Second track car

[Koje]

I have been tracking a Clio 197 for a while, fantastic track car that for 'fun' is going to take some beating.

I am at the stage i have started looking at something with more power, as good as the Clio is it is lacking in this department and is not easy/cheap to increase power.

My daily is a BMW and i am very much a BMW man but i am happy to have another car for the track, this time i would like something rear wheel drive. Another reason for the change is having something that can double in the summer as a weekend top down car on occasion.

Budget is ideally £10-20k. At £10k i could keep my daily but at £20k i would be downgrading the daily. So rear drive, can have the top down and more power.

My early preferences are:

BMW Z4M - £15-20k for something decent. Ticks all boxes. Would benefit from some upgrades but is fast as is. Handling on the limit is a bit wild. Expensive on parts. Run what you brung.

Mazda MX5 (Modified) - £6-£12k ish for a decent car and mods? The answer is always Miata.... Fun to modify but will need a lot of it. Lots of options and cheap to repair. Not the most reliable with mods. Great fun and with the right mods very quick. Need a trailer?

Caterham - At least £20K for something decent (Supersport?) Amazing on track and will need no mods (although lots of mods available). Not the safest of cars, probably needs a roll cage. Realistically needs a trailer. Cheap to maintain. Can have reliability problems.

What would you guys suggest?

[baronbennyt]

The best road-spec track car I've ever driven around multiple UK circuits, Spa and the Nurburgring was my old Cayman (see below). I got Paragon Porsche in Sussex to fit a big brake kit, bucket seats, harnesses and Pirelli Trofeo R track tyres and the thing just flew! You could use all of its performance, all of the time. It was just such a beautifully balanced, friendly machine that you could commit to 100%. Fantastically useable and well built too, it just soaked up the laps. For keen track day drivers without an unlimited budget, I would recommend one unreservedly. You should be able to pick up a decent S model with your budget.

[baronbennyt]

Alternatively, an MX5. You could modify it over time with BBR, for example, which would be half the fun...

BBR Mazda MX5 GT270 on board footage | evo TCOTY - have a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq7HgtS50ro

[baronbennyt]

Still with the MX5 - see another video of the MX5 BBR on EVO Magazine track car of the year. Watch 8mins 25 secs in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxNf8V50Ja4

I'm tempted with one of these now!

[CABC]

Is trailer possible or not?

[Koje]

Thanks for the comments so far.

I did look at the Cayman option but i would be at top budget and for a top down weekend car it would have to be the boxter. Like you say great car but will need some expensive mods to get it up to track standard and also they are mega bucks to service and repair.

MX5 isn't alternatively it was one of my options! BBR tuning looks a good option, my concern is putting all that stress on an engine that will do ~4 track days a year???

Trailer is an option but it will need to be a small one that i can stand up in the garage. Also they cost money....

[baronbennyt]

I would have a chat with BBR directly if I were you, or at least search for a PH'er who has got one (there must be one on here!). 4 track days a year won't place a massive amount of stress on the car as long as you look after it properly. Also 270bhp isn't a crazy amount of horsepower so I'm sure the BBR conversion isn't overstressed and has been properly tested.

I've seen quite a few MX5s at the Nurburgring in my time, some of them lapping pretty quickly indeed. All their drivers seemed to have something in common too - a big grin on their faces!

[CABC]

mk1 mx5s have engines ready for nearly 300hp as they're the engine from the 323 turbo.
plenty do many track days reliably, main problem being amateur installs done on the cheap. your budget should cover that easily.

Given you're experienced with the Clio, which way do you fancy going - saloon style (with weight as well as power) or light and agile? Both valid choice, which do you fancy?

[Samjeev]

CABC said:

mk1 mx5s have engines ready for nearly 300hp as they're the engine from the 323 turbo.
plenty do many track days reliably, main problem being amateur installs done on the cheap. your budget should cover that easily.

This.
An imported Mk1 Mx5 1.8 with LSD fitted as standard can be had for 1-2k if you're lucky and be fairly rust free as they don't have the rust issues of the Mk2
Standard engine can take 250bhp easily, if you got for a Turbo install and throw in a decent set of brake pads, harnesses if needs be, roll bar, wheels/tyres and suspension and you'd barely have broken 7k and it will be a nice little light track weapon.

[RickRolled]

Putting drop top requirement to one side, surely an E46 M3 is a good shout?

Buy a cheap manual with few choice mods / stripped out will be a good track car, alternatively there is a supercharged M3 for sale on Ebay for £22k

[braddo]

Koje said:

... something that can double in the summer as a weekend top down car on occasion.

Budget is ideally £10-20k. So rear drive, can have the top down and more power.

Elise. There's loads of choice in that range, depending on preferences for age, model and power.

Here's a nice example that will be about 200hp/ton with driver.

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

[Koje]

Samjeev said:

CABC said:

mk1 mx5s have engines ready for nearly 300hp as they're the engine from the 323 turbo.
plenty do many track days reliably, main problem being amateur installs done on the cheap. your budget should cover that easily.

This.
An imported Mk1 Mx5 1.8 with LSD fitted as standard can be had for 1-2k if you're lucky and be fairly rust free as they don't have the rust issues of the Mk2
Standard engine can take 250bhp easily, if you got for a Turbo install and throw in a decent set of brake pads, harnesses if needs be, roll bar, wheels/tyres and suspension and you'd barely have broken 7k and it will be a nice little light track weapon.

