Track Oriented Car: Build vs. Buy?

Looking for some opinions from those who have already spent the money and gone racing - in the end would you have rather built your own car or found a chassis that was already geared up to go racing?

What I want to do is a full season of autocrossing (not too particular on the class) and a few track days 3-5, throughout the summer. I have been using a pair of daily driven vehicles to split the tasks, a 98 Camaro and 94 GS-R, but I'd like to step up a bit and move to a car with proper brakes, tires, suspension, seats, and possibly a cage? Both the camaro and integra are nearly stock with 120k-150k miles. At the same time I still want to be able to put a plate on the car and drive to an event; I'm not quite ready for the truck and trailer business yet and I don't have room for them either.

What I was planning to do this with is an E30, which I do have sitting in the garage partially torn down right now. I'm at the point where its time to buy all the suspension parts, brakes, bushings, tires, wheels, etc. but I don't know that I want to use this particual chassis. The car has a some rust issues, although nothing that wouldn't keep it from being useful structurally. The wiring harness is a bit brittle, the interior has seen better days, and it has somewhere north of 200k. Rather than throwing a bunch of shiny new parts at the car and getting nickle and dimed to death on all the little odds and ends it takes to build a race car I'm questioning whether I should get it to running, driving, beater status and find it a new home and get myself a nicer base to build from.

I'd say the budget for this could be 3-5k? But honestly I don't know what would be available in that range. I was planning to buy Spec E30 type parts for my car if I ever made it to the point I wanted to go race in that class. I'm not tied to any one make or model, but I would prefer a rear driver probably under 200hp. I want to learn to be a fast driver, not have a fast car. Preferably with reasonably priced consumables as well. So that could mean E30, E36, FB/FC RX7, Miata, S13, S14, etc.

Soooo, build this? Enjoy some time in the garage and probably have it ready by summer.

Or buy something more prepared and probably save a few bucks in the long run?

I'd say "buy a raced Miata".

In the end, remember that you will never get your money back when building a racer. This also means that you can buy someone else's investment for cheaper than it cost them to build it.

I'd buy an already built Miata, if you can find one built to a class/spec that you actually want to run in.

I shudder to think how little the '90 in my garage is worth even with all the fancy bits on it.

Done the build it yourself thing a few times,I'd say buy a car with most if not all the things your were going to do and then you can either just make it your own with some final touches or just drive it and wrench what breaks/needs upgrading. A nice rust free stock NA Miata goes for around 4k up here,I bought a nice rust free NA with JRSC,konis,coilovers,Link ecu,W2A I/c,harddog hardcore bar,race seat,15x8 and 15x9 6uls with R1R's,better brakes etc etc for 6k.Sure I'll change some stuff but I have a ready to enjoy car that's much faster than stock for not much more than stock,seems win win.

Buy one done, no question.

BBC

Buy a racecar with a real title that you can make street legal.

Depending on where you live consider a vintage car. You can register it as an antique so you can drive on the street without having to pass emissions or have turn signals or any of that silly stuff. If you buy a decent car it likely will go up in value and vintage racing is the most fun you can have in motorsports. Pick the right car though. A little higher than your budget might yield a BMW 2002, Alfa GTV, Datsun 240z, Datsun Roadster. To a lesser extent ($) you might consider MG's, Spridgets, Fiats and Alfa Spiders. Just about anything really can run vintage. Vintage cars require fiddling but are easy to work and your competitors will be the first one's there to help. Plus, it is more fun to be out on track with legendary cars with drivers who have experience as opposed to Spec Miata where half the field thinks (incorrectly) that they will get a seat at the Tudor series. If you go Miata and race in Spec, be prepared to spend a mid sized fortune keeping your car competitive and in one piece based on the level of contact. A good vintage car is out there and in all honesty will cost you less in the long run. Cheaper tires, etc.

Like This

Or This

Another vote for buy one done. Bonus points if he kept a record of the build, tuning and chassis sorting... that will save a ton of time over building your own and then sorting it all from scratch. Records speak volumes. Check for DNS/DNFs, if there's a log book on the car look for any noted damage.

Buy one already done. I have built two IT cars from scratch and it is a horrible investment. I don't even want to think about how much I have in my current track car. Needless to say it is substantially more then it is worth

Sounds like this thread needs a devils advocate, so:

I build all my own race cars. I know whats fresh, I know the quality of the parts, roll cage, and safety equipment.

Cost is an excellent reason to buy over building, but when was the last time you bought a race car that didn't need a bunch of money spent on it?

The only reason to not buy is if you don't care about the dollars and enjoy the build process.

For the first one I'd buy a car that's already built. It will be cheaper and you won't be emotionally attached to it. That way if you wad it up you won't care.

