KUDOS

following on from my thread on suspension mods for a track day wanted to get a more general overall view on how the standard car can be modded to suit the track on certain budgets, ie if you had just X amount of cash what would you do first

so if you had

£1000

£2000

£3000

all above assuming the car is a 1999 SUBARU IMPREZA Turbo 2000 4WD 4dr Saloon, realise different people will have different priorites but just what you would do yourself and why would be cool

thanks in advance Arran, www.team-kudos-karts.co.uk

scoobyboy1

iTrader: (16)

£1000
Coilovers

£2000
AP 6-pot brakes
Trackday tyres

£3000
Coilovers
AP 6-pot brakes
Trackday tyres

JTaylor

Have you thought about just buying a trackday car Kudos? There are stacks of motors for sale were someone has already gone through all this expense on your behalf. You could be looking at £10k to get a standard turbo bang upto spec. Think of the cost of the car orginally and then do the maths.

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Its not all about money though, I have spend ££££'s on my WRX to improve performance, would have been cheaper to buy an STI.

BUT, a good part of the fun has been looking for the parts, doing research, and going through with the mods.

Just how it is for me though

RB5_245

£1000 brake upgrade, whitelines kit; droplinks sway bars anti lift kit

£2000 better brake upgrade + above + remapped ecu + de-cat exh

£3000 Good brakes, whitelines kit, bigger turbo, Apexi power FC, STI7 top mount intercooler de-cat exh

Also to keep costs down other than the brakes try to get as much as possible 2nd hand, exh turbo intercooler should be easy whitelines kit not so much but it's not too expensive apexi's come up now and again.

JTaylor

Absolutely, but to start trackday prep on a standard UK Car seems a very expensive way to do it. My RA had a good spec when I bought it and I've still spent £000s on it, things like an oil cooler, enclosed carbon airbox, geo changes, top spec fluids etc - but if it had started as a UK car it would probably have cost me £15k + the car. I recall a thread where you said something along the lines of "I wish I'd bought an STI to start with" Still, just MHO and I'm sure the poster will consider all his options carefully (or go at it like a bull to a gate).

If you buy the right car in the first place you can spend your hard earned on fine tuning, driver modification and actually doing some trackdays.

P1 NUT

iTrader: (1)

My advise would be to go for suspension set up first, ie good lowering springs like eibach to stiffen the car up then the whiteline alk and droplinks and prodrive geometry settings. The arb ain't too important imho. Then upgraded pads and discs like Pagid 8 grove discs and mintex pads. All approx £600 plus fitting and you will have a well sorted track car for not too much moula. Power can come at alater stage if you want it.

aggs

Handling before power.
A good handling car will be quite a few seconds quicker than a car with more power just look at the smaller capacity cars are quicker than a Scoob on a circuit but are driven well and corner quicker,but the Scooby could still accelerate faster on the straights.
Then brakes.
Then more handling mods/lessons.

Assuming you have decent tyres first.

KUDOS

big thanks for the ideas guys, no body seems to pick on one issue straight away ie brakes are rubbish start there, so from that it seems the scooby its quite well balanced in power, handling and brakes

so from what i have learnt from this thread it would seem wise to improve all 3 aspects slightly

STAGE 1 BUDGET £1000-1500

BRAKES: pad upgrade, braided hoses + service and new fluid

POWER: less restrictive exhaust and panel filter

SUSPENSION: alignment, whitelines kit; droplinks sway bars anti lift kit

STAGE 2 BUDGET £1500-£2000

BRAKES: as above plus groove disks

POWER: as above plus ECU remapp

SUSPENSION: springs

STAGE 3 all the above exc springs plus coilovers plus what ever extra power required

any thoughts on these ideas for, would stage 1 be enough to start with, then add stage 2 if money available

JTaylor i know what you are saying, i took a basic mx5 ( insert hairdresser jokes here and spent over £3000 on full new suspension, brakes and some engine mods whereas i could just have brought a one with all the work done for half the price, so when the time comes to buy will consist that route but like cookstar enjoyed the process of taking a basic car and seeing what can be done forums can seriously damge your wallet

cheers Arran

aggs

Looks good to me

Normski

The best performance improver by far is to fit some proper trackday tyres, yoko A048 etc. Even better if you fit slicks.

