Evaluate shopping list (or sell me your parts...)

#1

Hi guys,

I’m building my first race car. I know it’s advised to purchase an already built car, but I want to take my time and build a car the way I want it. I’m a mechanical engineering student and my research is in vehicle dynamics, so I want to learn everything I can. That, and I plan to do Solo/HDPE as I build the car and then SE30 once it’s all together and I’ve got a license. I am doing this on somewhat of a budget, I sold my R1 to fund the first stage of the build (apparently girlfriends approve of roadracing but not donorcycles).

I plan to to do this build in 2-3 stages. The first stage is everything underneath the car. Cage, engine refresh, etc., will come later. Hopefully I’ll have this all together by the time it warms up.

Here’s what I’ve bought so far (yay for BW Black Friday sale):
Wheel studs
GC SE30 camber plates
S/S brake line set
Brass guide bushings for brakes

Shopping/building list:
H&R race springs (M3 springs on it now)
Bilstein shocks (there are a set on the car now, but there’s rust on the outside – rebuild and keep as spares?)
All bushings and mounts (offset CAB, RTAB, subframe bushings, motor/tranny/diff mount) – probably AKG 75D for rotating and CSS UHMW for non-rotating – will measure and turn my own for spares (Nylatron?))
UUC Swaybarbarian – looks quality from pictures, but I know the IE is more popular – thoughts?
Spherical bearing RSM – necessary?
Metal steering guibo (make my own – 9.3.7.1 says substituted, 3.4 says substituted is “OEM equivalent” so maybe illegal?)
Front strut brace – necessary?
Rear camber/toe kit – was going to go with the slotted IE kit, "posi-lock"
P/S delete – planned to drain rack and loop an existing hose around, poor man’s solution
Tie rod ends & ball joints – seems like a good thing to replace while I’m in there
SE30 exhaust
Rebuilt ATE calipers (I think Turner has them? I have Girlings on my front)
Brake ducts, I hear BW is best (my God these seem expensive)
Skid plate?

Also planning to get a compressor and a tool box, my girlfriend’s dad gave me a bunch of air tools. Have a MIG I can borrow. I found a couple cheap BF deals on HF, hopefully I don’t kill myself or burn my house down.
Cheap compressor: http://www.harborfreight.com/air-compressor-cast-iron-vertical-25-horsepower-21-gallon-125-psi-67847.html
Cheap tool box: http://www.harborfreight.com/roller-cabinet-26-8-drawer-with-8-drawer-top-chest-67831.html

Going to keep the weaves and street tires for now, I hear that’s a faster way to learn. And cheaper.

So, let me know how my list works. If you have vendor or manufacturer suggestions I’m open. I have been building a spreadsheet of the prices at each vendor, but it is a pretty big time suck.

#2

The IE rear sway is much more adjustable if you are into making sway bar adjustments in mm measurements like Ranger versus the UUC which has three simple holes to choose from for each side.

Quite a few of us don’t run front strut braces.

Get the P/S delete plugs from Ranger.

Quite a few of us don’t run brake ducts.

Ask Ranger about his thoughts on skid plates. If you decide you want one, I still have a brand new Factory3 diamond plate one ready to sell.

#3

[quote=“swolfe” post=69484]Going to keep the weaves and street tires for now, I hear that’s a faster way to learn. And cheaper.
[/quote]
You will get conflicting opinions, but here goes. I look at wheels as a consumable. Given how bad the outcome can be if a wheel fails, I’d ditch the 20+ year old factory wheels and get a set of SE30 legal wheels. I agree with running some street tire compounds for the first few track weekends. The greater auditory feedback and gentler breakaway characteristics can help.

PS - We used to save the basketweaves for rain use (when lateral loads are much lower) but I hear Toyo discontinued the 14" RA1. Polish them up and sell them.

#4

I got a PM to come say hello in this thread. Let me apologize in advance for being the downer.

I think that building your first car is a really bad idea. When you are in college you are dirt poor and stressed for time like few other years of your life. Well, engineering students are. IIRC the non “hard science” types had an awful lot of time to drink beer and chase chicks. Us engineering students were in a death struggle with failure prevention every week. My ME class had 90%, I say again 90% attrition.

