humbucker87 Posted February 15, 2017 Report Share Posted February 15, 2017 (edited) 1993 Lexus SC300 Chumpcar Location: Raleigh, NC (can deliver within 1.5 hours of Raleigh for the right price, including the upcoming VIR race) Price: $8,000 obo SOLD We purchased this original 5-speed SC300 2 ½ years ago in Atlanta GA with a clean title, rough cosmetics, a few oil leaks, but otherwise in great condition (and most importantly zero rust). We proceeded to strip the car, add the necessary race prep, and replace any and all items that we thought might fail during a race. What resulted was a reliable car that led us to get 2nd place overall in our first ever race weekend. Unfortunately during our second race weekend we got rear ended by another team in hour 3 of 12 ending our weekend. After $3,500+ in professional repairs the car looked just as good as it did prior to the race. In race 3 we ran strong (just outside the top 10) for 12 of 16 hours until we hit unavoidable debris on track, cracking our exhaust close to the header for which we didn’t have a spare. As is usually the story, life moves on and we’ve all decided that racing will have to take a back seat for a while. This car was built to be reliable, and that it has been. All parts have less than 2 years and only maybe 50 track hours on them. The Good: The car is unbelievably good on tire wear. At the end of our second 7 hour race another team assumed we’d put fresh tires on for just that race when in fact they’d had about almost 20 hours of track time on them. The braking power of this car thanks to the LS400 Calipers is unbelievable. This is not a ‘light’ car (by chumpcar standards) and we out brake nearly every other car on track or at least match them. The long wheelbase makes this car extremely stable in high-speed turns. Think uphill esses or turn 10 at VIR, easily as fast as any other car we’ve seen in chump through these sections. Reliability, the hallmark of any winning chumpcar. The only time we’ve had DNF’s are from other cars or objects hitting our car on track. Aside from those the car just keeps running without even the slightest hint of breaking down. We spent the money and long nights so you don’t have to. We have over $35,000 invested in building and racing this car and you get it for pennies on the dollar The Bad: The engine performs flawlessly but seems to be a bit down on power (original 160k mile motor) especially when compared to other teams’ ‘stock’ engines down the straights. Low mileage japanese engines are ~$800-1000. Even with our lack of power we’ve done a 2:20.1x on VIR Full for reference. In it’s current setup the car will take laps this year in chump. We currently have front aftermarket springs and adjustable collars. (40 pts). The fix is to find a set of either original springs or same diameter aftermarket springs and cut them to the desired stiffness/height. This will bring the car back to a 0 lap car. Before our last race the car was in mint condition. We got hit twice last race, both in the driver’s side. Thankfully the damage was only cosmetic. We’ve already purchased a replacement door instead of trying to fix the current one and are in the process of fixing the other body damage. We’ll include a picture to show the extent of it. The car will come with everything you need to go racing, except a trailer, your own tools, and your own race gear. It includes our gas cans, fuel suits, spares, fire extinguisher, etc. Literally everything we went to our December race with. Everything we’ve replaced or added to the car: Custom built-to-spec cage by Competition Cages (of Hillsborough, NC) including the seat mount and dash bar Engine Refresh - Plugs and Wires, EGR Delete, All Seals, Timing Belt + Pulleys/Tensioners, Engine Mounts, Crank Pulley, Exedy OEM Clutch Kit + New Flywheel Bolts, Brand New Driveshaft Guibo, Transmission Mount, Driveshaft Center Bearing Steering - Tie Rod Ends, Steering Rack Bushing, PS Delete and Seal Cut Suspension - Supra Bilstein’s, Fresh Revalve, HyperCoil Springs w/ adjustable collars, Front springs cut for the rear Maint Items - Fuel Filter, Diff Fluid, Air Filter, SS Brake Lines, Shifter Bushings, Transmission Seals, Clutch Hydraulic Hose, Clutch Slave, Brake Master Cylinder Cooling System - T-Stat, Upper/Lower Radiator Hoses, Water Pump, Radiator Racey Bits - Racetech RT4009HR, NRG Quick Release 3.0, OMP Enduro Harness, AMB Direct-Wire Transponder TranX260, 4L Fire Suppression System, Window Net, Schroth Center Net, LED Headlights, Coolshirt kit (never installed), Lightweight ATV Battery, DashCam, Warning Switches, Tons of spares, a lot more not listed. Support Parts - Pit Fire Extinguisher, 2x SFI Fuel Gloves, 2x SFI Fuel Suits, Radio System (in car wiring, headset, sharkfin antenna, 4 radios), 13x 5 Gallon Gas jugs Original Posting First ever race! Post race impound! Second place. NASA HPDE Testing Last race and new paint scheme Post race damage Edited March 17, 2017 by humbucker87 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humbucker87 Posted February 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 No love for a 100% turnkey SC300 package? Here's video of the car in action... