EGT Group 2 Rallycar Build

[worldhazard]

ur build is quite cheap so far.. but ya, than i noticed the majority of the work is your own.. labor cost would rape me... the cage.. im curious... is that for the metals and all alone?

[jrally]

If you all read carefully, at the very begining, this is NOT Jim's car, it's a friend of ours who wanted a Escort built like my rally car, so we could team up at the races, spares, knowledge, crew, etc... So, the real credit goes to Chuck for trusting Jim to build the best Escort he could for him. As for what it cost to build a winning rally car, TOO much. I spent about 12K on mine, but zero on labor. If I had to pay labor, it could have easily been a 20K build. I did have to pay someone better than me to build my tranny and second engine.

-Jon R.

[JPmotorsports]

Chuck has built a few cars and he's got the right idea---safety first, make it light and strong, then add power later if needed. You'll notice we haven't even gotten to the engine or trans (other than the lsd which is mandatory) yet. I would expect the build to end up around $20k when completed, but they're never really "done" if you know what I mean...Also as far as labor goes---other than the cage, I could build this car in about 3 days, so it's not the most labor intensive project out there---for instance my touring car project on another thread has about 250 hours now into it...let's see I'm $75 an hour...

The cage (with some seam welding) is about $3500 or so---we could do a rally legal cage for $2k but Chuck has a tendency to drive at the limit of his ability so that wouldn't be the best idea for him. The material to do the cage is DOM and costs about $500 with everything so we budget out about 40 hours for labor for the cage.

As I recall JRALLY has built a couple of $25k dollar Golf's for Group 2 so this budget is certainly not extravagant by any means...Incidently the cost to build a Subaru is exactly the same---just start with a wrecked $10k WRX...

No problem on the wing braces---I've got to do the same for own project and planned on trapping/sandwiching the hatch closed with the mounts---they may have to weld into the rear frame rail area though.

[JPmotorsports]

Got the driver seat mounts done. Chuck's tall so we needed to remove the stock mounts/crossmember and rear pedistol mount to get him lower in the car. After that the race seat won't slide on the sliders because it hits the tranny tunnel---or exhaust tunnel for the FWD car...We "modified" the tunnel with a hammer and then built the mounts up about a half inch so everything clears (barely). The flat strap keeps the floor from flexing too bad and then the sliders bolt all the way through to the bottom.

[JPmotorsports]

A little seam welding on the strut mounts goes a long way!!! They tear and crack from the abuse if you don't...

[jrally]

Nice work as usual Jim. The work on the seat mounts seam familiar, like we just did the same thing on a Tacoma... And yes, for sure a well prepped Group 2 rally car will cost as much as $30-40K, typical being in the $10-20K range. I built my first Group 2 car for about $4-5K, good starter car, not a competitive one though.

-Jon R.

[Mazda_Powered]

seam welding the strut towers...great idea! keep it up!

[worldhazard]

i've always been tinkering the idea of building a G2 car... the budget isn't so mucha a problem as it would be a slow, process build. but the fact that i'd likely have labor in many factors, (my lack of knowledge and support for friends) just kills it. hence the buying hand-me-downs.

but that cage is a good price. i've been hearing from 4700 up to 6k... just to meet specs. at a few places. granted, i haven't called every1, as im not completely set on building. but still

[jrally]

Buying a used rally car, to get into rallying is certainly the most economical thing to do. I built my first car for the challenge. I wasn't going into it without already knowing what I was doing, I had been working on rally cars for 3 years prior to building it. Between Jim and I I'm sure we could answer any questions you might have about building an Escort or Protege. I'm thinking the BG 323 hatchback would be a good looking next car...

-Jon

[Georonimo]

Buying a used rally car, to get into rallying is certainly the most economical thing to do. I built my first car for the challenge. I wasn't going into it without already knowing what I was doing, I had been working on rally cars for 3 years prior to building it. Between Jim and I I'm sure we could answer any questions you might have about building an Escort or Protege. I'm thinking the BG 323 hatchback would be a good looking next car...

-Jon

How would the shorter wheel base affect/change things? A friend rally's a DMS suspended 323 with a BP-T and has been talking about going to a mazda 3. It's not anything that I'm seriously considering but I can't deny that it's been bouncing around in the back of my mind... maybe some day

[JPmotorsports]

The shorter wheelbase actually has some benefits in the smooth/technical rally's. There are quite a few people over the years that have had success with the 323's. Also getting that car to a minimum weight is actually achievable where some of the other cars are tanks...

[JPmotorsports]

We're building a rally front skidplate subframe that ties all the suspension points together. We built this lower tie bar to start and will then go forward to a spreaderbar between the tow hooks and back to the rear subframe bolt with some additional bracing to support the aluminum skidplate.

The tie bars are easy to make---if anyone needs one let me know...

[JPmotorsports]

Here's that brace for the skidplate that doubles as a lower chassis stiffening brace---someone a while back asked me if I'd build them---sure why not, it's time consuming, but if I can build a couple at once it wouldn't be too bad.
Sorry about the blurry pic:

[Pox]

Oooh yummy. How much ground clearance do those have? Looks like it might be very low.

[JPmotorsports]

It's 1/8" from the exhaust which is tucked up because it's a rally car and it's a 1/4" from the trans x-member in the front---it's out of 1" DOM---I don't know how it could be much tighter---we'll cut the cups short in the back when we tab it/figure out the skidplate.