Mini stock class. Max 150 advertised HP. No bigger than a 3.1L v6. No bigger than 105" wheel base. Stock motor (Stock head, stock compression stock cam(s), no porting, no milling), stock intake and exhaust manifolds. Anything before the throttle body is free and after the stock exhaust manifold is free as long as it is under 92db. Stock trans, stock suspension. All down to the VIN

So figured I build a 95 escort gt into a circle track car got about 40 hours into it now getting it "legal" to race. It's a paved circle track and head to head. independent rear suspension, stiffest springs of all cars in this chassis, 127hp from the factory, thickest rear sway bar of all cars in this, rear disc brakes. Oh and only 2200lbs. My other 1.8L escort is faster than my full bolt on f150 actually. 95 actually has a 4-1 stainless header from the factory as well

I have actually had fun building it. Bought it for $225. Put in a full on race centerforce clutch in that I had laying around. Fixing everything with a couple of parts cars I've had laying around. Like both head lights were zip tied on so I put 2 new headlights in. The fuel filter was held up with hay wire, put the proper bracket on. Put a new shifter in because the old was held up with perforated strapping. The gas filler neck was smashed in so put a good one on. Rebuilt the ENTIRE interior minus door panels (havent gotten to it yet). Wired up my master kill switch, mounted up a fire extinguisher, installed hood pins. Got a little on the performance side, everything that is "legal." Deleted the cat, rx7 VAF (similar to MAF but can adjust A/F ratio manually) which I dialed in, bumped ignition timing 4 degrees across the board, Painted the faded spots of the hood and the passenger rear fender, looks pretty decent actually. Fixed the E brake and adjusted the rear brakes properly. Also put in and snugged up all the anti rattle clips for the brakes as well. Tightened up the alternator belt and power steering belt. Put in some MX3 recaro seats with black mx3 seat belts. Put all the proper screws and bolts in the proper places in the dash so the glove box would close. Put a new glove box in because it was broken. Put in a bunch of missing interior pieces. There is probably more that I missing but here is the grand total I have into it money wise so far

$225 - price of car
$20 - Dolly rental
$60 - resurface fly wheel
$70 - Platinum plugs and good wire set
$20 - chunk of exhaust pipe and 2 clamps
$18 - Trans fluid
$6 - oil filter
$13 - motor oil
$18 - Hood pins
$25 - Kill switch
$12 - Paint
$3 - Painters tape
$30 - MX3 seats

So as it stands I am $520 into it right now. I really SHOULD have taken some before pictures. I've been thinking about gutting the entire interior again and swapping it out for a little different color scheme. its in way better shape as well.







It's a little dirty from all the rain we've been having...



Ugly stained interior thats in the car



What I'm thinking about swapping it too..

 

I would love to do something like this!

But why not gut the interior for lighter weight?

 

If I gut it I would need a roll cage. No time to build a cage for this year. Next year will be gutted and caged. I will also be putting an exhaust cam on the intake side next year as well. Exhaust cam has .030 more lift. 15 whp gain. It's still a stock cam as well lol

 

This brings back memories. I had a 95 gt. 3rd car? Something like that, I was young. Many memories including 2 impounds (reckless driving.... reverse cookies one incident and e brakes on a big ice field another)

Sounds like fun. Do you have a local track?

Only thing I can remember that went wrong was the suspension took a beating. But it spent most of its days at late night parties on gravel roads

 

The track is about 6 miles from my door.

I missed the first race and will probably miss 4/5 this year due to work and the cars to beat are mid 90's civics.

 

Looks like a fun hobby. Please keep us posted on your race results!

Of your total cost for the car, you spent 25% of it on plugs, wires and a flywheel resurface.

That has to be some sort of record.

 

Scary thing is that the clutch that is in it is worth twice as much as I paid for the car lol...

well had one more day off today so figured I would dig into this deeper. I bought a new T stat for a whopping $12. I modified the spring in it and it now opens about 105 degrees. With this new T stat I started to get a little more aggressive on my ignition timing. I bumped it another 4 degrees so I had a base timing 18 degrees. (pcm bumps the ignition timing depending on your driving habits from there and there is NO knock sensor). So took it for rip and started bombing it around a bit and got some knock. So backed it off a couple degrees to 16 degrees base timing. (all this is on 87 octane). I get knock if I let the car idle too long and it gets to 200 degrees where the cooling fan kicks on. So I unplugged the a/c compressor and can manually turn on the fan buy pressing the a/c button. PERFECT. i'm not ready to delete it yet because believe it not it works lol.

After all this playing around with my car a buddy of mine with an 01 celica gts wanted to run my car to see what it had. Those celicas run about a 15.2 1/4 mile from the factory. I put one full length on his car to 100 mph. I think I have this car pretty well dialed in now.

 

Nice car man! We have an Outlaw Pro Stock we race on a dirt track. It's the 44 car in the video below. Some tacks call them Late Models though. Good luck and it's a ton of fun!

 

looks like fun.

do you race for time or against other cars? are you going to trailer the car or drive it to the track?

i have been wanting to get into something like this with my 15 years old son. something that is fairly safe, affordable and fun while being a little competitive.

 

race against other cars head to head. I will be driving the car to the track as well.

My first race will be tomorrow at 2:00pm local time. Sun shining, high of 79 degrees, west wind of 12mph and 70% humidity. Should be a good day.

 

Good luck! Get a vid if possible!

 

3 ten lap races. first two races placed 2nd both times, 3rd race I won. Not bad for my first time and zero camber in the front passenger tire. This car is gonna kill all when I am done.

 

Congratulations! Awesome first showing.

 

Put some more work into this car today. I was pegging second gear at 7500rpm and decided to step down a rim size so I could get some smaller tires on. these are 185/60/14's from 185/60/15's. this should give me more "gearing" and have the power coming out of the turns to hold 3rd gear the hole time.

Before:



After:



You can visually see the difference in tire size. I also added a bunch of positive camber to the outside tire which should make me hold the corners better.

Decided to trim some fat off the car as well. What you see here is the entire A/C system, cruise control system, windshield wiper system, and windshield washer system.



There will be more things coming off in a few days like the entire stereo system. Gonna be pulling door panels off just to get them out. Going to pull out the dash as well to pull heater core and a/c cooler thing if time allows.

Anybody know whats out there to fill the motor and lateral mounts with to stiffen them up?

 

I'm not sure how the motor mounts on that Escort are configured, but you can try this stuff.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#casting-compounds/=im8po1