Help me decide on a Rally Car

British_Rover

British_Rover

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OK so as I have mentioned earlier I want to get into rally racing. I would like to start out doing a couple of Rally Cross and/or rally sprints events and then move up to couple of regional events.


Ok so what I am looking for is some advice. I work for a fairly large auto group so there are tradeins coming in all the time. I work on the high end side but I can keep an eye on all the incoming vehicles.

I am thinking that a small FWD car with a manual of course would be best to start out with. Something that I could possibly modify to use in the open 2wd class later. I also need to start out with a NA motor car as a turbo car will be too much trouble for a beginner.

Keeping that in mind I have several cars that I think will make good beginning rally cars.

Top runners are in no particular order

1. 1988-1991 Civic Hatches
2. 1988-1991 CRX
3. 1991-1994 Sentra SE-R
4. Other early model Civic Hatches and Coupes
5. Dodge Neon(don't laugh they aren't bad and we have a dodge store so they come in fairly often)

I am open to other suggestions and have thought that some older VWs would be good too but I don't know much about VWs. First Gen CRXs might be ok to but they are getting hard to find clean examples in the northeast.

I really don't want to stretch must past 1,500 dollars for the car itself since I will need to spend a fair amount of money prepping it.

I am also keeping an eye on http://www.rallyclassified.com/index.php for partialy prepped or fully prepped cars in my area. I would be willing to pay a bit more for one of those as I would save alot of time and money by buying a ready racecar.
 
I'd go for the early Sentra. Tough little cars, and alot of aftermarket. You could also look into getting a 4th or 5th gen Celica. I've got an '86 GTS thats held up very well to some rough driving. The aftermarket is tiny for them though, unless you want to do a costly turbo engine swap later.
 
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Classic Sentra's are extremely tough. I say find one of those if possible.
 
mk1 or mk2 golf. tons of people use those for rally so there should be plenty of info to help you out interms of preping the car. Also you could get a mazda 323 BF or BG chassis
 
I have heard of a lot of people rallying old veedubs, But i know Dodge has some support for rallying the neons and theres a good amount of info and parts for them, and they are cheap, I have recently read a good review on the book :

http://www.cartechbooks.com/vstore/...57&St2=-50521&St3=63494&Product_ID=2438&DID=6

About building a racing neon, Its probably more focused on street building but it might help.

Another good source to watch is the grassroots motorsports forum. I have seen some rally cars go up there cheap:
http://www.grassrootsmotorsports.com/board/

specifically the $2006 challenge forum for deals

just looking through quickly someone in philly is selling one of those civic 4x4 wagons for $900

http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/car/246376446.html
 
peugeot 106
citroen saxo/C2
renault clio

great starter cars, and can be made quite fast with litte money
but i guess they'll be little hard to find where you live :lol:
 
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Do you know what kind of rallying you want to do? Dirt or tarmac? I would personally go with RWD to start with...slightly steeper learning curve, but if you decide to take it more seriously, you've got a more competitive platform to work with. For FWD cars, on tarmac, the CRX is pretty awesome for things like autocross. You can get the Nissan 200SX, 240, along with the Sentra, and the Datsun 510 for that budget. Toyota has the GT-S, from 84-87, and the MR2, the Celica in FWD or the All-Trac with AWD, although those might be hard to find and a bit more dough. Chrysler had those Omni GLH's, albeit the turbo's are the only decent ones. The Ford/Merkur Scorpio's were pretty cool, RWD. Oh, and the Mazda 323 GTX, RX-7 first or second gen (if you want to replace the apex seals), and the Miata if you want to spend more dough.
 
eagle talon TSi AWD. 1st gen..

they're built like tanks.. and well.. sister car to the evo.. plenty of aftermarket goodies..
 
