Looking for some opinions from those who have already spent the money and gone racing - in the end would you have rather built your own car or found a chassis that was already geared up to go racing?
What I want to do is a full season of autocrossing (not too particular on the class) and a few track days 3-5, throughout the summer. I have been using a pair of daily driven vehicles to split the tasks, a 98 Camaro and 94 GS-R, but I'd like to step up a bit and move to a car with proper brakes, tires, suspension, seats, and possibly a cage? Both the camaro and integra are nearly stock with 120k-150k miles. At the same time I still want to be able to put a plate on the car and drive to an event; I'm not quite ready for the truck and trailer business yet and I don't have room for them either.
What I was planning to do this with is an E30, which I do have sitting in the garage partially torn down right now. I'm at the point where its time to buy all the suspension parts, brakes, bushings, tires, wheels, etc. but I don't know that I want to use this particual chassis. The car has a some rust issues, although nothing that wouldn't keep it from being useful structurally. The wiring harness is a bit brittle, the interior has seen better days, and it has somewhere north of 200k. Rather than throwing a bunch of shiny new parts at the car and getting nickle and dimed to death on all the little odds and ends it takes to build a race car I'm questioning whether I should get it to running, driving, beater status and find it a new home and get myself a nicer base to build from.
I'd say the budget for this could be 3-5k? But honestly I don't know what would be available in that range. I was planning to buy Spec E30 type parts for my car if I ever made it to the point I wanted to go race in that class. I'm not tied to any one make or model, but I would prefer a rear driver probably under 200hp. I want to learn to be a fast driver, not have a fast car. Preferably with reasonably priced consumables as well. So that could mean E30, E36, FB/FC RX7, Miata, S13, S14, etc.
Soooo, build this? Enjoy some time in the garage and probably have it ready by summer.
Or buy something more prepared and probably save a few bucks in the long run?