Hi all,
Thought I'd put this up here as it could be of interest to a few of you.
Over here in NZ we have a race series called the 2kCup about to start up. General rules are that you have to buy a car for NZ$2000 or less and race it with no major modifications. Rules state that the car must be older than 2000 with an engine size of 2000cc or smaller. No forced induction is allowed.
Cars aren't allowed to be modified beyond the following:
- Tyres are free, although must retain original tyre sizes and have treadwear rating above 200 (so no specialist track tyres), original wheel sizes must be retained.
- Springs are free.
- Brake pads are free. Discs/callipers must remain stock
- Cars must run a fire extinguisher in accordance with MSNZ rules.
- Cars must run full interior although a race seat and harnesses are permitted for safety (although not compulsory) as is a roll cage.
- Airbags may be removed, weight cannot be stripped out beyond removing non-functional items or removing optional extras (like spoilers, fog lights etc) provided the same model car was available without them.
- Worn parts can be refreshed with OEM parts.
There's little point in spending much on the car as the organisers can exercise the right to buy the car off you, outright for $2500.
With the car of choice being the SW20 MR2 amongst most of the more serious guys and the odd Honda DC2 Integra (which were suspiciously cheap!) my mate Richy and I thought we'd think outside the box and get a Lantis R as we wanted a sweet V6 howl, and if we couldn't be the quickest car out there we'd be the best sounding! We weren't the only ones as a bloke called Simon (Rolly on here) is doing the same.
We were a bit late getting off the mark with our purchase and have missed some of the test rounds but aiming to be on the grid at the end of September.
A month or so back, we bought this,a car we affectionately christened "the cockroach":
It's a 1995 Lantis Type R, with 25X,XXX km on the clock. It's a trade-in special and cost us the princely sum of $1000. It's in good(ish) mechanical nick and okay apart from some average paintwork, a cracked windscreen which prevented it from attaining a WOF. The car came with remnants of stockings stretched over its indicators and rear lights and evidence of a removed big stereo install, indicating that it had been a phat ghetto ride recently. It also STUNK like an ashtray, and had obviously been smoked in regularly.
Oooooh yeah....yummy. Someone spent a lot of time grooming this car at the caryard!
So the first task was to get it up on the hoist and have a look underneath and see what we had to play with. The car looked in overall good nick, but a vibration under acceleration indicated knackered inner CV joints. We replaced the right hand driveshaft and CVs as it was falling apart and the vibration remained.... so we had the left-hand one (which was unavailable new) rebuilt.
We also replaced the shocks with new Monroe Reflex OEM-replacement struts and Tein SpecS springs for a slightly more sensible ride height and firmness. We also went on the scrounge at a wrecker's to scavenge some bits of missing and broken trim. When we got it back on the ground it was already looking a bit better!
More to follow....