Need Advice/tips - Building an ITA Saturn SC

[gran racing]

While I still think buying a car makes the most sense, when I honestly look back at things building was the right decision for me at that point in my life. Knew little about cars (this forced me to learn stuff), had plenty of time, and truly did the "just get it out on the track route" with bare minimim other than safety gear.

[Greg Amy]

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

[callard]

I'm building my ninth race car with two unsold. I've never bought someone else's car. But what the guys above said it true. If you want to get on the track, buy one now. If you want to keep costs down, buy one. If you want to be competetitive, research and buy a good one. If you want to spend 30+ years in the garage drinking beer and puttering, build.
Chuck

[924Guy]

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

Greg's totally right on this. I knew Jeff's car well before Jeff had it; I crewed on that team, know the engineers who built it, and you damn well better believe it cannot be duplicated for any price.

Except buying. Which you should do. Chris Berube's car is still for sale; it is one of those aforementioned team/sister cars to Walker's old car, aka Jeff's car, the red one. I can hunt down Berube's contact info around here somewhere - I remember seeing the posting on the walls at Milford, sure we can still find it. You'd be far better off buying Chris's car and parting out your car, if you've got that big a hard-on for a Saturn.

Note that the cage in those cars was designed using the original GM CAD files for the chassis - it's second to none. Just like the inside access on tuning the ECU.

This is as close as any of us can come to affording a factory-built factory team racecar. Even if it is a Saturn!

Oh, for the record, as one of those who built my own... I had guys like Walker (who built Jeff's car) advising me down the right path. Yes, I built the car that I had. But I almost immediately scrapped it for a better candidate of the same model. While it was hopelessly outclassed (being an ITA car at the time), it was at least a perfectly solid car for the track, being a Porsche.

The SC2 is NOT. Even when fully prepped, it requires vast amounts more maintenance than the Porsches, when both are run at the pointy end of the field. Things like bearing wear (I repack mine every year, change them when I feel like it), brake wear (no new pads more than once a year), engines (going on 5 or 6 years on the same build, my own), shocks etc... I'm sure Jeff can provide the counterpoints in detail for the SC2, but I know from firsthand experience that pads and bearings are lucky to last more than 2 weekends on that car...

[quadzjr]

as a similar story to the 260z. I bought a "race ready" car with log book. I have spent now 3 times that price making it legal and getting it on the track. However I am happy with what I have now, even if it won't be competitive.

lesson learned. It is smarter fincially to buy a car, however make sure that the car is atleast close to what you want. This is the mistake I made. Basically the only thing that I kept from the old car was the rolling chassis and spares.

[lateapex911]

Here's one more angle:
A race car is a tool. To win in, to learn in, to compete in. The bottom line is that it is a disposable commodity. You must be willing to trash it, if that's what it takes.

Now, build it yourself, and you've sunk hours, errr, moths of your time (and there is a possible family 'cost' to that) AND money....you're deeply invested in that car.

That can work against you in two ways. One, you're afraid to approach limits, to race hard, because you cringe at the thought of redoing just completed work (the fresh paint syndrome), and two, because you have so much invested in the car, it would represent too large a loss for you to bear.

Those are bad things to be thinking of when racing a car.

If you buy, (after doing the numbers on what it will REALLY cost*), you laugh when you roll up on grid, because you're thinking, "I'm racing $20K worth of parts that cost me $7!"

But the best part of the buy mentality is the freedom. Buying sets you free to sell it. You're just not that deep into it, and when the time comes to move up/over or out, you don't look at your pile of $25K receipts for a car that will sell for $7, and stop. It hurts a lot less to sell your $7K car for $5, and chuckle thinking about the fun and wins you got for $2K.

* It's very tough to estimate what it will "Really" cost to build a car. Compare built versions of the car you are considering. Jeff's Saturn for example. Look at what it has, then source those components, apply labor, and a number will spit out. In Jeffs case, the starting number is REALLY hard to determine, because it was build semi-'in house' by a Saturn engineer. But, safe to say, the replicate cost...to build the same quality/function..... is in the $30K range.

[gran racing]

On the flip side, it can also work FOR you in a way. You built the car, spend hours and hours working on it, and now can fix stuff pretty darn easily because you've already taken just about everything apart on it. Oh wait, is that actually good? LOL

[lateapex911]

yea, but you can do that with a built car you buy. You're just not forced to. I think that, at this time, it''s a great time to buy built cars. It's a buyers market. Unless you are forging new trails and building what you think is the next "surprise winner", the only reasons to build your own are that you love to do it, and/or are very good at it. But Kirs right, you'll be on track faster if you buy, and you'll have money left over to work on the most important part of the car, the nut behind the wheel. THAT"s where the extra money should go: tracktime.

[raffaelli]

On the flip side, it can also work FOR you in a way. You built the car, spend hours and hours working on it, and now can fix stuff pretty darn easily because you've already taken just about everything apart on it. Oh wait, is that actually good? LOL

Why i built mine.

[raffaelli]

Now, build it yourself, and you've sunk hours, errr, moths of your time (and there is a possible family 'cost' to that) AND money....you're deeply invested in that car.

Why I will spend 2010 in the T&S Tower.