Originally Posted by
Rick Kirchner
Doug - if you want more entires, I suggest you include Pinto powered cars through 1996, heck, you could go to 97 for that matter - not a lot of them out there anyway. You'll probably pull in a few VDs running SCCA regionals. There are a few rocker cars still running, mostly Swifts and Reynards with the occasional 84-89 VD thrown in (the 84 was pullrod/rocker, as was the 89, the rest were "swift-ish")
I'm trying to remember when the Zetecs came in -2000-ish? as conversions. I believe it was 02 when they started making chassis for that engine - but it was well after the introduction of the new VD chassis in 1998. A lot of the folks here will state lack of Pinto longevity as the reason for the engine change, but I think that the lack of engine bay rigidity and using the engine as a semi-stressed member led to a lot of pinto failures (that same problem was the bane of stock-block engines in indy car chassis).
But '98 was the big change in chassis technology, although you could look at the 97 as a prototype for that. The bellhousing got longer, increasing the wheelbase, eventually the track got wider too. They used universal uprights. This was done on the 97 which was pretty much a 95 chassis that was narrowed in the cockpit, making them too small for most.
Drop me a PM - I have a document that details all the VD chassis changes I can e-mail you.
You may not remember, but I think we started this conversation back in 2015 when I moved to the east coast for a few years. You guys weren't ready for F2000s yet so I ran with the SCCA.
Tom - If you remember the OWWC, I think we had three groups of F2000s. There was the east coast pro guys, then there was a bunch classed as "former SCCA cars" WTF, aren't they all? and then vintage....I just remember it was a mixed bag of stupid. The following weekend, F2000's were classed with F2.... SVRA tends to class formula cars by appearance, not performance.