So, how stupid would this be for rallycross?

I've been looking for a rally cross car for a while. Having missed out on a handful of good volvo 240s, sometimes by less than an hour I've gone back to the drawing board. Back to my first race car. I kind of want one of these...

...But i'm having a hard time finding one that is both cheap and not crap.

I do have a line on this thing though.

I know the current owner of this car and some of it's history. It is a 2000 Grand Prix GT that was originally purchased with some cosmetic front end damage to be used as a chump car. the front end of a parts car was swapped on and a much newer supercharged motor was nestled between the wheels. The interior was trashed so it... went away.

The owner could not put together a reliable team and the venture was abandoned. After a few stints at "track nights in america" it was mothballed and has been sitting for about a year. It's pulley'd down, and has a set of long tube headers and various other supporting mods so is probably making around 250-260 hp and right around 300ft/lbs of torque. It can be mine for $800.

I know exactly how effective the grand Prix isn't as an autocross car, but I'm wondering how something big and torquey would handle on dirt. Thoughts?

Understeer like a pig, long wheel base for a terrible experience in transitioning. And defeated reliability from a 90's Chevy. Have fun.

At those power levels the transmission would be very stressed during "enthusiastic" driving. Lots of weight to manage and no LSD equals not a lot of fun to me, and I like those cars a lot.

Problem with high mileage cars are that shocks are shot.

Kind of important on rough surfaces.

The Grand Prix (W body) platform is not bad but I have never seen anyone really push one to the limit, having owned two of them over the years I will tell you what I know and how I would go about prepping one.

The car has two weak points that I think someone could/should improve with some time and effort,the cars are on the heavy side and some weight reduction would go a long way, these cars have long wheel bases and are not well suited for tight turns (good on flowing routs) these two issues will hurt your times. The up side of these cars is that the 3.8L engine can take one hell of an ass whipping before letting go and they are very reliable, if you do need parts they are easy and cheap to find, you can swap in different factory springs and sway bars, the trans are pretty good from what I have seen in DD use, they have good ground clearance, and the front sub frame is basically a box making it very easy to fab up a skid plate as neither the engine or trans pan are below the front sub frame.

A few things I would replace/ protect when you receive the car is change the supercharger oil, replace the coolant elbow's on the belt drive, build a cover or skid plate for the fuel filter and if equipped the fuel pressure sensor.

Overall I think the Gran Prix could be a fun car to hoon as the supercharger means no waiting for power , the main down side to this choice is the long wheel base and weight. But for $800 why the hell not?

Paul B

The first rule of racing is, race what you got. Just because no ones done doesn't mean you can't.

I would run what I have but what I have is a Lowered Grand Prix.

Heavy, FWD, open diff, long wheelbase. If you want to be competitive, seems like a waste of $800. If you just want to go hoon and that's all you can find for $800, go for it!

For $800 on the Seattle-Tacoma CL (that's near you, right?), I can find plenty of cars that woudl be better and more fun..and are manual transmission to boot.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/cto/5642092390.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/cto/5642090171.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/cto/5641864045.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/5626226431.html

this is probably the best deal. For $500 that gives you $300 to fix the "problems" which don't sound too bad... http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/cto/5617742122.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/cto/5639440800.html

and a dozen more that would be superior to your original post, honestly.

mndsm wrote: The first rule of racing is, race what you got. Just because no ones done doesn't mean you can't.

I know that suggesting a quote for "say what" is frowned upon and ensures that it'll never see print, but this is one of the most GRM things I've ever seen.

AClockworkGarage wrote: I would run what I have but what I have is a Lowered Grand Prix.

So raise it. Add some weight in the trunk. Have fun. I mean, if you wanted to win first and bask in the glory of your peers, you'd have bought Subaru, Miata, E30, or whatever is the 'must-have' rallycross car.

My first thought is big power isn't your best friend with rallyX. That said, it looks fun.

Given that the worst case scenario is you bending it into a banana while the transmission puts in its resignation letter while simultaneously having an aneurysm, I'd say go for it.

In reply to irish44j:

There is sooooo much no on that list.

With the interior stripped and the engine swapped you would be in modified class. You wouldn't be competitive. But honestly when was the last time you heard someone say "I rallycrossed with the wrong car, I had a terrible time, it sucked." You haven't. It will be a blast so go for it if you want to. I wouldn't worry too much about the trans. Its on dirt so you shouldn't have enough traction to cause carnage. When you are done with it if then engine is still together you could buy a fiero and swap it in. That would be awesome. I can only see good things coming from this.

While you could run it, you may be limited on fun. As it has been said, it is an understeering pig with a long wheel base.

With those transmissions it's not necessarily traction that kills them. If you spin that one wheel up while the other is not you just damaged it, they were marginal at stock power levels and were maxed out with the V8 cars.

Anyway, I'm a big proponent of run what you got. But you don't got that car and even though it's cheap, and you know w-bodies it's just not the right tool for the task. That would be like needing to remove a brass screw and buying a wood chisel, may get it done but frustration and curse words will happen.

The motor alone should be worth the asking price, no? Buy it, race it, break the trans, pull motor, scrap car, put motor into a blown up 4th gen fbody, profit.

In reply to TheEnd:

The 3800sc doesn't work for longitudinally mounted rwd. The air intake for the blower ends up on the back of the engine.

gearheadmb wrote: In reply to TheEnd: The 3800sc doesn't work for longitudinally mounted rwd. The air intake for the blower ends up on the back of the engine.

.....change of plans, attach 4l65e, mid mount where back seats used to be.

TheEnd wrote:

gearheadmb wrote: In reply to TheEnd: The 3800sc doesn't work for longitudinally mounted rwd. The air intake for the blower ends up on the back of the engine.

.....change of plans, attach 4l65e, mid mount where back seats used to be.

I still think fiero.

gearheadmb wrote:

TheEnd wrote:

gearheadmb wrote: In reply to TheEnd: The 3800sc doesn't work for longitudinally mounted rwd. The air intake for the blower ends up on the back of the engine.

.....change of plans, attach 4l65e, mid mount where back seats used to be.

I still think fiero.

Even better.

Esoteric Nixon wrote:

AClockworkGarage wrote: I would run what I have but what I have is a Lowered Grand Prix.

So raise it. Add some weight in the trunk. Have fun. I mean, if you wanted to win first and bask in the glory of your peers, you'd have bought Subaru, Miata, E30, or whatever is the 'must-have' rallycross car.

I should note that I was referring to the derp you posted, not the derp you already own.

AClockworkGarage wrote: In reply to irish44j: There is sooooo much no on that list.

I'm not saying I'd buy most of those things personally, but any of them would be better than what you're proposing for rallycross, IMO. YMMV though. That was a 5-minute search of one CL across the country from me. I could find 50 things on my local CL that would be better than any of them..

Apparently in the PNW, there is really just a lousy selection of fun cars to be had...

I'd personally go get this one of the CL's in Washington state. M30 engine, manual trans, RWD, and though you may not think it, e21/e28 5-series can actually be competitive in rallycross (an e28 was our Mod RWD champ last year in one of the strongest regions in the country...)

http://kpr.craigslist.org/cto/5609735649.html

For that deal, I'd almost have it shipped to me across the country if it's not rusy..

Seattle Craigslist has been somewhat disappointing. There's a lot of junk on there and prices seem higher than they should be. Maybe I'm not looking for the right things.

What are the rallycross options around here? The only group I've seen is these guys about 2 hours to the south - http://oregonrally.com/

Looks more like a candidate for one of those redneck videos where a bunch of kids out in the middle of the woods decide to jump the car that brought them there.