Miata for Lemons? overdone? (Page 1 of 2)

If you are looking for a win....from what I have heard the 1.6 are too slow to really compete in class A but are never going to be class B.  don't know if you can fit a large enough fuel cell in the back of one and try and compete with real long stints.
If you are looking for a fun momentum car to hone your skills that is cheap on gas, tires and brake pads then go for it.

I've also heard its pretty impossible to put a big enough cell in (other than paying lots for some custom tank) to even try and win with long stints.

They dominated early on but don't seem like the best choice for a win, and considered to boring or easy for an interesting angle.  However shouldn't be to hard to make one that would run all weekend if you are just looking to race and have fun.

Do this instead. 

http://denver.craigslist.org/cto/5179634819.html

The people at the epicenter of Lemons seem to like rolling around in the sand and fire ants underneath a busted ass, hot, greasy race car.  If that sounds like you, the Miata is the wrong car.  Try Chrysler products if you want all of the pain of breaking, but generally good parts availability.  After that, you can graduate to eastern European bloc products.

wow, thanks for all the awesome feedback. that happened qiuck. haha

by no means would I be looking for a car to win in, I'd just be looking to go screw around. The main reason I ask is because I have a miata that is no longer worthy of anything besides something like this, which led me to asking if it's a viable starting point. (I also have it listed in the for sale section just for shits and giggles).

Realistically, I'd love to build it into a mad-max/rally style car that is geared completely toward the opposite of road-course style racing and then throw some wacky motor in it to ruin its reliability and gain some cred with the judges. Granted, I need to read through the rules some more and see what I'm even dealing with since I've never even attended a Lemons event yet.

Put in 3.0 5 cyl Diesel engine into that. Have fun

You'll fit right in.

BTW, fielding something that "has no business on a race track" doesn't mean you have to show up with something certain to critically fail 15 minutes into Saturday racing, that's the realm of class C.   

There are two other classes out there.  Class B - "that just might run all weekend", and Class A - "If it does run all weekend, it just might win".

If you are considering a car, go to an internet enthusiasts forum dedicated to it.  You'll find one.  If there is a section on racing and the performance upgrades desired to go racing, then your car is gonna get extra scrutiny in the BS inspections.

^ replace front hubs every race?  what's that about?

what's the reason?  and you replace with brand new ones?  sounds expensive...

Going to try to dig up the link now, but a couple of physicist racers racing spec e30 determined that in one 24 hour race, approximately 50,000 miles of wear damage was done on the chassis and engine. So make your cost calculations off of that. 

A weekend of class A racing costs ~$3600 ($4/min)

If it takes 3 hours from failure to get towed in, diagnose, jack up, remove $ replace a hub, recheck alignment, and get back on track, that was a $650 cost in racing time lost (not counting parts cost, and crediting $70 in fuel not used).

If a part is expected to fail in <100k mi, it gets replaced every race because the cost of replacing it early is less than the price of its cost of off track replacment time.

This is budget racing but it is still staggeringly expensive.

Hamsa
(Married to a German economist...)

Prince Bob,

I have an almost free miata, but you must first wire transfer me some of those iron dukes before I can release it to you...

Well, I am not sure I would agree. I've looked at some past results, the ones where they have car info, and the ratio between e30 and miata is close to 10:1 I have a feeling that there were more Volvo 240s and merkur xrtis at all the races I've attended.

Obviously I am far from objective since building a Miata myself