Might just buy the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything...

that question was directed at anyone who knew. I'm thinking it would be allowed, since it doesn't go all the way to the subframes and STwhatever regs don't say anything about stiffening the unibody itself, and by the same tolken I'm thinking the butterfly brace would be allowed. roll bar question: am I likely to have problems bashing my helmet into the M1 Hard Dog Hardcore hardtop bar, since it's basically a M1 sport with larger tubing? either way I'll be getting the vinyl wrap w/ the SFI padding, I just wanted to know what to expect. I'm around 6'0", 34" inseam if it makes any difference or if you know anyone about that height running the same setup I plan to run

General rule, if it doesn't say you CAN do it, you can't.

A quick look at 14.2.H rule on sub frame connectors would definitely exclude the FM frame rail reinforcements, since they connect in far more than three places and do not connect to the two subframes. Even if they fell under that allowance, the butterfly brace would be specifically excluded by 14.2.H.5, as it is a lateral/cross-car brace.

Since both Street Prepared and Street Modified use the same rules (in my quick read), I think the FM bits would put you in Prepared. But that's just my quick opinion.

wow, that's a bit discouraging to be honest, if I'm going all the way up to prepared I might as well do a full cage which would make it a lot less shared-between-three-people-with-only-one-of-them-racing-it friendly... I'll ask some of the guys who handle classing at my local autoX club next time I'm out there (and the next event is against the Blue Ridge SCCA region, so some SCCA-savvy guys are likely to be there)

You can enjoy the car quite a bit and be quite competitive without those frame rails. (Sorry Keith!)

Decide right now what class you want to compete in, and how competitive you want to be. That will influence many decisions in shocks, springs, etc etc, which may not harmonize with your non-racing uses.

I'm not building to one class, since I'm after something of a jack-of-all-trades. something where I can have fun and do HPDEs in and just in general have fun, but still be reasonably competitive in autocross. I'd like to stay in either STS or maybe bump up to CSP, but nothing too extreme where I don't have a hope in hell of being competitive if I keep the car barely tolerable for street usage. I do have to share this with two other people who will be using it to run around town, both of whom have a bit of a car-is-an-appliance attitude unfortunately, so I have to keep this thing very tolerable for the street

peter wrote: You can enjoy the car quite a bit and be quite competitive without those frame rails. (Sorry Keith!) Decide right now what class you want to compete in, and how competitive you want to be. That will influence many decisions in shocks, springs, etc etc, which may not harmonize with your non-racing uses.

Hey, no worries. Autox cars don't seem to need as much chassis stiffness as cars driven outside parking lots - weight is more important. Personally, I like to build a fun car and then autocross it wherever it ends up. But that's my own personal preference.

Keith wrote: Personally, I like to build a fun car and then autocross it wherever it ends up. But that's my own personal preference.

Me too, here. I'll never be an alien, and certainly not since I run maybe 5 events a year. I am always going to be the one failing the car, not vice versa. My newish car is thrown into SM2/SSM where it fights against Corvettes. Oh well, it's more fun to drive than it would be if it was built to be competitive in CSP or some such class.

well, in that case, I might just save myself some coin for now and forgo the frame rails and focus on the suspension, brakes, tires, and safety items. if nothing else, the SCCA rulebook is good for figuring out what I can't buy without making my car REALLY uncompetitive in its class, which does save me a bit of money

well, I just got it home, in the rain, in the dark, and it was a bit interesting to say the least. I know I need new wiper blades, the ones on there get to chattering alarmingly quickly, and I need to find some road that's lined with dirt so I can see if I do in fact have a Torsen or not. on the way home, I deliberately tried to get sideways with the throttle, and the most I could manage was to get the inside rear tire to spin, so I'm thinking I got a weird car that has every distinguishing feature of an A-package, except the aparent lack of an LSD of any sort. either that, or I do have a Torsen and wet pavement was enough to completely rid that wheel of any sort of traction, so it behaved like an open diff

If you're building for personal goals, screw the rules. You'll be having fun , while the hyper competitive guys are sweating whether the other guy has super secret imported air overnighted from Japan in his tires.

I'm building for personal goals, yes, but I also want to be at least mildly competitive in whatever class I end up in. I think I'm gonna stick to STS/STR/STX/whatever I fall into and just roll from there. I have a bit of a strange set of requirements for this car. it has to be a competent autoX car, I don't really care what class it ends up in but I do want to be at least mildly competitive in that class without shelling out cubic dollars and rendering it useless for the street, it has to be comfortable enough that I won't want to gouge my eyes out after an hour or so of driving it