ebay car

[Josh Pitt]

sounds like there is a reason they are being sold on ebay, and not on this site; looking for someone who doesnt know what they are buying, and no dialogue from a website on the product offered.
sounds like frank rizzo didnt dodge a bullet as he stated, but rather he dodged a howitzer shell

[Matt Conrad]

I have not seen the cars that are still remaining unsold, but I did see one of the earlier cars that was sold and honestly it looked pretty good. There are many things on the car that will need to be "tweaked", and I'm not sure if the cars can be homologated for SCCA...but if someone isn't going to go SCCA racing...the car I saw would be perfect.

The powdercoated chassis reminded me of a school car (a bit overbuilt), and I would guess it was MIG-welded mild steel construction. The bodywork was professionally painted and looked like it was fairly decent quality fiberglass...albeit a bit on the heavy side.

The car I saw had not been abused in any way...it looked pretty new. I believe the car came with a complete spare body, wings, wheels, and several other spare parts. For the owner I spoke to...he was pretty happy with it...and I bet he'll have some fun this summer.

Matt Conrad

[FrankRizzo]

Frank, Frank, Frank......Have you been holding out on us?

You guys? NEVER! (Did you notice that some fool..err..person has bid on them?)

[FrankRizzo]

I have not seen the cars that are still remaining unsold, but I did see one of the earlier cars that was sold and honestly it looked pretty good. There are many things on the car that will need to be "tweaked", and I'm not sure if the cars can be homologated for SCCA...but if someone isn't going to go SCCA racing...the car I saw would be perfect.

The powdercoated chassis reminded me of a school car (a bit overbuilt), and I would guess it was MIG-welded mild steel construction. The bodywork was professionally painted and looked like it was fairly decent quality fiberglass...albeit a bit on the heavy side.

The car I saw had not been abused in any way...it looked pretty new. I believe the car came with a complete spare body, wings, wheels, and several other spare parts. For the owner I spoke to...he was pretty happy with it...and I bet he'll have some fun this summer.

Matt Conrad

If you still have contact with the guy, send him a link! I'd like to hear how he makes out with them. (If they fly apart in the first corner of the first turn, or anything like that).

[George Dean]

I will let you guys know how it goes

George

George Dean's Racing Engines

[glenn cooper]

Rob is spot on....I've seen McBrides, Maisey's, and these heaps out of the WSIR school. Trust me when I say the school cars don't even rank.

You could jump into Maisey's or McBride's car and be racing the same day.

The school cars would need a complete redo and frankly I feel they are poorly engineered. Look good in photo's but...

Gary
Edge Engineering
FB #76

Straight out, Word...

[FlyingBrian]

Frank-

You only have 2 hours left to bid on these 2 rust buckets!


lol.....

[FrankRizzo]

frank-

you only have 2 hours left to bid on these 2 rust buckets!


Lol.....

must.....not.....bid....

:d

[JDS]

