Autocross and other quick questions!

[Perfectlap]

17? you can't even by yourself a beer! And now you're thinking about buying the roadster that sets the bar in its class? Do you have any idea what you are doing?
You're peaking before you're even out of the gate. Do you understand what that will do to your whole view of the world? After listening to that Porsche engine right behind your ears... it's all going to be one unrealistic expectation after another.
Next you know you're going to think that your first job will be as CEO of Google.
And that your first house will be 6,000 square feet with a infinity pool.
Dude you are playing with fire.

but good on you for learning how to drive at autocross before being old enough to vote. I can't tell you how many spikey-haired, pimply-faced, unemployed, living at home, fast and furious racers have pulled up to me at a light looking to race their front wheel drivers. Too much Xbox.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Mrmaddbrad

Well ya know, as I am only 17...

Ok, sorry but I didn't realize that you were only 17. In that case, the Miata is definitey the better choice. You are exactly the same age as my son and that is why I bought the Miata (for him).

You need to learn to drive before you need to go fast and the Miata will teach you to drive well and it won't get you into situations where your inexperience will cost you a lot of money. The Miata is super cheap compared to a Boxster to purchase, maintain, run, and repair after you crash it (which you are sure to do at your age regardless of what car you have).

And don't get me wrong - we ALL crashed a car in our teens! Heck, that would be a long thread, having everyone post up what car they crashed as a teen! Its part of growing up - you find the limit, exceed it, and learn that going over the limit doesn't always work out like in the movies.

My advice is to buy a nice NB or early NC Miata and use the extra money that you would have spent on the Boxter for upgrades, driving schools, and track time. Then, re-eval in a few years.

[Perfectlap]

^ boy aint that the truth. That's one thing I definitely miss about the Miata.
For the price Fabspeed charges for my full Boxster exhaust system I could have bought that old Miata. I set it up with FM springs and rear mounts, KYB adjustables, sways, autocross wheels and tires, a very slick Racing Beat aero kit, low profile headlights, that any old mechanic could work on and I had a car that you simply couldn't beat for that little money ....and could pound it all day without a worry about a hugely expensive repair.

[Mrmaddbrad]

*sigh* shouldn't have said i was 17....

Alright. Lets get a few things straight... lol. Not to be some cocky 17 year old, but I am currently driving a 1986, rear-wheel drive, BMW 325es... I do autocross it and actually do rather well. I have been dominating my class which consists of ~6 people depending on the day and usually win by 1 to 3 seconds (depending on the overall times of the course...). A few of these people have been racing for 20+ years and have cars much more competitive in the class. Not to brag, but it all just comes down to driver.

I can drive, I've never ever gotten myself into a situation where I felt out of control.

Biggest problem with the world... Stereotypes.

Lets say im 17, driving a porsche. What does everyone think? "Oh look at him... What did his mommy buy that for him? He'll wreck it in a few months anyways..."

Well not true at all. I'm taking a AP calculus, physics, AP government, and AP Spanish class and then go to work at a German Auto shop, working my ass off for my money that i can save and hopefully buy my dream car. I hate that just because of my age, everyone thinks i should buy a different car. I'm not a spoiled little brat, and I hope you guys will see that in me. Just disappointed in the world guys, disappointed...

[thstone]

Hey buddy, we're not down on you. We appreciate that you're trying to get some input and good job on doing your homework before shelling out the cash.

At the end of the day, only you can decide what car to buy. You asked for advice and input and the folks here provided that (for what its worth).

But if you really want a Boxster, get one. We'll always be glad to have another owner in the club.

[Mrmaddbrad]

Haha i know. I had just had this long talk with my boss (who's like 30) about how age discrimination is such a huge problem now lol.

Well, it is what i want, and most people ive been talking to are trying to discourage me from it, mostly just because of their badge on the hood... In the long run, its a car I hope to keep for a long time, and currently I'm just throwing money into a car i know I'm not going to keep.

[Perfectlap]

well it sounds like you are in that very small group of 17 year olds who has knowledge of what it means to drive for real and not just drag racing. But if you're putting a full second on your competition then you need to move to a more competitve class. I've seen SCCA and NASA events where the first 8 positions were seperated by less than half a second -- in different cars. If you're easily beating the guys in your class then you will not improve for long. Autcross is a big time committment given how little seat time you get not to be maximizing every lap to its fullest.

