Jellybean Taurus in chump car?

A friend and I were talking today and he mentioned that we should do a chumpcar race. I agreed and we immediately blurted out what the car HAD to be. "RX7!" he yelled. "something with a 3800!" I proclaimed.

We briefly mused over a 3800 powered RX7 before scraping the idea.

"Instead of looking for something specific we should just see what there is." he suggested. a reasonable idea.

While trolling CL this afternoon I noticed an abundance of jellybean taurus/sables for around $200. I selected 2 and suggested them as my best candidate.

this drivetrain in this body

Granted it's not the most glamorous car but for getting out there and turning laps I think it fits the bill. And with the two car setup we will have a complete parts car to pick over. It makes a ton of sense to me.

it also gives us the option of upgrading to the 32v or the sho v8 later should we decide to get more serious.

Help me sell this idea to my buddy, or I guess tell me why I'm stupid...

I dont think it's a bad idea at all...

... but i dont think it's as good of an idea as a GM 3800 powering a mid engined RX-7 either.

I know someone who owned a number of those body style Tauruses (Taurii?) and everyone of them went to the boneyard with a dead transmission. When the transmissions die faster than the car rots out in NY winters, it's definitely a weak point. The best one was the Sable wagon that while you were going along at 60mph, it would randomly kick down into 1st.

We've had a few of them show up for LeMons races. I don't know the teams, so I can't give you any real specifics. However, I can tell you that they were pretty poor race cars. That could have been driver, who knows, but there are lots of better platforms you can pick than that.

Its big, heavy, hard on consumables, has near zero aftermarket and has a weak drivetrain. I vote no.

I seem to remember a couple people that have tried to race these and handeling was always an issue.

Personally, I think the 3.0l engine put into an RX7 would be a wonderful idea.

And, actually, one that was done back in 1994, as an experiment for a Lincoln car. I never got to drive it, but people loved it. Just not enough for Lincoln. (this was a year before the 3.0 engine was put into production, which is why it never got any press, unlike the 3.0l Miata- which was after the LS with that engine and a manual trans was already going)

Keep your eyes open for the last Escort 4 door, the one with the Focus 2 liter twincam powertrain. They are surprisingly quick, and generally pretty cheap.

I agree with the Taurus trans warnings.

Yeah, I was coming in to say that the if staying Ford some Lemons Easy Buttons seem to be Ford Escorts of the Madza BP generation or Focus.
You can also mix the two with a Escort ZX2.

Streetwiseguy wrote: Keep your eyes open for the last Escort 4 door, the one with the Focus 2 liter twincam powertrain. They are surprisingly quick, and generally pretty cheap. I agree with the Taurus trans warnings.

The only Escort with the 2.0l ZTEC was the ZX2, as far as I'm aware. The last model 4 door only got the SPI engine.

Swapping the ZX2 engine into the sedan is a great idea. We had a sedan rental car that we autocrossed at an Alfa convention- the car handled remarkably well.

alfadriver wrote:

Streetwiseguy wrote: Keep your eyes open for the last Escort 4 door, the one with the Focus 2 liter twincam powertrain. They are surprisingly quick, and generally pretty cheap. I agree with the Taurus trans warnings.

The only Escort with the 2.0l ZTEC was the ZX2, as far as I'm aware. The last model 4 door only got the SPI engine. Swapping the ZX2 engine into the sedan is a great idea. We had a sedan rental car that we autocrossed at an Alfa convention- the car handled remarkably well.

I knew someone who built a ZX2-swapped wagon. It was hilarious

I generally avoid ford, full stop. it just seemed a cheap way to do it.

I'd still rather run a GM something or other.

like this one.

I think a '78 Nova would be a disaster too unless you swapped everything except the body. I guess it depends on what your goals are. Do you want to be fast...or at least close to it? Or is being unique, different a priority? Nothing wrong with that at all, we've done plenty of that stuff...just asking if it's a priority. You can run most anything, but things like 20 or 40 year old full size American family sedans typically don't fare well.

There are some very fast older cars out there. In our series, there's an older 280ZX that's one of the fastest cars on the track. It's well driven, reliable and very fast. A well sorted older Volvo is very fast...usually. Then of course you have the usual suspects...BMW, Miata, Civic, etc...

