looking for advice on building an itb car

[tcpip]

Quick background:
I'm new to the IT racing scene. I'll be starting down the path of this wonderfully expensive hobby in several weeks, when I attend my first HPDE. My intent is to attend several of these early next year before making the final commitment to this sport and getting my racing license next Fall.

What I'm looking for advice on is how to go about building a racecar. Now, l know I'm going to get replies stating that's it's cheaper to buy than to build. I do appreciate those comments, and I welcome them. But I should state that I'm pretty much set on building. I have 2 reasons for building. The first is learning. I want to learn more about how cars work. I know the basics, but I want to know the nitty gritty details. What better way than to take one apart and put it back together. The second reason is, well, I just like building stuff. That includes budgeting the costs required for the build. It's the engineering geek in me.

Back to my question. I have a 91 Golf that I'm thinking will be my donor car. I may also have the option of using a 96 Jetta. I'll only consider the latter if it get's reclassed into ITB. And finally there is an outside chance that I'll sell 1 or both of those cars and buy a Golf III. Which car would you use and why? With regards to Golf III, which year would be the best. Do you think the stock engines (150,000 on the golf; 200,000 on the Jetta) would survive the track time neccessary to get a racer license? I know that's a bad question. Just assume that the engines are in average condition for their ages.

A couple of related questions regarding cost to make sure I'm not under estimating my build costs.
Cage $1000 including installation?
Race engine $2500?

Last question. Anyone happen to know if Shine Racing builds race engines and install cages for customers? I'd ask them directly but I know they are quite busy and I don't want to bother them with something isn't ready to be dealt with.

-Jon

[16v]

SRS will do pretty much whatever you want to pay them to do on a motor. I am fairly sure they will point you to a cage builder.

[JLawton]

Yes, I recommend buying.........

Go with the Golf III

One thing about building, you know whats on the car, the condition and legality. Read, re-read and read 10 more times the GCR. Every time you do, you will pick up on somthing new.

Go to some SCCA races

Get as many HPDE events in as possible. When you go to an SCCA school, you don't want to be worrying learning how to drive your car.

If you are building a VW, Shine is the way to go........

Where do you live?


<edit>
Just realized you do have listed where you live.........duh. If you need help, have questions, or want to check out an ITB GTi, let me know [email protected]
On Oct. 22 we have the NARRCs up at LRP. Might be a good one to check out.....

[Bill Miller]

As Jeff said, at this point in time, I&#39;d say go w/ the G III. HOWEVER, you might want to wait a couple of months. There&#39;s a chance that the Rabbit GTI may see a much needed adjustment. If so, it may be a contender in ITB again. NOTE: The above is pure speculation, so take it for what it&#39;s worth.

[madrabbit15]

I would go with the A2 golf. I have yet to see a legal well prepared A3 beat a legal well prepared A2. The A2 has a lot better transmission and from most of the respected opinions I have spoken to the transmission makes up for any HP gains the A3 has over the A2. Plus the A2 is a better handling car. Time will tell.......
I think that you will see Hondas take over this class in the next 5 years, if you want to win, you need to build any number of hondas for ITB.

Derek

[JamesB]

Personally being yoru first car, and your new to even HPDE, go with a used car. When I worked out my budget for building an ITB car it was around 10k for the car alone.

Cage - 2500
Motor - stock
Tranny - stock
Seat - 250
tires - 600
suspension - 2000
camber plates
harnesses
mirror


Instead I bought a car for 2500, a built motor for 500, sold the seat it came with and bought one that fit me cost was break even. 1800 for my trailer, 400 for reliable gauges and a tach. 600 to have some cage changes made to the door bars as I didnt like the original work.

I still spent less then 10k and I have a car ready for school. Over the winter I need a fresh set of tires and new harnesses as they expire.

[tcpip]

Thanks for the replies, so far. Just to clarify, I&#39;m not planning on building (or buying) until next spring/summer. I&#39;ll defintely be attending races in addition to the HPDEs before I go for my license. I was just at Summit Point for the MARRS Double, and I&#39;m probably going to the NARRC at LRP.

[JamesB]

Understood, but unless you have built a car before or been involved in a build sometimes its not known how you do it right the first time. Again its still an expense to build ground up if you can find a perfectly good tub thats already prepared.