But given your economic situation I would still encourage you to buy a Miata even if to use only for autocross. I think most would agree that there is no better car to maximize you skill set at the lowest cost to race and maintain. And because of the low mod cost and abundance of smaller tire choices you could fine tune the set up to get every tenth of a second out of the car with money left over in your budget. It's also as close to a kart in a road car as you will get at that price. I used to get flack about driving the car because it doesn't have the prestige of a German sports car. But since I didn't have room for more than one car it had to suit both purposes: real world and racing world. I wasn't bothered by the people who would make a joke about the Miata because I knew something straight away about them: they didn't know how to drive. Anyone who has been to the track or autox knows this car is a fixture of grass roots racing. Racing a Porsche is expensive. Tires: $700 -$1,100 a pop. Maintance from accelerated wear: not cheap. Modifications: EXTREMELY expensive for the gains you get.

And while I'm not your financial advisor I get the impression that you don't have a rich benefactor to pay for your big boy toys. If this is the case then you need to understand that sinking a big % of your available income and savings into a car -- AT YOUR AGE -- is the biggest mistake you could make. At 17 you have 18 years of investing time to acrrue a let's say a million dollars before 35. The "time advantage" of money is powerful and is something most young people have no sense of before they no longer have that advantage at their dispoal. The longer you wait the more money you'll have put away for not much more gain. Pretty sad for most in their 30's and 40's. By putting away a little bit of money every week, EARLY ON - in a moderately agressive investment you will have a huge advantage over someone who decides to start putting away money only after they've been hired for a six figure job. The problem is that no matter how many times you tell an under 20 year old that investing now could buy you a GT3 with money to spare later he/she needs that car, rolex or $2K handbag now. Little do they know what that premature indulgence has cost them in the future. Making up that ground even with a high income later is incredibly difficult. Even most professionals can't beat the major indices like the S&P. Time and the ability to be more aggressive is an investing window that is only open for a short time for very young people, a potentially life-changing oppourtunity that most kids are NOT taught about, probably because their teachers have much debt and little savings.

[jsceash]

Not to be another downer but I agree in most respects to what Perfectlap just said. Here is the hidden part of the picture and anyone who has had service on one of these should be quick to agree. Parts and service on the Boxster are expensive. I recently upgraded my clutch. Parts only I did the work $2200 Stage 2 clutch Throw out bearing, flywheel, pressure plate, Main seal, and a couple special tools. That would put three clutches in a Miata. Tires to run on Street and turn laps on autocross cost $1100 a set I burn off at least one set a year.

[Mrmaddbrad]

Yeah, i understand guys, Oh, btw, as i get parts at cost, that clutch job would have costs me just over $500 (just looked it up) and tires are just as expensive for any car, its not like there are specific porsche tires... But still, I understand where everyone is coming from. I just have a lot of thinking to do.

Like you said, it is hard for anyone my age to justify not buying the car that I truely want. And eventhough i know that, like you said, its hard to justify it to myself. But idk... I'll just keep looking into it. I hate that even though everyone's telling me not to, I'll probably still buy it... My dad is actually one of the few people on my side that thinks i should buy it.

I really am still not seeing the big problem with buying it. I've looked into prices of parts, prices of tires, competiveness, affordability of insurance, and every little price like that. I know how miatas are to drive, as I have driven an NB quiet a few times. But everyone seems to autocross a miata, especially where i live, and idk, i just want to be different. Bleh, sounding more and more like a 17 year old lol

[jsceash]

Actually there are speciffic Porsche tires. The Miata S uses 4, 205-40R-17 or largest recomended size a 215-35R-18. Boxster auto corss size is 225-45ZR-17 or 225-40ZR-18 front and 255-40ZR-17, or 265-35ZR-18 rears. There is a big price differecne even if your not buying porsche specified tires. That's even more if you buy the Porsche speciffic tires. Dualmass race spec flywheel at cost $1100. LWSM Flywheel at cost $750. Clutch and pressure plate combos at cost start at $450 (pretty much stock) and go up to $1500. If you buy aftermarket /remanufactured you might be able to get these parts for $500. Problem being they won't hold up on track. The thing is you wanted good knowledgeable advice & 7 or 8 knowledgable people gave you good advice, it just was what you wanted to here. The difference between what you wanted to hear and what you heard was 20 to 40 years of experience.

[Mrmaddbrad]

No no dont get me wrong, i love the advice. You've answered almost all of my questions and more. But when it comes to tires, without even a shop discount, i can get Dunlop Z1 star specs, (One of the best performance street tires, actually the best for wet/cold surfaces), for less than $800. Which yes, is about $300 more than what i just payed for tires on my Bimmer. But still, its not THAT bad, especially since i plan on running in stock class and theres not a huge amount of expensive modifications i plan on doing.

I still autocross for fun, and am not, by any standards, a national level driver. Therefore i don't need custom valve shocks, or an extremely light exhaust, or even R-compounds.

But as far as money goes, I feel as if you always live in the future, you never get to enjoy the present. Driving to work is boring, if you don't enjoy the ride it takes to get there. Live life as though you're trying to make that drive more exciting... I'm pursuing a passion.

