ive just never liked the idea of buying a built car.. if you build the car you take better care of it because of the time and money invested in it. and ive read the whole hand book before but forgot most of it. id most likely be in street touring which doesnt require much for saftey. we usually run at the tirerack up here. not sure where else

 

so would it be smarter to once i get enough seat time and get the saftey side take care of and im ready for more power.. build the engine but not turbo it right away? get use to the added power before i throw alot more at it..?

 

Correct.
I see these post creep up every once and while. While I didn't read every comment, I think you understand the concept of track time first, then build you car.

Everyone wants the fastest beast out there. The number one thing that you will learn after 10+ years of track experience is that being the fastest and having the most fun are probably going to be separate builds.
I just drove my daily hatch out on track last weekend. Fairly stock GSR build. I got to throw the car around, play with my apex's, ride the gaters, play around with lifting in certain terns to rotate the car better. And yet still have complete control of the car on track and I had a lot of fun.
When I drive my track hatch (turbo'd GSR ~300whp), there is no playing. There is no room for even minor mistakes. No joking around, no distractions. Yes, I get to play with the big boys and that is fun. But I pay for it with added maintenance, lost track time and risk of serious injury and financial loss.

I have seen time and time again people building expensive awesome track cars, only to go out on track and either 1: scare the chit out of themselves and spent all their energy fighting the car rather then learning to drive the car. And then they spend years, yes literally years, trying to learn the basics of what any HPDE 1 student in a stock car learned in a couple weekends.
This is common in some of the high hp stock cars. You will see a guy with a beautiful Z06 and 20+ track events under his belt, yet cannot hit a proper apex to save his life.
Or 2: They ball the car up, blame some mod they didn't add on or wasn't adjusted right, and never track again.

I guess I'm off on a tangent. Bottom line, you can go buy a twin turbo 911 and yet you will still have some guy in a stock CRX with suspension mods pass you. (I've seen Oscar White do this multiple times). I've seen people dump crap loads of money into their cars, then complain because they can't afford a track weekend. The best 300$ mod you can make to your car to get it to go faster is to go buy a track weekend and get some seat time. Once you truly start to understand your car dynamics, then you can set goals (and budget) for yourself and work on mods to the car that serve a goal oriented purpose.

 

I stayed out of this one , and now I know why...
Another nooob putting the cart before the horse...
I've driven the backroads, and now i want to track it. How many times have we heard this?
Listen to all these experienced drivers here... there are a lot of racers in here talking to you.
Their advice is sound!

You dont need 400 hp to be competitive.
Chances are if you build a 400 hp car, a bone stock car will pass you everytime.
You will get your *** handed to you for sure.
This is fact!
Its driver, not hp.. HP helps but if you cant drive it ... its a waste of money.
You have to learn to crawl before you can walk, and then walk before you run.
Starting off stock is the best way to learn how to drive the wheels off a car.
Boost will only develop bad habits in learning how to drive.

This is a classic case of too much ambition, and not enough common sense, and probably lack of money.

You speak of these major upgrades and know of nothing beneith your nose that is much cheaper and probably do a better job.
Ask and ye shall be educated.

What you want to do can be done, but in steps.
None of this "lets build a car and go racing because the backroads taught me alot".
First of all you shouldnt be using the backroads for your fun. It's dangerous!

Listen to the words of these accomplished racers here.
My sermon is over!

 

Fixed

 

Am I slipping?

 

love these kind of threads. all i can say is been there done that. look up my threds i wa sing the same thing awhile back and now i run a eg hatch with a gsr swap bone stock. learned to drive it and now i blow past these awesoe cars that people spend all this money building and then u have them scrathing thier heads. even with a years worth of track events which is what a few weekeds you will not be able to hold that thing on the track. maintaince flies up. you burn through tires and pads real quick and 1 mistake at the speeds you will b hitting with that power is the end of ur car. enough people have told you what we think you should do, some have extensive experience some like me a few years only. as you can c we all say the same thing.

 

yea. thanks for the advice.. i think at the least i would like to freshen up my engine for now so that i know its solid. im around 200k right now. i know my rings are going.. so minimum id like to do that. then figure out where to go from there once ive learned my car.. ill at least get my energy suspension bushings on for now too..

 

there you go.. now things i usually recommend is brake fluid and good pads for tracking, tires and bushings do help alot but are not necassary yet but if yours are going then id do them. also ofcourse maintance before a event and double check all bolts on suspension brakes and make sure motor is up for it.

