suggestions, I propose you change your Motto in your profile to:

Fast, Reliable, Cheap, I can fit in it, fun, a class/venue/series where I can be competitive, not a Corvette, open wheel, vintage, etc... : I want them all!!! :lol:

The 944's are quite a bit cheaper than I thought as long as you stay away from the Turbo's. A Turbo S will run you $10,000+, and then the conversion to a racecar... not cheap. But the 4-banger base 944 is pretty affordable... but again, for the performance, I think there are better deals at that price... no matter what the initial investment, you're still maintaining a Porsche. :eek: