Track car costs??

Why don't you get a 1.7 puma then and start from there, they are still in banger territory, factor in for welding, decent suspension, tyres and brakes, seats and harnesses then upgrade and progress it along the way

Been doing track days for over 20 years now originally it was bikes but then went over to cars

You can make it as expensive as your bank manager will allow
The whole scene has changed over the last 5 years (get back to that in a minute)

I've done Track days and ring trips with whatever car I happen to have on the road at the time (BMW are a good start point because even a stock one will handle pretty good)

Costs
Depending on who you book with and what track and time of year it can be anything from £90 to £350
Most run a "open pit lane" nowadays so no groups so that means any car any ability all on track at the same time this has its pros and cons
Pros: you can get out on track and just stay out till you need fuel or if you share a car you can come in and swop at any point
Cons: slower cars/drivers holding you up this can just as well be a fast car with a slow driver

I wouldn't advise buying a bag of curse word to use as it will cost you more in the long run
If it's road legal it means you car drive it to and from the track this saves on trailers and tow cars etc

Best mod is weigh reduction
Everything works better if its lighter brakes/suspension/performance
Next tyres then suspension in that order there's no point putting good suspension on it if the tyres don't grip
Bare in mind noise limits so don't bother with noisey exhausts no real power gain anyway and remember this poor car will be driven harder that it ever has been so it's going to be stressed so it will probably last longer if you leave the engine side stock

You can easily get carried away with mods and it will soon get expensive and to the most part it won't make "you" faster
When I used to do it more often I build my wife her own track car
Started with my daily driver (rover 216 Honda D16 which I bought for £70) I only spent money where I thought best and it was what I would class as a cheap build but I still put over £2500 into it
It was good and if driven well it would curse word a lot of people off with expensive motors


She got on well with the rover the last track day she did I loaned her my Clio and for some reason she didn't click with it but she got stressed by the other people on track (a problem with open pit lane you just need to concentrate on what your doing and don't worry about the others)

The Clio 172 cup I had before this was so much better but all I done to the 197 before the track day was race pads and better front tyres

Now the Clio 197 owed me £3500 and this was a top spec car with full history
If you compare that with the rover you can see what I mean by start of with a better car it'll be cheaper in the long run
Food for thought

Hope this helps

I think I'll be largely echoing the points above, but I made my first foray into track driving this year so maybe can offer my experience as a relative novice!

I started out with a Corolla T Sport £900



The car was cheap, but while spending on mods, I also had to spend on fixes as well which pushed the costs up

Mods wise, I spent £100 on an intake, around £400 on suspension, £300 on 17" wheels, then about £350 on tyres and maybe £200 on brakes

While doing this, the car developed an oil leak, a brake fluid leak, the exhaust rusted off and some bushes needed changing which cost around £800 or so to sort (I didn't do all the work myself as I was getting lazy

But this gave me a fun, and relatively quick car which I took on track, took to the Nurburgring and still used as a daily driver



I think each time I went to Bedford Autodrome it cost me about £120-140 for the track day, then fuel on top of that of course.

But after doing that, the bolstering on the standard 150k mile seats was shot so really I needed to upgrade to bucket seats £££ + the airbag light issues, I also had to pull fuses/trick the ECU into letting me have the stability control off. With other projects wanting my time and money, I decided to sell up rather than mod it further


Overall, was a great laugh and good fun, the costs of preparing/repairing the car were a little more than I'd hoped for, but in my mind I figured at least I'd spent around £3k all in on a car knowing what bits were done and to what standard, rather than buying a car for £3k itself and some of the parts underneath being a bit of a mystery. (Also I kinda enjoyed the 'build' aspect of it)

I also could have been harsher with my budget but it all depends on what you want to spend really!

Track days aren't cheap, but TBH they are huge fun! I try to do more now!

If I were getting a track car now it would be a Clio 172/182. Bang per buck, you'll have to spend alot to go better than one of those. Out of the box they are very good. With a few simple tweaks you'll be one of the quicker cars on track by looking at:

-Tyres : Some Yoko AD08Rs will work wonders here over some ditchfinders
-Brake pads: Carbon Lorraine RC6s with some decent brake fluid like Castrol SRF/Motul RBF600 will help things massively.

I'll put it this way. When I first took the Clio 172 out on track at Castle Combe I let past a Merc E55 AMG and a 400BHP Sierra Cossie. After all, they must be faster than me right? WRONG! Through many of the sections while their cars were wallowing and bouncing around in the bends I was on their tail, almost rear ending them in the corners. In the end, I ended up going near 1 handed through the corners ; The Clio had that much grip over the Mercs. In hindsight I should not have let them past but it did teach me a few valuable lessons:

-Don't underestimate lower power cars
-Bar a few types, avoid the 30 minute taster sessions. The standard of driving is curse word as is the etiquite. I didn't have the above issues at a Cadwell track day and enjoyed it much more. £ per lap it was much better value too than a £50 taster session.

I've driven a couple of cars on track as well. While my M3 is superb fun on track and has plenty of potential for becoming even quicker you can't help thinking 'what if'. The bills for the car aren't what you'd call small. I'd say a Clio is almost as quick as the M3 on track in the bends, if not on a par with the above setup against a stock M3.

It's a cliche choice, but there's a very good reason for why it is. If it ain't broke...

