Building a Grassroots Motorsports $20xx Challenge Car

Hello LongRoofers,

I bought this '95 RMW in pristine condition last fall for a whopping $300. It had a cracked head, so $100 later it a had "new" head and gasket, running like a dream at 250k miles. Even the A/C still works!





I plan to race this car in the Grassroots Motorsports $2016 Challenge. If you're not familiar with GRM, they organize an annual budget competition combining autocross, 1/4 mile drag racing, and concourse-style judging. Points are awarding for each event. Each car must cost no more than $2016 dollars. The cars here are crazy. It's amazing what you can do to save a few bucks.

My plan for this car involves rebuilding the engine with some craigslist hop-up parts, building a set of headers, deleting unnecessary weight, lowering the car with cut/junkyard springs, and swapping in a junkyard posi and craigslist gears. Over winter I accumulated all the parts I will need, coming in around $1,200 so far. Still under budget with room to spare!

So far I have only raced it at the local SCCA autocross in stock trim, plus a set of Corvette C4 wheels/tires I got on craigslist for $60. For a stock engine with exhaust leaks, fouled O2 sensors, and a full interior, it did pretty well. I took 6th out of 12 in CAM-C class, which is a modified class for late-model musclecars.





Right now the engine is out and I have started to disassemble it.





You can check out my GRM build thread here. If I need more room in the budget, I might have to sell off some parts. My car is complete with a blue leather interior in almost perfect condition. Everything works, including all switches, wipers, seat motors, ABS, even those little moonroof shades. I'm not attached to this car in any way so I don't mind parting it out for the cause of lighter weight and more speed!

Thank you!

Awesome!

This GRM thing sounds pretty awesome!

I always thought the GRM Challenge was a wonderful competition, but I never played.
I think this is great!