knfeparty

Hi everyone, I wanted some feedback on transitioning from long-time occasional DE participant to the path to doing Time Trials. No desire for wheel-to-wheel anytime soon.

I have been primarily autocrossing my 996 street car for about 10 years, with some DEs in it as well. I have done a lot of DEs in a few BMWs and a 944 just to save the wear on the 911.

I completed One Lap of America in my E39 M5 and got a taste for doing TT. Now I'm hooked. For now I'm just going to run my two street cars in more DEs and also the SCCA Time Trials Primer program (first one this weekend at CMP).

It seems to me that it is much more economical to buy someone else's track car than to build one (not to mention I'd be severely devaluing my 40th anniversary 911).

Is it nuts to jump straight into a fully-built "race" car? I can get a 996TT within my budget by selling the M5 and/or 911 with a full cage, fire suppression, fuel cell, the works. The car is above my skill level but is a crazy deal for the amount of prep and safety gear. It's cheaper than a lot of stock 996TTs, and there's no other way I can afford to get into a Mezger engine car outside of the 996TT.

Viperbob1

I can tell you from experience Turbo race cars can be very expensive. First, if not set up right engine wise to is very easy to blow a whole in a piston. Second the power from the TT tends to require more frequent gearbox work (like when third gear blows up, and blows up, and blows up), axles, etc. So if you are stretching the budget just to get the car and not saving for repairs (and buying a turbo is always a gamble) you might rethink your strategy. But yes buying a race car is always less than building one. The secret is finding the right one. 8 out of 10 you look are how would you say, JUNK.

AudiOn19s

While you save money buying a prepped car, you'r also potentially buying someone else's problems, or a car that was developed to a particular driving style that might not be your own. Also, ditto on what Bob said about turbo cars they are fast but spendy. My brother tracks an FD (turbo) RX-7 and his yearly maintenance budget is more than mine for my GT3.

There was a great 01 cup car that just sold for under 50k in the cup section. if you want a true race care get a true race car.

That said, for Time Trial what's most important if you want to be competitive is pick a class first and then find / build a car to the class rules...and hope the rules don't change!! Almost always this means you're building a corvette.

I"ve successfully used my GT3 for time trials without putting any more abuse on it than I would in a typical DE.

Thundermoose

If you may race one day get a full race car even if you plan to do TT. I have E46M3 with half cage and am in no mans land. Would take a lot of work to recage and there really is no market for TT cars.

AudiOn19s

Also, IDK what SCCA's TT program is like but with NASA it's original intent was towards street cars not full race cars so it requires no more safety gear than a typical DE would.

Scooby921

If you're looking at the NASA Time Trials series I think any and every Porsche defaults to ST classing which becomes TT1-5 and requires most of the things you would consider a fully-built race car. So no, it's not crazy. With most of the classing being defined by min/max power to weight ratios and points assigned to modifications I think your best option is to run through some of the classing calculators before you pick a car. The power you get out of a 996 TT may require you to add more weight to compensate. In the end it might be more expensive to build than a NA car and the added weight will be harder on your tire budget.

CosmosMpower

I don't think you need a full race car to do DD. For NASA you don't even need a roll bar unless you have a convertible. I'd get a GT3 or streetable track prepped Cayman or something similar.

josserman

85Gold

knfeparty

Thanks for all the advice, everyone.

To be clear, having the safety gear is nothing about the rules to me, it's personally wanting to have the safety gear.

I promised myself I would stop caring about the points and just be sure to drive a car that I enjoyed driving. This is the same in autocross; I could be competing for the win in a C5Z06 or I could be battling just to stay in the trophies in my 996. I've stayed with the 996 all this time because it's a car I actually enjoy.

Scooby921

All TT classes? I was trying to read through their rules as I was writing my first reply and it looked like their TT rules are effectively the PT / ST rules except applied to a fastest lap format instead of door-to-door racing.

ace37

Yes, that's true. Even if the race car ends up having issues that you miss it's likely to be cheaper to buy and fix it than to build one from a street car. You'll encounter issues when building a street car up too. My track Boxster's engine just let go after only 10 track hours on street tires. I don't have a good explanation yet.

