First Track Car/ Considering Joint Ownership!
Discussion
HI
Ive been a member of PH a while now and find the Forums a fantastic source of information.
Right my question: Me and a couple of mates have always been into cars, and had relatively quick road cars,evo, saxo vts, clio sport etc etc. However due to financial situations 2 of my mates have vans / runarounds due to having kids buying houses etc and ive got a company 1 series coupe which isnt particularly quick being a diesel.
We have been looking at going 3 ways on a track car, possible cars considered are a e36 328, a mx5 or possibly a french hatch of some description. phase 1 clio 172 possibly??
We have thought this out and have access to a trailer to tow it to the track days, one of mates works at a garage so weekend access to ramps, tools and a workshop is ok. He also has a fair bit of experience working on tuned cars and has the mechanical know how to fix most problems. Financially we were thinking of a budget of 2k, do PH think this is enough? and then we were going to put a lump of money into a pot for repairs tyres etc.
My questions are:
what are the best track cars sub 2k? any reccomendations?
I was thinking a rear drive would be the best is this what the majority of PH thinks?
Is it best to buy a standard car and strip it etc yourself or buy a track prepped one?
Does the car have to be road legal for use on a track? Road insurance could be a problem for one of the lads! (He has a fruity driving history lol)
Were are the best tracks for beginners to learn the ropes?
Right i think thats all the questions look forward to your responses.
Olly
Ive been a member of PH a while now and find the Forums a fantastic source of information.
Right my question: Me and a couple of mates have always been into cars, and had relatively quick road cars,evo, saxo vts, clio sport etc etc. However due to financial situations 2 of my mates have vans / runarounds due to having kids buying houses etc and ive got a company 1 series coupe which isnt particularly quick being a diesel.
We have been looking at going 3 ways on a track car, possible cars considered are a e36 328, a mx5 or possibly a french hatch of some description. phase 1 clio 172 possibly??
We have thought this out and have access to a trailer to tow it to the track days, one of mates works at a garage so weekend access to ramps, tools and a workshop is ok. He also has a fair bit of experience working on tuned cars and has the mechanical know how to fix most problems. Financially we were thinking of a budget of 2k, do PH think this is enough? and then we were going to put a lump of money into a pot for repairs tyres etc.
My questions are:
what are the best track cars sub 2k? any reccomendations?
I was thinking a rear drive would be the best is this what the majority of PH thinks?
Is it best to buy a standard car and strip it etc yourself or buy a track prepped one?
Does the car have to be road legal for use on a track? Road insurance could be a problem for one of the lads! (He has a fruity driving history lol)
Were are the best tracks for beginners to learn the ropes?
Right i think thats all the questions look forward to your responses.
Olly
Must be MX5 or BMW E36.
Personally, with a similar budget, I went the E36 325 route. It's got more oomph than an MX5. With the same budget, uprated the suspension, brakes, bought a spare set of wheels, stripped it out and fitted buckets and harnesses.
Word of warning though: I was at a track day a while when three guys turned up in their shared Toyota Supra (£600 each with trailer hire, track day entry and travel costs). First driver had 6 minutes on track and then they went home with a mangled car! Car sharing can be cheaper but agree on who pays for what before you need to!
Personally, with a similar budget, I went the E36 325 route. It's got more oomph than an MX5. With the same budget, uprated the suspension, brakes, bought a spare set of wheels, stripped it out and fitted buckets and harnesses.
Word of warning though: I was at a track day a while when three guys turned up in their shared Toyota Supra (£600 each with trailer hire, track day entry and travel costs). First driver had 6 minutes on track and then they went home with a mangled car! Car sharing can be cheaper but agree on who pays for what before you need to!
Its a good idea, I did this with a couple of pals and it worked out a good way to get into track days without spending a fortune. Surpisingly you have plenty of track time each with 3 sharing as long as you avoid session' track days (where you get eg a 20min slot per hour).
We did it over about 5 yrs with 3 different cars, a Golf Gti, then a 205 1.9 gti then wanted to try RWD and looked at all options and chose Nissan 200 sx which was definitely the best choice in terms of performance, fun and reliability (but you will have to sort out the brakes and suspension if buying a standard example of the 200 sx).
Defintely aim to buy a car someone has already used and prepared it will save you a lot of money and have its niggles already sorted.
Try and keep it road legal and useable on the road (this makes getting there easy, and things like going for petrol at lunchtime easy, also for repairs you can drive it to where-ever to get work done on it. Also things like having a working heater, a stereo, a carpet make it much more user friendly and for track days it makes no sense stripping everything out of a car to the point its just a bare shell. It makes no differene to track days the last few kg's - you are not allowed to time yourself anyway.
Plus it can be quite fun on the road for the odd weekend blast if you keep it road legal.
Mx5 handle well but just so little power we couldnt be bothered with that you spend the whole time having to get out of the way of other stuff. The 200sx was decently quick (200 bhp and not a heavy car) comes with an lsd and was fun to slide around. Rust is the problem with the older ones so aim for the s14 model; 94 onwards.
We did it over about 5 yrs with 3 different cars, a Golf Gti, then a 205 1.9 gti then wanted to try RWD and looked at all options and chose Nissan 200 sx which was definitely the best choice in terms of performance, fun and reliability (but you will have to sort out the brakes and suspension if buying a standard example of the 200 sx).
Defintely aim to buy a car someone has already used and prepared it will save you a lot of money and have its niggles already sorted.
Try and keep it road legal and useable on the road (this makes getting there easy, and things like going for petrol at lunchtime easy, also for repairs you can drive it to where-ever to get work done on it. Also things like having a working heater, a stereo, a carpet make it much more user friendly and for track days it makes no sense stripping everything out of a car to the point its just a bare shell. It makes no differene to track days the last few kg's - you are not allowed to time yourself anyway.
Plus it can be quite fun on the road for the odd weekend blast if you keep it road legal.
Mx5 handle well but just so little power we couldnt be bothered with that you spend the whole time having to get out of the way of other stuff. The 200sx was decently quick (200 bhp and not a heavy car) comes with an lsd and was fun to slide around. Rust is the problem with the older ones so aim for the s14 model; 94 onwards.
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