In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I count $3-5K as a pretty good starting point for a car. And around here a $3-5K miata is going to be rusty and shagged out. I see the biggest issue in this country is finding a manual version.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I count $3-5K as a pretty good starting point for a car. And around here a $3-5K miata is going to be rusty and shagged out. I see the biggest issue in this country is finding a manual version.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:I realize this is meant to be a budget, budget build, but does anyone else wish they'd spent a few mins with a wire brush and some left over rattle cans of black just to tidy things up, especially the front subframe and rear twist beam before putting it all back together?
Nah. Pointless unless it gets stripped totally clear of rust first, and that is beyond the scope of the build.
What did annoy me was that they disassembled the arms from the subframe, then pulled the subframe, etc, instead of just pulling it out as an assembly and dealing with it on the bench. Assembly would have been a ton easier too, as all they'd have to do was line up the ball joints as they sent the subframe up, instead of fighting the stabilizer bar trying to pull the arms back down to get the studs in the uprights.
It’s fun looking at C1’s, 107’s, any Aygo’s now (basically, a car family I never knew existed) in the UK Autotrader.
Man, used cars are seemingly super cheap over there! Seems like the model (such as a Yaris) in similar condition here would run 2x to 3x the price even taking exchange rate into account.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:I realize this is meant to be a budget, budget build, but does anyone else wish they'd spent a few mins with a wire brush and some left over rattle cans of black just to tidy things up, especially the front subframe and rear twist beam before putting it all back together?
I know I would have done that.
In reply to einy (Forum Supporter) :
Older used cars in the UK are very cheap compared to the US and also the rest of Europe. They have a limited resale market (Republic of Ireland, basically) and you're never that far away from either salty sea air or salt on the roads, which tends to limit the lifespan of those vehicles.
One would think that a short shelf life would make used cars worth more, not less, since the pool of available used cars is smaller and the attrition makes demand for them higher.
Either way, their original concept was to go racing for less than a sim racing rig. Where they are at right NOW, you can buy some serious kit. And, as Jimmy Broadbent pointed out in his Drivetribe interview, sim racing is an equalizer since there is no maintenance to perform or suffer consequences if not performed, there's no random mechanical failures, no aged-out tires (or tyres, for that matter), if you have an off and stuff the car into a barrier, you're not out of racing for a period of time while you repair/replace the car and possibly wait for your body to mend, etc.
I'm still going to keep watching, mind you, because low spec racing does interest me, and I'm also curious to see what THEIR conclusions are.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Thats the one thing that disappointed me. I love theyre doing a cheap racecar, but their premise of doing it for cheaper than sim racing is absurd. They picked quite literally that most expensive wheel, pedals, and pre built (possibly full motion) chair and stand. The only thing somewhat reasonable that they didnt price was the computer.
My sim rig is fairly midrange, doesn't have 4k or motion, but all in I have 3k in it including the PC. Thats US dollars too, so for the cost of just the kit theyre putting in the car, and with their fab skills they could have been sim racing in a much nicer seat for half of their current budget total. Plus an Iracing subscription costs less than a tank of gas would, and theres no event fees... Nick's right though, its not motorsport
I too wish there was spec racing here in the price range they're in though. Thatd be sweet
Regardless of the premise, it’s fun to watch the process and the progress. Personally, I’m laid up at the moment with a couple of herniated disks in my lower back, so watching them do what I’d rather be doing (vs. laying on my back on a hard floor) is therapeutic!
einy (Forum Supporter) said:Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:I realize this is meant to be a budget, budget build, but does anyone else wish they'd spent a few mins with a wire brush and some left over rattle cans of black just to tidy things up, especially the front subframe and rear twist beam before putting it all back together?
I know I would have done that.
I was screaming at the screen when I saw that. Of course, I guess it won't matter for a race car that will never see salt again, but it's so fast and easy.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:I realize this is meant to be a budget, budget build, but does anyone else wish they'd spent a few mins with a wire brush and some left over rattle cans of black just to tidy things up, especially the front subframe and rear twist beam before putting it all back together?
While it is something I think any of us would have done, I think that although they are releasing the videos 'now' on a weekly basis, we don't know for sure when it was all filmed. I thought in the first episode they said something about the first race being June or July 2nd, so maybe paint drying time just wasn't in the cards for them.
I believe there was a mention of a time deadline, like they were entered in a race that was only a couple weeks after starting work on the car.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I count $3-5K as a pretty good starting point for a car. And around here a $3-5K miata is going to be rusty and shagged out. I see the biggest issue in this country is finding a manual version.
I did some digging around the last couple of days... for the SCCA GCR, and associated B-spec rules. And, I think B-spec is probably the closest match up to the C1 cup stuff. Interestingly, since last year, SCCA automatically opened up B-Spec to auto's. Which is something I think is a good/smart thing to do in this case.
My general bent would be toward a Rio/Accent... but I can't find the spec'd suspension.
I reckon the next-cheapest option would be a B-spec Sonic, which requires a restrictor, and allows two parts kits:
$550 suspension kit
and a $150 rear sway bar
I dunno what an SCCA GCR spec'd cage would cost. But shells are around $3-4k on marketplace... unless you want to get brave and try your luck w/ a salvage auction? So, maybe $7k after cage, wheels, tires and brakes?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:One would think that a short shelf life would make used cars worth more, not less, since the pool of available used cars is smaller and the attrition makes demand for them higher.
