Re: 24 hours of Lemons highschool club
Agree, do not run street pads. I've seen numerous times people try with cheap autozone quality pads and then they end up burning down to the backing plate and destroying brake components. I'm sure someone will chime in saying they've had success, but it's not worth the risk most of the time. I'm a Raysbestos ST-43 fanboy at this point. We're about to run race #4 with our set in our heavy (3400+lbs with driver) Saab. And we are not kind to the brakes. They were pricey up front, but they are worth every penny to have the hand of god reach down and stop your car at the end of the front straight.
I don't think anyone was trying to discourage the effort entirely, but you should know what you're up against. If you come up with a $3k budget, get that approved, and then find you're still $2k shy, how's that going to play out? I just looked at the spreadsheet from my first ever race. The one we tracked cost from buying the car through the end of race weekend. The total was just over $6k, and that did not include driver gear. It did include race fees, but they were much less in 2011. Your wild card is going to be the cage. In my first car we paid $2250 to have the cage built, the floors repaired, and the seat installed. The car I'm building now I paid about $900 to have a pre-bent kit shipped to my door and I installed it myself. If you have access to a bender and someone that knows how to measure and bend a cage you can drop that even more to just buy the raw materials. We did that with the saab and I think we got material for ~$500-$600.
I hope you make it work. I started racing 2 years out of college and I love seeing younger teams try and succeed. Just make sure you do your homework up front so you're fully prepared for the whole endeavor.
Abandoned E36 Build
2008 Saab 9-5Aero Wagon
Retired - 1989 Dodge Daytona Shelby 2011-2015 "Lifetime Award for Lack of Achievement" IOE, 3X I got screwed, Organizer's Choice