Trying to stay under the $500 limit (Page 1 of 2)

Every part on the car that's not purely theme-related or non-budgeted safety equipment goes to your $500 budget.

If you bring that stuff to the race as SPARE PARTS and use it during the race, that's fine. But, if you buy a car with no engine, you need to assign a fair-market-value to the engine that you put into it. The only way around that would be to have full documentation of having bought a parts car for $xxx and sold $xxx parts from that car to bring the value of the engine down to zero. Just saying "I've had this stuff around for years and thus it has no value" will NOT fly with the judges.

If your idea is cool and unique and put together in a Lemony fashion, you'll probably be okay. Even if the judges deem that you exceeded your budget and give you penalty laps, you still get to race. What? Did you think you were going to win?

Get a price sheet from your local salvage yard. Or wait for similar items to come up on CL and print the ads. Price accordingly.

Highly unlikely. If they really like it, they're just going to say "damn, that's cool, I really like it, good job!" Now, if it's really NICE, and you spent way too much money on cheaty parts, and especially if the car proves to be truly fast because of all of that cheatiness... they "could" claim your car. (but, what would they do with your hooptie, anyway???) If you build your car within the spirit of the rules, that's just not going to happen.

Oh, hell, if you're building something ridiculously stupid like that, as long as you build it with "junkyard" parts and not a bunch of high-dollar performance parts, you'll be more than fine regardless of what you put into it. But, do have enough respect for the judges to put together a budget that is at least somewhat believable.

I've a feeling that it won't be very long before some people from your area post up here and tell you you're not looking hard enough. Probably even with some links to ads for appropriate cars that your neighbor down the street is selling.

FTFY....

Who cares about rust...its Lemons.  Cut up some old filing cabinets, water heaters, etc and patch in the holes (if its structural, if not just leave em)

So cool.  My son (who is 12 now) and I are excited to do this and we talk about what to do daily.  We are dedictated to the Lemony goodness, but God Damn....we want to win too.  Not cheaty, but fo sho a haulin' ass stylin' and profilin' hooptie ride that us ghetto-tastic pimp daddies can win, race and have fun the whole time in the lemony spirit or as far over that spirit that the coolness factor lets us expand!

Oh, I want to do a multi engine too.  Not old 350s laying around, too bulky.

Thinking of a Hyundai Accent and our theme with the car is "Econo-Urban Redneck Pimp Daddies"

Essentially white trash guys that have to pimp out there hoes and gigoloes (wives, kids, cousins and any in-laws they can) because they lost their construction jobs with the awesome real estate market and economy. 

Would like to have a true "de ville" type to take up to that level, but the powerplants in mind will work best with small econo boxes.  So instead of Kramer pimps, we will be Kramer pimp wannabes, outfits and all.

Oh, and BTW we are in Fairfield county so not many cheapies on CL.  Like to see where the good deals are as we are new to CT for over a year.

I don't know. An 80's caddy with 2 Hyundai engines will win, just not the overall.

I would highly recommend buying a seat on an established team and do an event with them. Its a lot cheaper than building a car and having a team member trashing it in a few laps.

You may also see that its a lot harder than you think to be competitive.

BUT

Its pretty easy to have a ton of fun.

What Chris said. Sign on with an established team to get your feet wet. Plan on spending at least $500-600 toward the car, plus your entry fee, plus your driver gear. And plan on having a helluva lot of fun, even if you don't come anywhere near winning anything.

Your forum friends with no money will be useless to you. Even if you manage to scrape together enough completely free parts to have "a car", all of the required safety equipment, tires, brakes, getting to the track, paying your entry fee and all of the other things that go into a race weekend will set you back a solid $3k.

And that's before you and all of your team members have bought $400 worth of personal safety gear each.

Lemons racing is cheap... relative to any other form of wheel-to-wheel auto racing beyond your local circle track. But, don't think you can do it on a $500 budget with a bunch of broke-ass friends!

The only way to get sent home is if the car doesn't pass tech inspection, and then its only sent home for your own protection since it is not safe.

If you understand the spirit of Lemons and build it to that you should be fine.  You may get some laps but you still get to race, and if it is built in the right spirit you shouldn't have to worry about the curse.  If you try to exploit every loophole and use every trick and unwritten rule to get a horribly cheaty car in, then it might be a different story.  That or if you and your co-drivers are jerks on the track you have to fear the curse.

I think you need to buy a 1988 Hyundai Excel and weld, rivet, screw or duct tape some '77 Sedan DeVille body parts to it.

The brilliant reliability and handling of an early Hyundai. The panache of malaise-era luxury.

What could possibly go wrong?

+1 Keeping a team together is really difficult.

Twice actually...Jay bought the Camaro from the second Gingerman race.  Of course it was powered by a seriously built 350.

I'm going for multi engine rear-end.  I like the Hyundai/Caddy body parts idea.  So ridiculous it's so awesome. 

I found out that I can't really look in my county in CT, have to go outside to the NW.  There are precious finds.  I see there are actually some sporty type options like Bimmers, camaros and miatas but I don't want to go the "too played" or common route. 

So I am asking myself what sedan type car would a broke ass redneck pimp daddy drive?  Hyundai Excel or Accent come to mind.  I should go to the Walmart parking lot and see the answer.

I am imagining this guy has been a redneck all his life and has been thrown into the "pimping" world as a result of the hard times, so he isn't really a true pimp daddy but tries to act like how he thinks a pimp daddy should act.  So I think going full caddy would be out of his character because he would have a non-pimpin' sedan ride to begin with.

Other option is a 1966 Plymouth Valiant 4 door on CL for $500.  Only problem, body is mint.  Those Valiant fans would go crazy if this became lemonized.  My plans call for complete destruction of the underside of the vehicle (outside of the safety crumple zones and frame, bla bla bla...besides what kind of safety and crumple zones did they have back then) 

My mind is swerling with ideas and don't know which way to go.  I would like to go for a good cornering small sedan and go from there.