Keep going to the PDE events and go from there. Thats what I did since 2001.

[gran racing]

my budget for building an ITB car it was around 10k for the car alone.

Really? WOW! Is that because the donor car you were looking at was really, really expensive? Not picking on you but am curious.

For $10K, you can easily build an ITB car and be a front runner. Yes it takes time and I did not include that. And I&#39;m not talking about requiring a person to have a lot of skill or special tools. It also takes some dedication to read racing books, going to races (oh, no), watching race and your own in-car race video, talking to others about racing, etc.

If you run tracks other then Lime Rock, a limited slip should also be figured into the budget (for the FWD cars you&#39;re talking about) when you do the motor.

(In no way am I saying that buying an already built car isn&#39;t much cheaper. But as Jon says, there are some advantages of doing it yourself if ya enjoy that type of thing.)

[JamesB]

Originally posted by gran racing@Sep 21 2005, 02:15 PM
Really? WOW! Is that because the donor car you were looking at was really, really expensive? Not picking on you but am curious.

For $10K, you can easily build an ITB car and be a front runner. Yes it takes time and I did not include that. And I&#39;m not talking about requiring a person to have a lot of skill or special tools. It also takes some dedication to read racing books, going to races (oh, no), watching race and your own in-car race video, talking to others about racing, etc.

If you run tracks other then Lime Rock, a limited slip should also be figured into the budget (for the FWD cars you&#39;re talking about) when you do the motor.

(In no way am I saying that buying an already built car isn&#39;t much cheaper. But as Jon says, there are some advantages of doing it yourself if ya enjoy that type of thing.)

[snapback]60823[/snapback]

no I had the donar car. But like most it needed some TLC to be ready to go. I only quoted out the expensive parts that I could remember. Also your talking about now you have to sort the car. And given the cars unknown status many things would have to be replaced from bearings to bushings. I think I had motor work and my safety gear included in the budget (its all on the computer at home.)

Either way, I have spent under 7k total at this point for the car, the trailer, my safety gear. And I have a .20 over IT prepped 8v motor for a whole lot less then I would pay to do that myself.

[Knestis]

Well, that clarifies things - go with the MkI GTI, MkII Golf, or MkIII Golf.

If I were TRULY only concerned about controlling cost, I&#39;d go with the MkII this year. Ask me again in 3 years, when both the MkII and MkIII are that much older, and I&#39;ll tell you different.

In the end though, the box that all of the special parts bolt to is the least of your concerns - cost-wise - over the longer haul.

I don&#39;t know that anyone has requested that the MkIII 2.0 Jetta be listed in IT. That has to happen before it&#39;s considered. Current thinking tips the scales in favor of the earlier (OBDI) MkIII&#39;s, over the OBDII cars - but not by a lot. You have the "4-door or 2-door" question, as well. We got MASSIVELY lucky, finding a non-sunroof, 2-door, stripper, 94 Golf - minus ABS, exploding seatbelt tensioners, and some other stuff that one doesn&#39;t want.

It&#39;s also going to be tough to get the MkIII all the way to its race weight, I suspect. My goal for the new car is within 50# - that would be 50# lighter than Pablo I.

K

EDIT - we used the original engine for two FULL seasons, ending a few weeks ago at 129,000+ miles. Never missed a beat.

[JamesB]

Right now thats the only think I dont know about this car is the race weight. I figured I would ask to weigh it if the have the scales setup at the school so I know where its at. The previous ownder did a LOT of stripping including most of the goop on the underbody.

[Bildon]

Originally posted by gran racing@Sep 21 2005, 02:15 PM
Really? WOW! Is that because the donor car you were looking at was really, really expensive? Not picking on you but am curious.

For $10K, you can easily build an ITB car and be a front runner.

[snapback]60823[/snapback]

Yes REALLY. Go tear your tranny down COMPLETELY to change the R&P and then add a race diff and new synchros and bearings. How much ahave you just spent?
That&#39;s right, depending on whether you did the assembly you could be nearing $2000. And you still have a way to go....

See the optimum words above are FRONT RUNNER.... You have to spend the coin to stay running up front when the fast guys are in town.

I think the A3 should be a faster car once the guys running them get them fully sorted but I&#39;ve yet to see one beat our A2 cars.

