From the responses here it seems like the intent is specifically to *not* be as "spec" as spec E30 or spec Miata. I would imagine the thought process is that if you want "cheap", "identical" racing, there are already two very good options for that, and that maybe this can be a next step between that and more formula-based or professional series.
I'm not sure I would quite call this spec racing, just due to the association with much more highly determined "spec" series, but I can certainly appreciate the market positioning, that hopefully these cars feel a little more like what someone would *want* to build if they had free reign, while maintaining close competition among very similar cars.
I sit on the Street Touring Advisory Committee for SCCA Solo, (a category which allows limited street-friendly mods like suspension and bolt-on power stuff) and I can appreciate the balancing act in designing a ruleset - you want to make them reasonable to implement, while limiting the effect that pushing the rules to the limit will have, and making it a fun place to compete.
I've also competed in my E46s (sport, then ZHP) for the past 8 years, and spent a lot more than $20k building custom swaybar mounts, custom shock and camber plate setups, custom seat mounts, swapped headlights, custom header/exhaust setups, and rebuilding my diff with different ramping and clutch settings. For a $5 acrylic trophy for driving around cones in a parking lot.
I've used two sets of shocks, three front and two rear swaybars, three sets of wheels, tested tires, camber, caster, ride height, bar config, springs, and diff settings, and ultimately even changed cars. For a $5 acrylic trophy for driving around cones in a parking lot.
And I'm *not* one of the really crazy ones, and I don't know ahead of time what the track would be. (yes, I have different setups for tighter or more open courses, and for low-grip situations)
So a lot of the rulesmaking discussions we have within the STAC are about "if I were totally crazy, what would I do with this allowance?", and then deciding whether that's what we want done in our category, because we know that *someone* *will* go there. And a lot of the time the question is about whether someone going there (whether competitively successful or not) is going to convince others that they have to do that to compete, and whether that will discourage participation more than it helps ease of implementation. It's easier for you with a set vehicle, (we manage a ruleset for a couple hundred cars across six classes) but I think a lot of the issues impacting rulesmaking are still the same - what level of crazy is going to impact the desire of your target market to spend their racing budget on that class, rather than something else?
Will it be:
- The guy with a second set of coilovers he swaps out for wet use, or a bumpy track?
- The guy with a second diff he swaps out to optimize for different levels of desired power-on oversteer/push?
- The guy running a standalone ECU and bringing his own 110 octane racing gas that costs $30 a gallon?
- The guy running a custom arm-mounted swaybar front & rear?
- The guy testing 5* of camber vs. 10* of caster vs. gigantic bars, all with custom parts?
I'm not a road racer, just an autocrosser and karter, and so maybe these things are all further beyond the diminishing returns curve in road racing than they are in autocross, where national championships are won and lost by a tenth of a second. Maybe the speed & distance magnify the driver disparities enough not to matter? My apologies for wasting bandwidth if these are not things that really matter in competitive road racing, just trying to poke holes where they may be helpful to the long term health of the series.
Oh, and just to reiterate, the biggest one that concerns me is using the 330, and using it with short gearing. These motors just don't like to rev, and it seems like throwing a 3.46 at them without encouraging supporting mods (like dampers at the very least) is asking for trouble, and they're not exactly E30 or Miata motors in terms of replacement cost... If I were building this class, I might consider building it around the E36 non-M instead. (cheaper to buy, similar power/weight, more durable, cheaper motors that are easier to tune, cheaper diffs)