Hey All,

I'm getting a chumpcar started here at Purdue and have been looking aroud at vehicle options. Porsche's really aren't on the table due to my team mate's reliability concerns, parts cost, and parts availability (even though I found a 60k mile 924 Turbo for 1000...)

My question is what would be a really fun, somewhat competitive car?

We are currently considering Miatas, RWD Celicas, BMW's, and Civic's. We just found a CRX that comes with three different built engines and a cage which is awfully tempting too.

Would the CRX be a good deal?

No one on the team has competitive wheel to wheel experience, just a few DE's here and there and some AX.

...and this is the problem with Chumpcar

I've been working with a number of teams up in this part of the woods. It's not so much about the car as it is your knowledge. We run a double 8 and a 24 in Spokane. Reliability is almost out the window with that kind of beating every year on these old cars.

Go with a platform you know inside out and have lots of spares on hand. You will break something. Maybe many things. If you have absolute knowledge of the car, you can resolve these issues fast at the track and get back to racing. Bring lots of tools. Like your whole shop + a generator. Two years ago, I was welding in an empty field next to the paddock at 3am, it can get that nuts.

Also, SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY. I'd say it again, but I think you get the point. If it doesn't make the car go, turn or stop, rip it out. It'll just break on you and cost you time.

Get it to the track before the races! Nothing like a good 6 hours of shake down time before you go into competition to find those silly little things you couldn't expect on a 30 year old car. That, and it'll give your team an opportunity to get used to the car and hopefully the track you'll be competing on. For us, first race isn't until spring. We'll be heading out end of this month for our first track day.

I'm prepping a 944 for next year. NO upgrades on the car. The nice thing with Porsches, there's already a race car under there somewhere, you just have to get rid of everything that's not race car. There's only 2 vacuum lines on mine Set up properly, it should be as dependable as anything else out there.

Last, team organization is everything. Nothing makes a car go faster than a well organized team. To this end, I'm not driving next year. My job is planning, organization and logistics. At the track, I'll be running around dealing with the stewards, managing sleep schedules, food, fuel, lap time targets and screaming on the radio for 24 hours straight. You NEED someone who not only can do this, but wants to do this.

Oh, and if I could find one, I'd be driving a MKI scirocco with an early 1.8. A little steam fitter's pipe and some welding and boom, sub 1700lb 220hp turbo toy. Probably wouldn't be very dependable though.

Those are some really good points. We have a team that has really good knowledge of cars, but we don't have intimate knowledge of the specific cars we are looking at. Something to keep in mind. And simplicity is a great point, going through the wiring harness and removing all non-essential wiring seems like a great way to lighten the car, while checking for any shorts, and will make failure diagnosis during a race that much easier.

IN that same vein, would it be legal to attach fenders etc with hood pin type connections to make suspension access easier?

One last thing, is it crucial to AIV the car, or is it sufficient just to rely on the "500$ car" list? which regions lend to be the least expensive for finding ads? cars around here seem to be way to expensive.

-Ross

Oh, and what is the MINIMUM number of team members that would make a race doable?

Excellent advice. Its not so much about building a fast car as it is about improving consistency and reliability.

I thnk my choice would be a VW Rabbit GTI.
I bet one could find an old SCCA Improved Touring car for cheap $$.
All they needed was a roll cage, 2 rear anti sway bars to get them to turn in, and lots of spare parts.

This is a tricky bit sometimes. If you go with a car on the $500 list, and DON'T upgrade anything, tech is a walk in the park. You're in, you're out, no drama. The less face time you have with the stewards, the less liklihood you're gonna say something stupid that pisses him/her off. You gotta remember, these poor bastards are dealing with a whole bunch of racing newbs that want to skirt the rules and get us all hurt. They can get cranky easy and they all have radios so if you start something with one of them, you pretty much started something with all of them and they're gonna be on your team for the rest of the event. Be nice to the stewards.

As for pulling paperwork together for AIV, search craigslist in flyover country. Look at ads from anything but the largest city in the state. You'd be amazed, the price for an older sports car is almost always 20% lower in Spokane than Seattle. The down side is there aren't as many ads in Spokane, but you get the idea. Also, manny areas have cheep clasifieds online, generally at newspaper sites. Check them. People too dumb to use craigslist often don't know the value of what they're selling. In my case, I'm good to go as I bought the car for $450 and had the bill of sale signed, copied and notorized at the DMV. If your paperwork is square, I mean really square, AIV isn't that big of an issue. The stewards are all car guys/girls though, so don't try and pull too much crap, the'll catch you.

