gregplatt wrote:Needed Car UpgradesSecond windows upgrade to lexan?
The hood is very heavy, possibly build a carbon fiber or fiberglass hood, possibly even all the body panels:
Other ideas???
-I've been looking online at a company in england that makes a carbon fiber kit, it includes everything to make the mold and build the part, sets up at room temperature, looks amazing, I'll find the url
There are definitely lots of opportunities for weight loss here. If you don't care too much about aesthetics, you can make your own panels from glass or CF. CF isn't going to gain you any more in weight savings than CF unless it is used in a structural part. For parts which are readily available though, you will probably spend less just buying them. Making molds is very expensive, especially if your time is valuable.The handling is horrible, we couldn't make any changes to the suspension due to the rules. The front is still UFO setup. The camber needs fixed badly, and we need to drop the car by literally 6 to 10 inches, no joke it looks like it's lifted, I think we took out well over 1000 pounds. Possibly upgrade the bushings etc...
-2bennet has a full suspension setup
http://www.2bennett.com/body_5000_200_suspension.html, pretty expensive at $2k but you get adjustable shocks front and rear, coilovers and the really nice camber plates.
I've also looked at the DIY write ups on the suspension but I'm not sure if it would be much cheaper, or more reliable??
The 2bennett kit is not designed for racing use, not at the $2k price at least. I'm sure they are capable of shortening the strut housings and getting you Koni race struts to fit, but it's going to cost you FAR more than $2k for them to do that. Their camber plates are nice enough. Take a look at the V8 DTM car's suspension setup in the front for ideas here. They run the most camber and castor possible in the front with fixed plates configured as such.
You might consider playing with various sway bars front and back. The V8 DTM cars also used rather large swaybars up front contrary to popular belief that front sways will cause a car to understeer more... it depends on too many other factors to always say that. So try a few things out there.
Back to the coilovers... I think you are going to have to go the DIY route. You will want to shorten the strut housings by at least 1.5" to be at a height appropriate to what you want to do and still retain some suspension travel. What you do with the rest of the suspension components to retain geometry is going to be up to you and where the car ends up. Anyway, DO NOT attempt to run Koni or Bilstein sport struts on this car. You will probably want to be running 600-700+ lb/in springs and those struts will blow out in VERY quick order with those spring rates. In the front end, you will either need to look into re-valved and shortened regular Koni/Bilsteins or Koni racing struts. The other option would be external reservoir struts, but that might be better for a later iteration. Look at what Josh and Nick S. did recently for double adjustable rear coilovers. Right now we really like the 17z's up front with the C230 disks, cheap parts, we only pay $110 per caliper rebuilt and $50 for the drilled rotors. Only problem is the pads are really expensive, hawks are $250 per... Thinking about changing to Wilwoods, they have cheap racing pads, even though the setup is more. I'm not sure if I need more in the rear, seems to be fine stock, the car is so heavy in the front.
Need to add a bias valve though.
Need to change to wheel studs instead of bolts, bolts are the worst during a pitstop, I saw a conversion kit somewhere.
I think this is a good idea (changing out to the Wilwoods). You'll make up for it quickly I think.We are running an old set of speed lines, they are 17x8". They have an odd drop step in the wheel though and I think that they are close to a 16" wheel on the inside, we really had to grind down the 17z's!
We run a 180 tread rating tire, so we have a few different sets that we like, that's pretty easy.
We need to find one more set of lightweight wheels, perferebly 9 or 10" wide, we run 255's right now.
You should be able to run 275s on a 9-10"wheel at all four corners with the kind of camber you will want to be running up front. Rear is no problem to run at least that much.This is the big one, I believe our timing belt skipped last year and crunched some valves. We race street tracks, usually around 2 miles in length. We need good reliable power, not crazy drag power, more revs the better. we are on a budget so we can't get to exotic.
Head: Thinking stock valves, springs etc. Repair them and surface the head
Block: Try and get by with what we have, it's a 200K mile stock short block
Exhaust: Upgrade the manifold, 3" downpipe, right now it's a stock down pipe with 3" exhaust out the back now muffler. Maybe do a side pipe out the b pillar passanger side.
Turbo: Thinking Garret BB possibly GT 3071 or GT30r not sure.
Wastegate: maybe Tial drop in
Ignition: Deffinetly coilovers or ls2 coils
Intake: one of the cool redisigned jobs for the 3b??
ECU: Deffinelty VEMS I think, V3 harness start from scratch
Intercooler: Not sure, craigslist special, custom piping with v bands?? Really like v bands for race repairs, makes it much easier
I would advocate for the inconel exhaust valves too. They are cheap insurance against a valve dropping.
I would throw rods in that short block also. It is cheap enough and will ensure that your 450 hp goal is achieved safely at the track. It's one thing to make that power on the street, but another to do it on the track where conditions are far less than ideal.
