Building an Exocet on a budget 101. Take a 14 hour road trip to trade my E46 M3 for a stripped down, barely rolling Exocet Sport chassis with no driveline. Because Racecar.



Picking up the parted-out, stripped, roller chassis in Indianapolis from Rich. List of parts removed from the chassis: Entire 1.8 Turbo motor & transmission, differential, axles, driveshaft, steering shaft, exhaust, radiator, roller skate brace, big brake kit, Suspension arms, wheels, MS ECU, Digital dash, etc. You get the picture. It’s basically a chassis needing to be built. He temporarily put on some stock NB parts so it could be rolled onto the trailer. Control arms, hubs, dirty old stock wheels/tires, etc.



Home and in the garage. The fun begins. Lots of work to do to get this Exocet driving, let alone track worthy again.

 

The chassis as originally delivered to Rich (boileralum) from Exomotive. Sped'd with the double diagonal cross roll bar and welded steel floors. Emerald Ice with a pearl top coat.



Driving to GA to pick up a 1999 1.8L donor car.



Finally home and ready to donate it's guts.





Pulling the motor out of the donor car.




Lots of degreaser was in order.



Replacing the timing belt, water pump, front and rear main seals, drive belt, valve cover gasket, spark plugs, pcv valve, thermostat housing and gutting the thermostat.



Lots of WD-40 and scotchbrite on the valve cover.


First test fit in the Exocet.

 

The mess of wiring I’ve got to work with all looks a lot like this... It was originally running an MS3 with an AIM digital dash, so this is mostly useless to me. Probably going to start over with a stock harness to eliminate gremlins.

 

I built an intake to use for the time being while it’s naturally aspirated. The plan is to get a running, driving car and then add the turbo kit once it’s sorted. Also mounted up the NA radiator.



Stage 1 clutch and 10.3 pound lightweight flywheel going in.

 

Found a significantly less expensive Interstate AGM battery to replace the dead Odyssey that was in it. $60 FTW

 

Two of my good buddies came over to check out the Exo and the current mess of wiring I have going on. Time to chuck that harness and start over.

 

Test fitting the JNC003 15x9 zero offsets

 

Race rubber ready to go on. Went with V720s. Should be a great do everything 200tw tire for Street/Auto-X/Track for now. Plus they aren't expensive and budget is the name of this build.




Happy with the fitment and the look.

 

Prismatic powders Emerald Ice pearl



350mm Momo prototipo w/ NRG short quick release.



CF APR GTC-200



Looking mean. Probably going to run the stock spring rates for now until I get a feel for the chassis and have some driving to base a coilover decision off of.

 

That is going to be so much fun. Like the chassis color choice.

 

Thank you! I’m itching to drive it already. I hope to be driving by New Years.

 

Love the color! Good looking build!

Check out the speed circuit deep tray, way more room than the tiny factory tray for wiring and ecu.

 

I'll check it out!

 

Looks like a NP battery (NP17-12I is the closest one I could find). These are intended as UPS and/or tractive batteries. Nevertheless, a Yuasa datasheet I found claimed 500A for 1sec/150A for 1min as dischare limits, which got me thinking... Have you (or anyone else in this forum) already used the one you purchased?

 

I have not used this battery yet, but my friend has this exact battery on his Evo 8 race car and it works fine for him. It is also very similar to a battery I have used in a Yamaha side by side. I believe this is an approved battery for certain powersports applications, which is what many folks use for lightweight auto racing applications. The PC680 it is replacing ran this chassis fine before.

 

Where are you located in Tennessee?

 

Please rotate your tires so they are oriented correctly and repost your pictures.

 

Haha, they aren't even torqued and will be taken on and off the car 20 more times before they ever see the road I'm sure. V720s have an inside and outside. So one side they point one way, the other side they look backwards, but they aren’t.

 

Found a radiator hose to fit the NA radiator. Was able to use the stock NB upper hose with some trimming.



Got my -3AN banjo fitting and stainless brake lines all on and routed.



Slightly different banjo for the rears.

 

Converting my 1999 motor to a return style fuel system. It’s using a Holley hydromat and a Walbro 255 external fuel pump with the stock ‘99 fuel rail and injectors via an Aeromotive adjustable FPR and a ‘97 NA return style stock FPR.