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Thinking about builing a racer

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Old Sep 22, 2006 | 03:12 PM
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Thinking about builing a racer

OK so i was parting out my 80 rx havent found any 1 to but the shell thought i would go ahead and build a racer out of it. I mainly wanna do some local autocrossing to start out but really dont know where to look for rule and stuff. So if any could help me out that would be great. I already got a couple of guys around that would help me set it up.
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Old Sep 23, 2006 | 03:08 PM
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"I've already got this good body, so I'm going to build a race car out of it."

You wouldn't believe how many times I have heard that. Let me save you a lot of time and grief and tell you:

That is not a good enough reason to start bulding a race car. The body shell is the cheapest part of a race car. It takes waaay more time and money than you could imagine to build a good winning race car. If you are not going to build a winner, then why even bother? 9 out of 10 guys that start a project like that do not have the money & experience to finish it. What makes you better than them? It is not cheaper to build a race car than it is to buy a used one. If you think used race cars are expense, then way till you learn how much more it costs to build one yourself. My words may sound harsh, but I have been road racing for over a decade now, and I like I said earlier, I have seen most attempts to build a car fail.

Last edited by speedturn; Sep 23, 2006 at 03:14 PM.
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Old Sep 23, 2006 | 04:42 PM
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What he said...
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Old Sep 23, 2006 | 07:45 PM
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+3

Horrible idea. You've parted a car down to a shell and then you want to build a racecar out of it?

I can guarantee that you'll end up buying back something you sold and paying double what you sold it for.

Always buy your first racecar done and ready to go. That way you can be racing instead of building. You can always build a 2nd car while you're racing the first one
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Old Sep 23, 2006 | 11:06 PM
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Look for rules on the sanctioning bodies web sites. That would be on SCCA and NASA.
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Old Sep 25, 2006 | 11:06 AM
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ok if you all say so but i know there's a local racer that auto crosses his dd. but what ever i havent found much info on local stuff.
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Old Sep 25, 2006 | 03:30 PM
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You know what, I totally spaced on the "auto-x" part of the post. By all means, if you have a running, rolling chassis then Auto-x it... just be aware that if you've removed a bunch of stuff, it may place you in a class you've got no chance of winning... but if you're just looking to get out there and toss the car around some cones, go for it...

Also, consider rally-x as well.

Go to www.scca.org and look for Central Division... that should get you to your regions website. Rules are also available at scca.org in the "garage" section IIRC.
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Old Sep 26, 2006 | 07:30 AM
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yea and i would drive it harder than i will my dd in autocross.
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Old Sep 26, 2006 | 07:59 AM
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The Sports Car Club of America runs more autocross events than anyone else. Most other clubs copy the SCCA rules. It is very important to know the rules before you build a race car - it saves you much time and money to do things right the first time according to the rule book.

There are a lot of rules governing autocross. They can be found here:

http://www.scca.org/Solo/Index.asp?IdS=04FE2E-7074B10&x=050|070&~=

Like Scott Rhea said above "just be aware that if you've removed a bunch of stuff, it may place you in a class you've got no chance of winning... " Completely stripping out your car will bump you out of stock and even the street prepared classes. Competition is very tuff in the street prepared classes. If you really stripped your chassis down, then it will through you into the F prepared class, which is for highly prepared race cars. Stock suspension and motor and gears and tires will get creamed in that class.
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Old Sep 26, 2006 | 10:55 AM
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ok well maybe i ll just use my dd. i looked at those sites and can t find the info i was looking for. Maybe i just aint very good at understanding most sites. Thats why i stay here and never go to nopistions.com seems like i cant find **** on that site.
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Old Sep 26, 2006 | 05:06 PM
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Solo rules:
http://www.scca.org/Solo/Index.asp?IdS=055C1D-D099F60&x=050|070&~=

Central Division:
http://www.scca.com/Inside/Index.asp?Reference=cendiv
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