building a race car, damn i am confused, help!

[puma]

Hey everyone, a little background about us, we are a race team in Québec Canada that race in the Super Production Challenge serie here in Québec. We are racing a RSX at the moment and we won the championship in 2013 (yeah!) Anyway, our car is getting old and we can keep if for an other 2 years but after that, we need to get a newer car. We thought about the FR-S and found one locally that was lightly accidented.


Anyway, i have been reading the forum for the last 3 days (like 6 hours a day litterally) and i must admit that the quantity of parts and the mixed opinions confuses me even more. I have no knowledge at all in the FR-S platforum so i would like to know what you guys woud buy if you had to build a race car. It will not see street, pure race car only.


Engine: We will need to ad either a supercharger or a turbo, i will need to be able to get 250 whp and 300whp (depending on which serie i race in). what would you do? turbo or supercharger with two pulleys? (250 whp on 94 octane and 300 on race gas)


Radiator: Robispec seemed to be offering one that included an oil cooler, it seems to be hell buying from him, any other option? I guess i will need to buy like a Koyo and an oïl cooler seperatly


Exhaust: it will be straight or with a small muffler for the lapping days to pratice, not much of a concern here except headers maybe, what is the best option?


Coilover; thinking about MCS so far, all the coilovers i see are all street coilovers, i would like a remote canister. We have JRZ 3way at the moment but don't want to go so expensive for our next car. Seen the KW and the Eibach but they all have like less than 400# spring rate, we are racing with 750 front and 2000 rear at the moment...


LSD, some seem to say the stock one is fine, for a real race car, would you do it differently? What about final drive, thinking about going to the biggest number possible to use the 6 speed.


Brakes, really thinking about the Ap sprint but i woud like to do the 5x114 conversion to keep our current wheels which woud fit. Nobody seems to have tried the megan conversion kit.


Wheels are going to be RPF1 17x9 et35, pretty decided on that, this is what we have on our RSX


Camber plate: thinking about GC or RCE at the moment, maybe HSV too but it will depend on the coilover i choose.


Suspension and bushing: so confused about this, will need to make more research but i will eed ot upgrade every bushings and maybe arms, really not sure about those.


That's what i am thinking about so far, please share what you guys would do, remember, this is going to be a hardocre car, don't care about the noise or harshness of the car.


thanks for your help and i will make a thread on the build, it will probably be built slowly during the next year, we are racing our RSX again this summer.


Alex

[puma]

By the way, if there are shops that want to sponsor us and use our car for visibilty or publicity or want to develop and test some new hardcore parts, we are open


here are some pics of our RSX for reference

[CSG Mike]

What's your real budget, and what conditions does it see? Are you doing sprints or enduros?

[puma]

our races are usually 30 minutes but we do have a one hour race during the season, nothing more.


As far as budget goes, nothing has been set, we will buy what we need but we are aiming at under 40k on parts, we hope to be able to find some used parts to help keeping the cost down.

[dradernh]

Sent you a PM.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by puma

Coilover; thinking about MCS so far, all the coilovers i see are all street coilovers, i would like a remote canister. We have JRZ 3way at the moment but don't want to go so expensive for our next car. Seen the KW and the Eibach but they all have like less than 400# spring rate, we are racing with 750 front and 2000 rear at the moment...

Don't compare rates to your RSX, different suspension geometry. JRZ 2 way RS Pro would be a good way to go and would likely be my top choice. A couple of options are available depending on your budget.


LSD, some seem to say the stock one is fine, for a real race car, would you do it differently? What about final drive, thinking about going to the biggest number possible to use the 6 speed.

Cusco lower final drive and Guard Transmission LSD.


Brakes, really thinking about the Ap sprint but i woud like to do the 5x114 conversion to keep our current wheels which woud fit. Nobody seems to have tried the megan conversion kit.

I don't know if I would want to be the racing test bed for a Megan part like that. The AP kits will work well for you, but the endurance kit will lower your long term running costs and be slightly better insurance.


Suspension and bushing: so confused about this, will need to make more research but i will eed ot upgrade every bushings and maybe arms, really not sure about those.