There are ways to save money.
1) You don&#39;t need a fully built +.040 motor from day 1. A junk yard gem that has good rings will work great for the first year.
2) Buy used race/rally/A-X shocks & springs from somebody
3) Use stock wheels and get used tires from somebody like me who just gave away a bunch of Kumhos at the last event that had a good weekend or two left in them.
etc etc
4) Some VW racing parts retailers also offer very cheap OE parts to IT racers. You may want to inquire into who does that

[madrabbit15]

I think a fully competitive ITB car that will run up front will cost a lot more than$10k. Buying an already built car will def. be a cheaper way to get on the track and run competitively. Thats what I first did. If you want to run up front and win, it is going to cost that much more and many parts on that already built/used race car will need to be replaced with the "correct parts". If you are already a racer and you want to win, you might as well start from scratch, if you want to race and get some seat time then buy used and gradually replace what you think you should. Now sometimes you might have a chance to buy a car was was built well, but this is IT, and most are done sort of halfway. I think any of guys that run up front, if you put your pen to paper and add up everything gone into your cars including dyno time, you will find that it was probably over $10k.


Derek

[gran racing]

Well, I really don&#39;t feel much like debating this since there is absolutely nothing to debate. My B car was built for under $10K (a huge portion of the money was spent this winter to have someone build me the engine and tranny so my figures are pretty up-to-date) and I added various other costs including donor car value of $1,000 (I had the car and couldn&#39;t sell it for $500), vinyl lettering, necessary SCCA decals, basic tools, etc. to the expense sheet. Will I be up front when the fast guys come to town? I will say I&#39;ve run against some pretty fast B cars and do o.k. for myself. The ARRC will be very tough but interesting at the same time.

But heck, if you want to say building a front running car is only possible because I&#39;m a great driver, I won&#39;t fight you too much. Ray and Stephen B. have come down and to the ARRC and qualified 1 & 2 last year. Cars they swear could be built for under $10K. (I&#39;m not including a trailer or tow vehicle into this figure. Although I only have a $500 used tow dolly.)

Oh, a LSD from OPM is no where near $2,000 including the tranny rebuild. And my car has a fully preped (minus dyno tuning that&#39;s happening within this month) engine and .040 over pistons. As I said before, buying someone elses car is still the cheapest way to go. And unfortunately the expenses don&#39;t stop when the car is built as Jon has seen with my car.

[tcpip]

Ok, I new I was going to get into trouble when I said the &#39;buy is cheaper&#39; comments are welcome. But I&#39;ve gotten some good comments on which car to use, so that&#39;s fine. Namely that there doesn&#39;t seem to be a clear consensus that the A3&#39;s are obviously best choice.
The last couple of comments mentioned front runners. It&#39;s not my intention to go out in my first year of racing and podium every race. I&#39;m just going out to have fun, and drive well. If it comes down to me not winning only becase of my car, then that&#39;s fine. I&#39;ll then do some work on the car after each season. I&#39;m in no rush to be the guy everyone&#39;s gunning for.

Jeff: Which car do you drive? If you were at Summit, then I&#39;m must have seen you. But there was a yellow A2, white A2 and a yellow A1 GTI, (and the General Li, but I know that&#39;s that you) so I don&#39;t remember which one you are.

[Bill Miller]

Well, Kirk is in the process of building a car from the ground up. I&#39;d bet that if you ask nice, he&#39;ll share his build costs w/ you (as long as you promise not to tell his wife! )

[Knestis]

I tell this story a lot but back in the Old Skool days of IT - like the &#39;80s - a friend of mine built a GRM project ITB Rabbit. He used to tell people at auto shows and so forth that they could be out there racing something exactly like it for X dollars...

...but when it came time to sell it, he was asking 2X.

Any time someone gives me a lowball figure for building a racing car, I want to suggest that instead of "adding up what it cost to build," they add up what they spent on other stuff, subtract the hit over time on their net worth (assets minus liabilities like those pesky credit cards), and see what the difference is.

Here&#39;s a test: Shop online and tell me what your best buy deal is to install a master switch including a dual-circuit switch, 6 feet of battery cable, big wire lugs for the ends, smaller wire for the alternator circuit, a package of other terminals (pretty much impossible to just buy 2), shrink wrap, tie wraps, and grommets. Oh, and you need some kind of bracket, too. Include shipping or provide an estimate for gas and time necessary to chase everything down locally.

