Building a Sports Car on a Budget

[thestig1998]

Hello friends, I'm contemplating buying a book, namely- "Build a sports car for 250£ and race it"- http://www.amazon.in/Build-Your-Own-Sports-Car/dp/1844253910
The donor cars listed though are all rear wheel drive, and getting such a car in india is a problem. Can a front wheel drive vehicle like a city, or the escort Orion (which has a similar engine to the ford sierra used as a donor vehicle in the book) be used?

 

[bhvm]

I think for Indian conditions, Esteem would be best bet. Simple to understand, cheap to buy.
Next best option would be Swift 1.3. The engine is very well known and with some well made Maps from petes, along with some hardware mods, that thing shall fly!

 

[Nanofreak]

A budget sports car!!!, well the jelly bean Zen comes to my mind, turn it into a 2 door, put sports seats, as @bhvm has suggested get a performance ecu tuned, and a FF exhaust, with huge fog lamps.

You can see lots of mods on Zen from Kerala on FB for inspiration.

 

[kkn13]

What about first gen City, arguably the fastest Honda City and was aerodynamically limited
The VTEC has tonnes of mods and is probably one of the easiest engines to work with

Swift 1.3 - I assume you are referring to the 1.3 MJD
I had this engine in 3 of our cars in the past
Very very torquey and has an extreme pushback feel in the Ritz, its more sedate in other cars in comparison
I havent felt that same raw torque in most cars this side of 30L

 

[bhvm]

Yes, I was talking about swift 1.3 MJD.
Best thing is that the engine is not as "Ancient" as others (esteem etc) but still well known, and has limitless Aftermarket mod options including remaps, Dieseltronic ECU, FFE, High flow intake etc.

Finding spares will be easy. The lower weight of Swift will help performance compared to Honda city, Esteem etc. Best thing is its a diesel! And like kkn13 mentioned, Torque and Fuel efficiency too!

P.s- Ritz being a sales dud will be also a good buy in budget. Same engine, Almost same mechanicals. I bet with some mods it'll look just as cool.