Project track car

[Mr Fletcher]

PROJECT TRACK CAR ;

In the first half of 2006 we done a couple of caterham slalom days ,which is basicly a small auto test against the clock.
we thoroughly enjoyed these days but more was required. I had a conversation with a friend of mine a couple of months later
who was doing a track day at snetterton and said i could go along and have some pax laps in his caterham if i wanted to, we agreed .

The day came , i borrowed a crash helmet strapped myself into the passenger seat of the caterham , we pulled down the pit lane to the exit .
For the first couple of laps i started to feel sick then rather than be a passenger i started to concentrate on braking points and apex's which worked,
we came into the pits all smiles and no projectile vomiting in a full face helmet !! The seed had been set i had to have some of that asap but how ?

For the next few months i was searching classified ads, web sites and alike for a car but the trouble was i had no direction my head was full of
suspension ,brakes ,big bhp,the only two definate things were a saloon car and budget . I looked at a couple of cars around the 5K price but with my
stubborn attitude thought that was too dear for that , i could build one a lot cheaper ! ( how wrong was i ).I fancied a two door sierra cosworth ex rally car
or something but i was told a 5K engine build is not uncommon ,ouch. Bearing in mind i was not a member of any forum information was limited on what
i should do .

Then whilst on a lunchtime session of car hunting i found an ex ford production saloon car the ad listed it as an rs turbo mk4 rolling shell offers, a quick phone call
and he mentioned that he had a quaife gearbox aswell a viewing was arranged as it was only 10 miles away (result) .

It was listed with :

rollcage
leda adjustable coilovers
ally foam filled tank
bucket seat
four pot calipers
perspex windows
compomotive wheels
plumbed fire extinguisher
titon brake pedal box
brake bias adjuster
remote servo

We arrived to view the car , it was sat in a shed under a sheet where it had been for sometime (in the dry!) there was no rot in the shell but it had seen some
serious action , it was a disgusting off yellow colour with decals on still . It turned out it used to run a rs turbo lump but was changed in favour of a high revving
n/a steel engine . By this point my enthusiasm is starting to ebb away as i am pricing it up in my head roughly to get it running (engine,loom,exhaust,respray, etc)
But it is feesable , the gearbox swung the deal for me it had a quaife diff and internals (more on this later)coupled with the other parts it seemed value for money,a fist full of hard earned
was handed over and we had ourselves a project track car.

The car was collected and we set about removing the decals and stripped it down to have a respray ,i spoke to a friend of mine and told him i wanted a tidy job
but not concours and an easy to match colour white so repairs could be easily done if need be.The car was painted inside and out with the wheels also being white,
it had slightly flared arches but no body kit so i bought a scrap rs turbo and had the body kit off of it, sprayed it white and stuck it on .This caused a small headache
as the kit needed some treatment with the heat gun in order to get it to fit on the flared arches.

When i went to collect it from paint i purchased some toyo 888 and fitted these to the rims and then put them on the car ,looking good i returned to my workshop
pushed it inside ............................and there it sat . I managed to buy an engine and gearbox with all ancillaries at christmas, it had only done 500 miles since being rebuilt but the car then
failed the mot so it was broken up. I sold the gearbox to get some cash back as i didn't need it did i (wrong again).

The new year came and nothing really happened i had bought the subaru in september but had vowed not to track it as it was too damn good to bin it ,
but i succumb to the voices in my head, just one, go on it won't hurt will it ? So the 60K service was due , i had a performance friction brake upgrade and all the fluids changed,
Snetterton was the venue and it was lashing it down (i would just like to say that imo if you haven't driven your subaru on track your missing the part of subaru ownership which is the
most exciting ,how you can take a family 4 door saloon and drive it like that is amazing)

The gearbox was given to a guy i know to be resealed and have new bearings before i used it . He stripped it down and then summoned me round for some bad news ,yes the gearbox had indeed
quaife internals but the gear ratios where no good for my rs turbo engine as it did not rev high enough.Second gear was also worn .luckily the rs turbo i bought had a
gearbox in so we decided to build one out of the two hopefully using the quaife diff and standard gears in conjuction with a big bearing kit , fingers crossed.


It was at this point i was in a quandary rs turbo or subaru wrx sti ...............i enjoyed the subaru so much i was torn between the two ,we subsequently done bedford and rockingham in the subaru .
Now the nature of the beast is to go quicker and quicker as experiance and confidence grows but at what cost !! ( body repairs , and engine ,brakes, consumable parts ,etc)

A decision was made i would forget my illusions of my fantasy rs turbo build with new this and new that and every gizzmo that is avalible ,get in the real and world boot myself up the arse and get the rs turbo built
before i bin the subaru and the rs turbo becomes an abandoned project!!!

There were still a lot of bits i had to source , exhaust ,ally intercooler ,harnesses, so my thought process went something like this, buy a complete rs turbo with nearly if not all the parts i need then sell off the surpless
items to recover costs ,this would enable me to get mine up and running in what is essentially a reshell job with a few mods .I managed to find an rs turbo which had some accident damage it had 90% of the parts i
required , a deal was done and it came home.

The plan now is to get it finished with basicly what i have got and make improvements as i am using it , the low milage engine will be coupled to my rebuilt gearbox when i get it
back and kept as a spare unit , i will run the engine and box from the crashed car as it was supposed to of been rebuilt 4k ago and has a dyno print out showing just over 200 hp but we will see about that !

I have refitted the cage and suspension and mocked up the dash and pedals so far ,brakes and wiring are next on the to do list .

[Mr Fletcher]

here' s some pictures











cheers

jason

[ValoSunnyGti]

that's looking rather nice in white, Are you keeping it like that ?

[Mr Fletcher]

i was going to do a custom decal set based on the rs 200 blue stripes but with a silver and orange pin stipe to break up the blue and white , but i will reseve judgement until it is up and running .

cheers

jason

[IWANT1]

Looks sweet

Are the turret struts standard??? and what are the arches???

[Mr Fletcher]

lee as far as i am aware the turrets are standard other than being seam welded and strengthened ,the arches are orginal but have just been flared with some additional metal and fibreglass

cheers

jason

[Stuart]

Well, well Mr Fletcher. Good work :thumb:

I have to say that it looks very dapper in white, the white wheels are spot on as a compliment. Even more Persil than Persils car :lol:

I think you're being prudent in your decision to get it up and running sooner rather than later, just try and be realistic about your ongoing mods and the time they'll require to carry out. My Sierra has done me very proud over the years and I would never have been able to have taken part in the number of events thatI have if I was running a dearer car like my GTR or your STi. It goes without saying that the expenses in using a high performance car are much higher and you can go so much further with a 'race only' car in terms of building it for function etc, therefore balancing up the cars power to weight ratio in comparison to the aforementioned lard arse road cars.

Sure you can't arrive and drive like you might with the STi but with a trailer Queen you can drive with impunity. That's always worth a few seconds a lap

Can you get some pictures of the roll cage install please?

[Mr Fletcher]

more pictures as requested

















cheers

jason

[IWANT1]

Nice cage looks special is that a cossie hiding at the back :?:

[Mr Fletcher]

no cossies hiding in my shed unfortunatly, just the rs turbo donor car amongst other stuff :-D

nice bike by the way.

cheers

jason