[FONT=Arial]As the purchaser of the first two of these cars {one for myself, one for a friend} I thought it might be time to chime in. I'll just start by saying I'm fairly new to F1000 but have an extensive history in motor racing. I've known George Dean for quite some time and started working for him in January of this year. This led me to get involved in helping Dustin Wright of Phoenix Raceworks and befriending Stefan Dwornik {former Champcar and F1 racing engineer}. I had a major role in helping build their first 2010 F1K that was driven by Phil De Lao Jr. and campaigned by Phoenix at Thunderhill in March. Knowing that I wanted to step into an F1K car Stefan alerted me of this group of cars on ebay. After a little due diligence I decided with the guidance of Stefan to drive down and see the cars in person, knowing full well that I was ready to come home with an empty trailer if the cars were "heaps" or "rust buckets" {a total of 2200 miles lost if that was the case}. Upon first inspection I was pleased, are these cars on par with a new Stohr, Phoenix, or RFR...No, of course not, but they're not some cheesy old Jim Russell or Bondurant FF school cars either. After a full day of pulling off bodywork, checking compression and completely inspecting all the cars, {again with Stefan's help and guidance} we decided on two of them. Now I'd be lying if I didn't say that I picked the two cleanest and mechanically right of the four cars, {the advantage of being the first guy there with money} neither of which were shown on ebay I might add, and yes there is a lot of work to be done and yes the cars must be gone through from nose to tail, but as Stefan said to me "you have all the right bits here to make a really nice race car, everything just needs to be tweaked a little",coming from a guy who used to work for Dale Coyne Racing among others, I value his opinion and decided to buy. So off to Phoenix I went for some tweaking, now keep in mind these cars aren't ready for SCCA the way they sit, a few things needed to be addressed are chassis homologation, Kevlar added to the body side panels, and 13 inch wheels. The cars have 14 inch wheels now and the brake rotors are to large to accommodate 13's, so rotors will have to be changed and possibly uprights to accommodate a single wheel nut setup. After two weeks of cutting pushrods, modifying links, building brackets, adjusting pedals, pouring a proper seat, installing pull nuts where needed, changing out bolts and fasteners, cleaning, tweaking and more tweaking, etc. etc.....we were finally able to put the car on the setup pad for the initial ride height and setup adjustment. I am quite pleased with the result. Future plans for the car include a proper floor, rear diffuser, rear wing end plates, and everything needed to make the car SCCA ready. I may consider getting away from the monoshock setup, but would like to be on to another car by then, only time will tell. I have a background in manufacturing racing vehicles so all of this work and future work seems fairly minor to me, to others it my seem like more of an issue, but considering I spent around 11k on a new 125 shifter setup to go road racing, without spares, and you could buy one of these cars for 10k.....Even if someone were willing to point the money hose at one of these things to the tune of another 15k, you still would be less than half of the cost to buy a brand new Formula 1000 and you could have a better than mid-pack SCCA F1K car. Granted you did the right things to it. Now I know it might not be the right choice for everybody, but if you have the mechanical ability and have knowledge of Formula cars or know someone who does it seems like a NO-BRAINER to me, but that's just my opinion, everybody has one. If anyone is thinking about one of the remaining cars or has any questions, I'll do my best to help, just contact me directly at jon@jdsextreme.com I won't be responding back to this thread. I hope to see some of you at the track and best of luck in your racing endeavors!! JDS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKAY6CZUabg[/FONT]

[tjcezar]

there you go. From lemons to lemonade just like that. Have fun and tare it up! The car looks great and for the money you can't go wrong.

[rynoracer]

Frank-

You only have 2 hours left to bid on these 2 rust buckets!


lol.....

Its funny how loose the facts become when they hit the chat room.... we at R3 have never spoken to any one other than the gentleman ( and i say it in the true sense of the word) who purchased two of our school cars.. As for the other clowns that bad mouth our product and spread untrue rumors without truly seeing the cars may you blow a head gasket on your first lap of the weekend (if you even have your own car) and eat a spoiled tuna fish sandwich !

[carnut169]

Cars look neat.
I am curious how the monoshock works without a shuttle assembly... on my 96 Van Diemen (also a mono-shock front end) the shuttle assemble would allow one wheel to have damping without effecting the other wheel by sliding one end of the shock away from the bump... it would also help turn in by pushing down on the inside (unloaded) wheel. The relationship between the beville washers (springs) in the shuttle assembly and the spring on the shock was paramount in properly tuning the car.

It seems like on these cars if the right side hit a bump it would force the left wheels up as well....


IHMO, and I have not seen the cars personally, if you were looking to race F1k without spending a ton of cash the RF94-95 McBride is selling (under $13k ready to go) or Maisey's 99 (?) Novak conversion can be raced right now without having to spend the extra $15k, plus are proven cars.

Who knows, maybe the R3 will be the hot ticket once ready to run.

[Ananth K]

I am curious how the monoshock works without a shuttle assembly... on my 96 Van Diemen (also a mono-shock front end) the shuttle assemble would allow one wheel to have damping without effecting the other wheel by sliding one end of the shock away from the bump... it would also help turn in by pushing down on the inside (unloaded) wheel. The relationship between the beville washers (springs) in the shuttle assembly and the spring on the shock was paramount in properly tuning the car.

It seems like on these cars if the right side hit a bump it would force the left wheels up as well....

The monoshock found on these cars here is actually fairly current practice on F1 cars (I'm talking circa 2009). Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yllVwBEZj8

The only negative I can think of in the R3 setup is there is no roll damping other than from the tire and friction in the suspension, but should one feel the need for it, that should be pretty easy to fix using something like the Brawn car in the video.