One of our teammates runs a TR7 that has a 3800SC in it. Reliability has not been its' strong point.

If you really want to go play and turn laps buy a built and sorted race car. You may pay a little more up front, and it's not as glamorous as building your own hooptie and getting the high fives at the track for showing up with something weird and unusual, but you won't spend 2,3,4 entry fees and other expenses learning that the car you chose isn't seen on track because it has weak transmission, oiling characteristics, etc.

You will forget all of those desires when you take the checkered flag and realize all you did was put fuel in the car and check wear items and fluids all day. Trust me on this.

I had two of these as winter beaters a number of years ago, both the same blue as your second ad. First one died of transmission failure (and hooning) and the second head gaskets (and hooning). The only way to get these things to rotate was with the e-brake, otherwise they just wanted to understeer no matter what. I don't think using the e-brake is a great way to get around a race track or easy on tires for an endurance race :)

Adam

Also, it was pretty obvious ford designed these to be put together once and driven into the ground, things like working on the suspension or brakes always resulted in pulling a bunch of other stuff off to do what seemed like a simple task from what I remember.

Klayfish wrote: One of our teammates runs a TR7 that has a 3800SC in it. Reliability has not been its' strong point.

Understatement of the year.

It would be hard to beat a b13 (1990-1995) Sentra as a good "intro to beater racing" car. They hold up quite well and are surprisingly quick around a road course once they're prepped right. And you always have power add options for later.

Whats wrong with the 3800 swap into an RX7?

Its fairly well documented and a somewhat travelled path for road racing.

I can give you numbers for cost and where to get parts.

We are racing a 3400 (not the Camaro 3.4, the minivan 3400) with the T5 trans from the 3800 Camaro in our RX7.

With the engine swap and trans swap (into an 86 through 88 rx7) you would be at 410 pts. With an electric fan (10 pts), aluminum radiator (20 pts) some aero (20 pts for front AND back), you can spend some points on suspension.

Im not sure if anybody has won with one of these (yet).

We have won numerous races with our stock engine RX7 and now with the swap, we finished 5th out of 108 at Watkins Glen last month (on the lead lap).

I've often thought a twin cam Saturn S series would be a fun crapcan platform. Light, simple, cheap, common, etc. Not sure how mechanically sturdy It would be though.

Run far away. The autotragic in them are junk. The rear sway bar is about the size of a pretzel. Needs a 26mm bar from a gen 1 Sho to calm down the understeer. The Vulcan 3.0 can't make hp. 24v 3.0 is better. V8 Sho 3.4 will destroy the cam gears if not welded. V8 gas mileage. Only 15 more hp than a 3.0 Sho. Heavy pig. Our gen 1 Sho is 3000lbs with a cage no driver.

"It's cheap" is a start. What are your goals? You can turn damn near anything into a chumpcar. I've seen teams that show up at every race and have the car break after 90 minutes. Then they spend the rest of the race running a few laps, fixing the car... rinse-lather-repeat.

There's plenty to read online about good / bad crapcan car choices. Do your homework.

NickD wrote: I know someone who owned a number of those body style Tauruses (Taurii?) and everyone of them went to the boneyard with a dead transmission. When the transmissions die faster than the car rots out in NY winters, it's definitely a weak point. The best one was the Sable wagon that while you were going along at 60mph, it would randomly kick down into 1st.

There's one that does LeMons around here and it seems to make a habit of exploding the transmission and dumping ATF all over the track, so...

Judging by the CL adds I'm assuming you're in the Seattle area. Have you looked at ChumpCar's PNW schedule? It's non existant except for one lone race at Evergreen Speedway. Lucky Dog Racing is a series you should look at for your region.

And yeah, don't race a Taurus. Buy a well sorted and safe car that's ready to race and save thousands. If you want to build one yourself...there are much better starting platforms. It sucks to go to a race and spend the weekend on jackstands while everyone else is out turning laps. Budget $5k for a new build to get it to its first green flag.

For half the price of car prep alone, you can find a turnkey mid-pack Chumpcar with a logbook and boatload of spares. Unless you're building a car you're passionate about, the easy button is to buy a turn-key car.

Unless you want to build a certain car to be different, stick with something already built:

Check here for your options