After running in ChumpCar for a little and being around it to help friends race in it, my vote is as follows:
Go rent some seats on another team's car and see how it works and what it's like on track.
Then, put the SR20DET in it and run it. You're not going to be competitive for at least a year or more depending on your budget, time and skill. Utimately, the point is really to get people on track in competition. You'll always have someone to race with.
Don't forget the S10 engines for the Chevy V6 swap, too.
bearmtnmartin wrote: I'd still like to know what the failures are. I have been running the ka for a while now and I start with a low mileage engine, roll new bottom end bearings and use a steel head gasket and arp studs. On a circle track the bottom end will starve of oil eventually because you are turning a constant circle but it does take three years at least. That would be maybe sixty track hours. It should do better on a road course. The two times I tried to use older craigslist motors without going through them they both blew in spectacular fashion very quickly.
That's like 2 or 3 races... also, you can pull some crazy high sustained gs through cambered corners on a roadcourse.
I would not be happy with an engine that only last half a season.
Its racing. I did four engines one year.
I've got seat time and have done lemons. I know that we would be very competitive with a good car.
The car already has the sr20det running in it which is why I'm hesitant to pull it and undo everything to revert to a ka.
If I pull it and have to rewire it, I figure I might as well put more power in. But perhaps we will just run the sr for now.....
The problem is the ka has a value of about 500-600 and the sr is about 1500.
Sorry about the lack of specifics earlier.. I was typing on my phone and didn't have much time. I will say that when the KA was running properly, it was an utterly uninspiring, under-powered pig, so it at least has that going for it when it works well :)
For us, let's see here.. Starting with a Junkyard engine tested good with compression, startup and driving, I think the problems we had were (in sequence):
Which resulted in.... Complete engine rebuild: New (used) block that was then Machined, new (used) machined head (cam, valves, the works), new crank, bearings, balancer, flywheel & clutch, pistons & rods.
3 laps into shakedown @ the glen: Lost compression on all 4 cylinders, we're assuming due to ringlands?
Result: KA out and SR in.
I knew the McQueen car was going to be mentioned before I clicked, LOL.
What do the points drop to if you remove the turbo? If it ends up being worth it in terms of points I'm sure you could get some decent power of the SR20 without the turbo. Up the compression etc.
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