Building a (TERRIBLE) Racecar for Rallycross

April 25, 2023

First and foremost, what is rallycross. As defined by Wikipedia, rallycross "is a form of sprint style automobile racing, held on a closed mixed-surface racing circuit, with modified production or specially built road cars."

Just based on the description and image above with limited context on the sport, rallycross looks like a very interesting and dirt(y) sport that realistically is questionable in terms of safety and regulations. So like most logical people, my friend (Jake) and I decided that while we did not have multi-millions to drop on a vehicle capable of doing what these beautiful specimen could, we could build something for a race day on an extreme budget.

The year is 2018. COVID hadn't occurred yet, so vehicle prices were still relatively low comparatively to now (2023). At this time I was living in Huntsville, AL (truly an amazing place if you have never had the opportunity to go) for work and Jake decided he would come in for a weekend to visit with the intention of buying, preparing, and racing a car at Hollytree Offroad Park on their dirt track as shown below.

If you were trying to build a track warrior, what would you go for? Our timeline was short (buy car Saturday morning, fix up Saturday afternoon, race on Sunday), so we knew that would be our limiting factor. Here was our criteria for selecting a capable vehicle for rallycross:

• Relatively light-weight
• All-wheel drive /4-wheel drive (or rear wheel drive if unavailable)
• Manual transmission
• Decent tires
• Somewhat reliable
• Sub-$500

If you had faith in our vehicle choice, just go ahead and give it up now. On a positive note, we did manage to hit 1 part of our criteria (ironically the most important part); the car was $300. So what did we buy??? A 2001 Saturn L300...

For those of you that are unfamiliar (like we definitely were), the Saturn L300 was a GM product that received parts bin pieces from a lot of different cars. Here were the highlights about it:

• 3.0L V6 producing about 180HP and 180ft/lbs
• Weighed in at 3,100 pounds stock

Now that we've seen all of the highlights, what were the low-lights of the car (there were a lot):

• Reliability was questionable (especially with the water pump leaking water like a sieve)
• Automatic 4-speed transmission shifting slower than a grandmother in a 1990 Miata
• Tires so bald they about match Dwayne Johnson's head
• Front-wheel drive (sorry no funny reference on this one; just disappointing)

In short, we knew the L300 would not be breaking any records, but we were determined to make it better. So what did we do?

1. Our first priority was around weight. We carefully removed ALL of the interior aside from the front two seats and through it all in the dumpster about 300 yards away (really should have thought this through as this walk was not fun to repeatedly make). This included removal of the soaked carpet (terrible heater core leak), backseat, center console, trunk liner and spare tire, and anything else
   
   
   
   
   
2. Next we figured we had to try and stop the coolant coming into the cabin at least by way of the leaking heater core. Like most brilliant minds, we decided to bypass it by using a $5 hose with clamps purchased from our local Home Depot.
   
   
   
   
   
3. We knew that we needed more power and even more weight savings if possible. How can that be achieved on an extreme budget? Our final modifications were cutting off the catalytic converter (no, we did not realize it would be near as loud as it was) and carefully adding (via rattle-can spray paint) stripes. These two modifications greatly decreased potential resale and definitely removed any ability to drive the vehicle as a normal street car again. We were very proud of our achievement
   

The question you must be wondering is how did it do at Hollytree Offroad the next day. Here was Jake's video from a few years ago:

Believe it or not, the Saturn actually did significantly better than we ever could have expected. There were a couple of problems that we identified specifically around cooling (which was already known and expected) and if hitting the brakes too hard (like foot to the floor) it would stall out. The weight that we removed out of the car was estimated around 300 total pounds, so we should have been around 2,800 pounds total (3,000 including the driver). 

We sold the car just a few months later to a scrapyard as no one wanted it (we weren't surprised). While the Saturn was not what we were looking for, it showed how much fun you can have with any car, especially a decent cheap one.