[Rennie Clayton]

The monoshock found on these cars here is actually fairly current practice on F1 cars (I'm talking circa 2009). Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yllVwBEZj8

The only negative I can think of in the R3 setup is there is no roll damping other than from the tire and friction in the suspension, but should one feel the need for it, that should be pretty easy to fix using something like the Brawn car in the video.

Ananth,

Regarding the Brawn: that's a 3rd spring with torsion bars as the primary springs; most definitely not a monoshock.

Either way, easy to convert these cars to use a more conventional suspension at the front. The rear monoshock, however, does use a shuttle.


Cheers,
Rennie

[Ananth K]

Ananth,

Regarding the Brawn: that's a 3rd spring with torsion bars as the primary springs; most definitely not a monoshock.

Either way, easy to convert these cars to use a more conventional suspension at the front. The rear monoshock, however, does use a shuttle.


Cheers,
Rennie

sorry rennie, my wording was confusing. I meant to say that they are conceptually the same, save for the twin dampers in the Brawn (which I suppose makes it NOT a monoshock).

The reason is that although there are torsion bars in the brawn, the 3rd spring still takes a significant proportion of the bump loads, without adding roll stiffness, obviously. This is similar to the R3 car with the difference that ALL the bump loads go through the single bump spring. Everything else works exactly the same.

The Brawn is an interesting design. The bumpstop is still in the damper not in the 3rd spring, and there is an anti-roll bar in the 3rd bellcrank, which adds roll stiffness. Weird, I dont quite understand what the tradeoffs were, packaging possibly?

[tjcezar]

LMAO

Its funny how loose the facts become when they hit the chat room.... we at R3 have never spoken to any one other than the gentleman ( and i say it in the true sense of the word) who purchased two of our school cars.. As for the other clowns that bad mouth our product and spread untrue rumors without truly seeing the cars may you blow a head gasket on your first lap of the weekend (if you even have your own car) and eat a spoiled tuna fish sandwich !

[FlyingBrian]

LMAO

I Know! lol.....it's like he doesn't even think those of us that were interesded compared notes.

Its funny how loose the facts become when they hit the chat room.... we at R3 have never spoken to any one other than the gentleman ( and i say it in the true sense of the word) who purchased two of our school cars..

What's even funnier is what people say when CYA mode kicks in.

[FrankRizzo]

And I guess TECHNICALLY he's right. I talked to the guy at the school, NOT someone from R3 racing.

And, since we're here. It sounds like the right kind of guy bought the 1st 2. He says he's not coming back, so I can't congratulate him, but he seems to have the right attitude, and the skill necessary to make them work. I wish him the best of luck. I really do.

Now about those cup holders.

[carnut169]

The reason is that although there are torsion bars in the brawn, the 3rd spring still takes a significant proportion of the bump loads, without adding roll stiffness, obviously. This is similar to the R3 car with the difference that ALL the bump loads go through the single bump spring. Everything else works exactly the same.

I understand that a single spring is capable of all bump- I raced a 96vd for years and loved it. What I'm saying is what happens when only 1 wheel experiences bump as often happens when a driver hits curbing.

[tjcezar]

I e-mailed this seller and they told me the cars would definately need to be gone over with a little tlc also they said there were many different combnations of parts etc. since there were 4 different cars and many misc. parts. If you didn't realize they were gonna need some tweeking or that it was gonna be hard (or impossible) to get parts for a car that was custom fabricated you shouldn't have been looking at these cars. It seemed like two folks went on a tangent about these cars and even questioning the integrity of the seller (who they did not know) but never even went to look at them so it was just speculation. I'm sure the sellers were frustrated with all the window shoppers (as I have been in the past) so their descriptions may have been short and eradict but the guy who was a serious buyer went and looked at them and was happy with what he SAW that's why he purchased. I am not saying the deal was good or bad just funny how this thread went from congratulating the almost buyer to calling the cars junk. Either way that is an example of the down side to forums like this. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch

[FlyingBrian]

I think everyone that looked at these cars realized they were going to need some work.
For you to say they needed "tweaking" is the understatement of the decade, and shows how little you actually understood about the condition of the cars you kicked the tires on in the first place.


To begin with, they need a nose-to-tail overhaul, a new floor, a diffuser, a full suspension re-design, problems with the differential sorted out, new brakes and wheels, and chassis mods to gain SCCA homologation.

I was looking at the cars with an eye to having them made track worthy, and then flipping 'em. In the end, I decided that even at $8500 a piece they were not a good buy -- the design had major flaws and needed LOTS of work to fix -- and no one works for free.

