F500 Autocross

[cjt29n]

I have been introduced to SCCA Autocross by watching some events and also entering a couple times last year. I'd like to get into it regularly, but would really like to use something that is fast and not necessarily the same thing everyone else is using. I have been to some club races as well, and I was really intriqued by the F500's. I wondered if they would be good autocross cars, particularly if i could find an older model car that would be ok/legal for autox, but perhaps not updated on chassis or engine for club racing, for a relatively low investment. I saw on the classifieds here it looked like this may have been the case on some of the older cars sold previously.

If anyone has any general comments on using the F500 at autox or knows of any older car gathering garage dust, that could be used, let me know.

Thanks

[jim murphy]

F500's make excellent solo cars after they have several things changed on them.
The older cars which are no longer road race competitve make a great low cost deal.
To see where we congregate go to - www.eformulacarnews.com - select forums then go to the F500 section and start reading all the threads about autoxing a F500. Then go crew for the nearest F500 driver either RR or solo and learn as much as you can hands on BEFORE you spend any money - become an educated consumer first.

Jim
Been messing with these cars since 1982

[iamuwere]

I have a KBS mk7 with multiple national solo championships behind it that could be for sale a a good price if you are interested!

[Evl]

What Jim said. An F5 in FM makes an excellent autox car. You might have to put up with some whining by your competitors about the noise, but you'll have a FTD capable car (at least at local events) for a fraction of the cost of anything else there.

[iamuwere]

The direct power application and small size with lots of available very sticky rubber and very light weight make for an incredible autox experience. When my Spitfire broke (again) at an autox, Tim Fulgham let me borrow his Phantom for a run and I started looking for a car the next day. I was hooked. Simple, cheap, and very, very fast. Lots of fun.

[F five hunj]

Buy one.

Nobody out there is going faster for less money than us...

I made the mistake of starting off autocrossing in an F5, which was a mistake. I would have been much better off doing a season, or at least a bunch of event in a normal tin top that I could take an instructor in. Visibility is very different, combined with the speed will make things tough for a rooking in an F5.

[jim murphy]

Buy one.

Nobody out there is going faster for less money than us...

I made the mistake of starting off autocrossing in an F5, which was a mistake. I would have been much better off doing a season, or at least a bunch of event in a normal tin top that I could take an instructor in. Visibility is very different, combined with the speed will make things tough for a rooking in an F5.

Many F500 autoxers have moved up to road racing and done very well - Jim Libecco here and Clint McMahan come to mind. When we have a F500 newbie in a drivers school, many times a fellow F500 driver can become his instructor (if the student asks) and teach the student by using the "follow the instructor" lessons of where the track goes along with "follow the student" for evaluation feedback. This approach has worked very well all the way back to 1982 when I first started.

Jim

[Scootin159]

F500's make great autocross cars - the 2-stroke/CVT drive train is really suited well to autocross duty. On top of that the narrowness of the F500 cars also significantly contributes to their pace - a lot of offsets that require braking for other cars are straights for us.

The only issues F500's have autocrossing are:
1) Overheating - the snowmobile engines like to run COLD, and if you idle a F500 without cooling fans for a long time in grid, you will quickly overheat it. One of the common "road racing" -> "autocross" conversion steps is to upgrade the cooling system. With dual parallel radiators and decent cooling fans you can run the cars all day long without any trouble. The rules are also really friendly on this, with nearly everything cooling related being 100% "open".

2) Understeer - with the locked rear end (single piece rear axle), the cars do have a fair amount of turn-in understeer. This can be tuned out through various tricks (most obvious being running rear tires in the front), but the chassis tuning does end up being a battle between getting power-off rotation and being able to maintain control under power-on.

3) Rough Lots - many autocross sites have zero resemblance to the surface used on a race track. As such, the simplified suspension on an F500 does leave a bit to be desired. That said, you can still get the suspension to work well if you add in enough ground clearance. As Colin Chapman has said - "any suspension will do if you can just keep it from moving".

All told - you're really in for a fun time. After one session test driving an FM, I listed my other autocross car for sale and was right into the F500 classifieds.

[carl berg]

I have a 1989 440 red devil for sale. it runs but needs to be gone thru extra mounted slicks and rains $2100.00 in Wisconsin. Let me know what you think?

Carl