Hi.

For the past three years I have been doing track days with a Mk1 Clio. Fully (custom cages) caged, coilovers, stripped, 830kg, 175hp/165lbft, running full dunlop slicks round many different circuits it just ended up getting a bit boring always looking for the edge of grip. I was so used to driving it the fun wasn't there any more. It was doing just over 2min laps round Oulton last summer, and showing up a lot of cars being over 200hp/tonne. I broke it for parts as the time was right with other circumstances, not to mention wanting something new.

It was built from a completely standard car, doing all the work myself including the cage, engine rebuild, tweaking parts - many many hours went into it. Unfortunately I dont have the same amount of time to spend on a new project at the moment, I want something I can modify/improve over a longer period of time that is already good out of the box.

I 100% want to get something RWD. It will be track only as I have a daily car (E46 Touring) and my own trailer. It can be N/A or Turbo. I have approx 5k to play with, but ideally want to spend little and keep a lot of change to do suspension and brakes properly as a starting point. I have been looking at E36 M3s with them being cheap and having great performance out of the box, I'd ideally want something to match the Clio's performance-per-tonne, otherwise I may feel as if I'm going backwards, but I'm not sure. Kit cars were also on the list 'to look at', but realistically for a more modern engined ones they are out of my budget.

What other options fit the bill? Cheers.

I would class the Zetec in my 'modern' bracket really, considering they are usually fuel injected, I was more meaning the old XFlow and Pinto engines being older!

I had a similar thing with a trackday Mk2 golf, bit more grunt that yr clio, decent spec & tracked all over the place Uk & Europe & for few yrs on slicks etc, but just got bored with gaywheel drive.

Moved on to e30 325 ex racer, was slower than the Golf but literally 1st corner 1st trackday ahh rwd frollics thats exactly what I wanted.

Moved on to e36 m3, as stock they are too heavy & wallowy but the fundamentals are ace. I've had hmm 4 of them now, all track fettled, so am a tad obsessed, have also for more budget track fun done the Porsche 924S racer thing, also turbo'd & also supercharged mx5s great fun & also e36 328 which with the right bits will be clio pace, but lower running costs than the M3, but without the outright ummph.

Also done the track Caterham thing, double your budget tho & I thought that was the answer to my search, but nah even tho it was a quick, just one trackday in mine was enough for me to realise I just prefered being in a larger car, just felt so low & exposed, prefered being higher & decent cage & bodywork around me.

Whacko


I'd advise going for an Mr2 Turbo though if you want to go the MR2 route.

E36 or Mr2 will be relatively the cheapest option as spares are cheap and plentiful with a filled market for performance upgrades both new and second hand.

I am, Josh isn't though but I'm happy either way... However I do think it will end up with a V6 in it at somepoint.

For an all out 'budget' trackday hack with RWD, and reasonable running / tuneability costs it'd be hard to beat a BMW e36 328 IMPO.

£4k would be in the right ball park, pick up a straight one for about a grand. about £3k to add half decent suspension, a cage, 2nd hand seats + harnesses, M50 manifold mod + induction, M3 LSD, e46 brake upgrade + yellowstuff pads. etc etc (!)

Leaves a grand for trackdays!

Brilliant fun, great handling, quick enough to keep up with most other similar priced road based cars / hot hatches. Better handling than a MR2 judging by the amount that seem to spin off on trackdays. I had a mk1, it was great up to the limit, scary and unpredictable near it.

So far our 328 has been totally reliable, they are easy to work on and pretty simple. Doing the work ourselves has been pretty straight forward, I wouldn't be as keen to rip apart a skyline (4ws?!, 4wd, active suspension?) a million wires and sensors no doubt. Loads of cheap scrapyard / ebay upgrades and 2nd hand spares, and doing everything ourselves has saved us loads.

Turbo power is appealing, we did consider a Turbo'd Supra or 200sx, but it just seemed like more to go wrong, more heat, more stress on clutch brakes and tyres, potentially trickier / less pure handling on the limit too.

I doubt a largely standard, pretty baggy £4k e36 M3 would be that much quicker than a well sorted e36 328 and you'd end up spending the same again upgrading it once you started. Sure then it would be significantly quicker than a 328 - but it would've cost £8k instead of £4k!

The e36 328 was restricted by BMW to 193bhp, the M50 manifold + decent cold air induction + higher flowing exhaust should get you about 220+bhp, get it re-mapped + decat + a few other bits like viscous fan delete and rev limit raised a bit etc for a reliable and fairly straightforward 240bhp this seems to be the limit before it starts getting expensive. If you really go to town and do cams + exhaust manifold + internal mods etc allegedly 260+bhp is possible, but probably pretty pointless in 'value for money' terms as it would be cheaper/easier to just drop in a 280bhp 3.0 S50 M3 engine.

230bhp+ in a RWD stripped out 1200kg track beast is plenty of fun and with decent brakes and suspension it's brilliant on track. And that's 230 powerful, responsive, torque laden bavarian horses, with a nice wide powerband and spine tingling straight 6 soundtrack - not some laggy, flighty, ghey high revving engine that only makes decent power right at the top end for a fraction of a second.

Reliability has been great, we've had to replace brake disks/pads etc as you would expect, and we've had a few annoying knocking sounds (which hopefully we've finally found and cured this time), but other than that, touch wood, it's been good as gold. The M52 2.8 engine is as tough as guts - plenty have done 300,000+ miles in 528's, 728's etc, and there's loads of spares dirt cheap, usually much cheaper than M3 parts. Worse case you can pick up a decent 2nd hand engine for a few hundred quid. I think that they may (?) have an early incarnation of vanos, but NOT the troublesome / complicated (double vanos?) system that the 3.2 M3 is well known for. Niskali linings were a problem on earlier cars but most will be either dead or have been sorted by now, online guides are available to help spot them - we've had no problems on our 130k 1995 lump.

There's several really good forums (e36coupe etc) and plenty of build threads on PH to give you some inspiration.

VX220/Elise. Don't need much doing to make them fun on track.

E30 with an m52/2.8 conversion (cheap & straightforward). You'll can use many e30 M3 upgrades to the chassis and with a diet you could see over 220bhp/ton. My own car has only got just 170 brake but we managed to get weight down to 970kgs, with more to come. There are quite a few ex-production cup cars available that are ripe for the engine & brake upgrade.

Best of luck anyway. I'm sure you'll love RWD.