Last night we had our first meet-up and wrenching session. Four of us have gone in together an bought a $100 dollar car with the intention of crap-can racing it. It's a 1996 Mazda 626 V-6 5 speed.
Any advice, encouragement, warnings?
The plan is to prep the car over the winter and try a couple of races in the spring.
Look under your couch cushions for extra money. If you're building from scratch, it'll cost way more than you think to get it race ready. I bought mine already LeMons converted, though it had been sitting for 4 years, and it cost a few bucks to get it on track.
Other than that, you've now just picked up a crack pipe which you'll never be able to put down. Congrats!!
1) have fun and enjoy
2) plan on at least one, if not up to 3, of the others bailing when they realize that it'll be another $3k each in expenses before you see a race weekend. (Cage, driver's suit, shoes, gloves, helmet, head and neck restraint, entry cost, vehicle fluids, fresh rotors, pads, tires) and that's before any performance improvements beyond maintenance items or a suspension refresh.
3) don't let swmbo'ed know about the realities of #2
4) when #2 occurs still allow the parties that bail due to financial aspects be a part of the team, either via wrenching, crewing on race weekends and autocrossing the car on non wheel to wheel weekends. Keep them involved. Recruit family members and additional friends to backfill their positions on the wheel to wheel weekends.
There will be setbacks during prep and of course in racing. Embrace the challenge, have fun with your current friends and make new ones at the track along the way.
And also, get the new ignition recall performed
By the way, there's a very similar vintage 626 that runs (ran?) in the Northeast region at LeMons. It's not particularly fast, but they turn(ed) respectable laps. Pretty sure they blew a motor last time I saw it, but pretty much all crapcan cars blow a motor eventually. I think they may have retired the car because I don't recall seeing it the last race or two, though I did see the team. Their theme is Elmers Glue Stick. See if you can hook up with them, I'm sure they can give you pointers.
not only follow the rules to the T about the cage, it's much better to get some pro. help on it's design and build … and if possible get it looked at by someone in the crapcan tech field before you button up the insides … I see more welding AT the track for cages that don't meet spec (when the builders were sure it was fine) than any thing else
make sure there are NO through holes in the fire wall … little things like that are a real PITA when trying to get through tech and things are starting to back up …
good luck
As was said above, plan on people bailing. I tried to scare people off by talking frankly about the money required and even then I had issues.
Have you decided your team structure? Are you all "equal" or does one person own more of the car and responsibilities? I tried the equal thing at first and right from the beginning there were issues with people wanting to spend money on something that isn't "theirs". For me it was easier to own the car and rent seats to drivers from a pool (even then there is still drama).
Make sure everybody understands that once money is spent its GONE. No refunds. No matter what happens. Nobody is guaranteed seat time. Racing happens.
Chumpcar is one of the most fun things I have done, but it was a little rough the first year due to flakey people. Guys I never in a million years would have thought would be petty or flake did.
That said, I now have a good pool of people and we have a ton of fun. I keep a "once size fits most" single layer suit and helmet to use for an extra crew member (usually a significant other that assumes the fire extinguisher holder job) and that helps get people involved that otherwise wouldnt.
Take the Chumpcar forum with a grain of salt. There are a lot of....umm....passionate people that have very strong opinions. If you spend too much time on there you will thing there is no point in even trying unless you build a BMW/MR2 hybrid powered by an LS motor in the front and a Toyota v8 in the rear.
logdog wrote: build a BMW/MR2 hybrid powered by an LS motor in the front and a Toyota v8 in the rear.
That does sound fantastic 
I'd recommend getting the whole team together and go camp at a Lemons or Chump race with a notebook and a camera. Or take your founding members and sign up for an arrive and drive. This will filter out some people (or not) and make them buy their gear first.
I say this with the assumption that you want to do more than one race with the car you build. The money you save from looking/learning in someone else's car will effectively render that race 'free.'
I see some ingenious engineering and race craft at every race I go to, and a lot of 'what not to do.'
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