92cx

basically, after reading the cj, thread i'm rethinking keeping my car, i can get 2000 dollars out of my 92 cx hatch or i can begin doing more trackdays with it. question is, moving in that direction when do you stop spending money and buy a race car to avoid having built one. car has agx shocks, 450lbs springs and integra gsr sways. cx motor/tranny is in garage to be rebuilt anyway(not any time soon since dx motor is working fine) my only fear is i'll get to the point where i've spent another 1k+ dollars on shocks, and some more money on swaybars, and putting the motor back together and really only needing cage/safety equipment. i've done the math and it seems like it is still better to sell, but that doesn't take into account impovements you may end up making to the "prepped" car you buy. any attachment to this car is long since gone, my brother has been using it as a beater for 2 years now, so emotionally i don't care if it is trashed.

travis

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 92cx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">basically, after reading the cj, thread i'm rethinking keeping my car, i can get 2000 dollars out of my 92 cx hatch or i can begin doing more trackdays with it. question is, moving in that direction when do you stop spending money and buy a race car to avoid having built one. car has agx shocks, 450lbs springs and integra gsr sways. cx motor/tranny is in garage to be rebuilt anyway(not any time soon since dx motor is working fine) my only fear is i'll get to the point where i've spent another 1k+ dollars on shocks, and some more money on swaybars, and putting the motor back together and really only needing cage/safety equipment. i've done the math and it seems like it is still better to sell, but that doesn't take into account impovements you may end up making to the "prepped" car you buy. any attachment to this car is long since gone, my brother has been using it as a beater for 2 years now, so emotionally i don't care if it is trashed.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Let me put it this way. My car is fully race prepared and legal. While there are certainly a few things I could still throw money at, there isn't much. And those few things STILL cost more than buying a fully built car that's better prepared than mine. The market is crushing sellers' spirits but it's the time to buy.

slammed_93_hatch

honestly against what every one else said, im build a race car right now, and have some final touchs on it.

I say do what ever you want to do or need to do, if you need the money, or don't have it to spend then get ride of it. If its not a money burden, then keep it, whats forceing you to go racing? nothing, you can stay in HPDE all day long. if you do want to move up to racing then i say way your options, selling it and buying a new car vs finishing it and having it be your race car.


The thing with CJ is he is building a car that WILL NOT be competitive, doesn't have the money to buy a car, and doesn't have the budget to race one, so why build it.


For me personally, I love wrenching on my car as much as i love drving it on the track. I will come in budget wise some were right around 10,000 to 11,000. granted i have had been very very lucky and developed friends in some good business that have really helped me out.

92cx

travis, that answer is what i figured, best answer may be to drive it as it sits till i am ready to move one. refuse to spend money on it. i figure the bare minimum to get it from where it is to possibly being competitive is in the 6-8k range and easily closer to 10k+. the thing that will deciede i guess is whether it is easy to buy a car 2-3 years from now when this is likely to become a real issue. if market went up(unlikely) then i'd have to consider doing things differently. so basically at any point it is better to move on, but knowing that now i should probably avoid upgrades so i don't sink more money into it. if anyone has any more insight on this please enlighten me. if i did end up building it, which i doubt, how much are we talking, when i say 6-10k am i in the ballpark or still way short. i figure 1500, shocks, 1000 lsd, 500 fd, cage 2000, seat 500, sways 400, fire system 500. i could keep it at the 6k mark i'm sure(at the cost of being less competitive) and some stuff could be cheaper or more, i'm just going with a rough list of parts and got 8500, even if i got all that stuff for 6k i'd still have engine parts to buy, intake,head, exhast, head reworked. basially is 10k right for my car to be a finished car or still way short... doubt i'd go this route(i'd have to like throwing money away), but it is nice to have a number to compare to when decieding it is cheaper to buy than build, selling the car and adding the cost of the parts to that comes to 12k and i'm sure a front running ita car can be had for that. so i know if, i'm thinking correctly tell me if the amount spent on the car is in the right range... when you look at it like that it is easy to see i'd be better off to sell and buy a car. which is more than likely what i'll do. this post is mostly to help me deciede what direction to move in. fsp civic which would later be an itc car, or just continue autoxing the miata. looks simple, miata it is, unless my math skills are wrong or somebody has a good argument for doing otherwise. trackday civic(as it sits) autox miata, save money to buy racecar, don't buid.