I've built all mine, but I enjoy the build process and there are some tasks I wouldn't farm out. Buy a car with all the nice bits bolted on to it, but do a full inspection/tear down before you trust your life with it. If you're looking at something with a cage, make sure it's well designed and installed. There are alot of junk cages in "race cars" out there.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I do enjoy wrenching on the cars, but even buying used parts it was getting hard to justify moving forward with what I've got.

So now that I have some direction, I spent a bit of time craigslisting searching for track cars and found a few - just to see whats available. What sort of race series would I want to look for as search terms for cars that would still be streetable but race ready or close to it? I know of the spec e30 and miata classes, and improved touring cars look pretty stock from a glance too. I can tow something back home and reinstall a few items if needbe for getting it street legal. Any good forums to go lurk on for a good deal?

Race cars are cheaper to buy than build, but IMHO that's because most of the time you wind up needing to tear it down and rebuild it after you buy it to be sure that it's done right.

Buy one that's done.
I might be in the minority here, but I mostly am not having a good time while building a car.
Buying something that's at least 75% to where I want it to be is for sure my plan for whatever I buy next.
(So, either heavily modified (and verifiably modified well) or damn near unmolested if I intended to (mostly) leave it that way)

Building to me is as fun as racing, and when you build you can spread the cost over a year or two instead of shelling out all at once. I have built three circle track cars which are mostly stock, and I am pretty sure I did not spend the $8000.00 it would take to buy a front runner in the class I am in now.

Buy one that is already done. You'll be wrenching on it anyway, no matter how "done" you might think it is. Don't forget to check www.improvedtouring.com for used race cars.

(not mine) http://www.improvedtouring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32453

I love 80's Audi Coupe's http://www.improvedtouring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31811

Just updating the safety equipment in a race car can be expensive. If you buy a used car, make sure it comes with a transponder. They are over $200 new and can be re-registered (it was about $50 a few years ago).

Well, I can certainly weigh in on this, having built a Spec E30 (and I still drive it on the street, occasionally).

It costs about $8000-$10,000 to build a Spec E30 with a donor costing under 2 grand. Legit, decently built cars with log books change hands for about the same price. Gorgeous shop built cars go for a few grand more. This is the one oddity in Spec racing...the cars seem to hold their build cost pretty well. Building a car for a random class (say, SCCA IT) unless you build a proven winner, you're going to lose money. You can buy IT cars for as little as $2500, but they probably won't be competitive.

The E30 is an exceptional platform for your first race car. Cheap to run (really!), easy to drive, still rewards momentum. The Spec E30 suspension package is a good one; no coil-overs, so very little tuning to worry about. Set it and forget it. 200k miles? Who cares? Those cars laugh at that mileage.

I did consider doing a vintage car before I built mine, but the affordable cars to build/race were generally pretty slow, fragile and eternally rust prone. I wanted to drive more than wrench. I may still go vintage racing some day, but the low number of events locally was a big deterrent. Having $10,000+ tied up in a car I could only race 4 times a year seemed a bit silly. However, I've found that a racing budget only allows me about the same number of races in my Spec class (figure a grand per weekend), so that really didn't matter.

I'd also think hard about the sale-able nature of whatever you choose. At some point, you may decide racing is too expensive, or the car isn't what you really want, or you want to go faster in something else. Having something that is in demand is far easier to sell than your track-ready Borgward Isabella.

BTW, my race car is for sale...I could save you a lot of time and work.

fornetti14 wrote: I love 80's Audi Coupe's http://www.improvedtouring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31811

Ironic...I had a '86 CGT that I sold to buy my E30 and go racing. I considered turning mine into a race car but it was too nice (I thought). Those cars are fun to drive, but lack power (110 HP stock...woof), are heavy, parts availability SUCKS, etc. Even with 150hp at a cost of several thousand rebuild dollars it was only 'okay' on the track; my E30 would trounce it pretty much out of the box.

The_Jed wrote: For the first one I'd buy a car that's already built. It will be cheaper and you won't be emotionally attached it. That way if you wad it up you won't care.

+1. In my case it also doesn't help that I'm quite burnt out with working on cars, but I still like racing them.

fornetti14 wrote: Just updating the safety equipment in a race car can be expensive. If you buy a used car, make sure it comes with a transponder. They are over $200 new and can be re-registered (it was about $50 a few years ago).

I wish they were that cheap.....

http://www.saferacer.com/mylaps-amb-car-rechargeable-power-transponder?gclid=CNWogJDo-LsCFcs1Qgod90YAbQ

At first I was in the "Just build it" corner, but you get a lot of stuff when you buy someone's unfinished project.

Learn from others' mistakes, you won't live long enough to do them all yourself.