Spec Racer Fords

While Nascar is sleeping and Speed is showing some good TV I was watching all the various SCCA Nats races.

One of those was the Spec Racer Fords. I have seen them run before, but apparently never in a situation where I've been able to compare their performance and races to others. Watching several races back to back on the same track gives you a better perspective of how the classes and drivers compare.

These guys were just tearing the track up. The cars were nimble, agile, very controllable, and quite sturdy. They were very fun to watch, a lot more so than Formula Mazda, ST or most of the other "lesser" classes.

They were of special interest to me since I have been working on a Middie Locost. Suspension has been a particular problem for me and I thought that since these were basically tarted up Locosts maybe I could copy all or most of the suspension for mine.

I only found one pic on the internet of their chassis and suspension and it wasn't all that clear.

Do any of you guys have one of these?

I am presuming they have the bugs worked out of the suspension so if you have one or have driven one do you think it would work on a Locost? The Locost is meant mostly for the DE or Autocross, but I will be driving it on the street some, especially to and from the track or autocrosses.

You might want to also look at the various Sports Racer suspensions that are out there, including the LeGrand that we have as a project car. You can buy plans for building your own Sports Racer and there's an open source sports race project as well.

Spec Racer Ford is essentially a strong, reliable and nearly bulletproof Sports Racer that is also a little heavy and underpowered. That said, they are a hoot to drive.

Is the Spec Racer Ford considered one of those open source sports race projects?

And secondly where do I even begin looking for these plans. Mine is a middie which is what was so attractive about the Ford.

I read they were just about indestructible chassis and it was amazing how fast 105 hp went in those cars.

No, SRFs are built by SCCA enterprises. They are all essentially identical cars that are all built by the factory. They race with sealed engines and a very, very strict rule set. A Spec as you can get.

The rest of the Sports Racers are much more open in terms of engineering and diversity:

Sports Racer forum: http://www.dsrforum.yuku.com/directory

Open Source Sports Racer http://opensourcesportsracer.com/OpenSourceSportsRacer/default.aspx

History, links, etc on Tom Clayton's great Sports Racer Network: http://sports.racer.net/index1.html

SRF's are only available from SCCA enterprises (or used, of course.) You can't build your own.

They are a barrel of fun, and built like tanks. They have nice flat sides so you can bang up against other cars in the corners without much concern, and I've crashed 'em a couple times with surprisingly little damage. They aren't the fastest things on the track but they're all right - check the article in the latest GRM on budget racecars - they lapped Willow Springs only slightly slower than a Factory Five Challenge car.

Edit: go here http://www.hallettracing.com/, click on track map and you can find a couple in-car videos of an SRF lap around Hallett in Oklahoma.

I had hoped for the specs and dimensions of the Spec Racer suspension. Maybe even to find one in my area that I could look at and take measurements.

Maybe the Open Source Sports Racer will give me plans and dimensions.

I'll bet I'll be up late tonight.

EDIT: Unfortunately I won't be up late. The Sports racer links don't show any suspension pics, diagrams or anything and the open source is apparently just getting started.

So I'm back to the original does anyone here have a Spec Racer Ford and would that suspension work on a partially street driven car?

Try:

http://www.paladinmotorsports.com/frparts.asp

or

http://www.midwestspecracer.com/srt.asp

(look under the Toyota page for the "Aspen" car) there are pics, but no diagrams

Here's some chassis/suspension pictures: http://www.hrace.com/srf.html

The comparison article that was done was only lacking one thing in my book. An idea of maintenance expenses. For instance, for the SRF, whats that sealed motor costing you $ wise?

Check here:http://www.hrace.com/parts.html According to the PDF, retail/undiscounted price for a longblock is 4,500 top/bottom end Rebuild appears to be $3,500 but I suspect that would depend on the builder and what was wrong with the motor.

Not bad

As long as you don't overrev them, they're pretty durable.

stuart in mn wrote: Here's some chassis/suspension pictures: http://www.hrace.com/srf.html

That's the only pictures of the chassis I've been able to find. It must be a closely guarded secret.

The Toyota version looks very nice. Quite a bit more HP and a close ratio 5 speed.

I doubt secrecy is the the issue here, more than likely the lack of drawings is that the cars are mostly unremarkable. These cars started out as Spec Renault back in the late 80's and switched over to Ford power when the Renault engines became scarce. The chassis has been around forever, and in the sports racer world the suspension is on the crude side. Basically all outboard shocks etc.

I'm pretty sure that somewhere on that Sports Racer website there are drawings of the Legrand suspensions which are similar in principle. I know there are pretty extensive Legrand suspension pictures on the Sports.Racer.net site in the new Legrand Gallery of Dave Bedard's green car.

You may also want to look at the D/E mod site:

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/SCCA-DMOD-EMOD/

carguy123 wrote: The Toyota version looks very nice. Quite a bit more HP and a close ratio 5 speed.

There is another similar car called a Toyota Worlds Sports Racer; it's a little bigger than an SRF and has the MR2 engine and transmission. Here's one example: http://www.race-cars.com/carsold/other/wsr-97/wsr-97pp.htm

Gonzo_Bmod wrote: The chassis has been around forever, and in the sports racer world the suspension is on the crude side. Basically all outboard shocks etc.

They use rocker arms and inboard shocks, check the pictures in the link I posted last night.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Yeah sorry, my bad. What I mean is that they did not use modern push rod type suspension which is current best practice for sports racers like the Stohr, Phoenix, Speads, etc. Outboard was not the right term.

Why is a pushrod better than a rocker arm? A pushrod is out in the air stream.

Older suspension design or not the Spec Racers were doing things on the track many of the other classes could not. For instance they could take the curbs easily and when spun in the middle of the track they could make the U turn to join the fray easily whereas others were way off the track to turn or had to do 3 point turns.

They also were very tossable and stable. They recovered from incidents easier than most and looked to be more precise and stable than others so control looked good.

In reply to carguy123:

In rocker arm suspensions, actual wheel rate can be more affected by rocker arm stiffness than spring rate. Push/pull rods allow for better control of wheel rate. Packaging is also an advantage with push/pull rods especially if the car in question has under body tunnels like most modern sports racers.