vehicular

iTrader: (3)

Took this out tonight riding kids bikes.

Full_Tilt_Boogie

iTrader: (1)

I honestly have no idea how much power the old Super Vees were making. I know theyre a lot faster than a normal Vee, so Id think they would be faster than a vintage FF, but Im not sure.

I raced Formula Vee for a while, and it was certainly a lot of fun even with a lousy ~50hp. I did some vintage racing in the HSR as well. Its a simple matter of swapping out the zero roll rear suspension for 2 normal shocks and putting the fan back on. It was fun too, but cheating was even more rampant than in the SCCA.

Ive been out of the game for a while now, but the FFs using Honda Fit engines now sounds really cool to me. I bet theyre bulletproof as ****.

vehicular

iTrader: (3)

If I was going to get into anything budget-ish and open wheel it would be the new 600 sport bike motors in F500 chassis class that is doing regional trials now. One of the local guys is spearheading them, and they're pretty fabbbb.

Full_Tilt_Boogie

iTrader: (1)

That sounds way better than a snowmobile engine with CVT.

Will they still have rubber bushing suspension? lol

pmhaddad

iTrader: (2)

Yeah, but F600 again is basically purely autox - F500/F600 cars aren't safe enough to really use on track (at least I would never do that, those things look sooo flimsy).

Yeah, odds are that if/when I get an FF I'd install a crate L15A motor at some point (probably around the time I'd need the first rebuild on the Ford 1.6. The SCCA will even let them run in the CF/vintage classes - you just need a massive restrictor. Doesn't stop the car from being competitive though, L15A powered FF cars have won a bunch of races.

Not sure if they let you install any more sophisticated engine management (read MS), but that would be nice to have as well.

Those Super Vee cars look a lot better than the regular FV cars, with aero and whatnot, suspension looks pretty similar. The FF motors are dry sumped though, which is pretty nifty. They look like they use hewland gears and chassis designs are pretty similar.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

When I hear things like "dry sump" and "hewland gears", affordability is not the first thing that comes to mind. Though admittedly, I've never priced out a FF car.

Formula Vee cars, by comparison, are laughably inexpensive. Older ones sometimes go for $5k or less, including trailer.

For what they are (really old cars running horribly primitive suspension and poorly-designed 50hp engines), they're also surprisingly quick. We usually get 3 or 4 FV cars on a typical autocross day down ay Qualcomm in San Diego. They run in F-mod, and typically produce laptimes which are identical to the SSM Miatas and S2Ks.

golftdibrad

FV is the cheapest way to go fast, besides a kart. Like everything its being competitive thats expensive. But a 5-10k FV will run faster lap times than the stripped out racing cars on alot of circuits.... if your goal is to 'race yourself' and have fun AND go fast, its a win. Can tow behind cars too they are so light...

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

My uncle was competitive in the midwest region for Formula Ford 2000 (same stuff as FF, but with a 2.0l engine instead of the 1.6l). Always wished we'd live close enough for me to hang out with him (not that he'd necessarily want a kid hanging around his shop all the time). He was my fun uncle. The summer I turned 16, he took me for a drive in his C4, pulled over halfway through the drive, told me to get behind the wheel, and then when traffic cleared he told me to punch it.

Good memories.

pmhaddad

iTrader: (2)

Again, I'd never take an FV to a race track. I want something open wheeled and cheap that I feel comfortable with using on track. I just can't stomach buying something like that purely as an autox toy.

The 1.6 FFs I've been pricing out are all around the $15k range give or take, which is $10k less than the Elise's I've been looking at

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

You think you're more likely to survive being run over by an M3 while driving a FF than a FV?

Or you're concerned that the FV is just too slow to keep pace on a high-speed track?

G3ML1NGZ

a friend of mine bought one exactly like this. only one in the country.


2 seater, 1.6L, awd and a T-top. Now imagine it with boost!

pmhaddad

iTrader: (2)

hahaha a bit of both if I'm honest.

I think the FF is more more structurely sound in a roll over situation than the FV would be. I think overall it is a safer and faster package, so its a win/win. Plus (I may be wrong here), but the FF suspension geometry is a bit more modern, and its an overall better platform (IMHO).