Most folks that decide to build a SpecE30 to race do not succeed. They fail because doing everything the first time is very hard and it can get expensive. Eventually they run out of passion and someone else buys their half-built car for a song. You sir, are not an average “folk”. You are an engineering student and therefore have significantly less money and time then those of us near our peak income earning years and spend our evenings getting drunk and downloading porn.

One mistake that significantly contributes to failure is trying to make everything fabulous. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. If you worked hard you could put together a competitive no frills ugly duckling from scratch for prob $6k. But what newbies do is they obsess over little stuff wanting everything to be perfect and a year and $10k later their car is no where near complete.

Buy your first car, build your second. That is the way get on the track quickly. You can dodge failure and get on the track next month by exploiting someone else’s “failure” to get their SpecE30 built. Buy someone’s ugly duckling unfinished SpecE30. Finish it in a month and go have fun.

Re. your parts list. I’ll try to go back and help with that, but the important thing is to pretty much ignore that crap. I know, I know, we’re all American boys here so we want to obsess over our stuff, but that is not what most racing is about. This is about getting to the track and learning to drive. It’s about skills, excitement, terror, thrills, loose women, pizza, Mexican food, and hot chicks.

Get a car that will do hot laps without mechanical failure and go learn how to drive. Don’t obsess over hardware, obsess over how to be on the track before 2012 closes.

#5

Ranger,

Respectfully I disagree with some of your points. We built our cars to track-ish ready in 2010, gained track experience and seat time. My motor blew up (all stock no C/S). I then took the rest of 2010 slowly building the car and in 2011 was in the top 5. I took a break in 2012 as we are doing major house remodeling and planning to compete all of 2013.

If he sold his R1 for ~10k, he should get a mid pack car pretty easily even if he subs it to a shop. Skip all the frills (skid plate etc). Run the stock motor with a crank scraper and do all the suspension and safety bits, and drive like piss.

The consumables are the ongoing expensive parts - tires, pads, fuel etc.

This is all stuff you already know :slight_smile:

Dan

#6

Wheels. Run what you have and go do a bunch of Driver’s Ed events. Work your way thru the ability groups and after several dozen events it might be time to think about competition school. People advance at different rates, aptitudes differ, and not everyone is going to be comfortable with the idea of, after a couple dozen events, trading paint at 110mph as you slide thru a corner. That should mean there’s no need to hurry out and buy Spec wheels and competition oriented tires. Besides, street tires are easier to learn on.

I can’t tell you how much it pains me to see this list of “stuff”. I keep thinking…“FOR GOD’s SAKES JUST GO DRIVE THE DAMNED CAR”.

If a part absolutely must be replaced, you might as well replace it with a spec compliant part. Everything in that list…if you have to choose between a track weekend and buying/installing that part, choose the weekend.

Swaybar. Just get a Spec compliant swaybar. Don’t obsess over it. Different folks like different bars, there’s no perfect solution.

Re. RTABs. Every design has warts. Don’t screw with your RTABs unless your toe is all screwed up. After a couple years of competing, then you might start thinking about optimizing things like this. That sentence is true about a lot of the list.

Re. skidplate. Depends on the tracks in your area. There’s a couple tracks in the SE that have gators that will take out your oil pan in a heartbeat.

I wouldn’t worry about a front strut brace. Give that a couple yrs.

Get my power steering plugs. For the cost of a 12pack you get some hardware and plumbing out of the left side of your engine bay. That will make every task on that side of the engine easier.

Steering guibo. Don’t replace it unless you have to. It’s hard. Metal is OEM equivalent if the OEM part is metal. Which it’s not. Besides putting an aftermarket guibo is apparently a pita because the big-ass rivets have to drilled out or something. If yours is sloppy, I’d just replace it with the whole OEM flex joint and not screw with the guibo itself. The last time I thought my steering guibo was loose, it turned instead that my whole steering rack was moving.

What is an RSM?

This is too painful, I can’t go on.

Here’s what I’d recommend. Come up with a very short list that your car absolutely must have in order to be on the track in 2 weeks and not blow up or hit a wall.

Do some reading in the engine subforum re. oil control. Pick a solution and make it a priority issue.

Replace other parts as they wear out. Some of those issues will develop into “while you’re in there” and other maint tasks can get efficiently completed.

You really should buy a car that is already prepped, or nearly so. That’s the way to succeed.

