What Challenge car ideas...

....have you had? I drove down to this past Challenge to spectate and got the bug. Now I'm spending time cruising Craigslist for candidate vehicles. I like the idea of something a little unique vs the more common answers. So, what cars have some of you thought about building, but haven't done it or seen anyone else build. By way of an example, I just love the Jeep because it's just not what you expect. My best find so far was a Lincoln LS, but it was pretty hefty and had crash damage beyond my skills.

I wanted to do a fully blacked out 40's or 50's car some day. Not just the exterior, then interior too. Think Hotblack Desiato's stuntship from The Restaurant at the End of The Universe.

Having seen the drag performance of a few of these, some rather pedestrian car with a twin engine setup could be fun. Just run two identical automatic drivetrains, and everything should work itself out...

eastsidemav wrote: Having seen the drag performance of a few of these, some rather pedestrian car with a twin engine setup could be fun. Just run two identical automatic drivetrains, and everything should work itself out...

A dual-powertrain car would be a great idea for anyone who can do their own fab work. If it corners decently the power would take care of the rest. Dual manual gearboxes work well too, you just have to tie the shifter mechanisms together - Ansonivan's Durocco works like that.

I bought a $600 Porsche 924 on eBay for the Challenge. It came with fiberglass quarters, hood, a stripped interior and an enemic 95hp 2.0L. I've spent 6+ years rebuilding it and its way over budget and still slow as molasses.

Plus being on the West Coast getting to the Challenge is a hard sell when there's plenty of Autocross, drag racing and car shows here I could lose at. :)

Still, that car with an Audi V8 stuffed in the nose would be a lot of fun and still slow compared to some of the crazy stuff that's shown up. Still, if I juggled things around and looked at the parts on the car and what could be recouped, it might still be at or under budget. Just missed an Audi V8 engine on CL for $500, I'll install a turbo on the 2.0L and have some fun with it instead :)

A mid-engined turbo dodge still rattles around in my head. Had a free X-1/9 that I actually got as far as setting the turbo-dodge drivetrain into the engine bay. Had to get rid of it since it was just too much project for me at the time. After rebuilding the 924, I'm actually ready to tackle something like that again, so I'm always keeping my eyes open for something I could work with.

A Datsun or MG Roadster with some sort of ungodly powerful engine swap, very little suspension and lots of tire seems to be something that could do well.

Black EG Civic Coupe with an ugly wing and a Nissan SR20 swap.

An antique store a few miles away has a pair of 1950s fiat topolino rollers sitting around in their back lot. I have visions of mid-engine power. Another challenge fantasy is combining a triumph bike and a spitfire into a vintage styled monopost thingy. Beige camry - only rwd, v8 and box flares

I've wondered about welding a Miata floor pan into something else. Then you can upgrade the power plant to something else later on and have Miata aftermarket suspension stuff available. That would be a lot of work and probably is beyond my skill level, but you don't know until you try.

FB rx7 except F2T powered.

Other than that, I'd love to have my e36 propelled by a 3.4L V8 from a sho.......it'd sound nice, pack more power without effecting weight distribution or handling.

318ti with 4g63 or m50

S10/Sonoma - Fiberglass bed/hood/fenders/whatever else you can afford (DIY Style of course), "Xtreme" suspension, boosted straight six

The standard entries are easy: Civic, Miata, BMW, etc. That's why we are running a Mustang. Tons of easy to get cheap parts.

The unusual are fun, but much harder to build.
I think you'll see that a lot of the odd stuff (excluding Andy) was slower than a stock Miata. We got out TR8 to 13.5 in the quarter, and to take 7th in the autocross, and that took a lot of effort and fabricating. The Mustang we have now was 5 percent of the effort,and potentially much, much faster.

That being said, I fell in love with the Rover V-8 that we had in the TR8, and would like to put one in another small car someday.

My yard is currently littered with XR4Tis,and Turbo Dodges.
That gets me thinking. Then I realize the amount of work it would take to begin to approach what the "small effort" Mustang can do.

One other thing about he less effort car. We take the Mustang out about once a month to autocross, instead of sitting home building a high effort car.

What was the question?

Swank Force One wrote: Black EG Civic Coupe with an ugly wing and a Nissan SR20 swap.

4cylndrfury wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Black EG Civic Coupe with an ugly wing and a Nissan SR20 swap.

How about an AWD EF civic painted to look like a subaru and then enter it as a subaru?

In reply to 4cylndrfury:

And green neons.

MG Midget with 3.4 GM V6 cause they are both cheap and you don't have to be a genius to fit them together. If you are smart enough to leave the drive-train stock, you also end up with reliable.

Finished product does not require massive truck to haul to FL. Also, it fits the Newtonian rule of Acceleration = Force/Mass (That's Newtons Recipe for FUN)

I missed out on an $800 Nash Metropolitan two years ago. Shouldn't bought it on first sight instead of thinking about it for a couple of days. When I went back it was gone.That was a miata drive train and suspension candidate in my mind.

In reply to spin_out:
I've been looking at Mustangs for all the reasons you cite.

5.0 'stang engine + turbo + miata? Someone must've done that already I bet.

I want to build something like this:

I don't know Chrysler products well, but would a 1999 Neon readily accept one of the turbo engines from a minivan/Daytona/Shadow etc.?

DeadSkunk wrote: I don't know Chrysler products well, but would a 1999 Neon readily accept one of the turbo engines from a minivan/Daytona/Shadow etc.?

Might be doable, but the turbo manifold from a SRT-4 is a lot easier to just put on a stock DOHC neon engine

I wanna do a track t powered by a 3.4 v6.

eastsidemav wrote:

DeadSkunk wrote: I don't know Chrysler products well, but would a 1999 Neon readily accept one of the turbo engines from a minivan/Daytona/Shadow etc.?

Might be doable, but the turbo manifold from a SRT-4 is a lot easier to just put on a stock DOHC neon engine

I was gonna say, they've gone the other way, with the 2.0/2.4 DOHC turbo going into a minivan/Daytona/Shadow etc. SO I guess it would be possible to go backwards, but like was pointed out; turbo + Neon/Stratus/PT Cruiser DOHC motor = much boosted fun :)

Standard cab short bed minitruck with boosted 4 cylinder. Take your pick of manufacturer

Chevy - ecotec

Ford - Lima 2.3

Dodge - SRT 2.4

Mitsu/Dodge - 4G63

Nissan - SR20DET

What you need is one of my SAAB 900 SPG's.