Just to clarify Jeff's statements further...the Saturn is a good car for ITA. It makes decent power and torque and its weigh is very advantageous. However, it has one major flaw: everything on the car is unique. Virtually everything is custom-fabricated.

Compare that to the Miata: you can build a 95th-percentile-build ITA Miata simply by writing checks and bolting on parts. ANYTHING you need for it is already fabricated -- hell, you can even buy a almost-fabricated-almost-bolt-in rollcage! You can buy a plug-in (and tuned) ECU, you can buy bolt-in exhaust and intake, you can buy bolt-in suspension. "Prego, it's in there".

The Saturn, on the other hand, really offers nothing. Suspension? Fabricated Koni 8611-based struts. Brake lines? I don't think so. Swaybars? Unavailable (at least the larger size Jeff has). Intake, exhaust, internal engine parts? Nope. And the killer: ECU. Fuggedaboutit, you'll be wiring up and tuning a Megasquirt all by your lonesome (Jeff has a GM-engineer-modified factory ECU that is pretty much "unduplicatable").

It's the same conundrum with the Nissan NX2000 that won the ARRC in 2006: built it, and you can race it. But that"build" is years of investments in customization, testing, and tuning. Which is why we're now building a Miata...

So when those of us that have done it always tell new folks "buy, don't build", that's what we mean. But when Jeff says it, what he really means is "buy, don't build, 'cause you simply can't afford to do it with a Saturn SC competitively in any way, shape, or form."

As an aside, there's a couple of sister cars to Jeff, both white as I recall, both built by the same group of SPS racers/GM engineers. They each come up for sale every year or two. If you REALLY want to race a Saturn, you're saving yourself scads of time, money, and hell by buying one of those as a start.

GA