£1000 RX8 sprint/track-car project
Discussion
Some of you may have seen my Westfield thread – I’ve been taking part in the odd trackday and sprint (courtesy of the Javelin Sprint Series) for the last couple of years, along with my best friend. It’s been enormous fun, but having a fair amount of money tied up in a car that gets very little use has got me thinking recently about trying something different. Cheaper. Maybe a little more disposable.
And then, all set to go up to Croft last weekend, the turbo on my trusty tow-car decided it didn’t want to hold all of its oil anymore.
2017-07-08_07-04-25 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr
Pete came to the rescue with a very kind offer for me to double-drive his current Fiesta – a 140k mile Zetec S with some ECP coilovers and a set of R888Rs. It was a bit different to the Westfield, but a lot of fun nonetheless!
2017-07-08_07-05-15 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35nL38iUay4
So a plan was hatched. We both do all the same sprint events, and would like to do more trackdays. Neither of us drive our ‘other’ cars very often, and both of us have more sensible things to be spending money on. Why not share a car? All the costs are halved. We have between us two garages, two sets of tools and a hydraulic lift. Trackdays just become car + additional driver. But what could we get?
We spent the 5 hour drive back from Darlington looking at many different options. Civic Type R? Clio 182? MX5? Too many in the series already, and we wanted something different. I got very excited about the prospect of an MG ZS180 (yes, really!), but it would put us in a class with VX220s and V6 Exiges. Same for an Accord Type R. Z3/Z4 were too expensive, but we did want RWD. We kept coming back to the obvious answer that was staring us in the face – I’ve owned one before, but even so the internet scare stories can be a bit off-putting. How would it cope with regular track abuse? Only one way to find out!
We set a budget of £1000 and hit eBay.
We almost had too much choice for our budget so whittling them down was a fairly arduous process, and finally chose one to go and have a look at. So, yesterday evening, I put down a deposit on this beauty:
2017-07-08_07-05-28 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr
2017-07-08_07-05-39 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr
Yep, £1000. It has a recent rebuild from Apex Rotary, starts well from hot and cold, and has clearly had some money spent in the past. It already has a stainless manifold and full exhaust system, Tein coilovers etc and seems to have had recent plugs, Magnecor leads and coils. On the other hand the paintwork is scruffy, it smells of dog, has a bit of play in the steering column and has some horrendous drug-dealer wheels fitted (those rears are 265 section!).
So, plans? Well, the coilovers were on the list already so they’re a bonus. The exhaust does have a cat (so MOT friendly) but is fairly loud and the manifold is blowing slightly. We might be a bit close to some track noise-limits, so I’ll need to investigate that. We’ll flog the wheels in favour of a couple of sets of standard wheels (one for road use and one for a set of R888Rs we already have ready to go on). First sprint event is in three weeks so we have our work cut out! Longer-term plans will be to strip a reasonable amount from the interior, acquire some braided lines, fit a bolt-in roll cage, bucket seats and harnesses and take it from there. Hopefully it’ll give us a reasonable amount of fun without grenading itself.
Pick-up this weekend!
And then, all set to go up to Croft last weekend, the turbo on my trusty tow-car decided it didn’t want to hold all of its oil anymore.
2017-07-08_07-04-25 by Ben Edwards, on FlickrPete came to the rescue with a very kind offer for me to double-drive his current Fiesta – a 140k mile Zetec S with some ECP coilovers and a set of R888Rs. It was a bit different to the Westfield, but a lot of fun nonetheless!
2017-07-08_07-05-15 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35nL38iUay4
So a plan was hatched. We both do all the same sprint events, and would like to do more trackdays. Neither of us drive our ‘other’ cars very often, and both of us have more sensible things to be spending money on. Why not share a car? All the costs are halved. We have between us two garages, two sets of tools and a hydraulic lift. Trackdays just become car + additional driver. But what could we get?
We spent the 5 hour drive back from Darlington looking at many different options. Civic Type R? Clio 182? MX5? Too many in the series already, and we wanted something different. I got very excited about the prospect of an MG ZS180 (yes, really!), but it would put us in a class with VX220s and V6 Exiges. Same for an Accord Type R. Z3/Z4 were too expensive, but we did want RWD. We kept coming back to the obvious answer that was staring us in the face – I’ve owned one before, but even so the internet scare stories can be a bit off-putting. How would it cope with regular track abuse? Only one way to find out!
We set a budget of £1000 and hit eBay.
We almost had too much choice for our budget so whittling them down was a fairly arduous process, and finally chose one to go and have a look at. So, yesterday evening, I put down a deposit on this beauty:
2017-07-08_07-05-28 by Ben Edwards, on Flickr2017-07-08_07-05-39 by Ben Edwards, on FlickrYep, £1000. It has a recent rebuild from Apex Rotary, starts well from hot and cold, and has clearly had some money spent in the past. It already has a stainless manifold and full exhaust system, Tein coilovers etc and seems to have had recent plugs, Magnecor leads and coils. On the other hand the paintwork is scruffy, it smells of dog, has a bit of play in the steering column and has some horrendous drug-dealer wheels fitted (those rears are 265 section!).
So, plans? Well, the coilovers were on the list already so they’re a bonus. The exhaust does have a cat (so MOT friendly) but is fairly loud and the manifold is blowing slightly. We might be a bit close to some track noise-limits, so I’ll need to investigate that. We’ll flog the wheels in favour of a couple of sets of standard wheels (one for road use and one for a set of R888Rs we already have ready to go on). First sprint event is in three weeks so we have our work cut out! Longer-term plans will be to strip a reasonable amount from the interior, acquire some braided lines, fit a bolt-in roll cage, bucket seats and harnesses and take it from there. Hopefully it’ll give us a reasonable amount of fun without grenading itself.
Pick-up this weekend!
Edited by seiben on Friday 30th June 10:54
Edited by seiben on Monday 10th July 11:05
king hell!MrBig said:
seiben said:
Yep, £1000. It has a recent rebuild from Apex Rotary, starts well from hot and cold, and has clearly had some money spent in the past.
Sorry?!?! A thosuand quid for one thats already had a rebuild?!? 
These just got interesting again....
Found a pic of my old one, as well:
DMN said:
They are great cars on track, loads of grip in the dry. In the wet though they can be handfull. make sure you have decent rubber with plenty of tread on if its wet. Watch the old Clarkson Topgear review on youtube. He says basically the same thing.
Not sure how much that is a function of the Bridgestone RE040s that came with them. Certainly mine had more wet grip after I put RE050As on it, but I felt that they were a little less sharp in the dry. DMN said:
They are great cars on track, loads of grip in the dry. In the wet though they can be handfull. make sure you have decent rubber with plenty of tread on if its wet. Watch the old Clarkson Topgear review on youtube. He says basically the same thing.
Thanks for that. We'll try and get a set of Rainsprouts for the road wheels I imagine so they can double up as wets. 
They're cheap partly because of the engine longevity concerns but mostly because Mazda sold more of them than the used market has capacity for 20mpg coupes. That put them into the V12 Jag death spiral, where the people who want a cheap car can't afford the fuel so the price drops further...
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