[Perfectlap]

Owning a Miata or similar short wheel base, low HP (relative to others), perfectly balanced car is part of the driver development curve. This is true for recreational racers as well as those with bigger ambitions. You learn a great deal in those sort of cars because the power is not doing the work for you. Put it this way what you learn in one season behind the wheel of a Miata would take you several in a car that can nearly drive itself to a fast lap time. And if everyone has a Miata near you that's one of the few instances where that's a good thing. The more people in similar cars that you have to compete against the better you'll be able to gauge if you are improving as a fast and efficient driver.
By the way, although I could have done so much sooner, I didn't buy a Porsche until I was in my 30's and even then most wealthier and older guys gave me **************** about it. One big fish ($$$$$$) in particular who I worked with invited us out to his country club. His wife had an M3 convertible. The first word of his mouth was "I had to wait X amount of years before I could buy a car like that". The point being that this is a VERY smart guy in how he handles money, a guy who probably made his first million well before 30. I think you'll find that guys who do well and hold onto that wealth put these indulgences off as long as possible. Whereas guys who haven't figured all that out are the first ones in a flashy car. Think about it.

[thstone]

I agree with everything that PerfectLap and jsceash have said. Excellent advice.

[Mrmaddbrad]

Yeah i totally agree. It is great advice. However, its not like a boxster is THAT much faster than an NB miata. Sure 60 hp sounds like a lot, but it still has over 400 lbs on one too. I agree on everything financially, but I have a hard time backing away because of a general bias of my age. I know parts are more and it's "too much to handle" supposedly, but parts at cost are only slightly more than miata parts, and they are just better made cars.

Honestly, when you get in a miata and drive it around for any length of time, it feels cheap, its still fun to drive and you feel completely at one with the car, but it does feel cheap. Probably because they are.... You can go buy a brand new one, full of options, with a retractable hard top, for just over $30,000... Case and point, they are cheap lol

[Stroked & Blown]

Originally Posted by Mrmaddbrad

but parts at cost are only slightly more than miata parts

Check your facts on that one. Parts & maintenance on Boxsters are MUCH more expensive than Miatas. And if you start looking at upgrades for AX, including tires, there's a big delta. I have some friends with Z06's & M3s that have purchased dedicated miatas for AX and track events because you can buy one, upgrade it, & run it for a season for the cost of a set of coilovers on their primary car. A miata with mild upgrades, A6's, and a good driver can be very competitive at AX, even the fast 2 mile course we run.

[Overdrive]

I can definitely see both sides of the discussion here. I can tell you're not an air-headed, snot-nosed kid who just wants to show off. I understand wanting to be different from the masses (in this case, your autocross competitors), and you have the advantage of working at a shop which specializes in cars such as a Boxster, plus a knowledge base for those cars that even those two decades older than you might not. If anything, it's a good thing you mentioned your age on here, but do understand that no one on here's trying to give you the "you're just a kid, maybe when you're older" lecture. They are indeed looking out for your best interests without even really knowing you personally, because that's just the sort of people we have on this board.

I think Perfectlap made some very important points and gave you some things to think about that are outside of, but can have a very heavy influence on, your ambitions to improve at autocross and owning a Boxster. What he's saying about (smartly) investing your money early, don't take that lightly. The only reason your peers aren't doing it is that they do not have enough examples of those who have done that and had success with it, and they can't be expected to practice something that they simply do not know or were never taught. So consider yourself (at least slightly) educated on the matter and given a strong recommendation to look into it further.

Before I get too long into that, I'll cut myself short, because we're still talking primarily about a car buying decision, here, which is a big deal for anyone, particularly for someone who is about to be 18.

I've got no clue how much it'd cost you to repair/replace a blown engine on a Miata, but I imagine it'll be significantly less than the cost to replace (since you're highly unlikely to have a "repair" situation) the engine on a Boxster. I'm sure you've probably read up on some of the failure points that this engine has (it's not just the IMS), and how catastrophic they can be. If not, spend some time on Mike Focke's google pages and Jake Raby's Flat 6 Innovations website, as well as LN Engineering's site. Any engine can fail, yes, but this is one aspect where the Porsche adds a rather large pouring of salt into the wound and hitting your wallet hard. Even with you doing a lot of the work yourself, it'd still be a huge chunk of change, especially for a young adult, and I know you'd take care of the car, but that hasn't stopped failures from happening to people who take very good care of theirs. To me that's a rather heavy cost difference to consider between the two cars.

