Oddball Cars- Input Please

One of the things I miss about IT is the creativity in the cars that are run. I love making something work that no one else thinks is possible. I also understand this is a lonely and expensive path to take.

Can someone give me opinions on whether or not these cars are likely to be successful?

- ITA 1988 Fiero GT- seems to have good power, aero, and Lotus suspension with minor weight penalty?

- ITS Triumph TR8- good power?

- ITS Alfa GTV/Milano 3.0- I read previous thread, thanks!

- ITS VW Corrado- good power, decent aero?

- ITB Porsche 924- always thought this was a great car, starting to show potential

- ITS 300zx- weight?

I'm thinking about doing something a little different for 2009, maybe in addition to my national program. I'd like to have a car that my wife can go through drivers school with and maybe we can run some enduro's together.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks-
Chris

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Originally Posted by cbovis

One of the things I miss about IT is the creativity in the cars that are run. I love making something work that no one else thinks is possible. I also understand this is a lonely and expensive path to take.

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Good that you feel that way because it is the truth. I've done an oddball (ITS Jensen Healey), mostly failed, and it put a hurt on racing for a long time.

I can give you some ideas on these cars based on either working with them closely or seeing the results of some of the cars.

- ITA 1988 Fiero GT- seems to have good power, aero, and Lotus suspension with minor weight penalty?
Benspeed built one of these on the board but sold it. I think that car that he had built showed tremendous promise and his was far from 100% developed. Seemed I remembered like 135rwhp but around 175 rwtq and the open ECU rule had yet been broken out and there were many other items to develop on the car. Seems like it'd do well in A. He'd know a lot more, but from my vantage point the car showed promise and was begging for more development.

- ITS Triumph TR8- good power?
Jeff Young races one of these now and I work on it. Fast, capable, and relatively easy to maintain. Brakes require regular maintenance and are not cheap. Jeff or I can give you more information on these if you want to go that route. Power isn't that great, torque is phenominal, but using that torque in the chassis with solid rear axle is challenging. Torque is hard on gear boxes too. Definitely racable, but the development of the car has been expensive and time consuming.

- ITS 300zx- weight?
I didn't think the weight was too bad on these. Brakes, aero, motor are great. You'll need to do some R&D on the rear suspension I think because it isn't 240/260/280 Z like at all. What is the weight, 2725? Given the advantages plus the modern ECU rule I'd be all over one of these. There are a few under construction now.

Thanks Ron. Jensen Healey's a cool cars in that uniquely unreliable British way. I believe its been a long and expensive road.

I've always thought the Fiero would be a great ITA car. It requires a little self confidence to race since it doesn't have the greatest racing pedigree (at least not in production chassis form). Specifically the 1988 car is unjustly unloved.

Thanks for the feedback!

Chris

If you search in this very forum (set it to display threads from the beginning) you'll find TR8 threads, Fiero threads, and the Jensen Healey thread. The JH ended like this:

https://improvedtouring.com...ad.php?t=20992

you can have a read about the JH shakedown.

Anything you want to know about a TR8, shoot it our way. Car is fun but has some warts. Cheaper than you would expect, once you know what to do, but has some unsolveable problems. Get used to changing wheel bearings, rotors and hubs regularly.

Only other thing I would add to Ron's note is that the Bildon guys built an ITS Corrado just in the last couple of years and it did well, although had trouble (like most FWD cars) keeping the tires under it for 30 minutes.

Out of the cars above, the 300zx is the smartest route. They've been built before, and in fact I think an actual ITS one (maybe Upchurch's) is for sale in the Atlanta region. I'd do that honestly.

I did the Fiero GT project. Did some rules lawyering and got the 87 & 88 GT on the same spec line. The 88 car had better brakes and front suspension. The 87 had better rear suspension. I had some trouble witht the motor behaving well - great torque but it spit and popped and was a general PITA. But with a better mechanic and programmable ECU - the motor could have been a real monster. 135HP with 172 torque on a dyno jet. At 2600 I still wasn't sure it would compete with an Integra or Miata.

What ultimately turned me away from the car was the chassis. I tested the car at Pocono and running Konis, relatively stiff springs, Weltmeister bars. It would pull well, but over any bumps the car felt very unsafe. It was also a total PITA to dial it up right so it had neutral handling - never did get it right. Oversteer, understeer, oversteer - settled on some oversteer to power out of the corners a little better. No limited slip was likely a big part of this. But I did not feel safe at high speed in this car around a sweeping, bumpy corner.

The car had a rebuilt motor with .5 bumped compression, .04 over, free flow intake, high volt stock coil, headers and a OK exhaust. There was more to be gained too - but ya ever get a sense a type of motor would be demo happy? That was my sense - this engine would be a blowmaster.

The last thing left was installing the cage. I had a rare vision of common sense and sold the car for close to what I had into it. Great decision in hindsight.

Now I'm working on an ITR 968 - great car, lotsa dough. But I think it will be the dominant ITR car in that class. That sorta falls into the oddball group, eh?

I've been developing the 924 for going on 10 years now. Very successful, has great capability - though maybe not the cheapest perhaps to build for ITB, not all that bad. Very reliable and inexpensive to run once built, though. Porsche brakes, Porsche handling, OK on motor, hard to beat for aero. Makes the VWs nervous and the Volvos pissed... ;)

Email if you wish to pursue this direction...