The £100 Drag Car Challenge

[LowStandards]

Can you build a sub 15 second drag car within a £100 budget?

Thats the question me and BladeRunner30 had running through our minds when we took ownership of a 1995 Civic Esi for spares/repairs from Lopez on this very board.



Collecting said car:


So, what we need is a new home for this, the 125bhp, 16v lump sitting in the shabby shell


We've decided on one of these fine automobiles, an early Kia Pride, weighing in at a massive 730kgs stock.


The plan is to stick the Civic lump in, strip the car of all needless weight, stick on some cut slicks and take it to the strip!


Done a quick mockup using a program i've had for a while and its come up with this (Its normally pretty close)


0-60 - 6.6
1/4 Mile - 14.8@94mph


So, can we do it in our proposed £100 budget? So far we've spent nothing, but still need the base vehicle (anyone got one?)


Your thoughts?


When we've bought the car we'll start a readers ride thread, just wanted some comments first

[markbognor]

Could this be achieved by making the civic weigh less, rather than the hassle of transplanting the engine, civic roadster?

[markbognor]

Would your £100 get you a second hand NoS kit to add to the newly cut down civic?

[arthurbrown]

Hmm. Top-gear Jag XJ-S anyone?

[Robinxr4i]

markbognor said:

Would your £100 get you a second hand NoS kit to add to the newly cut down civic?

Nitros on a Neon..........

www.aces.edu/~parmega/articles/neon/

.....legend!!!!!!!

[Mr S]

Maybe it could, but where's (a) The fun, and (b) The challenge in that! I don't know where you could shave 300-400KG off a car like that anyway....!

Besides, wouldn't it be a whole lot funnier to see a Kia Pride whupping some 'performance' cars rather than a civic?

[LowStandards]

markbognor said:

Could this be achieved by making the civic weigh less, rather than the hassle of transplanting the engine, civic roadster?

Not sure your getting the point of this exercise, anyone can make a Civic go faster, how often do you come across a Kia Pride that can hold its own against an Impreza?

As for Nos, it sucks, its cheap curse word with no thought...

[trg1984]

sounds like a wicked idea to me, are u gonna make it street legal or just purely for dragging?? do u have ur heart set on a kia pride or will any cheap small car do?

[macaroni]

I know you've chosen your method, but my preferred route would be to buy a very cheap turbo car on it's last legs, ie Volvo 460/480 turbo, whip off the wastegate hose and nail it for a last glorious 1/4 mile!

In your case, £100 doesn't leave you much leeway for incidentals when doing the conversion, even if you got a Kia Pride for cheap, so I would also go the stripping the Civic route.

If you get extreme, you can probably find a good 200kg to lose.

[Robinxr4i]

I think a civic engined (gay) Pride would be awesome, I would recommend trying breakers yard to find a base as they are totally unloved people usually wont even bother trying to advertise them.

Sorry about the nitros suggestion I was aiming more for just a massive jet on a 1300 kia pride engine as opposed to swapping the engines over!

[markbognor]

You're making the rules up as you go along! you said it was £100 for sub 15.

However a sub 15 second Kia Pride would rock!

But why stop there, mid mount the Honda engine in a Yugo 45!

[akku]

Have you seen that website where they chop a Mitsubishi of some sort to bits and drag that? Not road legal at all, but hey.

I thought most "proper" Imprezas would do a high 13 or better? Or is that rice propaganda?

Some years (maybe 4) ago me and two workmates set out the Kia Pride challenge. Which was to buy a Kia Priode each and prep and race them agaisnt each other in autotest, drag and maybe a track day. One guy left the company, the other guys missus wouldn't let him have another car at the house and thw whole idea floudered.

So Kia Pride FTW

[Mr S]

Does anyone really want to see *ANOTHER* civic going down the drag strip?

Essentially we want something that is very light to start with (hence the Kia Pride - although if anyone's got a Perodua Nippa, that'd be good too - basically anything that looks wibblepoo will do us!).

£100 is plenty, all we've got to do is adapt driveshafts and make some engine mounts, we'll 'acquire' the metal from various skips in the area...

It's not about making the fastest drag car in the world, it's about making something that my nan should own upset people who spend real money on their cars....!

If anyone's got anything lightweight (sub 750KG as a starting point is a must), cheap as chips, let us know!

Oh and yes, the plan is to make it road legal(ish)!

Cheers, M

[Mr S]

We're not making it up as we go along - the civic was free, it cost us nothing! We've still got the full £100 to spend

markbognor said:

You're making the rules up as you go along! you said it was £100 for sub 15.

However a sub 15 second Kia Pride would rock!

But why stop there, mid mount the Honda engine in a Yugo 45!

[Mr S]

alistairk said:

I thought most "proper" Imprezas would do a high 13 or better? Or is that rice propaganda?

Yep, pretty much rice propaganda! 2002gimp's mate had a 307bhp (RR tested) and that ran mid 14s, they need serious money spending on them to get them down to the 13s. Full time 4wd is heavy!

[akku]

I'm sure I saw the US Spec STI road tested (as stock) to a 13.something

but meh. Whatever. Like I care.

[markbognor]

::)Sorry i meant the bit about it having to be cool, and fun to trash big money cars with it built on a shoe string and looking like yer nan would drive it to the shops.

I see what you mean about it just being another cheeply modded civic.

Let the engine mount fabrication commence.

[popuptoaster]

easy, last 24v granny i bought was 150 quid, sell everthing out of the interior and you would make money (i did) and with all the heavy stuff out of it you have a 1000 kilo car with 200bhp, that should do a sub 15 second quarter i would have thought.

your going about it the hard way.

[reanimation]

Depends how good your skillorz and how much time you wanna spend on it. Personally I'd monkey about with the civic. Lower, roof chop, chop weight out from everywhere thats safe, skinney front tyres, further aero up the slippery shape, and stuff. plus teh longer wheelbase would feel better and less twitchy. Though if you are mechanical and wantthe challenge. I second comments about mid mounted Kia's and Yugo's etc. Go for it! mid mount with give you a fantastic launch.

[macaroni]

A base model Citroen ax weighs about 700kg and can be bought for beer money.