If I have a budget for an Elise, and I'm 10k under that for an FF car, its pretty well within my budget, so saving a few more grand isn't really an issue when comparing FV to FF - I can compare them just based on performance and stuff.

Super Vee looks pretty sweet, but I think FF is more popular, resulting in more competition which is always fun.

vehicular

iTrader: (3)

They do have hockey puck suspension.


And an F600 would probably suck on an autocross course. You wouldn't be able to make any use of it. I see no reason why an F500/F600 would be any less big-track-capable than a 100hp Club Ford.

bbundy

This is normally not my style as I grew up listening to 80's and 90's punk. But I will admit after they appeared on David Letterman and performed I Fink U Freeky I did a lot of searching for more. I don’t know why but I kind of like their stuff. I can’t even explain why I think Yolandi is Hot.

Bob

pmhaddad

iTrader: (2)

The only place I've seen F500/F600 cars is at an autox. I don't think its big track capable because a lot of normal sized Americans (I'm not one of them at 5'9" and 140lbs) will have their shoulders sticking out of the car. I've seen a lot of open wheeled cars at big tracks, never a single F500/600 car.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I can't speak to chassis rigidity / safety, though I'm sure that this has more to do with the individual chassis-maker than with the class.

Over the years, at least a dozen different companies (probably many more) have produces chassis and bodies for FV- you can tell just by looking at pictures of them that the chassis design varies radically from one manufacturer to another, even for cars built during the same era. Some builders were known for producing extremely well-engineered (and costly) vehicles, while others preferred to focus on very low-cost chassis, eschewing fancy hardware and not employing the services of a mechanical engineer to do the actual frame design.

Since FF was never a sole-source class with regard to chassis, I have to imagine that the same variability exists here.



Haha. "A bit more modern" is being extremely kind. The suspension design on the FV is so antiquated that it's amazing they don't roll over by themselves in a light breeze. The front suspension is a transverse-beam, twisted-leaf configuration, and the rear is a center-pivot swingaxle (camber changes from negative to positive as the suspension extends.) It's all straight out of the original 1938 VW Beetle.

And yet, despite all logic and reason, they actually seem to work pretty well.

pmhaddad

iTrader: (2)

You are right about the Chassis, the Titan/Lola/Merlyn/Lotus seem to be the best choices for the CF era, while Swift/VD dominate the more modern era, and they are all a bit different.

So yeah, I want more modern suspension. I'm not even sure what twisted leaf actually is, so I'm pretty sure I don't want it

Full_Tilt_Boogie

iTrader: (1)

Im pretty good freidns with a guy who builds FVs

Caracal Cars.com - Home of Clark Racing and Caracal Cars

Joe is right, the suspension is ancient, but its also strong, simple, and cheap to replace. Ive seen spectacular FV crashes that resulted in nothing more than having to replace some fiberglass and a getting a "new" front axle from the junkyard for $20.

The sport is so old that people know exactly how to squeeze every bit of everything out that that suspension. Ive only seen one shock dyno, and it was in Fred's shop (Caracal cars).

My old Vee was sexy as ****. It was like a big square dick with ***** of rage:



I was one of the guys out there running on no budget. I bought rusty parts from the VW junkyard, cleaned them up, modified them, and painted them. I built countless junkyard engines, that I worked over and was able to be competitive with the guys who were buying Noble crate engines for 5 grand.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

Tom Cruise "drives" Red Bull F1 car very slowly, goes off track, and David Coulthard still gives him a *******.

pmhaddad

iTrader: (2)

Wow that is sweet! So you were running these little things on the big tracks?

I wonder what the cost difference if you did 4-5 races a year would be. Both motors shouldn't need to be rebuilt that often. For me doing 4-5 races a year on a real shoe-string budget, it would only really work for me to replace/rebuild the motor every 3-4 years. FF motors are obviously more expensive than a crap old air cooled VW motor, so that's a big plus for the FV. I'm kind of curious what the laptime around Sebring would be though. 3:30+?

The rebuild issue is why I'd consider putting a more reliable L15A in instead of another Kent motor.