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pintodave Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 Not a bad deal for someone wanting to go racing ASAP with a platform that has been proven to be successful in Chump. Just curious, how is finding spares for these things? I know they are not unicorns, but they are not as plentiful as other stuff like BMW’s, Miata’s, or pony-cars. Did the tranny & motors cross over with any other Toyota platforms? Post up some pics of the cage and stuff, people like pictures lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humbucker87 Posted February 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 Thanks! I'll definitely get more pictures up soon. Spares for the most part are very easy to find. This engine was used in several cars of the era: GS300, IS300, SC300, and N/A Supra. The 5-speed is a little harder to find (plenty on ebay for $), but is also pretty much bulletproof. We have regularly had an SC300 at one of the pull-a-parts in our area to pick over, and if you have the space (unfortunately we don't) parts cars can be found regularly for ~$500-700. Certainly one of the things that drew us to this platform was the number of Turbo Supra and SC300's running 600+ whp on stock internals, stock transmission, stock driveshaft without too many issues. So far, that has proven to be true as we haven't had a single mechanical failure in 4 races and ~6 HPDE weekends. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skierman64 Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 1993 Lexus SC300 Chumpcar We have over $35,000 invested in building and racing this car Holy eff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mender Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 We have about 70-80 hrs of track time on the Fiero and have around that amount in building, racing, and maintaining the car. Not hard to do when a race weekend costs us about $4000. I try very hard not to think of the total. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humbucker87 Posted February 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 Holy eff. Haha. I think most teams don't keep track of expenses like we do or else they might be surprised themselves. We wanted to be 100% fair to each person on the team so we tracked every single zip-tie that was bought, every drop of gas used for the car or for towing, every pack of gloves from harbor freight, etc. All 384 lines are in a giant spreadsheet for an average of $91 per line. The basic breakdown is: The car + safety + race development + refresh = $15000+/- ~3000 per race x 3.5 = $9,000 Professional Repairs for getting rear-ended = $3500 HPDEs, Towing, Consumables = $2000 Spares, Tools, Alignments, etc = $3000 What's more amazing to me is that we have 4 total line items > $1,000 (the car itself, the cage, one race entry, and the quarter panel repair), and 31 items between $200 and $1,000 (things like a transponder, 3 sets of wheels, tires, race seat, fire suppression, etc). Everything else is sub $200. Man it adds up fast. P.S. Don't let my wife see this page. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Advisory Committee Chris Huggins Posted February 17, 2017 Technical Advisory Committee Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 I tracked the costs for awhile. Then I couldnt bear to look at it anymore. Good luck with the sale. It is a nice build! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skierman64 Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 Ah, well that's better, I misread and thought you had $35,000 into the car + spares. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pintodave Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 @Team Infiniti spouse math formula = always omit the last zero 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron_e Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 Haha. I think most teams don't keep track of expenses like we do or else they might be surprised themselves. We wanted to be 100% fair to each person on the team so we tracked every single zip-tie that was bought, every drop of gas used for the car or for towing, every pack of gloves from harbor freight, etc. All 384 lines are in a giant spreadsheet for an average of $91 per line. The basic breakdown is: The car + safety + race development + refresh = $15000+/- ~3000 per race x 3.5 = $9,000 Professional Repairs for getting rear-ended = $3500 HPDEs, Towing, Consumables = $2000 Spares, Tools, Alignments, etc = $3000 What's more amazing to me is that we have 4 total line