Exhaust-wise, you won't need anything more than 3" especially if you aren't running a muffler. An RS2 evo manifold would probably be OK, but it never hurts to have a nice tubular manifold from Hank. You can't go wrong either way. Don't try to run a side exit exhaust under the car. It will scrape things, especially when at the kind of ride height you are talking about. It'd be kinda cool to run it inside the car and out the side like the trans am cars did! You could always do a hood exit too if you run out of money! lol
Turbo - 3071 size will do well for you in terms of power output. I'd definitely go with what will be the most responsive (like the equivalently-sized EFR), but I doubt if it is cheaper than a regular gt3071! Just make sure to run the thing in it's efficiency range if you get an EFR. Step out of that by much, and it will go kabloom.
Wastegate - you really shouldn't need an upgrade here, but if you do, you might as well get a water-cooled one from Tial. There is no more reliable wastegate than a Tial.
Ignition - Yes, coils. I'd probably go with coil over plug like the R8/2.0tfsi coils. They'll save weight, are reliable, quick to change out, and have great output. They are being used on multiple 800 whp+ setups including my own (in the future).
Intake - not necessary at these power levels, but doesn't hurt...
Definitely go with VEMS for ECU. It will do everything you need and more.
Intercooler - the biggest and most efficient intercooler you can fit within reason in a 200 20v is this one, the Treadstone TRV25.
http://www.treadstoneperformance.com/product.phtml?p=86217&cat_key=63&prodname=TRV25+Series+Intercooler++1000HP
I fit it with same side end tanks. It probably wouldn't fit with opposite side end tanks unless you found a good way to route the pipe by cutting something unnecessary, etc. It will definitely fit with same side facing end tanks though. You can get cast 90 deg aluminum elbows to help with clearance coming out of it. It's that close... 90 deg silicone couplers probably wont fit without getting creative somehow.
On that subject, I would highly recommend you get some VanJen clamps. They will allow for more flex than v-bands do, they are arguably easier to put on and take off than v-bands (if you have alignment issues), and make a nice and reliable seal. Plus they look sweet 
Gearbox is making metal and leaking badly at the input shaft seal. Would love to put a dsg in this!!! but way to hard I think. Probably just pull it and rebuild, it's the 5 speed. We spend most of our time in 2nd and 3rd.
Clutch masters said they had an aluminum flywheel and custom cluth setup, seemed the cheapest good route. Right now we have a kevlar cluth on the stock flyweel and pressure plate.
I'd see if you can make the 016 work for you. It has much better ratios than the 01E does, and is arguably more reliable than an 01E. They have synchro issues. 016's only start to have issues when you launch them hard repeatedly and/or make about 450 torque at the wheels. Just something to think about.
Right now it's the stock tank and pump, fuel regulator etc...
Would love a Fuel safe setup, dry break, dual 44 pumps and regulator, not sure if it makes sense to spend money in this area yet.
Stock pump should be sufficient, but it wouldn't hurt to have a surge tank or something to baffle the fuel. Twin pumps is not really a good thing for reliability. The reason? If one pump goes bad, you have a lean condition that will probably cause the engine to lean out, but not enough to stop the engine which would then lead to a total meltdown. A single pump going out (if it fails suddenly rather than slowly dies) will cause the engine to just shut off. Nothing will be harmed.
The dry break fittings are awesome though Would love to switch to wilwood pedal box on a slider, instead of the seat on a slider. That way the seat could be pushed back further helping with the front weight issue.
Need to ditch the factory cluster, it's to hacked up. I've been looking at the AIM system , even the GT Wheel
http://www.aim-sportline.com/eng/products-car/gt-steering-wheel/index.htm or the MXL dash. Also the Dash2Pro
https://www.race-technology.com/gb/racing/products/display-products/dash2-pro. Both work with the vems inputs, the wheel would be pretty trick.
Nothing to comment on here Need to get this car to handle better, need to lower it, camber around 2 degrees or so, balance it better, not sure???
See suspension section above for ideas there. Corner balancing and having the struts valved accordingly is also helpful.Need some cool aero items, doesn't make that much of a difference I don't think, but looks cool
Front lip, rear wing, diffuser, who knows. Possibly try and make a completly new bumper, the factory one looks horrible without the chrome trim
::We have races coming up soon so I'm in high speed mode, any ideas are greatly appreciated, no mater how crazy, I even dream about running a compound diesel style dual turbo system, maybe next year. I'll choose what we do by the concensus of whoever chimes in.
Thanks in advance... I'll include lots of pictures and videos
That'd be cool! I'm all for a compound setup. Also, look into quick spool valves. A lot of times the engine can't even swallow enough air to take advantage of turbos like the smaller EFRs on a quick spool valve, but the boost can be down-regulated to still provide a lot of benefit from it. I honestly think that'd be all you'd need if you had someone who knows how to set it up properly. It isn't the easiest, but it is certainly doable.
Looking forward to seeing where this goes. 
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I thought about doing a compound turbo set up myself, but I promise a quick spool valve and an EFR will leave you completely satisfied. 