Indeed but this is a very old car. Surely i would just end up constantly repairing it if tracking also? A Mk3 with a BBR supercharger or turbo may be a better more reliable option? I did see someone is putting together a kit for a Mk1 Jag V6 conversion but not cheap. MX5 is very appealing for sure, lots of options.

[Koje]

braddo said:

Koje said:

... something that can double in the summer as a weekend top down car on occasion.

Budget is ideally £10-20k. So rear drive, can have the top down and more power.

Elise. There's loads of choice in that range, depending on preferences for age, model and power.

Here's a nice example that will be about 200hp/ton with driver.

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

I did consider an Elise but they are similar to a Caterham in that you don't get a lot for your money and in the case of an Elise my understanding is you don't get much performance either? Handling is great but they are not that fast unless you modify heavily or go for an Exige which is a completely different price bracket...

[CABC]

i've tracked an Elise, MX5 and M3.
IMO:
- M3 too barge like for most UK tracks. If sorted will be great for bigger circuits like S'stone and the Ring. It will of course be more comfortable getting to/from track and for w/ends.
- Elise is a beautiful scalpel. rewards precision. Can get a controllable little slip once tyres warm. It can bite and it'll be expensive to repair because of clams. Will often come track-ready, but still budget for mods/refresh. So i chose to move mine back to road use.
- MX5 track dog to replace Elise. A joy to mod, permits a more 'historic style of driving', progressive and cheaper to run. Mods never cheap, even a mk1 will cost close to 10k to get right over a few years. That's not a man maths amount just a reality for what is one of the cheapest track weapons.

[Sid123]

I'd go with a Caterham.
A race-spec Supersport with a full cage weighs only 520kg so I guess a road car with a half cage would be similar.
The beauty of the light weight is that you can lap all day long without killing the brakes and tyres and if you do need them they are pretty cheap when compared to more exotic stuff.
The downside is that you get wet, it doesn't have massive grunt or attain a high top speed but when your bum's 3 inches off the ground it feels plenty quick enough.
I'd recommend having a chat with Ian Payne at PT Sportcars as I'm sure he's be more than happy to help you.

[Sideways Rich]

Samjeev said:

This.
An imported Mk1 Mx5 1.8 with LSD fitted as standard can be had for 1-2k if you're lucky and be fairly rust free as they don't have the rust issues of the Mk2
Standard engine can take 250bhp easily, if you got for a Turbo install and throw in a decent set of brake pads, harnesses if needs be, roll bar, wheels/tyres and suspension and you'd barely have broken 7k and it will be a nice little light track weapon.

Had a MK1 MX5 track car prepared by Rob Evans (he won the Mx5 championship at the time). Superb little car, Gaz suspension, change of pads, sticky rubber, bucket seats and TR LAne roll bar. Had hours of fun, took it to the ring and quite a few U.K. Tracks as well as oulton park drift circuit.

Only paid 3k and sold it for not much less 2 years later, superb little car. If I had kept I would have added a supercharger or turbo.

[upsidedownmark]

There are a few things that will be a lot faster than the clio - a 125bhp caterham is seriously 'fast', but it will not be more 'powerful' than the clio. It delivers the speed by not slowing down, rather than being accelerative.

e.g. for a track car, this would be ballistic: http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/c...

However the OP specifically said more power; which I would suggest rules out the elise and the MX5.. and perhaps the caterham too although ~600kg relieves you of a lot of power requirement (not so quick at 100+ tho)

[HugoFastmann]

Being a BMW man myself, why not an E46 M3 if you're looking to spend £10k+?

[Samjeev]

Koje said:

Indeed but this is a very old car. Surely i would just end up constantly repairing it if tracking also? A Mk3 with a BBR supercharger or turbo may be a better more reliable option? I did see someone is putting together a kit for a Mk1 Jag V6 conversion but not cheap. MX5 is very appealing for sure, lots of options.

Parts that will fail on track will fail due to stress as they were not up to the task to begin with. I don't think you're going to find that much failing due to track days, its mostly load on the engine and then load on suspension components once you stick some grippy tyres on but as I said, if parts fail due to increased levels of grip they were going to fail evenyally anyway.

But my original comment was assuming that you'd do alot of mods/etc yourself ofcourse if that is the case replacing a few parts for repairs isn't the end of the world otherwise I imagine its rather daunting

[braddo]

Koje said:

I did consider an Elise but they are similar to a Caterham in that you don't get a lot for your money and in the case of an Elise my understanding is you don't get much performance either? Handling is great but they are not that fast unless you modify heavily or go for an Exige which is a completely different price bracket...

I don't quite understand the comment about not getting much for your money. The Elise I linked above will do a 0-60 under 5 secs and will lap tracks all day long with very little wear on brakes and tyres. Depreciation will be minimal and it'll do 35-40mpg on the motorway. In other the words, the overall cost of ownership will be low compared to running a M3 or Z4M on track.

Elises don't need 'heavy' modifying, but it's very common to see them with stiff suspension and updated engines.

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

Or, just buy a standard 111R if you don't want a modified one. 0-60 4.2 secs.
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

You need to consider power to weight ratios. Your Clio has about 155hp/ton. The Elises above are in the 200-230hp/ton range (including driver). An E46 M3 is around 215hp/ton.

The ballistic orange caterham mentioned above is more like 280hp/ton.