Overhaulin'

Good car to work on and autocross?

well i recently got into autocross. I drove my friends miata and actually posted a pretty good time for it being my very first time. out of 31 people in the cars class i ranked 9th. so i got addicted very quickly. I'm looking for a car i can work on and eventually autocross. I have literally no hobbies. I work on my truck for fun. I have a 1999 Silverado 4.3l that i've done quite a bit of work to including; turning the motor into a 273 stroker (4.03x3.62), ported and polished heads, ported throttle body, rebuilt 4l60e with corvette servo, 3.47 gears in the rear end and a whole lot of other things all this resulting in 331.5hp to the rear wheels from a truck that originally only put 170hp to the rear .. to say the least i can turn a wrench I have a 350 small block crate engine rated at 290hp and a richmond gears rebuilt T10 4 speed transmission, and a ford 9" rear end with 4.11 gears. All i'm looking for is a car would be good for autocross. A lot of people run imports at these events and sometimes you see a few corvettes.. i'm just curious to what some other options are.. i've heard that 3rd gen camaros can be made into pretty good autocross vehicles.. Goals: lightweight car very easy to modify suspension engine bay is large enough to fit a small block chevy all ideas are welcome but if it's not a gm vehicle could you at least find where someone else has put a 350 in it before me i'm considering stepping down the 350s displacement to 327 or 302 to allow for a higher rpms and a longer power band as having a wide power band is crucial in autocross

Public Comments

1. Find an '80's Camaro. Lots of aftermarket support, 350/4 speed fits. 9" Ford will too with a little work
2. I'd find a wrecked Cobalt and rebuild it , it'd be light weight and plenty fast, just need to change the floorpan to fit a rear-end and driveshaft. Basically like a pro-street Cobalt drag car, commonly found in the NHRA.
3. sounds like an extremely fun project.. you are right the majority of the vehicles are japanese.. and because of this the suspension aftermarket is much larger for the import vehicles.. probably the vehicle with the largest amount of suspension parts is the 240sx My shortlist would be 240sx, 300zx, and 2nd gen rx7
4. To be competitive in auto cross, you need to stay in classes you can win or at least finnish well in. If you go from the class the Miata runs in straight to the street modified V-8 class, you will be over your head! Having said that, think about going in to a class that allows anything you can bolt together. Find a forum on building a Lotus Seven clones and build one to take the 350. You will need to do some thinking/designing of the rear suspension to get one to keep it hooked up to the track. A 2000 lb car with a V8 will be a handful. A classic roadster approach, with some rear end modifications would also be something to consider. It depends no how well you could work out the rear suspension. A torque arm with snubber is about mandatory. Unless you swap in a vette or Cobra (IRS) rear suspension. The engine can be moved back far enough for weight distribution. You can even find some coupes with pre hung doors that are one off from the 32 Fords that are so popular.