hi guys. i am currently tied up in my life. i love racing. i am racing nerd. especailly for drifting and rallying. Now i have finally saved up 5000 canadian dollars as the initial fond to start my own racing program(not talking seriously here, just like non pro style) i have two options to choose. there are advantages and disadvantages for both options. i don't know what to do.
here are the choices

1. Buy an old car(like civic, sentra, 323, 300zx, 88 rx7, or pulsar), put in turbo, a new engine, new suspension, and roll cage. RACE that car. THE END. with this car, i can join rally for sure, but i might crap up. the car sucks.


2. Use my daily drive( RX8), tune it up. do like suspension, roll cage, reduce weight by having new rims and exhaust. if i have more money, get a PTP turbo. i love my car. there is no way that i am going to risk my car in anykind of tiring race like rally, 100 laps, and stuff like that. RX8 is fairly good car to start with, so i might win a lot.

NEED ADVICE PLEASE. i want to know what will you choose and why
THANK YOU ALL

 

I am currently setting my rx8 up to autox at the highest level that my ability and wallet will allow. I see the car as being competitive in b stock.
Given your two options, to be honest, I would personally buy an older miata and try to run in the spec miata class. Thats just me, i'm not really into the drifting or rally racing.
Luckily, after the initial clost(wheels, shocks, exhaust, ect), all you really have to buy is tires. If that sounded appealing, I suppose you could do both.

 

Wow. Where to start.

My suggestion would be to set up an excel spreadsheet to start estimating your budget for rallying and for drifting (which... isn't exactly racing). Figure your car setup costs, entry fees, tire costs, cost for spares, travel, etc. I think you will find that it all adds up pretty quickly.

Then look over your finances and honestly judge how much of your money you can devote to it.

I don't know a whole lot about rallying and I know nothing about drifting. I know Grassroots Motorsports is starting the buildup of a Subaru Impreza for SCCA's RallyCross program. That might be a good place to get your feet wet.

 

Karts. Excellent bang for the buck. They are still expensive, as is ALL racing. I was talking to a kart guy the other day and he had nearly $13k in his kart! Still, a good kart chassis and motor can be found relatively cheap. Its probably your best bet as there's no suspension to spend money on, and most classes are pretty strict about modifications to the engines.

But if you are set on racing cars, its almost always cheaper to buy a used race car than to build one yourself. There are tons for sale all the time, often with a lot of spares, logbook, etc. That can simply much of what you need to do.

 

Yes, building a car gets out of control real fast. What province do you live in?

Oh yeah, there are rules when you go racing. You can't just slap a cage in a car and call it a race car. The 8 won't work for what it sounds like you want to do.

 

I have learned that it is not a good idea to use your daily driver as a fun project car. I would heavily recommend against it unless you have a backup car. Things will break, projects will take longer than expected.

 

I say Option 1, keep the 8 for a daily driver and buy an old car for the races. Also, you mentioned drifting, but are you going to drift in a Civic? I guess I don't see FWD as your best option here.


Where was the "my 8 will die?" part?

 

Shop for the type of racing that you want to do, and then, see which one you can get into as per John V. In most cases, it is cheaper to buy somebody else's car (the old my loss your gain thing) than it is to develop your own, but you need to be knowledgeable about the type of racing and the pedigree of the car that you are buying.

Just my 2 cents (three Canadian)...

 

Although the 8 would definitely be more fun to have as a project car than some crappier car, I've had alot of fun modifying it. But it will be much more expensive and again make sure you have some other car to get you around when the 8 is out of commission.