The best from above: 2. 1988-1991 CRX But I would make a Golf MKII instead of a Honda.
 
klutch said:
Do you know what kind of rallying you want to do? Dirt or tarmac? I would personally go with RWD to start with...slightly steeper learning curve, but if you decide to take it more seriously, you've got a more competitive platform to work with. For FWD cars, on tarmac, the CRX is pretty awesome for things like autocross. You can get the Nissan 200SX, 240, along with the Sentra, and the Datsun 510 for that budget. Toyota has the GT-S, from 84-87, and the MR2, the Celica in FWD or the All-Trac with AWD, although those might be hard to find and a bit more dough. Chrysler had those Omni GLH's, albeit the turbo's are the only decent ones. The Ford/Merkur Scorpio's were pretty cool, RWD. Oh, and the Mazda 323 GTX, RX-7 first or second gen (if you want to replace the apex seals), and the Miata if you want to spend more dough.
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for the love of god.. don't buy a GTX... they are money pits you will shovel money into for as long as you own one... plus there are only a few running around in New England and i am going to need all the parts cars i can get.
 
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bone said:
peugeot 106
citroen saxo/C2
renault clio

great starter cars, and can be made quite fast with litte money
but i guess they'll be little hard to find where you live :lol:
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I was thinking the same along with the Peugeot 306, then I saw where he lives :(

A Golf II GTI 16V is not a bad choice, along with a Celica 2000GT-R (2.0 GT-S in US).
 
Why not just start where you should and get an AWD car. You can get a Subaru Impreza L from the mid to late 90's for like $2000 bucks in good shape. Its definetly upgradeable and simple to work on. There is a dude who has built his into a full on rally ready machine and started out where you are right now. His screename is Flooredsubaru on www.clubwrx.net and www.nasioc.com. It'll work great for small stuff like rallyX and hill climbs and the like, and if you really start getting into it, a WRX or STI engine will fit right into the chassis with not a huge amount of modification.

JH
 
Thanks for the responses lots of good suggestions here.

The reason I don't want to go with an AWD car right off the bat is that everything I have read tells me it is hard for a beginner to be competitive in the AWD classes.

Also the expense of running a 2WD car should be less. Eventually I will proabably move up to an AWD car when I am more secure in my finances. I make pretty good money but my house comes first.

Most of the rally races and rally sprints in the north east seem to be dirt or gravel courses so I don't think I will much experience on tarmac. If the right RWD car dropped into my lap, it could happen as I have taken seen cars taken in for an ACV of 25 dollars or less, then I would go with that.

The reason I was thinking about the Civic/CRX is that Hasport makes kits to swap in the H22 into that car and I could use that powertrain combo in the 2WD open class.

Later on a first gen talon would proabably be my first choice. I have heard that although the 323 GTX Mazdas are great getting parts for them is impossible and the transmission is very weak. A early two door Imprezza with the STI motor swap would be a good choice as well.

Thanks for the Grassroots motorsports board that is a great resource that I did not know about.
 
"The reason I was thinking about the Civic/CRX is that Hasport makes kits to swap in the H22 into that car and I could use that powertrain combo in the 2WD open class."

Hm, it makes more sence, but still, I would stick to a MKII Golf GTI. I dont know how is it there, but here we have loads of parts, crrazy engine swaps, everykind of professional suspension, everything, and its quite cheap, and easy to "make your self". Thats my opinion. And hope you make a nice project thread when you bought the car ;) .
 
mancs said:
"The reason I was thinking about the Civic/CRX is that Hasport makes kits to swap in the H22 into that car and I could use that powertrain combo in the 2WD open class."

Hm, it makes more sence, but still, I would stick to a MKII Golf GTI. I dont know how is it there, but here we have loads of parts, crrazy engine swaps, everykind of professional suspension, everything, and its quite cheap, and easy to "make your self". Thats my opinion. And hope you make a nice project thread when you bought the car ;) .
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Yeah a GTI or Golf is in the running for sure because we have a VW dealership and I Might be able to buy a recently traded in car for cheap.

Probably is I don't know enough about VWs to know what to look for. Someone is going to have to tell me what is good and what is bad and what to look out for.
 
if your eventually getting a talon anyway.. why not start with a turbo 1G FWD.. you can swap the engine later when you want to go AWD.

My brother rally crosses in maine.. has a blast.. think he drives a $300 escort ;-)
 
WheatKing said:
if your eventually getting a talon anyway.. why not start with a turbo 1G FWD.. you can swap the engine later when you want to go AWD.

My brother rally crosses in maine.. has a blast.. think he drives a $300 escort ;-)
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Good idea.

Have to check and see what class the Turbo FWD talon puts me into.
 
A turbo DSM? Are you nuts? That's possibly the least-reliable car ever built! And it's not like parts are cheap, either!
 
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