THSCC Forums

Let's say my dad finally got serious about going in with me to buy a track car, and let's say our budget is ~$10k. Let's also say that I am never satisfied unless I am actually competing, so I'd like to find something that would be well suited to Time Trials in addition to Driver's Ed, when we're ready to escalate. Something non-exotic, with parts that are highly available and that is a "known quantity" when it comes to set-up philosophy would be nice. What should we be looking for? Track is foreign to me.

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"Nationals snob"

Miata

E30

E36 M3 (probably upper end of that budget range) or E36 328is

edit: I wonder how Keith Q's RX8 would do? It's listed here for well under that budget.

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

And they would both be yellow!

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2005 Mazda RX8 STX 11

NCR Solo Chair & Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator
http://www.ncrscca.com

E30/Miata.

Parts are dirt cheap, all the problems are already well documented and both have a spec series.

Buy a Spec Miata or Spec E30. It'll be stripped, caged, and hopefully ready to do a NASA weekend if you guys had a license.

Since both of you fit in the Elise, clearance in the Miata shouldn't be an issue. I haven't looked at Spec E30 prices in a while, but you can buy mid-field Spec Miatas all day for $9kish.

After driving the Miata on track this year and having a blast with it, I will say Miata.

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Patrice
1973 911 former track and AX car.
2016 VW GTI
2002 Nissan Sentra (Olivier car)
2012 Nissan Juke (Kathy car)
2010 Suzuki Kizashi (Audrey car)

Is FWD okay?

All the suggestions above are good ones except when it comes to competitive in time trials.....just go to the time trials results and see whats winning the most events then go out and buy a c5 z06. It's still the most BANG for the buck, relatively inexpensive except for rubber. And has a pretty good reliability record on track...Ask Rob what he thinks of his car.
Miata's are great cars, but your at the bottom of the pack when time trialing. Bmws are not cheap to repair, and unless highly modified don't stack up against the vette.
The ten k budget is the drawback but if you keep your eyes open they sometimes appear....I bought one for 8K a few years back.....

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2004 C5(415whp,390ft/lbs),
1997C5,1997Trans Am, 1986 C4,
1990 Miata, 1976 MGB,1997 Protege, 1989 MR2

Bernie, Are any "track car" related parts becoming unavailable for C5's? I've seen some STOCK class related posts about what I think were C5's indicating existing or soon to happen parts issues including engine internals.

Thanks,

Dick

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

I agree and disagree with some of Bernie's points. If you want to be near the OVERALL top of a Time Trial field, a spec Miata or a SpecE30 have no chance. However, since they're both pretty popular cars, there should be some other examples to compare yourself against.

Since competition is important to you, both provide good opportunities to compete beyond time trialing. The SpecMiata especially. You can go play in SCCA and NASA and have the ability to be competitive in either.

The other thing to think about is the HP wars of HPDE. 10+ years ago when I started doing HPDEs, a Miata was one of the slower DE cars, but a well driven Miata could keep up reasonably well. The e30 was a mid-pack car. Fast forward 10 years to a field full of 300+ hp cars in most DEs. Your Miatae and e30 folks are getting passed like they're going backwards on the straights. Honestly, there really is a ton of fast hardware in every HPDE these days. You can have a little fun with the high HP stuff in the twisties, but they simply power away in the fast parts. This REALLY frustrates some folks, but others it doesn't bother. Having spent significant time in both cars, my passing signal arm did get a little tired, but I learned a lot from both cars.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Where is the early S197 Mustang in the price/cost to compete continuum? Seems like they should be getting down there in cost, and parts are surely readily available for low cost. Are SN95's a viable option?

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

Just to put my spin on things, I've built my car to half-CSP (Autocross), half-PTE (W2W) spec and I have a lot of figuring out to do behind the wheel, but having a car that can compete in a specific class will give you attainable goals. I found the NASA Mid-Atlantic lap records and I definitely need to speed up. Since my car is all over the place, I can realistically look at TTD/TTE, PTE, and Spec Miata records and have a good target for any given weekend.

I was running my smartphone at CMP and I clocked a low 1:58, looked at the spreadsheet and Spec Miata was 1:51 and PTE was 1:50.8xx. http://www.nasaracing.net/wp-content/up ... ECORDS.xls

Unless if you like to reinvent the wheel, buying a current race car is a really reasonable option (lol, who am I kidding we all know it's just throwing money into the fire, just at different rates). Mid-pack SMs run around $9k and I think one of the cheaper build outs averages around $15k (plus ALL of the time).

Definitely want something already built - I'd much prefer some other guy put in the time. And yes, I'm happy to be competitive in-class - I don't need to be setting overall FTD, as I've never had much interest in straight-line speed (see prior Lotus purchase). We used to go out in stock Boxsters and Z3s and have a great time dicing it up in the corners even though we were getting killed on the straights. Spec cars seem attractive for that.

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"Nationals snob"

I can put up with front-engine, but with autocrossing RWD, I don't want to be switching back and forth.

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"Nationals snob"