items > $1,000 (the car itself, the cage, one race entry, and the quarter panel repair), and 31 items between $200 and $1,000 (things like a transponder, 3 sets of wheels, tires, race seat, fire suppression, etc). Everything else is sub $200. Man it adds up fast. P.S. Don't let my wife see this page. I track absolutely everything as well to allocate costs. After buying a car, spare, equipping, racing, repairs, parts, entry fees, etc it adds up to a lot. After 5 years we finally won a race and actually also took a third place plus a class win... I forget the number but my team was not pleased when I told them we are at about $40,000 per trophy. I dont mention that number anymore. I probably shouldn't have put this in a for sale thread... let me know if you want me to delete it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humbucker87 Posted February 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 I track absolutely everything as well to allocate costs. After buying a car, spare, equipping, racing, repairs, parts, entry fees, etc it adds up to a lot. After 5 years we finally won a race and actually also took a third place plus a class win... I forget the number but my team was not pleased when I told them we are at about $40,000 per trophy. I dont mention that number anymore. I probably shouldn't have put this in a for sale thread... let me know if you want me to delete it. I don't know....if anything it's exactly the kind of thing to put in a for sale thread! Basically telling people, look and learn from our mistakes. Buy a car cheap and already built and just spend money racing it and on consumables. Thanks for sharing your story and I'm glad you guys finally podium'd for your efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Segeltorp Posted February 26, 2017 Report Share Posted February 26, 2017 (edited) If there are any newbies here reading thinking "whaat -$8k!?" then please take my word for it that it is worth every penny paying upfront for a good car. Otherwise you buy a crappy car, spend just as much money upgrading it and still have a half-crappy car. I don't want to think about how many years it took us to get our shoestring budget car to survive a race without major failures - and at the end we had spent more money than if we had bought a better car from the beginning! This is a bargain! Edited February 26, 2017 by Segeltorp 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humbucker87 Posted February 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2017 Thanks Segel, I appreciate the kind words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDChristianson Posted February 27, 2017 Report Share Posted February 27, 2017 Surprised the Beer and various libation line item isnt over $1000. Must be tracking it by brand and type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CutlassRacer Posted March 8, 2017 Report Share Posted March 8, 2017 (edited) I am very interested, send me more pics please. Interested as in ready to send a deposit tonight. Edited March 8, 2017 by CutlassRacer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogtired Posted March 10, 2017 Report Share Posted March 10, 2017 On 2/25/2017 at 9:44 PM, Segeltorp said: If there are any newbies here reading thinking "whaat -$8k!?" then please take my word for it that it is worth every penny paying upfront for a good car. Otherwise you buy a crappy car, spend just as much money upgrading it and still have a half-crappy car. I don't want to think about how many years it took us to get our shoestring budget car to survive a race without major failures - and at the end we had spent more money than if we had bought a better car from the beginning! This is a bargain! Plus it kills beavers and gophers with a vengeance. .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcwilliams00 Posted March 12, 2017 Report Share Posted March 12, 2017 (edited) Would you sell the fuel jugs and possibly any engine spares? I'm in Raleigh running a 2JZ in a Celica, #428. Edited March 12, 2017 by Dcwilliams00 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humbucker87 Posted March 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2017 Sold! Cutlass I hope you guys enjoy it. Eager to see what you guys are capable of doing with the car. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CutlassRacer Posted March 19, 2017 Report Share Posted March 19, 2017 Thanks! It's going on the dyno today or tomorrow to see how it compares to out other one. We just converted that one back to the stock manifolds also. Oddly enough, we just did a back to back on our Z with the stock manifolds vs headers and saw maybe 2hp average increase. Nowhere close to being worth the points increase in that car. Anybody need a ride for Daytona? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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