The UK car market is weird - in multiple ways. For starters, a large majority of new cars are actually sold as company cars (used to be a valuable perk over there). There is also a fair amount of leases and quasi-leases, plus a pretty limited resale market due to the cars being RHD. Which basically means cars either go to Ireland or get exported occassionally to third world countries that also drive on the wrong side of the road. Although most of the latter have taken to importing cars from Japan as those are generally in much better condition for the age.
Some of this may have changed since I left the UK as some of the company car perks have been removed due to additional taxation.
In reply to BoxheadTim (Forum Supporter) :
You have me considering the possibility of importing an older car from the UK. I remember a ways back that it was significantly cheaper to buy a Sierra AND import it than it was to buy an intact XR4Ti, and the Merkur had low spec brakes and suspension anyway.
edit: E36 M3s are now coming out of the 25 year window, and they appear to be far cheaper to find in the UK than in the US. And they had the real M engines. Hnnng.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
1st gen Elises should be legal to import next year. Consider yourself enabled 
.
BTW, I would also look in Japan for cars like that. They're generally not that much more expensive than in the UK, if they're more expensive at all. But they'll be in better condition - they love chucking salt on the road in the UK, and the fact that IIRC there is no point in the UK that is even 100 miles away from the ocean doesn't help.
In reply to BoxheadTim (Forum Supporter) :
Why not import from Germany or France or Italy or Sweden or Turkey or Iran or Greece or some other country that puts the steering wheel on the correct side of the car?
And no, I'm not going to respond to the "But right hand drive is cool" posts because you are wrong and stupid.
Streetwiseguy said:In reply to BoxheadTim (Forum Supporter) :
Why not import from Germany or France or Italy or Sweden or Turkey or Iran or Greece or some other country that puts the steering wheel on the correct side of the car?
And no, I'm not going to respond to the "But right hand drive is cool" posts because you are wrong and stupid.
Because as pointed out, cars are much cheaper in the UK?
Right hand drive isn't "cool" and it's a right pain in the ass in the US, having driven RHD Saturns and a 50s Rolls-Royce for some damned reason. But will put up with a lot for a cheap M3.
Of, course because RHD is cool 
.
Honestly, I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill with the whole RHD vs LHD discussion. I've owned both LHD cars in the UK and driven RHD cars on the continent and survived to tell the tale.
Right, now to the more serious part of the answer. It's not only that cars are cheaper in the UK (mainly because the Western European country have a ready made market for the cheaper cars further East). The much more important part of this is that the UK has a well established tradition of both specials building and more importantly, very small scale car manufacturing that is reflected in their more lenient laws to homebuilt contraptions. The latter has been tightened up quite considerably over the last decade or so, but it's still much easier to road register a specialist car in the UK that would have an upstanding TÜV engineer throw wrenches and clipboards at you if you tried to register it in Germany. So the UK has a car building industry like no other in Europe.
That's for example how you get a company that builds a car that has been around since the late 50s/early sixties and while the cars have been developed further, it's still the same basic model. Of course in this case I'm talking about Caterham, but that's also why the UK had companies like Lotus, TVR, Marcos et al during the heyday of British sports car manufacturing. And that's also why there is this subculture of "men in brown (lab)coats" - and it is mostly men - that work out of the sheds in their back yards in the former industrial heartland and are the only ones who will work on "weird E36 M3 X". But those are the people you call when you need a reverse rotation cam for a Merlin based tank engine, because nobody else but these guys can make it for you out of a piece of raw steel on a lathe that was worn out past the tolerances when their grandfather was in short trousers[1].
As a slightly odd aside, it's probably becoming harder to register UK built specialist vehicles in the EU going forward. In pre-Brexit times, you could do that relatively easily because the vehicles had already been registered in an EU country, so only minor country-specific changes would have to be made. This isn't likely to be the case going forward.
[1] There's a funny story as to why US manufacturers initially had problems making Merlins. They got the blueprints from the UK, and the resulting engines weren't working very well at all. So some of the ancestors of the current Men In Brown Coats came in to help and were surprised that the machinists at the US manufacturers were building parts exactly to spec when the expectation was that machinists in the UK would make adjustments based on the levels of wear in their tooling and the blueprints basically were more of a guideline. IIRC the US Merlins were built off slightly different blueprints thereafter, because nobody had twigged that the US manufacturers were working with mostly brand new manufacturing tools due to the war effort.
Oh, and to kinda turn this back to Binky. While it's not impossible to have a car with that level of fabrication road register in the EU - for example, the Ringminis are a bunch of heavily modified old school Minis built by someone in Germany that are street legal - it is much, much easier to do so in the UK.
For those interested in watching some econobox racing stateside, the B-Spec class of the SCCA Runoffs is being aired live now (11:15AM ET).
Video icon on the right side....no easy way to link directly that I can find....
Rotaryracer said:For those interested in watching some econobox racing stateside, the B-Spec class of thr SCCA Runoffs is being aired now (11:15AM ET).
Video icon on the right side....no easy way to link directly that I can find....
try https://www.scca.com/pages/runoffs-live-video?layout=iframe
also only 1 sedan
B spec was good racing
MrChaos said:B spec was good racing
Very good. I'm used to bigger iron taking up more of the track...I'd swear B-Spec could run 6-wide. 
MrChaos said:try https://www.scca.com/pages/runoffs-live-video?layout=iframe
also only 1 sedan
I'm pretty sure that's the first sedan to have run in B-Spec. I was digging it.
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