Autograss Puma's conversion project (picture heavy)

Last year I decided to go to a new hobby that my dad used to do years ago and both of us decided we were going to race together. We spent months looking for cars that as a road car handle well anyway, thought about an MR2 but decided they swap ends too easily. We decided to race in the group called supersaloons which is any engine sixe, and drive configuration but no 4x4 and and modifications bar nitrous. The local track to us is chalk and we spoke to a few drivers who said that getting the power down was more important than a huge engine so we dicided something nippy would be better. My dad had some contacts from when he used to race and one owned a scrapyard, so we went there and there was a ford puma. (the one that started life as an x-reg green road car - see pics further down) He had taken it in just days before and wanted £300 for it. It had a slipping clutch but other than that was it was sound and had a nearly brand new exhaust. In December I brought my puma to go with my dad's, cost me £225 as was about to be scrapped too. We then started on the builds of them. (my race number is s62 and his is s141 so will refer to each as these)



It joined the other one on the drive and then they both needed to be stripped



s62 (red) then went off to have its roll cage fitted and seat positioned followed by s141 (green)



s141 in the process of painting, sprayed them ourselves in standard gloss for the first year as they are bound to be pranged.



Mine on the other hand, I fancied a bit of greenso s62 went green and red.



They finally both hit the track on 7th April 2013, the roof fins were only painted on the morning of racing and the final bits like tightening the fuel lines under the bonnet were all done on then too as we ran really tight to be able to get them on the track but here they are on a parade lap that everyone racing that day did.



First meeting all ran smoothly with no crashes but they were very slow as we learnt the track.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J8envW1ex8[/youtube]

Second meeting, I was close to another car and ran wide and hit them, just cosmetic damage to me and none to his very solid wheel arches!



Same meeting in the 3rd race, my dad hit the barrier which broke the track rod and bent the wishbone on the N/S/F.



Jacked her up at home to take off the front wing and fix the bits that were broken.



Puma s141 then rebuilt with new light apperture covers too! My dad did a really good job at redoing the front wing and it looked brand new again, just 1 small crease in it.



In the meantime, we decided to get rid of the horrible but did the job roof fins and built some small spoilers (they have no downforce effect as we only hit 60 MPH before we go into the corners) Painted mine myself



And finally loaded up on the trailer ready to go with the car with the new spoiler on it

Mechanically they are standard and 6 meetings in we are sitting 3rd and 4th in the points out of the 6 of us that are in the class this year, beating a 2litre nova and a 2 litre powered tigra. We have locked the diffs which will be going back into the cars today and we are going to put some camber on the cars for the next meeting on the NSF to give some better preformance.

Like the thread, its great to see what other motorsports others are competing in.

Thankyou, I know of lots of puma's being raced on ovals locally, there is one at the Worthing track, 3 at Standlake and the 2 we are racing at horndean plus another being built for the Tongham track. They seem to be very good cars for the oval racing with very good little power units under the hood and fairly good handling with very little modifications being needed to the suspension and setup.

2 weeks ago today was our last time out in the puma's and we went from being walked over to me challenging for wins in the second heat and the final. The first race and my dad dropped the bottom end of his, sounded as if the endshells have gone. Brought another puma anyway so the engine came out of that and has gone into the car as the endshells were obliterated (one half of one set had moulded itself as 1) and the crank needs reboring. Bit of an arse really! Still racing later today so we will see if the car makes it out on the track and how they do.

Could do with both cars finishing damageless as we need to make some more modifications for 2 weeks time rather than how we have been doing repairs between each modification!

This is what my puma looked like for this season's racing at the start of the year, I had a head on with the armco halfway through the season and have now stripped the car down to less than a shell with the rollcage, removed all the panels and fitted a FRP fibreglass bosykit that Kieron from Fibrebuild made for me. I will put those pics up soon. The hardest choice is what colour scheme to go for next year!