There are well sorted VD conversions for sale at under 15 grand, making the risk of this deal far greater than the upside. They will be a difficult re-sale. Very, very difficult.



.....and just because someone doesn't cut a cheque to buy them, doesn't make them a tire kicker -- in this case, I believe it was the smart thing to do.



On the flipside, the gentleman that bought them made a 2200 mile round trip with a trailer in tow without having the slightest idea what he would find at the other end. He paid top-dollar to a company who was desperate to sell them because, in the words of one of the partners, the company needed a cash infusion badly. While I wish the hobbyist who purchased them all the best, a lack of information and business acumen definitely worked against him here.


Frank is absolutely correct - the right kind of person did buy these cars -- a hobbyist who can do all the work themselves, to keep cash outlay down, and not look at the investment of time and materials from a cost-benefit point of view. I'm sure he'll be proud as punch in the end driving a car that he, essentially, re-designed and re-built as he should be!



Also, make no mistake about the reason the purchaser and seller chimed in on this thread. The purchaser is trying to justify his purchase publicly, while going back at the seller questioning why he overpaid by almost 100% over another deal that was in place, and the seller is trying to diffuse the situation by claiming there were no other interested parties.

[tjcezar]

If you did not go look at them no point One thing to speak an oppinion but another to try and sabotage a sale that you only speculated about. The demeaner of the multiple posts were not cool. very bad . There are definately a couple of Fb for sale now that are great deals and I would def suugest them over the R3 cars but we are all different some look for projects some want race ready scca cars some with price cap etc. Remember alot of us are hobbiest and from what I learned so far if your in this for an investment your barking up the wrong tree. Maybe it wasn't a good deal for you to flip and make some quick $ but that's no reason to commit sabotage and no I am not getting paid for the countless hours working on my car but I do it cause I enjoy it. Show some class.

[FlyingBrian]

Dude, you really have no idea what you're talking about here.

I have hundreds of megabytes of hi-res detail photos of these cars, and an engineer on the ground in California. I know exactly what he was selling, and exactly why I backed out.

You, on the other hand, have shown you know next to nothing about the cars in question....cars that I was in discussions to purchase before you even found them on eBay.


tjcezar, you seem to be going quite the distance giving this guy and his cars the 'ol reach around for someone that's not involved.

[JohnPaul]

the 'ol reach around for someone that's not involved.

Ha, the ole' reach around! maybe you can explain what a reach around is for people that might not know!

[Brands]

: ) Maybe we should draw a line under this thread before it decends into an Autoracing1.com style mud slinger of a forum!?

[tjcezar]

Once again you mistake my posts. I am neither for or against these cars cause I never saw them (although i did also get the detailed pics though). Your comments crossed the line cause rather than simply stating a fair opinion you (and another) decided to go on a bashing session. Maybe I will wait for you to put something for sale and then I will do the same to you and your product and see how you like it. And then afterwards you can give me the reach around cause all this nonsense is making me tense. . I'm done.
Final Word

[glenn cooper]

a buncha Apexspeed - I'm goin' to autoracing1.com where the mud is thick and the women are thicker!

[FrankRizzo]

In my own defense, I placed an eBay bid on one of the cars in question. (I would have gotten my pick, as all 4 were still available at the time). I won the auction, and it wasn't until I got the vibe that these were "one-offs" that I got nervous. I then called the seller, and he told me that he had someone who wanted all 4, the spares, the molds, everything! And that he wanted to cancel my auction, and sell this other person the whole lot. (Which was fine with me). So, he cancelled the auction, and I posted that fact.

I never saw the cars in person, and only saw the pics on eBay. So, I know nothing about them.

[RobLav]

So Coopstar likes his women thick?

[FlyingBrian]

a buncha Apexspeed - I'm goin' to autoracing1.com where the mud is thick and the women are thicker!

I imagine there are other WEBsites that cater better to that fetish. hehe.

Maybe I will wait for you to put something for sale and then I will do the same to you and your product and see how you like it.

Funny......but I do not recall these cars ever being listed for sale here.

They were being sold in a different forum, and simply being commented on by several members here, of which my remarks were not even the most disparaging.



Making negative remarks in someone else's listing here on apexspeed is a different matter entirely. It's against the rules, and rightfully so.

[carnut169]

I'm thinking it's time to lock this thread....