Boxster build question

[andy97]

Folks, just idle curiosity really but i have seen a few Boxsters available for sale from £25-30K & yet I know that a Cat D donor Boxster can be had for about £7-8K & the control kit costs £3.3K - I know that mahours can be expensive but where does the extra c£12k worth of expense come from when there is very little that can be done to the engine & car etc?

As I say, just an idle enquiry as 924s are more in my price range but a friend of mine is considering building one.

As an aside, what impact do you think that the PCGB decsion to allow 3.2S Boxsters in to its Club series will have?

[PAUL@TEAMRAPIDMOTORS]

Hi Andy

man hours does take up a lot of the boxster build costs (I am currently building a boxster myself)

but tyres, seat, harnesses, fire extinguisher, door cards, cables, hard-top, steering wheel+boss, service parts etc,

etc, etc...... add up very quickly!!

even though a cat-D boxster can be bought for around 7-8k as a bodyshop owner I would not recomend this

if the car is not 100% straight i.e chassis, sub-frames etc.. you will never be able to get the car correctly set-up and

seeing as you will actually be racing the car oppposed to popping down to the shops in it this is much more critical!!

buy the best straight boxster you can afford, there are plenty available around the 10k mark

regards

[andy97]

Thanks Paul, I understand!

Can the camber on the Boxsters be adjusted? Is this the reason why the regs (of both the BRSCCC & PCGB series) allow the adjustable lower suspension control arms from a GT3 to be fitted?

[andy97]

One more thing, if I may; the regs for the BRSCC series & the PCGB series appear to be virtually identical where Boxsters are concerned but does the BRSCC Spec cage go through the bulkhead to the front struts?

[Jayson Flegg]

Hi there!

The regs for the other championship 'we're' the same because they basically copy and pasted our regs! Which is quite bizarre considering 2 yrs ago they were slating the boxsters saying they were not a viable race car!!!

Our regs have been changed for the 2011 season to help tighten up the spending on the cars and so keep the racing closer and more down to driver ability!

If you build your own boxsters you can do it cheaper than the 25-30 that they are forSale for but it is alot of work, not impossible though!

If you are interested yourself in the 924 cars there is a beautiful example for sale for £3000 which was on the Racecar live stand and is on the photos in our website! If you want any help at all please feel free to call me on 07734 428401 I am Jayson Flegg the rep for the 924's

And your last question about the other championship! Well if you want to spend more on the membership, more on the race fees, and more for your Tyres with less track usability out of each set then the other series is for your friend!
If however you want value for money with a great atmosphere and a championship run by the drivers for the drivers then we are worth a serious look!

We were the ones who have done all of the homework on the boxsters first and the first championship to run them as a championship, so I feel that we are the ones who are the most experienced with these cars!!

[andy97]

Jason, I already have one race car (A Toyota Saloon for CSCC Tin Tops) but am tempted by a 924 as well for a mixture of CSCC "Future Classics", the 360 MRC 6 hour race & maybe some of your events but it depends on finances & won't know the state of those for several weeks yet.

With respect to the Boxsters, I really like the idea of racing one & think its a great concept but probably out of my budget range unless I sell the Toyota & do the work myself (difficult for me!). As I said, though, a friend of mine is interested in the Boxsters & I'd probably help him out a bit with his racing. That said, I have been made a great offer this w/e (since my first post on this subject) to build a car for free if I source all the parts. If I was to go down that route then I'd still want to race it in the CSCC "Deutsche Marque" series in a shared drive (40 minute races for one or two drivers in all CSCC races except Spa which is 1 hour) and maybe rent the car out to someone for the BRSCC series to mke the build & my own racing affordable for me. I enjoy my racing but I know I'm not quick enough to do the car justice!

I understand the pique at the copying of the Boxster regs by PCGB but I actually think its a good thing for you! People may be attracted to the idea of racing in PCGB & then build a car, but may also race wth you and vice versa. The more places to race a car to a given set of regs then the more likely it is to get lots of Boxsters built. There are now 3 places to race a Boxster - BRSCC, PCGB & CSCC - and that can only help encourage people to build cars.

(Might take a trip to PH Sportscars on thursday just to tease myself & see what he has in stock in the way of Boxsters!!!!! But, the 924 you mentioned also looks good at the value endof the market!)

[Dave Hughes]

Hi Andy

I have had a boxster for last years championship.

Just to answer you exactly. My car cost roughly below, having it done by a specialist porsche builder. I did none of the work myself otherwise it would never have finished a race.

Car £9000
Replace Clutch £1000
Kit £3200
Cage Install £1200
Internal & External Paintwork £1500
New Custom Exhaust £1200
Adding weight to the car £300
Dashboard Flocking £250
Custom Short shifter & knob £250
New Steering Wheel £150
Extra set of Rims £800ish
Transponders & Datalogger/ Camera etc £1500
Custom seat brackets £400
Carbon door trims £250
Custom Rear Spoiler mount £150
Custom windscreen blower £100
130 Hours stripping and refitting parts, fitting datalogger in to dash etc.

Approx 25k

If you can do this yourself you can obviously save on man hours and ive had a lot of stuff done just because it looks nice rather than being neccasary. You could if you have more mechanical brains than me build one for about £15-18. I would just rather pay the extra to be able to blame someone else if it goes wrong.

So in conclusion. DIY about 18K
Get a pro in about £25k

Got to say though the maintenence on these cars is minimal. we have spent hardly anything since then maintaining and running the car apart from tyres brakes etc.

Looking forward to this year now with, nice cheap season ahead hopefully.

[andy97]

Dave, that's a very useful break down, many thanks. Why the custom exhaust, was that an esentialor a nice to have?

Did you have the engine taken apart and "optimised" (matched weight pistons from a batch of 20 etc etc!) and did you fit a modified or deeper sump?

[Dave Hughes]

Custom Exhaust was only really to make it sound a little more like a race car instead of and electric milk van.(far to quiet). It also added a bit to the bhp, not sure exactly how much it adds but it does add a bit. Its not essential but after testing last year at silverstone and not being able to hear the car coming up the straight was dissapointing, so we got one made. Its only different from the cats back as we also cant remove or replace oem cats. (it now sounds more like a race car. Just a shame the driver cant do it any justice!!!!

The engine has remained as standard, apart from having a larger sump, and a different breather fitted, oh and a proper air filter for this year. Not really allowed to do anything else to the engine. We dont want to start messing with to much on the engines so it easy for someone to build a car and be competative straight away.