The best ITB car nobody is racing?

Actually, my car's been running a full season PLUS the IT-Fest this year. And my teammate's also running the full Waterford season, defending his championship (somewhat half-ass-edly, I might add). There's also serious threat of maybe another 5 ITB 924's surfacing over the next year. ;)

I last raced my car last year, but was beating up on AS cars then - normal ITB cars are too slow to challenge me these days. :D

As for the Shape of Things That're Gone... I'd never touch one of those again (though oddly enough I see plenty of 8's around here!), but there was an ITB TR7 around this area. Not sure what happened to it though. Definitely not the fastest way around the track, IMO, though it might be one car that could match the '24 on aero on the big tracks... ;)
 
Andy Bettencourt said:
I can't reiterate enough that the real answer is the Geo Storm GSi. I am willing to bet you could build one with a stock motor, some bolt on's and an IT-level suspension and win the ARRC. Why?

It's 130hp stock. It ITB that puts it about 2700lbs but it's at 2455. In perspective, that is 10hp more and 95lbs less than the ARRC winning Accords.

It's really about a 2300lb ITA car.......
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10 more in than crank in stock trim. However we all know what hondas can do in IT trim. I have heard from the tuner of keane's motor is making, and there isn't a chance the Small Port 4AGE is going to see those gains. For the same or atleast similiar reason the large port 4AGE in the MR2, FX16, AE86 doesn't make power.

We are also giving the accord 20 ft/lbs to the wheels, and you won't match the hp of the accord. I would say it would be a better canidate than any of the 30% adders LP 4AGE, as the new head and intake combo on teh GSI helped alot, but it still isn't there.
 
20 hp more for only an additional 5 lbs more than the Prelude. Sounds pretty good to me. How is its suspension? Reliability and parts might be a challenge.
 
gran racing said:
20 hp more for only an additional 5 lbs more than the Prelude. Sounds pretty good to me. How is its suspension? Reliability and parts might be a challenge.
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Engine reliability is good (toyota), for the rest of the chassis I am not familiar with.

Unfortuatnely there is little US aftermarket for the engine. Just like with the MR2, you will be fabricating eveything. fabricating your own suspension, header, CAI, etc.. also engine parts are rare. You can get some parts from toyota but alot have been dropped. Parts at autoparts store typically result in you getting parts for the 4AFE, and not the 4AGE. There is also no final drive available for the car, so plan on a couple thousand dollar final drive (boat I am in with MR2 with added weight).

I would love for someone to build one. I know of atleast one ITB Gsi that has/did exist. there is video of it on the dyno on youtube. I am building a SP 4AGE toyota motor form the GSI for my MR2 street car. I can dyno it and let you know what it comes out to when I am done if anybody is interested.
 
erlrich said:
Ok, help me out here guys - the Storm was made by Isuzu, but had a Toyota engine?
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...and sold through GM dealers... LMAO. Sounds like one of the reasons why the Sunbeam Tiger got killed...

British car, sold through Chrysler dealers (in 1967), with a Ford engine.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffYoung
I totally agree!

Any ITB driver with ANY aesthetics would of course choose the Shape of Things that Break.

Or maybe an Opel GT.

The rest? Boxy anti-racecars!
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....um - MR2?

Not a sleeper (more like a creeper) but it's certainly no Accord. you should like it, Jeff - it's roughly wedge shaped. but it doesn't break..
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.

We are talking a bout cars that have a chance......

;)

The MR2 is the anti Storm GSi...
 
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News flash, kids - the Accords aren't winning the ARRC on outright speed. Schaafsma and I handily outqualified both of 'em in '08.

Then we had a disagreement over the 2-wide line through 7, and both of us came out the worse for it... :(
 
924Guy said:
News flash, kids - the Accords aren't winning the ARRC on outright speed. Schaafsma and I handily outqualified both of 'em in '08.

Then we had a disagreement over the 2-wide line through 7, and both of us came out the worse for it... :(
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EVERYbody out qualified Duece on 09.......

Look how THAT turned out!
 
Different set of rules then you folks play with... But we did the whole ITA~ish speed car, consistent, clean and get good finishes overall.

But YOU ARE banking on other peoples bad luck/miss-fourtain. It paid off for us, 2nd overall 13hour 4th overall 25hour, along with 3 other top tens in the 25 hour.

But we always banked on others bad luck, and us not having any or if we did being able to minimize it.

And as the years went on better, faster teams started showing up.

MER has shown what a new miata (the mx-5 cup cars), can do with a little tweaking. But as Greg mentioned sometimes there drivers just pulled stupid shit that does nothing but hurt you in a long endurance race.


My pick?? A light ITS/R car that has a good package. Or make a great car by going to ITE, IE take a good/fast ITS/R car get it really light, with bigger brakes and have a real shot.

sorry for the OT...
 
No worries Jimmy...

Hell, I think an ITS RX7 won the overall at VIR one year. And they are gas hogs, but easy on tires and brakes....so you may be right.

Still, those Me-Otters. If they could run 2-3 hours like Pablo....like I said, I think we could run 13 hours on ONE set of Toyos. We changed the lefts each year we ran the SMs, but I bet they could have made it as is.
 
