I'm encountering typical Automotive ADD and pondering "small scale" race cars - there seem to be a bunch of series that run in So-cal with NASA and friends.
Has anyone driven any of these funny little cars? They seem to run down into the 1:5X.XX at sonoma - which is damn fast.
I raced Dwarfs for 14 years. Built 5 cars from scratch and countless rear end housing for others as a way to pay for my hobby.
Look at your local rules closely as there is a HUGE difference around the country on rules. Also you need to look at Dwarf's (modlites) and Legends as different. Legends are a spec class with limited choices on who's parts (yamaha FJ Motor) and repair parts on can use. Where as a Dwarf is normally open to all engine makes and anyone can build a chassis as long as the spec'd tubing is used in certain places. Many Dwarf clubs will let Legends run with them however Dwarfs are banned from competing with a legends series. Both are a blast to race!
Weren't there two that competed in solo nationals this year? I saw something that looked like it might have been a dwarf in the pictures and the results. Couldn't trace that to much other info though.
Inexpensive tube-framed, bike-engined race cars seem like such an obvious recipe for track-day thrills--I can't believe that clubs around the country aren't full of them. I'd love to hear more about what these cars are like to drive.
On a whim me and two buddies rented 3 Legends at a 1/4 mile asphalt oval a few years back. At the time I was road racing a 240z. One of my buddies was racing a dirt IMCA Modified and the other was racing an asphalt oval limited late model. Good power to weight ratio. Handled very well on the circle track. We came away from the weekend thinking it was the biggest bang for the buck we'd ever done on 4 wheels. Seemingly easy ro work on, cheap and suprisingly good power to weight ratio. Seem well built and durable. Easy to store and tow. At 6'1" & 230lbs I was a little cramped but tolerable. A total hoot to drive.
As far as tracking them or racing on road course they are somewhat arrodamically challenged on top end. Generally they seem to turn lap times similar to Spec Miatas. IIRC they are classed as C Sport racers in SCCA RR'ing and are not competitive. I think NASA has a spec class for them.
No experience with Baby grands or legacy cars.
You might want to consider an INEX Thunder Roadster if you want something slightly larger. Made by same folks who build the legands.
Here is my 2 cents. I have had a thread or two about the same subject and have talked to a dozen people. I talked to NASA, SCCA, and all the crap can series. Most do not let you run them, if they do, you run in a class either by yourself or cars that are far faster then yours. The other piece that I felt was important is, unless you have a million spares, pretty much nobody is going to be able to help you out. You want advice on car setup, probably be hard as well. The vehicles are designed for ovals, I think that is the best place for them. I ended up buying a E30, posted on some boards and within minutes got a lot of advice, easily able to get parts, and have had teams reach out to me about pitting next to them for help.
In reply to trigun7469:
Maybe it's different in California, but in my region they let these cars run with the HPDE/TT with NASA and the rest. Also maybe different since we don't have many ovals (that I'm aware of) close to the bay, but the ones I watched race were running 1:5X.XX times at Sonoma on the classic configuration (where anything <2:00 is pretty fast).
It's great to read the input, good and bad!
nderwater wrote: Inexpensive tube-framed, bike-engined race cars seem like such an obvious recipe for track-day thrills--I can't believe that clubs around the country aren't full of them. I'd love to hear more about what these cars are like to drive.
There's also D/Sports Racer cars, which use a similar formula but look more like miniature Daytona Prototypes.
I have experience with D Sports Racers now SCCA P2 cars. The newer cars, like Stohr can be quite pricey upwards of 50-75k but they are stunningly fast (sub 1:20 at Willow Springs).
Now the older tube frame home built / engineered are still fast but much cheaper 15-25K sometime less. Our car was only a couple of seconds a lap slower than front running Trans-Am car so yes quite fast.
Running costs can be reigned a bit; you can run a stock bike motor except for air box and exhaust. Those mods will up the power 10-15hp while keeping the stock reliability. You can run take offs for tires $300 instead of $800 for new. New tires will just make 3 weekends whereas realisticly take offs are only good for 2 but still cheaper than new.
As for performance our car pulled over 2Gs lateral and 3GS on the brakes. Acceleration wise they are 1000lb cars with between 160-180 horsepower.
I ran the DSR at a couple of track days and besides obviously being faster through the twisties it also went past more than one Viper up the main straight.
The only other cheap small car I can think of is what I run now; Formula 500 which are 650lb cars with 100hp but open wheel cars are restricted in the type of events they can run. You could easily convert to a sports race body but the cars are very small and mixing it up with full size road cars could be intimidating.
Tom
We had a couple of mini-cars, can't remember the name , ice race with us. They looked like small dirt track racers. They were fast and could run with the big engine cars.
In reply to accordionfolder: Yea the East coast they only run these on the ovals, when I initially did my research there was a series Nasa ran with the Baby Grands on the west coast, the last post was 10 years ago. When I do see these cars on track they are against the open wheel cars. The Legend race car at Beaverun was getting skooled by Formula Fords, Dsports and other open wheel cars, the Legend just looked super slow and out of place. I saw a Baby Grand at Nelsons Ledges, it looked really cool, but again didn't look that fast or turn stellar times. When I talked to the guy that owned the Baby Grand he said that he uses them for a racing school he runs. The other thing that made my jaw drop was the cost and frequency on rebuilds. Again this is just my 2 cents.
A lot of bike motors are kind of counter intuitive; we blew up 2 motors because the motor was over cooled. On Yamaha 1000s of that time if the water temp was below 160 they'd oil starve the rod bearings. The motors needed a good bit of heat in them so metal would expand and tighten up the clearances. I once ran the last 6 laps of a race with the motor temp above 230 without issue. This prompted running a larger radiator, on 100 degree days it'd never go above 190, then the following winter all of a sudden we had issues with motors. When the first one went I was told I don't shifted it to death but something told me otherwise. After the second one went I called a Yamaha engineer I knew, he immediately asked if the water temp was below the 160 mark and if it seized on the over run. So short story long the failures weren't due to a fault with the engine.
In general you'll find things like the cooling systems need to be set up like they are on the bike (radiator above motor) and jetting them a touch rich causes no issue but running a touch lean causes them to detonate like mad or have hot spots and fail shortly after.
Stock motorcycle engines will run forever, it's when people try to get big increases with internal mods that they go south. Also some of the set ups I've seen are the cause for most of the issue.
Ovid_and_Flem wrote: You might want to consider an INEX Thunder Roadster if you want something slightly larger. Made by same folks who build the legands.
I just looked at a Thunder Roadster last night - those are surprisingly big vehicles. Didn't find the cockpit too comfortable either, but manageable. Same guy also had an old SCCA Spec Racer and that one seemed to be both smaller and offer more room for the driver.
In reply to BoxheadTim:
At Road Atlanta saw TR with a Hayabusa motor. Pretty quick
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