How many honestly stay under $500? (Page 1 of 4)

Well, you shouldn't be looking at <$500 cars.  You need to be looking at ~$1000 cars with things that can be sold off them.  I bought an engine for $200 and car for $300 (blown engine - was a kids project) and then got all the kids extra parts that I was able to sell.  We made it to BS with ~$4000 in the car (includes safety) and only $280 on paper.  Everything that you can sell - bling wheels, seats, interior, grill, EGR system, bling exhaust, headlights, tail lights, spare tire, EVERYTHING goes on ebay and on forum 4sale threads. 

Another car of ours - $500 Miata with a hardtop.  Hardtop sold for $1000.  Just the hardtop. 

You also need to know how to troll junkyards for parts.  My toyota is only about 90% Japaneese anymore with the addition of US substitute parts - one wire alternators from old GM cars are great and cheap ($10 if you know where to look).  Then you just need to fab a bracket.  Fuel pumps - same deal, you need to know where to look and then fab up something to make it fit. 

Take it from the guys who put a '02 Pontiac engine into an '84 Citation.  Almost anything can be done if you know where to look and are willing to make educated guesses.

@PunisherBass, I think that's kind of what I'm getting at.  Technically according to the letter of the law if a new radiator puts you over $500 you should incur penalty laps.  I know that's not how it ends up working, and I'm glad that's the case, but I'm just curious to know how many people find themselves in the boat of spending more than $500 because some vital component needs to be replaced.

@RobL, that's an interesting strategy that I'd never really thought of.  The way rule 4.7 is worded it almost sounds like using part sales offsets is discouraged, but reading it again it seems legal.  Although are you allowed to offset upgrades with part sales?  i.e. If I buy a $500 car and can sell the interior bits for $700, does that mean I have $700 to spend on engine and suspension upgrades or only $500 because the offset is capped at the purchase price?

Also, could I sell the fuel tank, stock brakes, tires, steering wheel, and instrumentation panel, replace them all with upgraded aftermarket parts that fall under the safety/driver comfort exemption and still use the proceeds from the sales to offset other non-exempt purchases?

I think I do need to get better about leveraging junk yards, that would probably help a lot.

Well, the radiator would have been a different story if it had been a car that would have been in a position to win on laps.  You had a LeSabre.  If that had been a miata, E30, Civic, etc. they might have looked at it differently.  Just like the Wartburg (ok, it's immune...) or the LeCar could grossly overspend and they wouldn't get a second glance from the judges.

If the purchase price was $500 and you sold $700 - you would have $700 to work with.  For the rest of that...  YMMV with the judges.  Junkyards are the key to this deal.  Don't go to autozone for axles $100/ea. when junkyards have them for $10.  Sensors, thermostats, upgraded brakes, what have you...  Sometimes (and good luck convincing the judges of this), you actually find coilovers and other upgraded suspension parts there too.

BOOM!

You're supposed to change the spark plugs, wires, hoses and belts?!

The sChitroen was a legitimate car under $500 and I changed none of those. Well, I did change the oil but only after the desperate urgings of my team mates. Still, we actually came in well under the $500 limit and I didn't sell a thing off.

The mini was a little tougher but we struck some dumb luck. It cost us $500 to get the rolling shell with a bunch of extra new parts included ,like a new rear subframe and a new fiberglass flip front and a nice rear window. We sold those off and replaced the rear subframe with a rusty take-off discard (you should swing by and look at it underneath if you get a chance-- amazing it's still together). We then sourced a complete front cut from a guy in Otay who had j-u-s-t brought in a container load of junkyard minis from the UK. He wanted $400 for a whole car and we wanted just the front cut, so he whipped out a sawzall right there and cut it off for us for $250. That plus we actually had started with an Austin America, so we had a head from that and got a SU carb from an old volvo.

Since then I've found a bunch of minis for Lemons money, but have sold many of them off to pay entry fees for upcoming races.

In CA we are particularly lucky because cars that fail smog are often sold for cheap. A team mate just picked up an 80 spitfire that came with with a completely rebuilt engine/transmission, an extra fiberglass front end, NOS glass and window rubber, and all for $120.

Be aware that it works the other way, too. I picked up a cheater car for ridiculously cheap ($1300) and the leather seats alone (with airbags in them) would bring the car below Lemons money. But it's been made pretty clear to me that the car would not be very welcome, no matter how legitimate it is cost-wise.

Selling stuff off the car works.  I (we) picked-up a decent car last year and it needed work cuzz it was in an accident.  Mostly cosmetic (except radiator), but when I put an ad in Craigslist "parting" out interior stuff and lights and a catalytic converter, etc., etc. I couldn't believe all the calls and all the shit we sold off the car, that we would need to take off anyway.  I would like to think most competitors hold to the $500 cap.  Also you would be suprise what you can pick up at salvage yards as others said, between selling crap off the car and scavanging around junkyards you can build a decent Lemons car at the $500 rule

Our Jaguar is probably around $400 right now. We bought it for $325 and couldn't sell anything off it in three months of trying. The price doesn't include the $280 front end rebuild kit - in my opinion it's safety when the front wheels have 1/4" of play in every direction, the $600 in brake parts, the $380 in tires, $750 in rollcage expenses (so far), etc. We did consider buying a new radiator, but the radiator shop pressurized it to 25 psi and it held. That would have put us in cheating territory, but after spending $3000 on the car, it's awfully hard to not do it.

There also is the residual value rule.  So after you do a race you can spend some cash on the car to Fix it up..  For those cars that have done 3 or 4 races they may be $800 cars since they have been able to replace parts that went bad during a race.

Somebody, anybody, show me a E-bay sold auction for parts off of their Lemons car.  I'll believe some triumph parts could be sold.  For the most part, in my opinion, if you have sellable parts off of the car, you started with a car that is not in the spirit of the event.

At Thunderhill I saw lots of cars that I thought were out of spirit, including:
944 turbo with 5 penalty laps (I believe it blew up, but still)
VW rabbit with new race motor, fresh built trans, new suspention... no laps, etc.

Do I really care, NO, we had a great time and lots of cars on the track ment that there was cars that were close enough to us that they were great to dice with.  The race went well and flagging was great.  We had an awesome time.

We bought our car (crashed hard at Lemons)for $50 with cage and brakes that we used for the next 2 races
Motor from a salvage car bought for $50-$100 depending on race (been through a few)
Trans (had laying around in our wrecking yard) To fit the smaller motor we put in.
Stock used front strut assenblies (had laying around).
2 coil over adapters $30 (cut to fit F & R) (necessary due to crash damage)
Springs (yea had those too)
Exhaust still has both stock mufflers in place
Radiator and fan donated by bodyshop as it has broken mounts. (going to throw away)
Some money was spent on fluids (I don't know how much)
Had to change master cyl, ended up changing booster as well so we could use used components we had.
Upgraded front brakes to better stock (vented front rotors from solid rotors), still rear drum.
Some additional money has been spent on seat, brake pads and other safety items.
Even with a high value on the components we had, we still are under $500