CP Ride Along

In reply to petegossett:

Here's the CP car I'm thinking of that's still street driven, it belongs to Galen Williams. Looks like he's on street tires for this event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYsSSfoJILs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

oldsaw wrote:

EvanB wrote:

One of the board members, aka 81cpcamaro, built-up a '66/67 Elky to run in CP. It was a really sweet example of a budget-build, streetable vehicle. It also did a better job of turning heads than corners, hence the 81cpcamaro moniker.

Yep, that was my car. It had a whopping 2 miles on it at the time of that photo (had gone through a frame-off restomod, wasn't even registered yet, notice no tag). It handled better than it probably should have, but not good enough for national level events. It would have ended up mid to back of the pack. Thus the reason I have the Camaro now. It was fun on the street and current owner in SC is enjoying it.

Apexcarver wrote: Working on a friends CP project. Basically, take car, remove EVERYTHING that bolts on, Install cage, fabricate suspension(roundy round parts), replace bolt-on body parts with fiberglass, build engine that can rotate planet, tires that can double as steamroller, install and enjoy. the only metal parts on this car are the cage or the primer brown, rest is fiberglass. Doors weigh very little, can remove single handedly and lift.

That's my car there. It will NOT be a street car when completed.

Honestly, I wish I had kept it on the road and slowly moved to CP, but I'm pretty deep now.

Problem is that the car now lives 2 1/2 hours away, as I have no garage. One day I will drive it in anger again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmfgKqmM6JE

Costas

cars and such...

Shortcutsleeping wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmfgKqmM6JE Costas cars and such...

That site makes me want to buy a lawnmower, but that car..... that car makes me want to sell everything I own and find a camaro shell. Can you sleep in a CP car? It's important, my wife will convince me to try it for a while if I get one.

mazdeuce wrote:

Shortcutsleeping wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmfgKqmM6JE Costas cars and such...

That site makes me want to buy a lawnmower, but that car..... that car makes me want to sell everything I own and find a camaro shell. Can you sleep in a CP car? It's important, my wife will convince me to try it for a while if I get one.

The sound is intoxicating

CP cars have a very rare ability to eliminate straights. They just fold all the space between corners. Straights just don't exist for CP cars.

Combine that ability with their sound and you get a quality I call "snarky." As in, "That orange CP Camaro has some serious snarky!"

David

Ian F wrote: Hmm... I notice that car sports tags... I wonder how hard it would be to build a mid-pack competitive CP car that was still street legal...

Here's one that warms my cockles: (in street trim)

(in CP Trim)

Steve Chryssos wrote:

Ian F wrote: Hmm... I notice that car sports tags... I wonder how hard it would be to build a mid-pack competitive CP car that was still street legal...

Here's one that warms my cockles: (in street trim) (in CP Trim)

This car is street legal (like Steve said) and is front of the pack capable, so you can build a street legal CP car, just depends on your budget and how much race car stuff you can put up with on the street.

So how different is a "CP" car vs the more generic term of Pro-Touring?

How much crossover is there between CP and Pro Touring?

(edit) Ha! Great minds think alike.

Jaynen wrote: So how different is a "CP" car vs the more generic term of Pro-Touring?

In some ways, better; in most ways, worse. For example, CP cars have to run the original subframes and work a suspension from there. Most real PT cars have a sub-frame swap with a complete SLA front suspension (or C6 parts), with rack & pinion, etc.

True that. But most pro-touring cars are too porky for CP. Better to run a pro-touring car with this group.

http://americanstreetcarseries.com/

Most events consume an entire weekend and combine autocross with other components such as road course time trial and drag racing depending on the venue. I'm sure they'd let CP cars run as exhibition. In fact, they don't care if you bring your WRX.

I said Pro Touring, not Slo Touring. The serious builds include Stielow's "Red Devil" (69 Camaro with a half carbon fiber body running an LS9 with the complete ZR1 braking, including ABS) and the infamous "blue Mustang" which is really a 65 Fastback on a tube frame with an LSx sitting where the firewall used to be.

The build thread on that orange street CP is actually really good at pointing out where the CP rules are behind the times: http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=23997

If you want to do more to your car than CP allows, there is always EM. Seriously, there are parts of the prepared rules that can use updating and there is some progress in that area. Some parts won't change, as they are trying to keep a reasonable amount of separation between the prepared and modified cars. I don't have any real problems with the current ruleset overall as it makes for some great competition. It will be cool to see Brians car at nationals this year, if I am able to make it there.