Here's my bottom line: There's nothing that says you couldn't get yourself a Boxster. Your money, your decision. Yes, you have a lot of consideration to do, and while you may want that more instant gratification of having the car now and starting to build it up now and work on getting even faster with it now...it may be worth it to wait and use something that's more cost effective, even if only slightly, in the meantime, and be able to have the disposable income to own, maintain, and heavily repair a car like a Boxster comfortably. Trust me, there's no shortage of Boxsters, they're not going anywhere, and their market value may be pretty much in the pits right now, but you can still get yourself a car that you know works (a Miata, clearly ), and that you know you can buy, modify, and blow the doors off of others with at a fraction of the cost of just getting a Boxster, and work on saving up for the car you want (a Boxster, clearly ). Yes, a few hundred dollars' difference between things like tires or parts at cost right now isn't a huge hit to you now, but when you consider that that few hundred dollars today can be worth tens of thousands of dollars in just a few years' time if you put it in the right place(s), I feel you'd be hard-pressed not to do all you could to have that few hundred left over to put away/invest and get a return on it, which would allow you to very easily buy a Boxster, do what you want with/to it, and have plenty of cheddar left over, come whatever may. So spending a lot less on a car that will accomplish the same thing for you will allow you to put more of what you earn to work for you rather than just getting spent and lining someone else's pockets, and when it comes time for you to part with it you won't have invested as much into it, so the parting will be that much easier (I know you're not planning on getting rid of the Porsche, I'm just talking Miata here). As I was saying before, you're beyond your peers in a good few ways and in some of your thinking. Don't take what people are saying here as trying to shoot down or steal your dream from you. Rather, we're trying to help you find a way to enjoy it even more, for longer, and with less hardship. Short term pain for long term gain.

[Perfectlap]

Mrmaddbrad, Cheap in racing is not only a good thing it is the holy grail.

Very very very few cars can manage being competent and cheap.

If by cheap you mean flimsy, then yes that's true but it's also true about many other sports cars, including the early Boxster and 996 interior. Cars costing $50-$100+K.
(yep same interior on both). Ditto on most other commonly raced low cost sportscars from Japan and America. In order to reduce sports car weight on non-functional items you have two choices: expensive materials or budget. The Miata folks decided to put the money where it would improve the results on paper.


Also, with the exception of the GT's, Porsche's do not attract drivers on power.
If anything that's the last thing that pulls them into the brand. Even the standard Carrera didn't cross the 300 HP mark until the mid 2000's.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Mrmaddbrad

Yeah i totally agree. It is great advice. However, its not like a boxster is THAT much faster than an NB miata. Sure 60 hp sounds like a lot, but it still has over 400 lbs on one too. I agree on everything financially, but I have a hard time backing away because of a general bias of my age. I know parts are more and it's "too much to handle" supposedly, but parts at cost are only slightly more than miata parts, and they are just better made cars.

Honestly, when you get in a miata and drive it around for any length of time, it feels cheap, its still fun to drive and you feel completely at one with the car, but it does feel cheap. Probably because they are.... You can go buy a brand new one, full of options, with a retractable hard top, for just over $30,000... Case and point, they are cheap lol

On one point, I beg to disagree. I own both cars and have driven them both on the street and on the track and a stock Boxster is MUCH faster than stock NB Miata in both a straight line and through the curves.

Now, a SPEC Miata will typically be faster than a stock Boxster in the turns but will still lose ground on the straights.

With that being said, you are definitely correct that the Miata looks and feels "cheaper" than a Boxster. No surprise there, right? The Boxster is nearly double the price of the Miata and it shows.

I still say that if you really want a Boxster, buy one!

[The Radium King]

how 'bout a 944 turbo (951)? cheaper to buy, cheaper to maintain, fast, handles well. got a porsche logo on it.

[Mrmaddbrad]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

got a porsche logo on it.

Haha I'm not buying it for the symbol :P And actually, as my bimmer is broken down, im currently driving a 944 s2 that belongs to my shop. A ton of fun, but surprizingly its not to much for me to handle! Wow! Crazy, huh? lol

And thstone, thats exactly what i wanted to hear. Haha, probably just because it seems like youre more on my side of things lol. I'm not looking to build a spec car lol, or even get out of stock class. I mean maybe buy a front sway bar (if needed), maybe upgrade shocks. Maybe, and i strongly stress that word, I might get an aftermarket exhaust, and possibly a set of R-compounds.

And thats it! I'm not looking to put coil overs on, or an LSD, or anything crazy like that. I will need to buy a roll bar for my local hillclimb, but thats almost the exact same price as any other car lol.

And i'm not looking for a cheap car lol. I feel as though if i'm not going to buy what i want, I'm better off just waiting... There's no point in going from a car that I like but isn't exactly what i want, to yet again, a car that i like but isn't exactly what i want.