#7

[quote=“dgorman” post=69511]Ranger,

Respectfully I disagree with some of your points. We built our cars to track-ish ready in 2010, gained track experience and seat time. My motor blew up (all stock no C/S). I then took the rest of 2010 slowly building the car and in 2011 was in the top 5. I took a break in 2012 as we are doing major house remodeling and planning to compete all of 2013.

If he sold his R1 for ~10k, he should get a mid pack car pretty easily even if he subs it to a shop. Skip all the frills (skid plate etc). Run the stock motor with a crank scraper and do all the suspension and safety bits, and drive like piss.

The consumables are the ongoing expensive parts - tires, pads, fuel etc.

This is all stuff you already know :slight_smile:

Dan[/quote]
That’s disagreement? Sheeze, that’s not disagreement. I’ll show you disagreement…“Gorman you’re so full of shit the smell makes my eyes water”. There, that’s disagreement. Hmm. Well, maybe that was really more of a personal attack. Seriously tho, just because you succeeded in building a car from scratch doesn’t mean success is common. I was just teasing you because I’ve no disagreement with what with what you said.

#8

:slight_smile:

#9

[quote=“Ranger” post=69512] Don’t obsess over it.[/quote]Bwahahahaha!!! Who hacked Ranger’s account?

One engineer on chassis #2 and engine #8 telling another not to obsess. That’s rich.

OP, build it the way you want. Focus on safety, then reliability, then speed – in both your driving and the build.

Have fun with it. All different approaches have their benefit. I had a shop build me a car and I bought a street E30 to tinker and learn on. The race car is dead nuts reliable and the street car is worth about half of the $10k I’ve dumped into it. In other words, I make consistently bad decisions that I don’t regret a bit.

Take all advice on here with a grain of salt.

#10

Ranger, I’ve read your other posts in “Getting Started” threads, so I expected the admonition. :wink:

Also, I gotta ask – 90% attrition? Undergrad or grad? That seems ridiculous!

I’m not as stressed for time as you might think. I’m ABD (all but dissertation) right now, I have no classes or qualifying exams or anything of that nature. I will spend the next year doing research on behalf of the federal government and then I’ll be done (or very close). So other than my long-ish commute, I have the same free time as any 40 h/wk Joe. And don’t worry, I spend plenty of evenings drinking, I’m a homebrewer. :slight_smile:

I want to build my car slowly. I’m not in a hurry. I’m doing this to have fun (and learn). If my car doesn’t see a Solo or track til next summer, I’m fine with that. I like driving it as a street car, too. Even if I run out of money, I’ll have a (better handling) street car for a year and the finish it out.

Re:obsessing over parts. That’s rich. You know telling me not to do it isn’t going to work, right? You’re an engineer, I’m sure you ‘get’ this.

RSM is rear shock mount.

Re:steering guibo. I read an account of an M3 race car with manual steering that shredded its guibo due to the increased loading that occurs when you depower your rack. I certainly don’t want that happening to me. Decreased steering compliance is just a bonus.

dgorman, I wish I sold my R1 for 10k! It was a little rashed up (2nd PO) and seven years old. But I bought it cheap (from my company) and made a nice profit on it.

Do I need a C/S or Accusump to run Solo? Can’t imagine I am holding lateral acceleration long enough to drop oil pressure, but this is not an issue I’ve studied. I’ll do some reading but if someone has a quick answer I’d like to hear it.

#11

[quote=“Steve D” post=69518][quote=“Ranger” post=69512] Don’t obsess over it.[/quote]Bwahahahaha!!! Who hacked Ranger’s account?

One engineer on chassis #2 and engine #8 telling another not to obsess. That’s rich.

OP, build it the way you want. Focus on safety, then reliability, then speed – in both your driving and the build.

Have fun with it. All different approaches have their benefit. I had a shop build me a car and I bought a street E30 to tinker and learn on. The race car is dead nuts reliable and the street car is worth about half of the $10k I’ve dumped into it. In other words, I make consistently bad decisions that I don’t regret a bit.

Maybe Scott learned some stuff. Had his first Junkyard engine swap at CMP learned him some more greater stuff, we could have saved him more time to be on the track.

Buy a car.
Find a trusted mentor in your area.
Form a bond with other racers in your area.
Share parts and expenses.
Get car on track and spend money learning to drive.

Forget internet advise, turn off the computer.

Fix car.
Learn to drive.

Repeat.
Repeat.

Resist temptation to get internet advise.

