So now we know - Never try to make a Camry into a race car

Reading the Camry project car article leads me to the conclusion stated in the topic name. GRM took the best possible starting point, a V-6 with a 5 speed (unicorn), and quickly blew two motors. Using a manual car in the first place is unrealistic; if the premise is that your grandmother left you a Camry, there's a 99.999999% chance that it's going to be a 2.2 automatic, which will be completely worthless as an autocross car. And who (besides GRM) would purposely seek out a V-6 Camry as a race car when there are so many better alternatives available for the same cost?

I know a guy who did pretty durn well autocrossing an automatic Stratus without any major problems.

O really.

You realize that picture is dated 1998?

jstein77 wrote: You realize that picture is dated 1998?

Yup but they did race the Camry when it was new.

93EXCivic wrote:

jstein77 wrote: You realize that picture is dated 1998?

Yup but they did race the Camry when it was new.

The factory backed a pro team with a heavily modified car to promote the product. I don't recall them flooding the grids of amature showroom stock races where the merits of the base car are important.

Edit, just realized that was the BTCC, very very heavily midified cars. Different engines, trans, pick up points. Any car could have been competative in that series at the time.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

jstein77 wrote: You realize that picture is dated 1998?

Yup but they did race the Camry when it was new.

The factory backed a pro team with a heavily modified car to promote the product. I don't recall them flooding the grids of amature showroom stock races where the merits of the base car are important.

Yeah but grids weren't exactly flooded with Yugos or Wartburgs or or Sentras lots of other cars that have less or equal potential to Camrys but lots of us still race them.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

jstein77 wrote: You realize that picture is dated 1998?

Yup but they did race the Camry when it was new.

The factory backed a pro team with a heavily modified car to promote the product. I don't recall them flooding the grids of amature showroom stock races where the merits of the base car are important.

Isn't that more or less every touring car, though?

Your missing the point. Many people get a car that has a 5-speed, or some racy graphic stripes, or a "rallye package" and they suddenly think that it is a race car. This story will help all of those folks sell their G6s, Accents and Cobalts (non SS) and buy something else.

All I know is that I'd read the heck out of any article in which there was an unlikely car doing very unlikely things. x10 if it could be duplicated in a small decently equipped garage.

Give me a Grenada than runs a 12.2 sec over a 10.0 sec Mustang any day.

its interesting to read about, and then i dont have to wonder if i should have done it.

My automatic Maxima did okay at autocross...it's a much better starting point than a Camry, IMHO, but it still fits the mantra of "racing what you have". I think GRM should have found a Maxima instead of a Camry so they wouldn't have blown up so many motors!

I once spied an otherwise generic Beige Camry on the Turnpike, sporting a flame job along the sides, done up in slightly lighter and darker shades of Beige.

Depending on who did it and why, it was either insanely great or totally pathetic.

Carter

ebonyandivory wrote: All I know is that I'd read the heck out of any article in which there was an unlikely car doing very unlikely things. x10 if it could be duplicated in a small decently equipped garage. Give me a Grenada than runs a 12.2 sec over a 10.0 sec Mustang any day.

The camry is quick- quite quick, and a very good handling car.

But if in the process of doing that, you grenade the motor due to oil starvation... well... it stands to reason one would question whether you want to use that ability or not.

However quick the car is, if I have to change the motor due to it not being able to survive that kind of work, I'm sure I would not choose that car.

erohslc wrote: I once spied an otherwise generic Beige Camry on the Turnpike, sporting a flame job along the sides, done up in slightly lighter and darker shades of Beige. Depending on who did it and why, it was either insanely great or totally pathetic. Carter

That would've been a great article, 50 shades of beige.

Fair points many of you have. I was just pointing out that Camry’s weren’t natural race cars with the comments on the touring cars. Also, as I’ve said many times. You don’t need to autocross or do track days to be an enthusiast and enjoy a car. There was a guy with a Camry on here doing a build thread. He was the classic case of I've got it and want to improve it while doing maintenance. I think it was an auto, but I recall he was doing springs, shocks, end links things like that. I actually really liked that thread.

I guess Lotus has modified the oiling systems on these engines (as usual) when they use them in the Evora and S3 Elise/Exige.

Somehow i doubt you crowd would be complaining if we were talking about an MR2 with the SAME MOTOR swapped in. Oil starvation is preventable, the end. My personal take on the irony of the Camry situation is that there was a thread a while back where a clear majority of people suggested GRM pick up a 4th gen Maxima as a project car, which is EXTREMELY SIMILAR in almost all family car respects to a late 90s 3.0/5spd Camry. Instead they bought a Camry, blew it up, and now we have people making jokes to the effect of, if you DO start with something like that, sell it and get something better. Whereas if they had picked up a Maxima, it's entirely possible it would have had the exact opposite effect. But i see how the maxima doesn't fit the concept as well, because most people already know it's kind of a wolf in sheeps clothing among FWD, torsion-beam suspended family sedans. Even the Camry was matching their WRX lap times. If it was a maxima they could probably be doing a head-to-head dyno shootout as well (and yes that is a dig at the boring WRX).

Also, as I’ve said many times. You don’t need to autocross or do track days to be an enthusiast and enjoy a car.

Absolutely, and killing motors with oil starvation is ridiculously uncommon on the street. So i dont even see killing a motor that way on the track to be a dealbreaker for a primarily street driven vehicle. Honestly, the way most FWD family car oil pans are designed, i think an accusump should pretty much be anyone's first mod for road course work. Then brake pads.

Uhhh...heeeellllooooo.....the Camry is a race car. I rest my case. Though I suppose these days they're blowing just as many engines as GRM or a LeMons team.

I'm a fan of it, but should've got an Accord.

93EXCivic wrote:

jstein77 wrote: You realize that picture is dated 1998?

Yup but they did race the Camry when it was new.

Before the engine clogged with sludge ...

Adrian_Thompson wrote: You don’t need to autocross or do track days to be an enthusiast and enjoy a car.

What?

Vigo wrote: Somehow i doubt you crowd would be complaining if we were talking about an MR2 with the SAME MOTOR swapped in. Oil starvation is preventable, the end.

Well, Per cleaned out the motor as well as he could and added an oil accumulator, but it still blew up.

Vigo wrote: But i see how the maxima doesn't fit the concept as well, because most people already know it's kind of a wolf in sheeps clothing among FWD, torsion-beam suspended family sedans. Even the Camry was matching their WRX lap times. If it was a maxima they could probably be doing a head-to-head dyno shootout as well (and yes that is a dig at the boring WRX).

Of course, the WRX blowed up as well, so they're still dead even