How fast can you go for less than a grand?

[haggis]

I've read PPC's £999 challenge and thought many times about entering but due to me living in Scotland and the prospect of just doing a drag race and some cones never really caught my interest.

I'm also a keen watcher of Roadkill and find them hilarious so I decided to try my own hand at both things at once!

Looking for something RWD I looked at mostly BMW's thinking that a 325 or 330 from the online salvage would be the way to go but fate had another idea!

I often put the so called danger bids on ebay and the salvage auction thinking, "if i won it for that I'd be laughing"

One Thursday morning the Iphone pinged at 6AM revealing I bought something....

FECK!, WTF have I bought???



Its not retro at all, but i suppose they don't make them anymore!

And how much did it cost? How crazy was my bid....

£200

190HP VVTI 8000 revs screamer for £200!



Now granted, its not perfect. There is around 36 empty fag packets in the boot. The inside is like a carpenters dyson and as for the mechanicals the fail sheet read as

OSF track rod end
OSF wheel bearing
all discs and pads knackered
NSR caliper siezed
NSF calipers sliders siezed
backbox
bulbs
4 wheel nuts
and a battery

My very good mate has quoted me £500 for all this which leaves me with £300 for mods

The plan so far is to make it roadworthy and then drive it to a track! Cadwell Park looks fun!

So thats a 700 mile round trip plus a track day in a £200 salvage special



Ambitious?

[HoTWire]

I'm liking the sound of this

[MkX]

Seems like a good buy for that money but obviously hasn't been looked after in a while, let alone loved.

My worry would be engine condition. ?High miles? Probable lack of servicing.

If, in spite of neglect, the engine seems good; Service it, chip it, chuck the air filter & have some fun!

[xbl]

It's a toyota, the only thing to worry about in the VVTL-i is the lift bots wearing out, they're a pretty easy diy repair (as is the rest of the list tbh). Once it's been MOT'd smash the cat out and fit a CAI and you'll see 200bhp.

[penski]

Chinese turbo off ebay...

*n

[ChasR]

This should be good!

I'd be tempted to do quite a bit of work there yourself. If taking it on track I'd also budget for some half decent track pads with the change from doing the work at your leisure, unless time is an issue .

[bpirie1000]

Couple pals have done this I the past. They ended up selling their interiroe for decent cash and Got in toe with a few folks in race series and blagged old parts. (Bucket seats and harness with 6mths on date codes..)

Always fun on a budget but some folks pockets are far deeper than others....

[andrelei]

The 2ZZ engine has some issues with oil consumption, especially the pre-facelift ones. This is a facelift so you might be lucky.

[jellygut231]

This sounds like a right laugh. Been trying to get my mates to do this and have a bit of a challenge but they're all boring! Lol good luck.

[Colonelk]

I take it the 999 challenge doesn't exist any more?

[VIP]

Mar 7, 2017 12:09:06 GMT Colonelk said:

I take it the 999 challenge doesn't exist any more?

Nope, they stopped doing it a few years ago. HARDCORE and I had talks about building a car for it, then released it wasn't about.

There was some mutterings on their Facebook page earlier this year about whether they should bring it back, but nothing definite.

[haggis]

Why don't we do our own thing?

"The Grand trackday tour"

I'm now up to £850 spent.

CAI ordered and a set of lightweight Subaru wheels.

Leaves me £150.

I'm thinking slicks, decat and service

[legatron]

Ambitious? I'd say so,

You want to take it on track just clearing the MOT fail sheet? If you do, let us know ow and I'll be sure to avoid that track day lol

It Probably needs more. No mention of tyres? There's your £300 pretty much straight away

[xbl]

Slicks mentioned above.

[rude]

I bought an apollo mountain bike for £20 and got it up to a speedo registered 63mph down orange tree hill with no helmet when I was a kid. Tyres didn't even melt...Fact.

[fad]

Sounds like fun!!

[skinnylew]

Sounds like a good laugh. I was always intrigued by the £999 challenge, how tightly it was policed. I always envisioned people selling turbo kits to their mates for £50 and nitrous systems for £9, with reciepts to show for it! I would have thought it would be easier to do an eBay £999 challenge as it is a little more visually accountable. maybe.

I'd go cheap turbo power some VAG group 1.8t i.e.
link


then add this:
link

lose the interior, swiss cheese everything

add some more of this
link


throw a boost controller on it and wind it up a bit, and some 1/2 decent tyres on it and theres your £999 done and about 300bhp + nos, should give you some fun for a few hours till you blow it up

[froggy]

I won the 999 in 2008 and had a go in 2009 with a saab 9000 fitted with a Holset truck turbo that ran 13.2 in the drag but was a bit pants in the slalom . Every year the winner got some stick about the budget and when I won the 2nd place was a rev3 turbo mr2 which would be hard to find for a grand or the Pulsar that won or the celica gt4 or the mx5 with 200sx power etc . Made some great mates though who I still meet up with for track days etc . To do it now I think you'd have to lower the budget to root out the " bargains " that have a huge advantage to start with

[lufbramatt]

It's a shame there isn't a 24 hours of LeMons in the uk, with the state of the used car market here you'd actually get some pretty decent stuff on track.

[penski]

Mar 9, 2017 10:08:45 GMT lufbramatt said:

It's a shame there isn't a 24 hours of LeMons in the uk, with the state of the used car market here you'd actually get some pretty decent stuff on track.

Get organising!

*n