Repeat.
Repeat.

RP

#12

No. I ran all of my DE and most of my SpecE30 races on the original engine with NO oil system modifications and it worked great every weekend despite the low oil pressure light occasionally coming on in some sweeping corners. Make sure it is always at least slightly over full on the dipstick, run some 20w50, and you should be fine.

#13

[quote=“Steve D” post=69518][quote=“Ranger” post=69512] Don’t obsess over it.[/quote]Bwahahahaha!!! Who hacked Ranger’s account?

One engineer on chassis #2 and engine #8 telling another not to obsess. That’s rich.

OP, build it the way you want. Focus on safety, then reliability, then speed – in both your driving and the build.

Have fun with it. All different approaches have their benefit. I had a shop build me a car and I bought a street E30 to tinker and learn on. The race car is dead nuts reliable and the street car is worth about half of the $10k I’ve dumped into it. In other words, I make consistently bad decisions that I don’t regret a bit.

Take all advice on here with a grain of salt.[/quote]
OP, as Steve alludes to, I am the very poster child of obsessing over things. That gives me infinite morale standing when I tell people not to obsess over hardware because it really amounts to telling people not to be a whackjob like me.

Engine #8 came and went a loonngg time ago. I think I’m on 14 now, but I’m losing count. I went thru 3 this Spring.

[quote=“swolfe” post=69519]Ranger, I’ve read your other posts in “Getting Started” threads, so I expected the admonition. :wink:

Also, I gotta ask – 90% attrition? Undergrad or grad? That seems ridiculous!

I’m not as stressed for time as you might think. I’m ABD (all but dissertation) right now, I have no classes or qualifying exams or anything of that nature. I will spend the next year doing research on behalf of the federal government and then I’ll be done (or very close). So other than my long-ish commute, I have the same free time as any 40 h/wk Joe. And don’t worry, I spend plenty of evenings drinking, I’m a homebrewer. :slight_smile:

I want to build my car slowly. I’m not in a hurry. I’m doing this to have fun (and learn). If my car doesn’t see a Solo or track til next summer, I’m fine with that. I like driving it as a street car, too. Even if I run out of money, I’ll have a (better handling) street car for a year and the finish it out.

Re:obsessing over parts. That’s rich. You know telling me not to do it isn’t going to work, right? You’re an engineer, I’m sure you ‘get’ this.

RSM is rear shock mount.

Re:steering guibo. I read an account of an M3 race car with manual steering that shredded its guibo due to the increased loading that occurs when you depower your rack. I certainly don’t want that happening to me. Decreased steering compliance is just a bonus.

dgorman, I wish I sold my R1 for 10k! It was a little rashed up (2nd PO) and seven years old. But I bought it cheap (from my company) and made a nice profit on it.

Do I need a C/S or Accusump to run Solo? Can’t imagine I am holding lateral acceleration long enough to drop oil pressure, but this is not an issue I’ve studied. I’ll do some reading but if someone has a quick answer I’d like to hear it.[/quote]

Re. Rear shock mounts. When you go to stiff springs you will indeed need an aftermarket rear shock mount. AFAIK, all the aftermarket rear shock mounts that are all metal and race oriented seem to last forever.

I don’t recall seeing rear sway mount stiffeners elsewhere in this thread. If that’s the case they bear mentioning too. It’s a little piece of steel that is welded on to the trailing arm sway bar attachment points in order to strengthen the attachment point. Otherwise the stiffer spec rear bar will bust off the mount point. You can fab this yourself easily enough.

That’s cool that you’re getting a welder but welding is an art. Do a bunch of reading, invite someone over to your house to help get you started, and practice laying beads a bunch before welding on anything important.

Don’t worry about the Accusump, but IMO you positively have to do something about oil control before doing hot laps in an e30. You’ll make it a couple events on street tires because you won’t be pulling spit for G loads but as your speeds increase so does the necessity of oil control measures. I’d recommend you go back to the engine subforum and note the difference between a “scraper” and a “baffle”. The former isn’t nearly as big a deal as the latter.

Re. replacing the steering guibo because of increased loading. Screw all that. Don’t waste time and enthusiasm chasing after low probability problems. You’ll have enough to do as it is.