Yeah - I COULD build an ITB Golf II for $3000. I could probably even get it through tech. I sure as hell wouldn&#39;t spend a Saturday morning working up to flat-footing VIR&#39;s South Bend in it. And it would look like crap which just isn&#39;t OK.

K

[Bill Miller]

Originally posted by gran racing@Sep 21 2005, 02:15 PM
Really? WOW! Is that because the donor car you were looking at was really, really expensive? Not picking on you but am curious.

For $10K, you can easily build an ITB car and be a front runner. Yes it takes time and I did not include that. And I&#39;m not talking about requiring a person to have a lot of skill or special tools. It also takes some dedication to read racing books, going to races (oh, no), watching race and your own in-car race video, talking to others about racing, etc.

If you run tracks other then Lime Rock, a limited slip should also be figured into the budget (for the FWD cars you&#39;re talking about) when you do the motor.

(In no way am I saying that buying an already built car isn&#39;t much cheaper. But as Jon says, there are some advantages of doing it yourself if ya enjoy that type of thing.)

[snapback]60823[/snapback]

Dave,

While I appreciate your comments, I think you&#39;re setting unrealistic expectations. I can get to $10k pretty quick, w/ just the big-ticket items. And w/o some decent mechanical skills, and some special tools, you will absolutely get there in a hurry. No tubing bender/fish-mouth cutter, and mig welder? Plan on spending $1500 - $2500 to have someone put a cage in the car. Suspension? Don&#39;t think you&#39;re going to get anything that&#39;s competitive for < $2k, and even that may be hard today. Sure, you can probably get a set or two of OEM 14x6 alloy wheels for $100-$200/set, but they&#39;re probably not going to be the lightest things out there. The Kosei&#39;s that Kirk got for Pablo, were very nice, and pretty light. IIRC, those were like $500/set. And then there are the tires. What&#39;s a new set of Hoosiers (225/50/14) cost these days? $600? $700? Granted, tires are a consumable, but you have to get the original ones on the car. And you&#39;re not going to run at the front w/o new ones. By my count, that&#39;s ~$6k - $7k so far. You will pretty much spend what&#39;s left on the motor/trans. Leaves nothing for a race seat, belts, brakes, gauges, etc. etc. etc. Also doesn&#39;t leave any money for any labor on the car.

Sure, you can build a car and get it on the track for less than $10k. However, don&#39;t think that it&#39;s going to run at the front. And placing no value on your time/labor is a false economy. Change that $10k number to $15k, and I think you&#39;re a lot closer. If you have the car built for you, figure on adding another $5k. Several years ago, there was a discussion about the cost of a shop-built car. Cost of the car was $19k. This was an ITB A2 VW Golf, built by one of the top VW race shops in the country. It was a beautiful car, and was quick.

Like Kirk said, I&#39;m sure you can get a car on the track for $3k - $5k, but it&#39;s not going to run at the front. Take the minimalist way out, and you can easily get there.

[JLawton]

Originally posted by tcpip@Sep 21 2005, 06:14 PM
Jeff: Which car do you drive? If you were at Summit, then I&#39;m must have seen you. But there was a yellow A2, white A2 and a yellow A1 GTI, (and the General Li, but I know that&#39;s that you) so I don&#39;t remember which one you are.

[snapback]60857[/snapback]

Jon,
Welcome to the debating world of IT. Many, many differences of opinion!!

I haven&#39;t had my car down to Summit Point. I do LRP and NHIS.

If you want to gamble that the GTi will get a weight break, that may be the least expensive way to go. I think they will be in the mix if they go on a diet. Just remember though, all the parts will be 20 years old!!! I agree with getting something reliable, stock engine and plugging away at it. Eventually, every part will have to be replaced.

Again, if you want to check out the car (I&#39;m only 1/2 hour away) let me know or stop in at the NARRC. You will also see a great variaty of FAST ITB cars. Dave&#39;s Honda, Volvos, Audi&#39;s, Golf&#39;s, a Saab, any one of them VERY capable of finishing on the podium. New England also has some pretty big ITB fields, 15-20 for most of the races.

It&#39;s a sickness, get out now!!