Suggest me - cheapish, trackable car with decent resale value and easy prep

docwyte wrote: There's NO such thing as a cheap, performance, track car.

QFT.

You pay up front or you go home early from a bunch of events and pay as you go... but you pay either way.

Save your pennies and buy a good, well prepared race car build that you fit in. However, If you are only doing 4 events or less a year... rent. Seriously. $800-1200/day is cheaper than any competent car you would buy, prep and feed for so few events and it's arrive and drive. No hassles. No worries about driving home. No storage, towing, registration, maintenance, consumables... nothing.

docwyte wrote: There's NO such thing as a cheap, performance, track car. Been there, done that, have all the broken parts and empty wallet to show for it. You gotta figure any $5000 car that's a decent track car will cost you another $5000 to truly get up to proper *track* condition, where it doesn't break something every time you go out there and pound on it.

Not to get off topic but I disagree somewhat. That will depend somewhat on the car, condition and the level of mechanical sympathy of the driver and skill level as well.
Typical track duty mods would be:
- suspension work so figure $2-3k for a good set of coilovers or shocks/springs, camber plates, freshening of any needed bushings.
- Brakes - depending on the car, this could be as simple as a set of pads
- Tires

From there it depends on your level of experience, condition of the car and fundamental engineering of the car

Back around 1994, I bought a normally aspirated, low mileage FC - an 88 GTU. Bought tires, brake pads, sway bars, intake and cat back and did HPDEs (intermediate/advanced level ~6x per year) and DD (15k miles a year) for 4 years. The only failure during that time was a master cylinder.

Circa 1988, I bought a VW Scirocoo. Same formula as above except added a camshaft and did a suspension since the stock suspension was terrible. That car was not particularly reliable but it wasn't track usage that caused the multitude of idiotic failures and idiosyncrasies - like alternator bushings, goofy electronics and front engine mounts which would have failed regardless of whether or not I tracked the car.

Of course that story reversed itself with my FD. The front brakes on that car were not up to the task of an advanced levl HPDE driver (they're ok for beginner and intermediate), the cooling system needed to be re-engineered, exhaust, tuning, gauges. Excellent when done but the road to reliable TRACK duty for an advanced driver was a long one.

Moral of the story - Choose your base car wisely

BoxheadTim wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: How is a TDi Jetta in any sort of even the remotest contention here as a track car?

That was a semi-joke, although at some point there was (is?) a spec series for them...

There is a guy on TDiClub who used to regularely track a modified version of my car ('03 wagon) and he could hold his own against "better" cars. It'll probably depend on the run groups you want to run with. While a stock ALH will fall on its face at 4500 rpm, a good chip and injectors will allow one to pull far beyond that.

amg_rx7 wrote:

docwyte wrote: There's NO such thing as a cheap, performance, track car. Been there, done that, have all the broken parts and empty wallet to show for it. You gotta figure any $5000 car that's a decent track car will cost you another $5000 to truly get up to proper *track* condition, where it doesn't break something every time you go out there and pound on it.

Not to get off topic but I disagree somewhat. That will depend somewhat on the car, condition and the level of mechanical sympathy of the driver and skill level as well. Typical track duty mods would be: - suspension work so figure $2-3k for a good set of coilovers or shocks/springs, camber plates, freshening of any needed bushings. - Brakes - depending on the car, this could be as simple as a set of pads - Tires

I see no mention of safety equipment here.

Sure most places don't require a roll bar if you're in a coupe, but you won't see me getting in one. Even if you go out with the intention of only driving 7/10ths someone else can still make a mistake.

amg_rx7, so you bought two relatively new cars with low mileage and tracked them with good results? Hardly a shocker, Tim would have the same results if he took his Evo to the track. Well, until the tranny overheated and went into limp mode...

Tim has been buying old, cheap, worn out cars and tried to track them. Apples and oranges wouldn't you say?

I'm just as guilty as Tim, I bought a '89 951 and have now literally replaced almost every single item on the car. Every Single Item

Learn from my mistakes Tim...

I recommend this:

Be sure to click the gasser option.