Re. 90% attrition. I’ve had a lot of time to think about that. IMO the problem was that none of the academic counselors had hard science backgrounds. Therefore they’d tell the HS seniors and college freshman that the expectation was to take 18units. Normal people can’t take 18units of calculus, physics, chemistry, etc so the kid…a kid who his whole life never known academic failure, got his ass utterly crushed. He’d then drop out of school so completely demoralized that he’d be near suicidal. I saw this happen to most of my buddies. Was a real bummer. I was working part time jobs during college and I joined the Marines. That forced me to reduce the class load and it was survivable.

#14

All the ARBs I am looking at come with the reinforcements for the trailing arms and chassis pickups. I can’t MIG weld my way out of a wet paper bag, I just said I have a MIG I can borrow. I also have friends who can weld that I can borrow. All I’ve ever done (for more than five minutes) is TIG.

Will do the research on baffles. Thanks.

#15

No. I ran all of my DE and most of my SpecE30 races on the original engine with NO oil system modifications and it worked great every weekend despite the low oil pressure light occasionally coming on in some sweeping corners. Make sure it is always at least slightly over full on the dipstick, run some 20w50, and you should be fine.[/quote]
OP, this is a perfect example of how rarely anyone agrees in this hobby. King Tut has a strong background in this and knows what he is talking about. And I disagree with him about this completely. There’s lots of threads with people disagreeing about stuff. You’l have to read them yourself and decide who’s arguments are more compelling.

There is no way on earth that the 7psi oil light can come on at high rpm and the bearings remain unscathed. Bearings are designed to oblate away for a while, but that doesn’t make it ok.

Run a quart high. Read some of the threads re. oil choices and choose one that people like.

#16

Don’t forget an iRacing.com account and rig. Best “training” tool around :wink:

#17

[quote=“Ranger” post=69525]There is no way on earth that the 7psi oil light can come on at high rpm and the bearings remain unscathed. Bearings are designed to oblate away for a while, but that doesn’t make it ok.

Run a quart high. Read some of the threads re. oil choices and choose one that people like.[/quote]

I knew you would like that one. :woohoo: Did I beat the odds? Maybe. Have others beaten the odds, sure. If the motor blows, then you can fix it and upgrade your oiling system. I wouldn’t make it a priority to getting the car out on track though.

#18

[quote=“King Tut” post=69537][quote=“Ranger” post=69525]There is no way on earth that the 7psi oil light can come on at high rpm and the bearings remain unscathed. Bearings are designed to oblate away for a while, but that doesn’t make it ok.

Run a quart high. Read some of the threads re. oil choices and choose one that people like.[/quote]

I knew you would like that one. :woohoo: Did I beat the odds? Maybe. Have others beaten the odds, sure. If the motor blows, then you can fix it and upgrade your oiling system. I wouldn’t make it a priority to getting the car out on track though.[/quote]

Nope, you didn’t beat the odds. You damaged your bearings as indicated by the occasional 7psi OP in turns. Better to baffle the oil pan to protect your bearings from day 1.

#19

I don’t know from odds. What I do know is on my 3rd race weekend ever I ate a rod bearing. After deciding to go with the run a quart high and you’ll be fine crowd. I got very lucky and the collateral damage was minor. If you already have the subframe off or have otherwise disassembled the front end, do yourself a favor and address oil control now.

#20

The Engineering problem is the opposite from what I’ve heard and experienced. In my engineering classes it seam like I’ve know it all along and everything else is a bitch. Other than Learning programing languages which all the 18yo seem to know already. Physics, Chemistry and calc are meant to weed people out and it’s gravy after that.

I don’t think this forum has ever convinced anyone not to build their own car despite how we try. When I saw Cobetto’s car for sale I was totally envious because I had spent so much and it wasn’t even worth the spares he was giving away with it.

Don’t put the car before the track time. If you’ve got the addiction you will be depressed by the fact that you can’t afford a track day and you’re car is on stands.

If you’re motor is junk like mine was just put cheap 20/50 in it and run it. You’ll need a new motor later but worry about that last. When you get the new motor fix the op problem before you run it so it will last.

If you’re in the beginning DEs you will need tires and brakes that are consistent. The old tires on my car were great for the first de weekend and the second they were slower than I predicted every lap. If you have to have an instructor with you yet you will be better off with new tires and broken in pads. You’re instructor will hate inconsistency and You’ll both be wasting you’re time. You can be consistent with blown shocks, but not with blistering tires and balding street pads.