Club240.com Time Attack 180sx

Introduction

So you want to race in a highly competitive national level of road course, but you do not have the time, resources, or willingness to race in serious wheel to wheel competition.  What are you to do?  Time Attack!  Over the past couple years, time trial AKA Time Attack, has increased dramatically in popularity with events and leagues popping up everywhere.  Driving the growth is the relatively low cost, ease of entering, no expensive license required, and the enjoyment of competing in open road course competition.  Still a grass roots for of competition, we see a large range of vehicles, drivers, and financial backing making for interesting and sometimes unexpected results.

When planning our first Club240 project car, we wanted to build something interesting, fun, and a little different.  With many S-Chassis cars being built for show, street, and drift, we decided to go the grip route and take it to the extreme.  We didn’t simple want to compete, we wanted to win.

First step was to secure a  chassis, for which we stumbled across a bare RHD S13 which had been fully prepped for Formula D drift competition. The car featured a full cage with NASCAR side bars, fuel cell, stitch welded engine bay, and major weight reductions.  By using this as our starting point we were able to eliminate many hours of stripping, prepping, and cage building, however there was still far more prep to be done to get it to our desired level.

 

The Plan

In attempting to produce a vehicle that can compete at the absolute top of it’s class, in this case Unlimited RWD, every aspect of the car must be taken into account to create a fully balanced racing machine.  This meant completing the chassis prep, a well engineered fully adjustable race suspension, a turbo engine producing both a usable power band and enough power be competitive, fade free powerful brakes, and finally an experienced driver. Our plan was simply to through every possible trick we could think of at it, and use the best possible parts/prep.

Chassis

To complete the already tweaked chassis, we simply need to complete the stitch welding job, add a few more braces to the already substantial cage, and remove some excess weight.  In addition to this, extensive use of carbon and lexan will help the 180sx down to its goal wet weight of 2150lbs while still having almost zero flex.

Suspension/Brakes

In road racing suspension is one of if not the most important aspect of any car.  A full set of race grade multi way adjustable dampers is key along with pillow ball fully adjustable suspension links.  In addition to these standard tricks, we will also be opting for a light weight 300zx aluminum hub, all solid metal bushings, and a custom rear cantilever suspension design to top it off leaving the dampers inboard mounted in the rear hatch area. Brakes will come in the form of an aftermarket big brake kit in the front with brake cooling ducts to keep temps down and Z32 rear brakes with deleted parking brake.

Aero

Often neglected or not fully optimized in time attack, aero can play a huge role in increasing corner speed.  A proper mix of well tuned downforce vs drag can make the difference between winning or coming in second.  The Club240 180sx will feature a race grade adjustable front splitter, full flat underbody, custom rear diffuser, and adjustable functional rear wing.  This insures that we will have as much aero help as we need for all scenarios

Engine

At the heart of the car will beat a top to bottom built SR20DET. Retaining a near square bore/stroke, but with increased strength, the power plant will roar to the tune of near 500whp with a relatively broad power band for truly usable power and reliability.  Nearly every part in this motor will be replaced or receive some type of treatment. 

Put this all together in the hands of a professional driver and we are sure to see some interesting results.  In the weeks and months to come, we will be adding detailed articles on the project build and everything involved.  Below you will find a list of our project partners and links to each article as they are added.

Sponsors (updated throughout the build)

201 Motorsports

AEM

AMS Performance

APR

Forge Motorsport

Full-Race

Nukabe Automotive (Cusco/Takata USA)

Stoptech

Supertech