That's the first thing to do. Then brakes, then suspension, engine cooling, engine power.

DubaiNeil

Kudos,

Personally I would go for:

Stage 1

BRAKES: pad upgrade, braided hoses + service and new fluid
SUSPENSION: alignment, whitelines kit; droplinks sway bars anti lift kit
+ DRIVER TRAINING

Stage 2

TRACKDAY TYRES (on spare wheels if necessary/possible)
GODSPEED 335mm brake disks (if they will fit under both sets of wheels)
+ DRIVER TRAINING

Stage 3

COILOVERS
+DRIVER TRAINING

Stage 4

More power/lighter weight car

At the trackdays here a 20K Caterham with 200bhp regularly opens a can of whoop bottom on 80K GT3's/M3 CSL's etc - the Radicals then whoop the bottoms of the Ferraris, Lambo's etc

Power is nothing without control!

JohnS

iTrader: (1)

I'd do the brakes first before anything. No point in going faster in a straight line or around corners if you can't slow down quickly enough after the first lap and have to lift off 50 - 100 metres early for every corner to have the confidence that you'll slow down enough.

If you improve the power and handling, then both will lead to higher speeds at the end of the straights. You'll end up doing no more than 5 - 6 laps at a time before coming into the pits for 30 minutes to let the brakes cool down enough to go back out again.

Uprated pads, discs and fluid etc will make a noticeable improvement, but I wouldn't expect to do more than a handful of laps at a time before the pedal start going soft, with the heat transferring to the hubs/bearings leading to pad knock-off. There's little point in spending £600 - £700 on changing these items, if the next stage you need to throw these away (OK sell them for half what you paid) and spend £1.5k on an AP set-up. May as well do the job properly once at the start and not have to worry about it any more.

If on a budget, I'd look to buy a 2nd hand set of APs for under £1k with good pads and discs, brake lines etc. With a little more, you can buy a new set or one of several good alternatives.

Once you have the braking/safety side sorted out, then start looking at the suspension handling side, and then finally (if you need it), more power. Please note that many tracks are much more restrictive regarding noise levels these days, and many aftermarket exhausts (especially full de-cat systems), will see you breaching permitted noise levels.

John

RB5_245

If you intend to do more than 5 or 6 laps at a time then an oil cooler and knocklink, afr, oil temp and egt gauges should be on that cards before you even start to look at brakes imo. You need to keep an eye on what the engine is doing as road cars arn't designed to take this sort of punishment... which is a lot more than driving full speed down your local B road.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Surprised its taken untill RB5_245 for someone to mention temperature. If I was going to take mine on a track regularly, I'd want to take steps to safeguard the longevity of the engine first and foremost. Mods to make the car go faster are all well and good, but a car with a melted piston won't be going anywhere quickly, irrepsective of how good its brakes and suspension are. A knocklink is essential, as are oil pressure, temp guages IMHO. Since the TMIC is really best suited to reducing temps in short sharp blasts rather than sustained high speed etc... I think I'd also be looking into a FMIC, which should be much more effective at keeping temps down.

Once the car's engine is safeguarded, then I'd be looking into driver tutition and then brakes, suspension, power. Even in its basic spec, if you're new to track driving, the car will -most probably- start of being more capable than you (no offence intended) so spending loads on the car before any training is putting the cart before the horse IMHO.

Have fun.

Ns04

BIG DUNC

I would start off with driver training.
This will improve times and satisfaction, and you can take it from car to car with you with no hassel.
Next would be decent tyres.
Next would be oil cooler, bigger core rad, and possibly an oil temp gauge.
Only after then, I would look at brakes and suspension.
Finaly, only after all the above, would I look at more power.....