Hello, I'm Derek, President and resident Japanese Land Barge Enthusiast for Georgia Tech's $2000 challenge team Wreck Racing. More of my counterparts have recently started getting involved on the forum so I figured it's time I stopped lurking and told some of my stories.
Short Story Long: Let's start with something about the fun cars. I came to college knowing nothing about cars, but well versed in hobby electronics and high school robotics. The rigid college robotics team that I was eager to check out quickly turned me off, but the dudes pulling up to the lab in loud, rad cars to work on the Frankenstein Honda Insight immediately grabbed my attention. I joined Wreck Racing, bought my first project car at the challenge from SVreX that October, and I haven't looked back.
My first love:
1992 Subaru SVX, manual swapped. $1000 at the challenge, been sitting with a blown motor for several years, junkyard motor and delivery to Atlanta included.
Upon receiving delivery to a friend's driveway near campus, an immediate overnight engine swap commenced. All night engine swaps with the boys on a freezing November night is what it's all about. I don't have a lot of pictures from that night, hopefully some of the guys on here who were there can share some.
Unfortunately, after sitting for a couple years the car wasn't reliable enough for my schedule, money, and skill level at the time. After about a year, it made a surprisingly quick sale on facebook to a guy who put it up on stands for a couple months, refreshed it like it deserved to be, and it's running well last I heard. I sold it for what I had in it and it went to a good home, I'm happy. I'll definitely try to own another one of these another day.
Bavarian-Curious:
As often happens in the Wreck Racing group, I was relentlessly peer pressured several months after selling the SVX to buy another project with cash from my new internship. I held off for as long as I could, and a week later I bought a half caged, stripped interior E30. Everyone experiments in college, and I got a little bmw-curious for my second project.
1986 325e coupe, originally auto, converted to manual somewhere along the line. Spec e30 suspension and lots of new rubber bits installed recently. Purchased for $3500 from a family in a nice neighborhood outside Atlanta. The car had been a highschool project for their son. It was supposed to be a spec e30 car, but they ran out of time before he went away to college and it was only halfway there. They had lots of money and new parts thrown at it, but it was suffering from some wiring issues and general sketchiness. The selling point was the super clean underside and straight, clean panels all the way around. That's getting rare for e30s at that price point around here.
This little thing was awesome around town. It only had the 4.5k redline ETA engine, but with no interior it was plenty zippy and had just enough power to have fun. Bucket seats, 5-points, and stiff spec racer suspension added to the enjoyment. But, I also flipped this project about a year later for what I had in it. Once again, this car made it to a good home. A local guy who had dumped thousands into a rusty chassis bought my car for a cleaner starting point. It's already got a built turbo motor and plenty of other goodies now.
I learned a lot from both of these cars, but most of all I learned I don't have steady enough cashflow or motivation to keep a second car afloat during college. Lexus content next.
