Glen

Cup Car....

DrJupeman

Ah. Thanks for clarifying.

Anir

Like Greg, my 993TT was relatively inexpensive to run with the exception of rapid Pagid brake pad use at long, fast courses like Road America. Nowhere near the $4,000 / year on maintenance mentioned earlier. Drove to the track and drove home every time....

...until the shunt in the Kink at RA, which resulted in damage that took 11 months and $48,000 to put right. The car's like new, but there is definitely something to be said for a "disposable" track car.

Z-man

Anir:
I think you've got a little too much toe out on the front passenger wheel there...

OUCH! $48k makes a wallet hurt real bad!

-Z.

Anir

Z,

Actually, it allows me to turn in sooner on sharp right handers.

Fortunately, State Farm covered the repair since it occured at a D.E.

After surgery (looks and drives like a new car, but "doctor" said no more track days):

Earlierapex

How do you make a small fortune racing cars?






... start with a big one.

Late 80s Carreras are terrific. Very tossable and reasonably quick and reliable. Not too costly for a Porsche. Lots of fun, reasonably cheap.

If you want less expensive, go with less weight and less power. Weight and power eat tires, brakes, transmissions, etc.

A boxster S may not be a bad idea either. Low initial cost and lots of fun to drive. I don't know how they are on reliability though without the dry sump.

Have you looked at the lotus elise?

-dc

Larry Herman

Lotus?? Uh, Derick, Lotus and unreliable go together like Porsches and lift throttle oversteer. Yes, Lotii have a way of making even Ferraris look reliable. Even if it has a Toyota drivetrain, they'd find some way to make it breakable!

Z-man

[Homer Simpson voice]
Mmmmm.... lift throttle oversteer....Mmmmmm
[/Homer]

-Z.

Z-man

Wow, it sure looks like an amazing repair job!

RE: the 'doctor,' I think I have one of those too - she's not a doctor, but her 'new kitchen' plans are certainly going to cut into the track budget this year!

-Z-man.

Brian P

Actually not too bad. The one issue that a lot of Boxster S owners have is that the power steering system overheats. Installing a cooler in it solves that problem. Interestingly, I never had that problem with my base Boxster.

In fact, other than my wife putting my base Boxster into a tire wall, it was pretty damn bulletproof. If I could remember it, I'd change the oil about once a season, change brake pads more frequently, and that was about all the maintenance I did. Yes, it's the same one that I returned to the leasing company. My advice? Never buy a used car that has been leased.

M758

The truth is how much a car costs to run is heavlily dependant on who you are and how hard/often you run.

For me 944-spec car is dirt cheap. Part of the reason is I do all the work myself. A blown up motor due to a rod bearing failure is as expensive as it gets short of stuffing the entire car. Cost is $1000. for me. Why. $500 for parts (Seals, gaskets, etc) and $500 (or less for junk parts car and motor). Labor = 0.

So for me a 944-spec is darn cheap. Even running 20-30 track days a year under racing coditions takes 2.5 sets of tires. 1-2 sets of front brake pads 1/2 set of rear pads, 1/3 of front rotors. Probably a 5 oil changes.

That is it. As for parts breaking. Well mostly you replace them once. Meaning that they are old from 20 years of use and you replace and never worry about for years of track time. Get and early 944 NA and 2 new control arms and ball joints cost $75. Install them youself... they are not bad.

So... for me a 944-spec is nice and cheap. However pay Hans and Franz down the street to maintain and the costs get quickly out of hand.

Matt Marks

An additional bonus to what M758 said, is that there's 944-spec racing series on the west coast, and 944 Cup in northeast, and southeast should your DE days not satisfy your track jones, and you want to step up to wheel to wheel.

And to Anir's point - if you should put it into the tires if your enthusiam bests your talent, the car is worth more in parts than it costs to buy.

APKhaos

Have to agree that the 80's 3.2 Carreras are rock solid, reliable, simple and relatively inexpensive to set up nicely. Like Anir, I drove mine to and from the track for three years. Only broke once, and that was when some bolts backed out less than a week after a shop had done work on the car.

Its always going to be more expensive to prepare a competitive race car than a fast and fun DE car. Competitve Carreras in PCA F are not cheap to prepare. Going over to the dark side with a 951 that was fully track prepared, and competitive was a risky choice in some eyes. After a full season last year, which included 14 races and a number of DE events, the costs were very minor. This was fairly agressive running at the front of the pack - enough to win the series.

Aside from consumables, I replaced an alternator, rotors, and a TPS. No mechanical DNS/DNF until the very last race of the season. Blown head gasket.

I'm rebuilding the engine now. It will work out to be south of $3000 for a full refresh, clutch, new wastegate, and all new hoses [I learned THAT lesson!]. Maybe that would be more like $6000 or so if Hans & Franz [ thanks, Joe!] did the work, but even at that its not unreasonable. Parts are cheap, used parts are cheaper.

Not sure if its entirely a disposable car, but the upper limit of exposure is clearly less than Anir's body shop bill. FWIW, the 951 is a blast to drive. Still trying to figure out what the next step will be after the coming season.

Benton

I'm surprised no one has mentioned a 928. I just bought mine for $4000 with good maintenance records. Strip it down, put ~$7000-$10,000 in modifications, do your own work (key concept in having a low-cost racer), maintain it well, and you have a 300+ HP 2700-3000 lb vehicle that will be reliable for the most part.

Edit: Granted, it doesn't fit well into any racing classes unless the modifications exceed the $10,000 budget by a fair amount. GT2 PCA class is a viable option, depending on the extent of mods.

APKhaos

The Kibort Klock is now running.......................