Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Wow, cool stuff guys. Good luck this year!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Preparation is becoming frenzied for us, as we try to cram in everything we need to do. All the little things like figuring out radios, mounting a better water drink setup, getting more fuel jugs, buying a transponder so we don't have to rent one, etc etc.

Can't wait for RA though!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Looks very fun and I'd like to join in some day if I ever had the money/time!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

says the guy who balls around in 10 second drag cars :P

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

That pile was taken to the junk yard because nobody wanted the shell. That thing just sat around when I broke after I had student loans to pay off and a gf:Flush:

How much if you had to guess would it cost for like a season of racing? Also do you have to be a good driver or past racing (turning racing) experience?

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

It's only as expensive as you want it to be. You can find a full racing suit and helmet for around $600 if you find a deal (http://cs-gear.com/ and http://www.profoxracing.com/ have package deals). The car can be only be worth up to $500, so what you actually pay for it is up to you. Cost for a cage, harness, window net, fire extinguisher, fuel cans, etc. etc. Race entry is $1000 or so then goes down $100 each additional race you do in a season. We rent radios for each race, like $100 or something. A 31' RV to tow the car is $150 a day plus gas.

Our team of 5 guys had nothing more than autocross experience, a couple guys who had less than a dozen events between the two of them. Myself, Shawn and Brandon are all autocross regulars. None of us ever drove on a road course until we went to the Chump Car race at BIR last year. The entire time our car has been running we were consistently in the top 6, so while seat time surely helps it isn't a defining factor. It's an endurance race after all.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

I'd echo that. Its really hard to say exactly how much it would cost.

To give you a good idea, just to 'arrive and drive' with a team, you can expect to pay 500-800 per event (but we're talking about gobs more seat time than you'd get in any other form of racing) and obviously you need to have your safety gear. So if you do a couple events in a season, plus gear, about ~$2500 would do it. And you don't need to buy safety stuff every year. This year I'm actually upgrading to a head and neck support device.

If you build a car, if you buy a HANS device, if you have fancy stuff (non-budget stuff like radios, gauges, seat, harness, cage, wheels, tires, etc) Then it will start to add up real quick. But a lot of people split car build costs between a few. I'm lucky, and with my team, one guy on the team is paying for the car build so when its all said and done, the car is outright his. Less complications.

Also, my team started with less experience than Matt's. I've done a handful of rallyx and autox's, but not too many. Other teammates had done less. We all did a track day at Brainerd before the first event. Experience adds up quick when you're driving 3+ hours per event.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

There are teams that showed up to BIR and Iowa last year who had absolutely zero performance driving experience.

Our car survived dyno time at RS Motors today. All I can say is we are absolutely STOKED. This thing is going to rip. Ron had the car for about 6 hours and put a lot of work into it, fabbed us a new intake, modified the FPR so it has a set screw to help increase the fuel pressure because it was running pretty lean at first, adjusted the timing and now it's sitting pretty. He bent over backwards for us and had a bigger smile on his face while working on this car than our team combined. We are forever in debt to Ron. http://th146.photobucket.com/albums/...123/th_bow.gif

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Sweet! So how much power did it make?

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

haha, Ron is always smilin!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

+1 on what Matt said, Ron did some great work, as for power goes, the HP line looks like this: / all the way to 7500 rpm redline... Winning! :P

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

ok, you can't leave us hanging, how much power did you make?

we have dyno day #2 coming up this weekend!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Here's video of one of the pulls: http://img862.imageshack.us/i/ubm.mp4/

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

haha awesome! Looks like shawn built a good motor for ya, go shake-n-bake!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

That thing doesn't look so 'chumpy' these days! A resourceful crew.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

It sure does in a crowd of BMWs.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

those are actually really healthy numbers for a stock 16v 4A-GE... especially in an AW11 chassis where the intake snorkel is so obnoxiously long.

:banana:

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Whatching the vid of the pull makes me giddy, cant wait to see how she runs a Road America.

What was great about the engine build is that it is using all stock toyota 4age internals, hone was done using mix of fat tire beer and tranny fuild with a $40 auto parts stone hone tool, and the only mod is the air intake and air filter. Hopefully it all stays together. Motor has zero miles on it, my guess is we gain a few hp once it frees up and we get the 9 month old gas out of the tank. ;)

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

awesome work guys!!