I've had a BMW 323i Manual. This one in fact. I'm going to be honest. Despite the magazines making out manual BMWs to be the best thing since the birth of Jesus Christ I just didn't like it. In short:

-Despite a geo, the handling was still too inert never sure footed
-170BHP is great on paper but it never felt all that. If I am honest, my E320 auto feels miles faster! Yes it has more power but it is behind a slushmatic, and it does weigh significantly more with more consumers
-Gearbox was annoying for quick shifts. You can do things like remove the Clutch Delay Valves, but then you wonder why BMW fitted them.
-If I was taking a BMW on track I'd at a minimum check over the cooling system.

A friend's E46 328i TBH wasn't too bad around the track and was a nicer car despite it being standard. I actually sold my 323i to buy an Audi TT. I then prompty gave up when I realised my budget was mainly going to get me more chod than a car. I had no regrets going from a 323i to Clio, which TBH I never set out to buy. I liked them, and had driven a couple before, but I never considered owning one for a few of the usual reasons.

I still don't quite know why I got rid of it. I put it up for a silly price as I felt no one would buy it; I bought my M3 to be the replacement, but it did sell quickly . I have noticed that the 750cc Club are using them now for a race series so that may play out with decent residuals. 205 GTis were once cheap fodder .

I did circuit racing for several years a long time ago, some things for you to think about :

Sharing the car? You *will* hold back in case you bend it and upset your mate.
Transport : drive it there (what if you crash?) or trailer it (you need a trailer & storage, extra hassle, low speed limits on the road)? Do you have a trailer licence?
Get a dedicated racer (it's an expensive ornament unless you're using it) or something road-legal (difficult to mod it without upsetting your insurance / how do you get home if it goes bang or you bend it ?)
Retro (style points, lower power, easy to mod) or modern (better standard performance, difficult to tune, lots of modern "safety" items to go wrong or hold you back ).

Remember : the cheapest way for you to go faster is to get some good driver training ! 

I usually get through two to three tanks worth of fuel at £60 a time, & half a set of tyres at £200 as the major costs per trackday. Depending on the engine you'll also potentially need much more frequent oil changes.

I just did 3 hillclimb seasons in a Mazda MX5 NC 2.0 Sport, about 5-6 events a year.

Including buying the car, mods and service the spend was close to 8 grand. That was without the entry fees, but the car was shared so that amount was halved.

And it wasn't wildly modified:
-R888 on Team Dynamics (new)
-EBC Yellowstuff brake pads
-Lowering springs
-RX8 ARBs
-K&N filter
-Full stainless exhaust inc header
-Front splitter



Mind you if you sell the upgrades parts later on separately, you can still get a few quid back and doing all your work yourself will also lower the previous stated amount by a fair bit.

Fiesta ST150 is also a great base car, if you fancy a Ford.

Carthrottle did do a couple of series on Youtube on building trackcars (IS200 and a 330d) with listing the budget so that might be worth a watch.

This was from the last track day I did to give you an idea of the mix of cars




XFR jag is my dads
E92 M3 is brothers
Escort mk1 cossie powered is my mates
E36 328i touring is mine
How's that for diversity
The m3 broke because that's what they do (gearbox fault) but still drove home
I've had a couple of track only track cars in my time


This XJS was one of them
But it always seemed an unnecessary expense plus I never owned a trailer so had to hire one everytime
We would only do 1 to 2 car track days and a ring trip a year and maybe upto 4 bike track days
So mainly stock or modified road cars













Just some I have photos of including my M3 in the snow at the ring

I think the point I'm trying to make is
If you've not done a track day before it mite be a good idea to do one in whatever you have just to see if it's what you want to do before spending loads of money
If you book with MSV they do the odd track day with sessions ie novice intermediate fast groups
Either way they are good fun

BUT
And this takes me back to my early comment about how it's changed
It's like a rich mans hobby now
So now people are buying good fast cars and then throwing thousands of pounds at them so they car hold you up it the corners
Example
My E36 has only got aprox 200bhp but I've owned it forever so I've played about with the brakes tyres suspension and most importantly tweeking the geometry in that time so whilst it's still a full weight car with leather elec seats and A/C it is a storted neutral car and I know it like the Back of hand so I know what I can and can't get away with
But pretty much everything on track has a better power to weigh than me nowadays and the "rules" say no overtaking in corners and only on the left
So I can catch up a faster car under braking or in the corner but can't stay with it on the exit
So you can harass a car through a series of bends and on the exit they pull over (as pre rules) to let you pass but then out drag you down the straight
Frustrating to say the least so you know your lapping quicker then they are but you can't get past (unless you brake the rules)
I had a video from that last track day where I let a E46 m3 past me because I didn't won't to hold him up (big mistake)
For him to basically get in my way on every corner
It was at snetterton so out of the last corner down the start finish straight he would disappear but I'd be back on him by turn 2 the hair pin then he would pull a bit on me out of turn 3 upto the next hair pin then be back in my way for the next series of corners
Again disappear down the back straight to get in the way again for the next series of bends including the nice fast right hander before the start finish straight
This went on for 3 laps until I gave up and come in before I made a bold move on him
Now this m3 was not stock it was a full on track car trailered there stripped out big brakes race tyres probably 3k worth of suspension
I shouldn't have been able to stay with it under any circumstance "other than poor driving ability"

Rant over
I know it's nothing to do with the post but it does bug me and I find myself doing less car track days due to it
If he had let me get in front it would have only taken a couple of bends and il be far enough in front for him To not be a concern and he could have got on with his drag racing down the straights