From an enthusiast only casually interested in Autocross this is always the thing that has bothered me about it. Feeling like if I don't pick the right car with the right mods for whatever class I am ending up in than I just cant be competitive. (Which being a noob wouldnt matter anyway but it reduces the motivation from the onset)

It seems like Camaros are the overwhelmingly popular choice for the protouring/cp stuff? Just because of how much parts you can borrow from and the LSx being the motor of choice?

I'd love a smog exempt weekend/track/autox toy.

In reply to Jaynen:

Jaynen, one thing to understand about autocross is that "picking the right car" is always a fluid situation; what is right today may be way wrong tomorrow. Newer cars with better technology or just car model updates are things dictated by manufacturers and competitors gravitate towards the ones that simply perform better. Occasional rule changes don't always help either.

The good thing about Camaro's and Mustangs is that they can run in ESP, CP and EM. The great thing is that they are fun in all three classes.

That winning thing is much more dependent on developing your skills. Do it to have fun, first; spend money later.

A fast CP car does not need to be overly sophisticated either; the Padberg Mustang still runs struts up front and a torque-arm out back. Oh...it won Nationals just a few years ago too.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3BcQ7m1TKY

oldsaw wrote: In reply to Jaynen: Jaynen, one thing to understand about racing is that "picking the right car" is always a fluid situation; what is right today may be way wrong tomorrow. Newer cars with better technology or just car model updates are things dictated by manufacturers and competitors gravitate towards the ones that simply perform better. Occasional rule changes don't always help either.

Fixed that for you

True enough, I guess when talking about track days etc since there are no real classing/rules besides driver levels its a little more wide open

Having "that car" is definitely the case with most Stock and ST classes and some SP classes, but it seems the Prepared and Modified classes are more open with what can be competitive and the rules have been fairly stable. The top car in CP for a few years was the Maier's GT350 (it's amusing to see a real Shelby chopped up into a CP car, but he started long before the cars were crazy-valuable) - typcially by a fair margin. The engine broke shortly before Nationals and he didn't have time to get it fixed, which is why something different won.

Also, the CP rules are not just for V8 cars. There's a weight break for 6 cylinder cars as well. I've had day-dreams of building a slant-6 CP car. Probably wouldn't be competitive and almost certainly more expensive than building a V8, but it could be fun/different.

Personally, I don't see the point of building a dedicated track car that doesn't conform to any ruleset. I can see it being fun for awhile, but eventually I'd want to compete.

Steve Chryssos wrote: True that. But most pro-touring cars are too porky for CP. Better to run a pro-touring car with this group. http://americanstreetcarseries.com/ Most events consume an entire weekend and combine autocross with other components such as road course time trial and drag racing depending on the venue. I'm sure they'd let CP cars run as exhibition. In fact, they don't care if you bring your WRX.

I don't see anything about the cars that can run that series. Just safety rules.

Ian F wrote: Also, the CP rules are not just for V8 cars. There's a weight break for 6 cylinder cars as well. I've had day-dreams of building a slant-6 CP car. Probably wouldn't be competitive and almost certainly more expensive than building a V8, but it could be fun/different.

We had a guy in Milwaukee who for years ran a Gremlin with a 258--it was VERY fast. The car is still owned by him, but has been apart for some time--it may go back together soon.

In reply to 93EXCivic:

There's a 200 treadwear rule but otherwise, it's wide open. 90% of the cars that participate are old muscle cars with upgraded suspension. The rest are folks who have pro-touring cars that are under construction. So they bring out their late model vette or WRX or whatever daily driver The late model alternative cars are fun to have around because they help serve as benchmarks.

And to put that in perspective, a very fast pro-touring 69 Camaro can outgun a base C6 vette, but not a stock Z06 -- assuming the same driver. At the end of the day, pro-touring cars are still mostly 3300-3600 lb, stock track width street cars. It's a long way to CP class weight-minimums. I never thought of my pro-touring Camaro as "big" until I started working here at Grassroots Motorsports. Mine is exactly 3300 lbs without a driver. I've had it as low as 3150 with no sound insulation, stereo, and hollow doors, but still with headlights, taillights, wipers and other mandatory bits.

It might make more sense to assign pro-touring cars their own street prepared class. Here's a link to our pro-touring project in case anyone missed it.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/project-cars/1968-chevrolet-camaro/

Do imports count as pro-touring or CP? Like could you build a 240z?