Crack Monkey

What Travis said.

ITC cars are going super cheap these days - you can buy a top-10 car for $5000.

If you're ready to race now, sell the CX the way it is - you can get a good bit of money for them if you wait for the right ricer to buy it.

I considered building my old CX into an ITC car. But. in the end, I didn't have the money, so I bought a street Miata to get me through until I can afford to buy a top car in a few years.

Bare minimum, you'll spend $3k or so (not including driver's gear or consumables):
$2000 cage
$ 400 seat
$ 200 harness
$ 200 fire system
$ 300 generic exhaust
$ 400 cheap header
$ 500 spare wheels
$ 800 2 sets tires

To make it into the top-five, add:
$1000 revalved Konis or other
$1500 custom header, exhaust
$1500 engine refresh
$1000 lightweight wheels

etc etc, the list goes on. You can build a top ITC car for about $10k (assuming the tub is near free), but you can buy one for half that. Sure, you might need to freshen the shocks or head, but that's only another $2000 or so, and it's probably not needed unless you aspire to win the ARRC.

TeamSlowdotOrg

It's time to give up on a car when it won't easily meet your goals for the future, even if it's just having fun on the street. I sold my Civic, it was a hard decision but it was the right one.

phat-S

To answer your question, how much you dig yourself into a hole is pretty much determined by a.) what you perceive you must get out of the car and b.) what you perceive you get from the car with what you have put into it. At some point, you will have a car that is rather unsellable to the general public if you have done enough to it. Your market becomes the auto-xing/track day public if its got a lot of great add-ons but you can only expect to get cents on the dollar for it and often times what you wanted on it or settled on isn't up to someone else's requirements as a "worth-while" add-on. You cannot likely sell an "uncompleted race car" as the value to buying a racecar is that its complete (and most folks have been warned that G-d's in the details - or the devil's in the details depending on your perpective). Look at the number of race cars for sale here on any given day and I think the latter is unfortunately obvious.

So my street car for instance, I might as well arrange to be burried in it - who wants a 944S w/ some very nice oil cooler plumbing, really nice weld-in rollbar* and race seats, thousands of bucks in suspension as a street car? Who's going to want it as an auto-x/track car (ASP = uncompetetive classing, S=16v and track folks that know porchies fear the extra set of valves)? And who's going to want to buy it as a halfway built ITS car (cause we can quickly surmise that halfway leaves an assload of money to still spend to make it full way and why not start your own if you cared to?).

So to summarize, if I only wanted tax value out of my car plus 25 cents on the dollar for the trick stuff, MAYBE I could get money out of it. If I could be ok that I'd NEVER get my money out of it and its fun for track days, auto-x and getting groceries than maybe I am getting my money's worth out of it. Or if I am holding out hope that a pot of money will land in my lap and I can build it into some fabu ITS car then maybe then I would be getting my money out of it (as for the already sunk costs). But in the end, unless there is a plan to take a car from A-Z and you have your financial ducks in a row to get to Z, I think its a gamble to get your money out of it (and even then, lap 1, race 1, day 1 you could ball it up - G-d forbid I hope that never happens to any of us but its possible).


slammed_93_hatch, I disagree with you on a couple counts. I don't know that JRDbuild has picked the wrong car, doesn't have the budget or can't race it and certainly wouldn't ask him "why build it?" I (and I thought a few others) were simply pointing out the horse/carriage orientation and that the purchase of some things now would have little value for their expense (think this was wrt hondata and tuning w/out other modifications and purchasing a baffled pan that I am not sure is needed for a DOT R tired car ??). Besides, noone "knows" its the wrong car, I think they are making an educated guess (and often times you let the guys with bigger budgets to correct their mistakes make stabs at the unproven but good prospects - this car due to weight?? doesn't seem to be the latter but I am not the guy saying that to begin with). I _do_ agree w/ the "let someone else figure out if its remotely competetive" first thing though.

edit: *rollbar, not cage


Modified by phat-S at 11:21 AM 3/9/2005

slammed_93_hatch

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by phat-S &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> slammed_93_hatch, I disagree with you on a couple counts. I don't know that JRDbuild has picked the wrong car, doesn't have the budget or can't race it and certainly wouldn't ask him "why build it?"