Replace as much as you can. Are there rules restricting suspension geometry and changing pick-up points?

Comments in red.

- Andy

[puma]

i beleive pick up points have to be the same as stock, but i certainly don't have the ressource or knowledge so start reengineering the suspension, what were you thinking of?

Guard makes a LSD for the FT86? We are only swearing by them in the porsche world, (i have a 996 turbo) didn't know they were in this application, i'll contact Matt, thanks

about the spring rate, i understand i can't compare to the RSX but i don't want to use a street suspension, what kind of spring rate would you go with for a starter? It seems like a little higher in the back would be good from what i read, how about 500/600 for a beginning? Do you use the same length front and back and how long would you buy them?

MCS are cheaper than JRZ and for the price, i would probably do MCS because of the quality of service from Lex.

I really hoped both of you guys would join the conversion here, i will certainly end up buying stuff from either of you because everything is too expensive in Canada.

thanks for sharing.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Yes Matt has made lsds for this chassis. Worth a call.

We have a full pillowball front control arm in stock dimensions. Let us know if you're interested...really transforms the front of the car.

I don't have first hand experience with MCS but really like working with Bryan at JRZ. Worth considering too.

Do you run slicks?

- Andy

[Black Tire]

Originally Posted by puma

Camber plate: thinking about GC or RCE at the moment, maybe HSV too but it will depend on the coilover i choose.

This camber plate, and have them make a spring perch and nut to fit your chosen coil over:

http://www.raceseng.com/cascam-caste...aru-brz-bundle

[puma]

the main serie we race in uses street tires, and some cheap on top of that to keep the cost down but we want to participate in some canadian touring car championship which runs on Continental slick

Andy, can't seem to find it on your website, is that the whiteline control arm listed that doesn't have any details? Can you elaborate? I have seen the Robispec control arm which looked interesting but seems like the hard part is to buy the part...

[Vracer111]

Originally Posted by puma

the main serie we race in uses street tires, and some cheap on top of that to keep the cost down but we want to participate in some canadian touring car championship which runs on Continental slick

Andy, can't seem to find it on your website, is that the whiteline control arm listed that doesn't have any details? Can you elaborate? I have seen the Robispec control arm which looked interesting but seems like the hard part is to buy the part...

Check here:

https://www.facebook.com/RacecompGTw...52161226699223

Highly recommend replace the steering rack bushings with some solid aluminum or delrin ones as well as part of bushing replacement plan...

[xwd]

Originally Posted by puma

the main serie we race in uses street tires, and some cheap on top of that to keep the cost down but we want to participate in some canadian touring car championship which runs on Continental slick

Andy, can't seem to find it on your website, is that the whiteline control arm listed that doesn't have any details? Can you elaborate? I have seen the Robispec control arm which looked interesting but seems like the hard part is to buy the part...

Another vendor making replacement arms is Racer X fabrication. I have a set of their rear upper arms and they are great. AFAIK they are the only ones making them. They make a full suspension kit that replaces every arm and link. www.racerxfabrication.com

[puma]

thanks for the links guys

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by puma

the main serie we race in uses street tires, and some cheap on top of that to keep the cost down but we want to participate in some canadian touring car championship which runs on Continental slick

Andy, can't seem to find it on your website, is that the whiteline control arm listed that doesn't have any details? Can you elaborate? I have seen the Robispec control arm which looked interesting but seems like the hard part is to buy the part...

Originally Posted by Vracer111

Check here:

https://www.facebook.com/RacecompGTw...52161226699223

Highly recommend replace the steering rack bushings with some solid aluminum or delrin ones as well as part of bushing replacement plan...

Those are the ones, thanks!

Yes, if you need to stick with stock dimensions and mounting points, these are the way to go.

With slicks you can go pretty firm but remember when comparing to others who are going for "sprint" laps vs. a 30 minute or 1 hour race. 10k/12k might be a good starting point.

Let me know if you'd like to talk...Myles is coming back from the St. Petersburg race with KPAX but we might be able to work out a package for you.

- Andy