A friend offered me a good deal on his single seater (Novakar F500) and part of the dilemma is what to do with my coupe. The wife has said previously I can't sell it ( sold it off twice in the last 30 years and the bought it back within 3 or 4) so the question is one of what to use it for, most track days do not allow single seaters so I would use it for 4-5 events per year and the F500 would be used for races and several autocrosses a year. I'd like to see the 1200 used at least once a month so my thought was get some classic car insurance and use it for some Saturday morning car gatherings as well as track days. When we first turned it into a race it was still briefly registered and yes it was rough riding and drafty. I would be interested to hear anyone else's experience with their street going race car.


Tom

Besides the obvious worries of reliability you know you're going to dredd traffic, we don't modify cars to crawl in traffic so you'll be itching to give it a bootful. Not that giving it a bootful is a bad thing

Aren't your car laws super lax?
Here (and in OZ) there are all sorts of hoops to jump through to run modified cars on the street. That's the only thing that would stop most of us from running a racecar on the street.

Back when I started racing my car in the class that morphed into Improved Production, the rules said the car needed to be road registered. This was in the late 80's though, so getting the car registered was simpler. The class was pretty simple, with the same engine rules as IP, full interiors, centre consoles, & LSD's allowed but no welded diffs. So I been there before. Did it all again breifly in the late 90's when I raced in hillclimbs in my Sunny & it was road registered. Wasn't til I bought a cheap Navara & arranged to borrow a friends trailer that I deregistered the car. The main thing I always did was make sure the radiator was as big as possible. Rough riding, noisy, difficult to drive in traffic, highly visible to the police, all these I could live with. Overheating, pumping out all the water & making more steam than a steam engine, not amusing. So just make it overkill on the engine cooling, & the rest is just character. You could also check into mufflers, the Sunny had a hi flow muffler that was very good at low speeds, nice & quiet, but had a nice note at speed, without too much restriction. Putting some carpet back in will quieten it down abit, too. You'll soon be cutting them up on the on ramps like you do now on the track.

I kept this one road registered. Didn't drive it on the road much, but it was handy being able to drive it when needed. This photo was taken as I unloaded it from the trailer on the side of the road on the way home from Morgan Park (about 2.5hrs from home) so I could tow a mate's 240Z with a blown diff, and he drove my 1200 home.



Main issue with road manners was the noise in the cabin. I used to wear earplugs before I got the car trailer and was driving it to and from events. It really wasn't any more harsh or uncomfortable in ide quality than any late model Jap import on coilovers. And the beauty of L series is even top effort race/rally engines are still very torquey and tractible. It had an overdrive box with 4.3 diff so was no problem on the highways. Some of the little A series racers with really low diffs and peaky engines would not be anywhere near as streetable.

I wear ear plugs on track so nothing that's not a problem. The 5 gallon fuel cell limits any sort of "road trip" in it. The A15 in the car now has a moderate cam so it will trundle around the pits and from a stop if you take off in cruise mode it doesn't need the 4500 RPM tire squirming start. The gearing is indeed low 4.38 rear gear and 1-1 top gear with 20.6" diameter Hoosiers.....................4-5K on the highway would be the norm.

Your point about the L series engine is well taken, if it no longer needs to fit a vintage race class then an moderately tuned L-series would be the way to go seeing as it's one of the easiest engine swaps................If I sold the A12 A15 and gearbox that would more than pay for a moderately built L-series motor and 5 speed box. Having put the H190 LSD in the car that would support any L-series motor.

Tom

Just put bigger tank in it and drive it. Collect l parts once motor dies

Street legal means headlight, brake lights, turn signals and a couple of other items. If the car has a title it can be registered modified or not. That's the beauty of living in the US.
I have never been pulled over even with the loud exhaust. Speeding is something on a different note.

The last A-series took 20 years before I needed to rebore it. It was still running even with 75-80 pounds of cranking pressure.

Tom