Modified by phat-S at 11:21 AM 3/9/2005</TD></TR></TABLE>

he said on a few different occations that he didn't have enough money. as far as building the wrong car, i still don't see how its the right car for raceing. its the right car for him becuase he like it, not any other reason though.

ITC Racer

This is always an interesting question and one I wrestled with several years back. I had converted my street CRX into an ITC car with all of the safety gear and some suspension work. A couple years later, I wanted to take things to the next level but my chassis was getting questionable due to the rust from being a street car in WI before the conversion.

I found a good deal on a similar CRX that was also already a race car but needed an engine rebuild. Since I had the money at the time, I bought that and continued to build it and take the best parts from each car. I now have a very competitive ITC CRX that I may be able to get ~$5k for if I were to sell it.

In your situation, you have a car that with an additional minimum investment of a cage (autopower for ~$750), harnesses and a fire bottle (~$250), rebuilding the brake system (if needed), and reinstalling the CX drivetrain, could be on track in a wheel to wheel setting. I believe that the 92 Civic CX should be a nice ITC car.

You could also get whatever you can for the car, as is, and then find something that is built and ready to go. You will still need to do some level of work on pretty much any racecar you buy to make sure it is safe to race and reliable. The bare min would be to check the brake system and safety gear and update/rebuild as necessary.

My feeling is that if your current car is straight and clean (no rust in the chassis), install the safety gear and get to a driver's school. You will have a ball and learn how to drive the car to its ability and yours.

If you buy the latest and fastest car out right now, you may use up the killer engine before you use all of its capability and need to rebuild anyway.

Hope that helps

Crack Monkey

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ITC Racer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">In your situation, you have a car that with an additional minimum investment of a cage (autopower for ~$750), harnesses and a fire bottle (~$250), rebuilding the brake system (if needed), and reinstalling the CX drivetrain, could be on track in a wheel to wheel setting. I believe that the 92 Civic CX should be a nice ITC car.</TD></TR></TABLE>

While I agree that the CX should make a nice ITC car, I disagree with the additional investment required to make the car race-worthy.

Having seen some nasty accidents, I find it hard to recommend a bolt-in cage for a race car. I've never seen an Autopower fail, and I even used one in my last racecar. But, going forward, it just makes more sense to over-do the safety thing. Which adds considerable cost to the car - $1500+ for a cage, $400 plus for a seat, etc.

That $1500, $400, and $2000 for the CX if sold gets you 80% of the way to buying an existing, potentia front-running car.

92cx

haha, looks like you are all about where i sit, which is better, i have a near perfect 92 cx hatch(no rust, scratches on the rear bumper cover, not exactly a concern for a race car)with a few suspenson mods. an engine that needs rebuilt even to sell the car in stock condition(instead of dx motor)... realistically i'd prolly come out best to sell it to my brother for 2k and be done with it, but likely i'll just hang onto it, as long as no money is spent it becomes no more of a money pit to hang onto. the truth is when i find a new job(soon), i'll prolly do some trackdays in it. from there I will have to make this decision, unless someone thinks it would be wiser just to sell it now and be done with the car. it is definetly street car right now, complete with working ac. but likely to sell it to anyone looking for a stock car i'd have to put the stock engine(repaired or junk yard repl.) in, and atleast take out the springs shocks, even if i wanted to be lazy and leave the sways. don't think there is a huge market for dx powered cx hatches. however financially to be competitive it will still cost more than buying a car, which sounds like the best deal, but for now i have no reason not to hang onto it that i can see.

JohnW

Hint-hint, the cheap part of RRing is the race car.


Are you sure you're ready for this?

92cx

no i'm not ready, thats why this isn't a post, wtb a car. this is 2-3 years off to actually attempt getting nasa license, and starting a race... yes i'm aware of the fact that even for itc car without accidents i'm looking in the 500-1000 dollar range minimum to run the car per weekend. having just recently finished college i am sure i'm not in a position to go racing. that doesn't prevent me from asking questions so that hopefully i don't waste money in an effort to move towards having a car prepped. if i could buy a 5k dollar car, or build a 10k dollar car, thats like getting 5 free race weekends. the answer, no i can't right now, but i said at the very begining this was 2-3 years off(acutally going wheel to wheel racing)