engine and drivetrain What is the best cost effective Auto-x engine?

[KFunk]

+1 for a warmed over m10 and weber side drafts in E-Production. Since you (and I, coincidentally) have no interior to start with, and don't plan on adding one, EP gives you plenty of room to grow, and you won't be competitive on the cheap, but any of the fun "go fast" parts you want to add short of boost will probably be legal. Get yourself a copy of the SCCA rule book and read the appropriate sections. You can also find it online for free on the scca website. If all your intention is to run it locally, then do what you think is fun. if you think you may eventually want to run it outside of your local event, then at least read the rule book and put some thought into it.

plus, m10's are cheap!

Heh, E-Prepared, not E-Production. E-Prod is a road racing class and just a tad different.

But as for E-Prepared and other crazy classes, sometimes it just depends on your local competition. I'm actually quite competitive with some of my local EP cars, despite my car being barely prepared at all, with a stock interior and very tired motor. I just run the class and have fun, since there's not much action in FSP here.

So yeah, it'd be better to check the results online for your local region, and see if anybody actually runs in whatever class you want to run. And if some people do run, see how they compare to the rest of the cars and the PAX (adjusted/standardized) times, and see if they're bloody fast and well-prepared for the class. If there's lots of relatively slow cars, go whoop 'em all!

[eurotrash]

This 90 HP little bugger pisses of a lot of big $$$ guys here in the Ohio Valley. Its hilarious!!

[TobyB]

Heh, E-Prepared, not E-Production. E-Prod is a road racing class and just a tad different.

E prod is also a highly modified class- about where GT was 20 years ago...

but yeah, that's a fender- to- fender proposition, not a cone- tipper...

t

[Hammer03]

+1 for a warmed over m10 and weber side drafts in E-Production. Since you (and I, coincidentally) have no interior to start with, and don't plan on adding one, EP gives you plenty of room to grow, and you won't be competitive on the cheap, but any of the fun "go fast" parts you want to add short of boost will probably be legal. Get yourself a copy of the SCCA rule book and read the appropriate sections. You can also find it online for free on the scca website. If all your intention is to run it locally, then do what you think is fun. if you think you may eventually want to run it outside of your local event, then at least read the rule book and put some thought into it.

plus, m10's are cheap!

Heh, E-Prepared, not E-Production. E-Prod is a road racing class and just a tad different.

Doh. you got me... I know the difference, just typed the wrong one

[Inka114]

What do you want to do?

A) Build a car you like and and autocross it for fun, regardless of who's in your class or how well you do

or

Build a car that will be fun to drive and competitive in its class.

A) is for "car people" who love the car, want to build that car, make it as fast as it can be, and don't really care how they do against competition, as long as the car is fun.

is for drivers who want to be competitive, are more focused on the driving than the car building, and will build the car to be as fast as possible in the class where they choose to compete. If you are type "A" and want to win, this is where you belong.

E-Mod is a hoot, but a 2002 will almost certainly never be competitive there. To be competitive you need it to be just over the weight minimum (I want to say 1500 lbs) and make some serious hp and torque, and handle like a slot car. Fast E-Mod cars are essentially silhouette cars with tube frames and a body hung on. A friend of mine runs a '62 Midget with a tube frame and a Buick V6 which puts out close to 400 hp. It's the fastest accelerating vehicle I have ever driven, and it's not nationally competitive in E-Mod.

E-Prepared is a good place to go if you're starting with a stripped car and you want to do lots of mods. Read the rules before you start to build. You can build to SCCA Solo EP, or SCCA road racing rules for Production or GT. Can't mix and match, though - choose one set of rules and everything must meet that set. With any of these rules you'll be limited to the M10 engine, but you can build the heck out of it.

Other SCCA autocross classes will require you to put the interior back in, and stick with an essentially stock-based configuration.

Of course, this is all for SCCA. If you are planning to run with some other club, their rules may be quite different. Just keep in mind that as you gain experience you may want to get serious about SCCA autocross, and it is a Big Pain to have to undo a bunch of work to make it legal, or worse have to sell the car and start over. This has happened to many people who didn't do the research first.

Also, if you build it to the rules, you'll be able to sell it way easier if you ever decide to.

Or, buy an E30 325is, put springs, shocks and sticky tires on it, and run it in DSP.

If the college you're going to has a Formula SAE program, get involved.

Whatever route you choose, have fun!