I am on the prowl for a track car. It must be road legal, must be able to drive to the event and drive back so reliability is key. I don't really care about the interior, most likely it will be gutted it anyway. I really want to tune/track prep it myself, get "dirty". Preferably a TURBO of some sort. Something for around 20 with around 20 for modifications is my price range.
Options as I see it:
1 Subaru STI 04-05 (had one before LOVED it BUT had to buy wifey a mini)
- anyone currently have one and would like to give me some advise?
EVO's need not apply...
2 No Corvette's/American Muscle (don't like the image, NO OFFENSE)
3 944's respectable car but just not for me.
4 E36 M3 (Hard finding a solid car to start with, don't like the styling honestly)
5 Currently have a 997 S AWESOME car to track but to nice to demolish at the track
6 The RS4 4 impressed me beyond belief with grip and grunt at the track which is kind of why I am looking for AWD

ANY SUGGESTIONS

Other Thoughts:
B5 S4 BiTurbo, Audi Quattro, 930 Turbo

Track Experience
4 Auto X
5 DE
1 PBOC
1 NASA
- swapping over to RA888's on next vehicle for sure !!!
- Making this a hobby

 

Why dont you just track your Carrera S or your RS4.

 

Since you mentioned AWD.

Have you thought about picking up a late model Audi B5 A4 ('01) for $6-$8K. Gut it, slap a 2.0L stroker in there, swap out the diffs, etc. etc. I think you could have a killer track car for $30K.

I'm slowly working towards that point.

 

997 Is to nice to beat on... Fantastic auto @ the track UNREAL!! But, I don't have a tow vehicle, don't really want to drive on R888's to the track and have them last 2 sessions. 1800 in tires gone...POOF... Not in my best interest nor would I want to pop in a cage in my daily driver. I'm pretty tall and my head would bang against it all day long. etc. etc. etc.

 

you may want to reconsider the 944........it is relatively inexpensive and you can beat the crap out of it. Since you don't care about the interior, you gut the inside and stack up the track tires in the car and drive to your events.

I see tons of 944's at the florida DE events....Sebring Homestead and Moroso.

Just a thought!

 

Why not a 996 or early 997? How about a 930 Porsche.

 

As hard as I try searching 997's are not in the 20's yet, nor are 996's close but no cigar. I have found a few 996's in the 100's of thousands of miles but I doubt they will survive track sessions with out an imminent failure of something HUGE and cost MUCHO MUCHO Dinero

 

I'm not a track expert, you have more events under your belt than I do.

But I too share a love for AWD so wanted to share some comments.

The B5 S4 can be an interesting choice, but it has quite a lot of shortcomings to overcome. The nice thing about it, for 20k in mods you will have quite a monster. The B5 S4 recently won Sport Compact Car Ultimate Street Car Challenge, which was a surprise to me but it shows the potential. http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/us...nge/index.html

The aftermarket is fantastic for it, you can readily find Ohlins suspension (Stasis) 450hp upgrade kits (AWE, APR, ASP, EPL, and more), BBK kits galore, even a differential upgrade to change the bias to 40/60.

I still believe that the STi would be a better choice as it is a better and lighter chassis to start with. The B5 S4 is very heavy and what's worse is the weight is very much front biased as the engine is ahead of the front axle. The S4 can also be a bear to maintain. The 2.7tt in the S4 definitely has more sex appeal I have to admit.

Since I have some kind of illness for liking the B5 Audi chassis, I've thought about building a cheap A4 track car. The 1.8 turbo is not as sexy but it makes for a better balanced and lighter car to begin with, and can reach decent and reliable power levels in the mid 300's. Aside from the engine, the A4 chassis benefits from having much of the same excellent aftermarket support.

 

That is exactly why I would love a B5 S4, the engine is pure unadulterated sex appeal to me. "The Noise" The understeer characteristics of the S4 are somewhat displeasing and the weight. I have found a couple bullet proof buys on S4's for 15 so that leaves me with quite a bit of modification money that I allocated for myself.

 

What's better is you can likely find a good stage 3 for less than 20k, that alone saves you 10k in mods that you can put towards the stasis/ohlins motorsports suspension (or penske that startupracing sells).

 

I don't trust a Stg III kit car unless it is directly from a Tuner, and I have their guarantee. I'll save 10k but I'll spend 15K rebuilding the motor and Turbo's to the same spec it was before. Had a bad experience before...

 

For $20k you should be looking at some early Boxsters, early-mid BMW's, Miata's, Honda S2000's...and I know you don't like them but late 90 Corvette's.

 

DESPISE Honda S2000's ! ! ! Miata's, If I can't fit into a lotus how am I going to fit into a Miata? Boxsters have limited potential on power, IMHO unless drastic measure's are taken like 3.8 swaps.

 

Well what do you want for $20K?!?!?! There are some hopped up Boxsters at my DE's that really move of course the drivers are really good too.

 

My thoughts too...track the 997 !!!