Not at all. You'll have better safety equipment and you won't be as worried about maintaining the cosmetics of the car and such. Plus, if you do TT for a few years and then try a race, most folks seem to get hooked right away and stick to W2W. If you have a race car instead of a track car you're just giving yourself options.

Buying the car is just the start. I'd be very hesitant if you're going to have to stretch to be able to throw money at it after purchase. Be sure you can afford sticky tires as they're faster and more fun to drive on. And be sure you can afford to write off the car if it were to come to that. If you can't, seriously consider budgeting track insurance as another cost of running.

I have a new 991TT and am building a Spec Boxster rather than something nicer/faster/more expensive. It's slow and I don't find it sexy, but they're a lot of fun to drive, good cars to learn on, and cheap to fix if and when things break. If I lost the car I could accept that and move on. When my engine recently let go - which aside from an accident is about the worst case - I was very glad I was in a 986.1 Boxster instead of the Cayman S I liked better. Another driver at that same track day told me that all-in, he had recently spent $20k to get his 987.1 Cayman S motor replaced. (Yes, you can get a rough stock 987.1 Cayman S for that price.) I'll probably spend close to $10k because I'll do upgrades while the engine is out, but if my car were already fully built, the replacement motor was only $3k so I'd be back on track for $4-5k. (Again, yes, you can get a rough stock 986.1 Boxster for about that price.) I don't know what the cost for a 996TT motor is, but before you pull the trigger you might check eBay for used motor costs and make sure you could comfortably afford to get it back on the road if the worst happened.

__

All that said, I think a more fundamental question is what is your goal at the track. If you just want a big fat grin, you might consider something like a formula car or Radical alongside the 996TT. If you shop well it can be both faster and cheaper than the 996TT. If you want to learn to drive well, consider any car that is considered a "momentum car." That implies you'll have to learn to conserve momentum and to connect most of the turns on the track together to become fast, and the car will strongly incentivize you to improve your skills as a driver. The big issue with a car above your level is typically not that you'd wreck it - it's that you'd have a hard time getting good at driving. If you are in a circumstance that lets you get a lot of time away from work/home/family without issue, you might also consider whatever very cheap options (by your own scale) would enable you get a ton of track time.

If I lived in an area where the SCCA was active, I'd without question have a Formula Ford or other entry level formula car. They're quick, very lightweight, inexpensive to buy and run, and good to learn on. Apexspeed is a good place to do research on that topic.

Thundermoose

Classing is done per ST/PT but safety requirements follow HPDE rules.

Cory M

There are good built cars out there but you need to know what you are looking at. Having bought several used race cars: always plan on spending some cash sorting it out, even if it's a nicely prepared and fresh car. You will likely need a new seat, mounts, belts, baseline all fluids, alignment, electrical misc like data and camera, etc.

DOUGLAP1

Seeing that you are in the Southeast, come out and join us in the SCCA SeDiv TT program: http://www.sedivtt.com/

This is the original Time Trials competition which is now called "Restricted Time Trials" and uses the SCCA General Cometition Rules (GCR) which are the same as for SCCA road racing. The SCCA is also currently heavily promoting another time trials program that is known as "Unrestricted Time Trials", and the first of these events ever is the CMP event you refered to. The Unristricted Time Trials are being made to attract the track night crowd without requiring cages and other normal road racing safety equipment.

The Restricted Time Trials is run just like a PCA DE event witth passing on point by. The only operational difference is that they are officially recording your lap times with a transponder, and times will be posted to declare the winners.

The Unrestricted Time Trials rules are still in flux - some would say they are making it up as they go. As I understand the latest plan is to have all timed laps be run one car at a time like an autocross.

I like running the Restricted Time Trials version myself. The next event is scheduled for August at Barber, so you have some time to get your act together for that event. After that will be TGPR (Little Talladega), and a final double event at Roebling in November.