Fastest Street Legal Auto-X car?

Had the Elise almost 4 years now, thinking about the next toy. I don't drive the Elise on the street much except to events and occasionally around town to keep the battery up. Thinking about something fun that is at least as fast or faster for autocross/track days. Ideally something around the same price or not too much more, it's just a toy afterall. Don't care about SCCA classing per say but must be street legal as I have 0 interest in buying a trailer or something that can tow one.

Thinking some sort of Caterham 7 clone, Maybe a used older Atom (might be too much)? Used Noble M12 (might be too much), LS1 Miata?

Look at last years results for SSM and SM and take your pick.

But if you want you can buy my R32, slap a turbo on it and put some slicks on. :)

I think I know a guy in the general area that is selling his Noble still. I know he was, not sure if he ever got rid of it yet. I can ask...

FWIW he says it is a terrible idea for a track car - it would cost too much to get the suspension "track worthy" to him. He traded his boosted Elise for it, that he tracked the crap out of, so I take his word on it.

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Originally Posted by Miatamoto

Look at last years results for SSM and SM and take your pick.

But if you want you can buy my R32, slap a turbo on it and put some slicks on. :)

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I said I want a track car, not a time warp machine ;)

Oh yeah, don't really want it to be a production based sports car (Evo, RX-7 etc) hacked to bits and modded to hell. Something more like a purpose built track car that's still street legal.

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Originally Posted by CosmosMpower

Thinking some sort of Caterham 7 clone, Maybe a used older Atom (might be too much)? Used Noble M12 (might be too much), LS1 Miata?

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All of these will need regular wrenching. Are you okay with that?

No personal experience here, but Flyin Miata's Keith Tanner built a Se7en from LoCost plans and Miata parts. He brought it to ECR for Grassroots Motorsports to drive it against an Atom and the Se7en was faster.

FM sells the Westfield kit using Miata parts and/or they'll build you one.

A Westfield or an Atom would definitely fall into the "toy" category in my book. Driving FM's Westfield was a blast, mind you. Take a Miata and remove 1000 pounds while lowering the center of gravity. You get a great power-to-weight ratio, sub 5s 0-60 with a stock engine and about 1G on street tires. Great fun, yes, but any car in which you can arrive with a gravel-filled lap qualifies as a "toy". Awesome toy though.

BTW, if that's not fast enough for you, you could do like Skip Cannon or Bill Cardell and turbocharge your Seven. How does 1300 lbs and 250hp sound?

Are you prepared to have a tire trailer to carry your hoosiers? Or do you plan on running on street tires?

Fastest street driven car at nationals was a Bruton super stalker. Street driven and placed third in EM:
http://www.bruntonauto.com/aboutbrun...outbrunton.htm

I know you don't want a trailer but what about a kart? You could tow it around with anything.

Guy I know sold the Noble back in February..wow, I'm a bit behind.

His direct quote on tracking it, FWIW: "It would take me another 20k to get the Noble up to snuff for track duty. :( It's just not built to race, it's built to be a superstreet car. The front turbo is killing me on heat..."

It was an '04 M12 GTO 3R if that helps in your research

C6 z06.

Cammed ls3 Miata...;)

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Originally Posted by Davidss

Are you prepared to have a tire trailer to carry your hoosiers? Or do you plan on running on street tires?

Fastest street driven car at nationals was a Bruton super stalker. Street driven and placed third in EM:
http://www.bruntonauto.com/aboutbrun...outbrunton.htm

I know you don't want a trailer but what about a kart? You could tow it around with anything.

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Same setup as the Elise, haul the tires in the Mini, not going to trailer though. Kart would be cool but I don't think you can run one with BMWCCA or NTAX.

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Originally Posted by cwisenheimer

BTW, if that's not fast enough for you, you could do like Skip Cannon or Bill Cardell and turbocharge your Seven. How does 1300 lbs and 250hp sound?

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That should be pretty fun, Elise is 250hp now and 1900 lbs. 300-400 hp with 1500 lbs would be really fun. I think the best bang for the buck would be to buy something that someone already spent the blood, sweat and tears to build and buy it instead of starting from scratch. Just brainstorming though, may just keep the Lotus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3NeS...eature=related

results: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/events/UTCC2011/

FWIW, I know a lot of people who have starting building Super 7 clones. I don't know anyone who has finished one. :wink:

They require a lot of time and effort if you're going to build one yourself. If you're going to buy someone else's, how well do you know the builder? How good are their welding skills? Did they take any shortcuts? Did they properly torque all of the small fasteners? Ask ken o how his WCM Ultralite tried to kill him on the track when the bolts holding the brake MC backed out. Autocrossing a homebuilt is one thing - tracking it at 120+ mph at ECR is a different story entirely.

A used Atom would be cool/unique if you could find one in your price range, but let's face it - if you don't drive the Elise much because it's small/noisy/uncomfortable, how often are you going to drive something that doesn't have a a/c, doors, or a windshield? Are you going to want to drive it to the track? More importantly, are you going to want to drive it home after a day at the track?

The truth is, you've already got one of the faster track/autocross cars out there that can still be (sorta) comfortably driven on the street, unless you want to buy something much more heavily modified (SSM RX7, ASP Z06, BSP Evo) or a lot more expensive (GT3 RS).

How about an Ultima GTR?

http://jalopnik.com/5390985/50000-ul...r-track-record