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What road-racing classes to race in? F1000 possible?
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Author:  Earley Motorsports [ October 17, 2008, 10:03 pm ]
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I would love to build another car specifically for racing as the "racing" toll on mine has been hard. It has lost it's pretty-ness so I have decided to build another car for racing only and use the Leitch as a fun road car and occasional auto X car. :roll:
I have been tossing up the idea of a single seater or "clubman" style car. I have some options lying around in the garage. One is a Yamaha VMax motor with 145hp and 90 ft/lbs of torque. That would be good in either due to the torque factor but what class would I be in. The 1200cc might be the problem. I also have a Toyota 4afe in the corner. The only thing with that is it is low on hp (about 105) for a 1600 cc. I love the Toyota 20 valve in the Leitch but that is not a spare. I have also got a VW trans axle out of an air cooled bug which turned upside down would be good for a single seater. Could attach that to the 4afe but the low hp problem. :? Putting a turbo on it would put me over the 2000cc and in a different class where it wouldn't be competitive. I have also thought about a snow mobile engine. Then it would be like an A-mod car. That is one of the highest cost amature racing classes. Budget is to be kept in mind here. What all this boils down to is; what can we do where we can have a bunch of fun like the English do with their Locosts and keep it as the name implies...Locost. I am on for building anything small, light, reasonably cost, and most of all is to have fun with other similar type cars. The other thing is the English and many other parts of the world have that we don't have here in the States is low entry fees. Thanks to the lawyers for that. :twisted:
Author:  The_Pipefather [ October 18, 2008, 11:00 am ]
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Earley Motorsports wrote:
Budget is to be kept in mind here. What all this boils down to is; what can we do where we can have a bunch of fun like the English do with their Locosts and keep it as the name implies...Locost.


That is precisely the reason for this thread: to encourage debate on what kind of car that everyone can agree on building: Most people seem to agree that this is the number one problem. The arm-twisting of the major clubs like NASA or SCCA to give us a separate class can come once there are enough people with finished cars. Easier said than done, one might think, if the opinions expressed in this thread are taken as an indicator.


The Brits have another class called the Formula 750 - cheap as all heck and still apparently fun. check it out: www.750formula.co.uk/forum


We in the US have a tendency to complicate matters and money talks like nothing else here. One look at DSR and F1000 is enough. What started as cheap fun homebuilt classes have escalated into classes where the engineering costs approach that of a backmarker Le Mans team. Cars costing $50k are commonplace. This year at nationals the only homebuilt car came in 10th behind 9 other Stohr. And the homebuilt car was built by a guy who is an aerospace engineer and used to build competition aerobatic aircraft. Go figure.
Author:  KB58 [ October 18, 2008, 11:16 am ]
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There is, or was, an open-source D-sports racer design on the web a few years back. The idea was to have a public forum with only one topic, designing a winning D-sports racer. Being open, everyone could add their input about how to get it done; everyone was encouraged to participate with the CAD work, fabrication, and so on.

I watched from the sidelines to see how a community effort like this could work out, skeptical that a bunch of really creative people could agree on anything.

Alas, that seemed to be the case, where the group quickly fractured into sub-groups, each with their strong opinions on the matter. Case in point, the price target. One group correctly pointed out that to win requires about $45k (this was some years ago.) Another group pointed out, also correctly, that for that much money, you could just buy a used "real car" and not sink tons of time into an untested design.

I've been out of the group for years so I don't know how it ended up. If that's what this thread is thinking about doing, it can be tough due to all the strong-minded participants.

FWIW, a few years back I and two buddies got together to to come up with a common design so we could build three cars - it was a complete failure. Each of us have such different ideas about what we want we couldn't agree on anything. Since then one of us started on a front-engine design, I starting on a mid-engine design, and the third guy hasn't had time to do anything.

If there's a point to my spew I guess it's: The only way a group effort is going to work is to have one person in charge who makes the hard decisions and everyone falls in line, like how Lotus worked when Chapman was there. Otherwise it's like having Congress try to agree on something.
Author:  Earley Motorsports [ October 20, 2008, 8:00 pm ]
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How do you think this would work? A car built similar to a Spec Racer Ford. What I mean by similar is a mid mounted space framed car built on a buget. Reasons for this: You could use a later model engine and trans from a FWD car with spindles, axles etc and drop it all in the back. I was looking around and not because I already have one but Toyota 4AFE are pretty cheap and plentiful and the same HP as the spec racer Ford. Using the combination of that and a 5 speed would mean they would be around for a long time. Having the engine in the front presents 2 problems now a days. Supply, RWD trans' and rear ends (light) are getting more scarce all the time. Now with the motor, only allow it to be a twin choke carb rather than fuel injection. That would make it easier to monitor due to chips etc in the EFI system. Stock ratios etc in the trans, used spec racer slicks are cheap (I know as I use them on my 7) and the possibility of using bike shocks instead of the more pricey ones. I am not sure if a sand rail rack and pinion would be good enough but they can be picked up around $100. Have a single center seat and body design of choice and of course defusers and spoiler are allowed. What do you think?
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