Depends on how beat up you want to get. There are team minimums in the ChumpCar rules based on the length of the race. I'm old. If I was driving I'd add 2 more bodies to whatever they suggest

For the 500$ list, it says everything has to stay stock, does that mean that doing something like removing the door subframe(leaving just the outer skin) is disallowed too?

Oh no. "Stock" should be interpreted as adding value.

10.3.3. Doors cannot be removed. All cars must have a door or “OEM equivalent” body panel. Doors do
NOT need to open or be operative. Doors may be welded closed. Doors may be re-skinned; however,
re-skinned panels must be covered with the same type, thickness and quality of material as originally
presented by the manufacturer (no aluminum panels replacing steel panels). Doors shall, in general,
match the shape and contour of the originally designed bodywork, including at least 75% of the original
height, as measured upwards from base of the door line. Doors may or may not include an internal
support structure; however, intrusion prevention into the driver’s compartment will be a determining
factor as to panel rigidity and stoutness.

Crap, I might be wrong on that. Lemme make a phone call and get some clarification...

Get the CRX. I used to race one in SCCA Showroom Stock when they were new - Great Car.

Water Cooled 4 Cylinder Cars are best for Chump

Ok, got clarification on this. You should be fine gutting the doors as all the other rules generally apply. They're gonna be real tight on anything that could possibly be considered performance enhancing. If you swap out the alternator bracket for one off a different car, it's no longer stock so you miust AIV.

Sounds Like I should AIV either way, since I might be able to get it down below 500 anyways. Do you find that cars are generally under the 500$ limit? or do most go over by a bit and accept the penalty laps?

Carefull with the penalty laps. You can take a few, but not many. The double 8 in Spokane will be about 500 laps total. If you get hit with 50 penalty laps, you're already at a 10% disadvantage.

This is where some strategy comes in. I couldn't use the stock intake on my car as my home brew AC delete moved the alternator up into the airbox area. I'm gonna take a hit on it, not sure it'll put me over the $500 mark, but if it does, it's $20 worth of sewer pipe and a filter.

They could hit me with 5-10 laps for that. I'll trade 10 laps for a cold air intake on a 500 lap run.

CRX is a nice platform, but the chassis are VERY weak and flex a LOT. If its caged it should help. but that sheet metal is extremely weak and damages easy. Also they rust quite a bit, so thats something you should be aware of.

So since this forum is such a valuable resource for me, I would like to keep this thread on this site, though from this point on it will have no Porsche content.

Where is the best home for this thread? the Sandbox? I don't know. Any admin may feel free to move it to wherever they would like.

The Chumpcar team is coming together.

After a fruitless attempt to drive three hours up north of Chicago for a 1000$ CRX DX only to find it was falling apart and the owner had cut the frame rails for a hackjob turbo swap, My team and I returned, sad ans dejected to Lafayette. The what do ya know, my neighbor down the street has a 1990 CRX Si.

The clutch is starting to go, so we snagged it for 300$. It runs and drives fine and he was such a nice guy he also threw in a rebuild kit for the engine that has NEW Pistons, rings, bearings, gaskets from the oil pan up, TPS, oil pump, and timing belt. We also got a brand new exhaust system, and new pads for both front and rear calipers.

The car also has aftermarket coilovers with adjustable perches front and rear (hello corner balance!)

It has the typical CRX rust behind the rear wheels, but is remarkably clean otherwise.

I only have 1 bad picture right now, but will try to get some more up soon.

-Ross

Nice score!

I had a '91 Si. Tons of fun, and a lot of aftermarket goodies to make it stop/go/turn better.

Nice score! Now you've got some real work ahead of you on AIV. You're gonna have to get the average down to about $200 if you want to keep those coilovers

I'm working on it, I have my phone set up to search for CRX's between 2-600$ at every craigslist site in the country. So far I've found 5 in that range, but none are Si's. From what I understand the actual purchase price doesn't really man squat as far as AIV goes right?
-Ross

Yup, that's it. It doesn't matter what you paid for the car. It matters what it's worth. Get the AIV value set and document ANY modifications. Bring a $500 car.