What are the key points in determining if a future car will be fast or not? Right now the talk is power and aero, but they seem to mostly be opinions. Power is unknown, unless it's a shared engine platform. Aero is rather simple as the drag is basically Cd x frontal area x velocity^2. Note slippery looking isn't always slippery. The Bosch Automotive Handbook has a great write up on coast down tests for aero drag. The coast down test can be performed with a stock, street car.

I went with cost, parts availability, chassis stiffness, brakes, torque and that landed me in Volvo 240 land. Not to mentio I think it can beat the 142's that everyone loves to battle with.
 
JeffYoung said:
No worries Jimmy...

Hell, I think an ITS RX7 won the overall at VIR one year. And they are gas hogs, but easy on tires and brakes....so you may be right.

Still, those Me-Otters. If they could run 2-3 hours like Pablo....like I said, I think we could run 13 hours on ONE set of Toyos. We changed the lefts each year we ran the SMs, but I bet they could have made it as is.
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One of the teams from down here ran at the 13 hour a few years ago. They both raced, AND drove back to south Florida (drove up on their backup tires) on a set of Toyo's in their SM so it can be done.
 
924Guy said:
News flash, kids - the Accords aren't winning the ARRC on outright speed. Schaafsma and I handily outqualified both of 'em in '08.

Then we had a disagreement over the 2-wide line through 7, and both of us came out the worse for it... :(
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True, but I will say that from my driver seat it was back straight speed that made the difference between me and the Hondas (and the 924). Duece, Peter and Vaughan all motored me easily on the back straight even when I had an excellent run out of 7 (which was not the case in all of those of course...).

If I were building a car today I would look at the Hondas, the Golf 3 and the 924. The closest of those to not being commonly run today is the latter.
 
erlrich said:
Ok, help me out here guys - the Storm was made by Isuzu, but had a Toyota engine?
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The Storm GSi IS an Isuzu - a Gemini coupe, specifically, which doesn't exist in the US - we got the Impulse coupe and Stylus XS 4 door, all are the same platform and all had the 1.6L DOHC 16v "4XE1-W" engine, rated at 130hp. the XS had a lotus tuned suspension, and was a pretty good car.

So that's 3 models to pull parts from, and I have at least 4 "suspension by lotus" stickers from the front fenders of an XS in my toolbox, so I've come accross at least 2 of them in junk yards (I tend to collect these stickers, i don't know why) this is an evolution of same motor used (but modified) in the FWD Lotus Elan, rated at 130/162 (turblow)hp, though I'm not sure what from that motor would be an IT legal swap to the Gemini line. it DOES mean that parts are out there, though. if you want to spend money, this could be the giant killer in B. and of course, there IS a forum: www.isuzone.org

The isuzu weighs 2430 in B, the Storm 2380. Stylus has better gear ratios - that must be why it weighs more ;)

small-port toyota 4AGE is found in the PRISM GSi, which I think my esteemed college is mistakenly seeing when he reads "storm GSi". we have 4AGEs on the brain.
 
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Chip42 said:
small-port toyota 4AGE is found in the PRISM GSi, which I think my esteemed college is mistakenly seeing when he reads "storm GSi". we have 4AGEs on the brain.
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yep I saw 130hp,Gsi, Geo, and imedeialy thought Small Port 4AGE. My bad. Currently pricing new piston rings for the MR2. so yeah MR2 on the brain.

from a little reading "The Storm lacked the Impulse's Lotus-tuned suspension ". So what the storm share the suspension with?

specs of storm gsi

http://www.isuzuperformance.com/isupage/hist/specstorm.html
 
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Remember Toyota and GM had that NUMMI joint venture plant out in California turning out Corollas and Chevy Novas (and Spectrums) so the Toyota engine in Isuzus isn't really that far out.


Bob Clifton
#05 ITB Dodge Daytona
 
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I think there's some Geo confusion going on here. I'm too tired to try to work it all out but there are at least two very different cars in the mix.

K
 
Knestis said:
I think there's some Geo confusion going on here. I'm too tired to try to work it all out but there are at least two very different cars in the mix.

K
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_Storm

produced from '90-'93 a round sporty looking car with semi-covered headlights, kina like the gen1 saturn SC-2 look with 10 less hp and a smaller body.

Speak of the devil:

http://www.isuzuperformance.com/isupage/feature/sloc.html

sloc05b.jpg
 
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Knestis said:
I think there's some Geo confusion going on here. I'm too tired to try to work it all out but there are at least two very different cars in the mix.

K
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Yup.

Storm GSi is Isuzu impulse, 4dr equivalent is the stylus XS lotus suspension tunning was all on the throw-away parts anyhow - you'd replace their hard work with konis and eibachs or whatever. If the isuzu were classed today, being a 16v DOHC 130hp FWD car, I think it would be ~2825#? thats 445lbs missing.

Prism GSi is a Toyota corolla, but with a small-port 4A-GE not otherwise sold in this country to my knowledge. yes, these were likely built at NUMMI. the large port 4A-GE is the "rocketship" found inthe MR2, FX16, and AE86 corollas. As I understand it, weighting assumes 130% of stock hp, but the cars only make ~112%, so they have been given some of the missing weight from the storm. conservation of mass, it's the law.
 
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