Also if ur not running baffled pan run extra oil in the car. last thing u wanna do is starve it of oil. its obd2 so if u slush too much to one side during a turn it will trip a code and throw u into limp mode. easily fixable by just disconnecting a reconnecting battery to clear the code. but y bother with all that just throw a extra quart of oil in there. havent had a smoking problem or anything with the extra oil in there

 

well said, don.
i've been on track for ever and sometimes even i feel like i'm in over my head. but it sure is fun :p

 

baffle is cheap so i will prolly get one. brakes will be replaced with some stock ones once i get these dam screws out. i have brand new calipers and pads layin around. im not sure if the fluid has ever been changed so im going to flush that out and put some normal dot 4 in there unless theres a better suggestion.

im not sure how my bushings are at the moment i have the kit from my last car so i figured why not put it on if those bushings are bad.

 

If you build full cage , don't drive it on the street. A routine traffic accident could become a life changing head trauma.

 

it will be a while till a cage happens.

 

what pads u running? rotors autozone will do. brake fluid i ran just dot 4 from autozone and never had a issue but im upgrading to a better fluid now not sure which yet though. the screws u can just drill out the wheel and studs hold the rotor just fine.

also noticed ur in michigan. there a quite a few events at gingerman this year. wangfest registration opened up last night for beginners and is filling quickly.one of the funnest track days. good group of ppl and just fun out there. ill b out there runnin inter

 

NOTE TO SELF: check out gingerman hour drive hellls yea.

as far a pads some lifetime ceramics. akebono's and yea i know that the studs and wheels hold the rotor on just fine -__- some ppl dont understand that. some i gotta find a drill bit or something to get it out. not sure how much fluid it will take. ill look around and try to find out.

 

impact screw driver will take care of the rotor screw.
get yourself some good pads. those autozone jams won't hold up. hawk hp+ or axxis ultimates will be fine for a new track driver.
fluid-ate type 200 or superblue.

 

they aren't the junk Autozone pads. ill try to see if i can find that brake fluid near home. or what the price is on line. and as far as the impact driver... both of my buddies have one. ill try to borrow that to see if it works.

 

Get some Hawks and if you scrounge around you could probably get a Chumpcar/Lemons, NASA or SCCA discount code.

 

ill see wat i can do to try to get some. not job at the moment so money is a little hard to come by right now being a college student and all

 

:doublefacepalm: Areyou****ingkiddingme? So per your original question, you basically wanted to know how to build a $20,000 car with a budget of $20?

After you get a few track events under your belt and talk to your instructor and other experienced drivers at the track, you should start to see basic setup requirements that make for a fun daily driver/track car. This is the starting point for us all. Basic mods like different brake pads and suspension can change the dynamics of your car considerably.
As you advance, you will gain a clearer picture of what modification are really needed for your car. As you gain confidence and go faster on track, safety will become a major issue. A roll bar at the very minimum is probably going to be recommended as you advance out of the HPDE 1 group. But other cost are going to start to multiply. Your going to need to set a budget and priorities.
You eventually want a 300+ hp turbo road race car? To do it right from scratch, you need at least $15K imo for a proper build and tune. Yes, you can ebay turbo kit it, do a garage build roll cage and street tune it. But that won't last long. Last I looked, a decent track worthy K build will run around $10K.
Especially if money is tight right now, I would focus on brake pads and track time. Then a sportier suspension like a set of Koni Yellows or something that will still make for a comfortable street ride and some summer street tires.
From there the cost just keeps going up. Welcome to the bottomless pit of hobbies.

 

autozone pads, i don't care what they are, have no buisness on the front end of a track car. have you been on track and faded a set of pads yet? no. so, shut it!
you wanna chance some fluid that 'might work' or get what you know will work? have you faded brake fluid at the track going into a heavy brake zone? no. so SHUT IT!!!
IMPACT SCREW DRIVER WILL EITHER BACK THE SCREW OUT OR JUST SNAP THE HEAD OFF. BUT EITHER WAY, YOUR ROTORS WILL COME RIGHT OFF. .
but, i have no idea what i'm talking about. so.....

 

No I wasn't tryig to do a build for 20 bucks. I know its not going to be cheap. Racing nevee is. Ill look into the hawk pad. The pads I have are carquest which are better quality than autozone pads are. But I'm sure still aren't as good as hawk from wat I hear from everyone with track time.

 

Just wanted to point out that adding extra oil is not always a good idea. The sloshing can oil starve a motor yes, but with extra oil you can create lots of foam and bubbles. Sucking up a foamy mix rather than oil can and will cause problems usually spun bearings first. Im not saying at your oil level this is what is happening just be aware that this can happen when putting extra oil in.

 

lo-buck ef i understand. i will try to get pads and that fluid as soon as funds are available. and ill get the impact driver and get that taken care of. i have stainless steel front lines already.

 

Hawk HP Plus Race brake pads? 86 for fronts 66 for rears. and 30 bucks for 2 liters of ate type 200 or ate super blue. sound right?