Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed.
Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
11–20 of 92 posts
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#12Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
Unless you would be planning to keep it at a race track, you would not want to own a car like this. It would almost certainly be miserable to drive at legal speeds. That 2.0L engine isn't going to make any useful power below 5-6k RPM. Keeping a turbo like that spooled for any meaningful duration is guaranteed to get you pulled over by the police.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#13Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
Honestly, just learn it like anything else. Understand the basic components of an internal combustion engine (block, crankshaft, rods, pistons, camshafts, cylinder heads, valves, intake and exhaust manifolds), the 4 cycles the engine goes through (intake, compression, power, and exhaust), how fuel delivery and ignition systems work. And then there are tons of resources on tuning and you can get the software for a lap…
>Honestly, just learn it like anything else.
If you're starting from 0 that's probably a decade long commitment before you're able to start to execute a project like this. There's a youtube series 'project binky' where a pair of professional car tuners rebuild a mini cooper and stuff a Celica engine in it. They already have all the skills, own a shop and all the tools and it still took them years.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#14Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
You don’t- without that knowledge you would not know what to pay someone to build and why. It’s also going to be extremely complex and unreliable, and likely not street drivable or street legal.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#15Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
Something like that:
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#16Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
> Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
Not all trucks are 1/4 or 1/2 ton in the USA.
There's things like the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruze, and the Ford Maverick
Subaru had the Baja for a little white but they only sold a couple thousand per year.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#17Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
Money, lots of money.
Just to quantify it, most "restomods" start at $100K USD.
Decades ago I had a buddy that did something similar with a VW Bug that he did "on the cheap" doing almost all the work himself and things like paint through connections he had, I never talked price on it but it was at least $30K I'd bet and probably more like in the $50Ks, and took around a decade.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#18Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
> Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US. Not all trucks are 1/4 or 1/2 ton in the USA. There's things like the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruze, and the Ford Maverick Subaru had the Baja for a little white but they only sold a couple thousand per year.
Wouldn't you need to flag a sheet of plywood in the back of a Maverick? My old '06 Canyon doesn't require that and it's actually a smaller truck than the Maverick.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, just learn it like anything else. Understand the basic components of an internal combustion engine (block, crankshaft, rods, pistons, camshafts, cylinder heads, valves, intake and exhaust manifolds), the 4 cycles the engine goes through (intake, compression, power, and exhaust), how fuel delivery and ignition systems work. And then there are tons of resources on tuning and you can get the software for a lap…
>Honestly, just learn it like anything else. If you're starting from 0 that's probably a decade long commitment before you're able to start to execute a project like this. There's a youtube series 'project binky' where a pair of professional car tuners rebuild a mini cooper and stuff a Celica engine in it. They already have all the skills, own a shop and all the tools and it still took them years.
similarly, there's a youtube channel called Mighty Car Mods that does builds also and even the ones they "rush" can take months and thousands of work hours from people from multiple disciplines (body repair, paint, electrical work, tuning, etc.). Not cheap at all.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#20Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
Nearly impossible. For the same price and effort, you can probably get a high end Porsche 911 or similar which will be way more practical.
The next level up would be to get a modified car from a company that has very strong ties to the manufacturer, such as Ruf with Porsche, Roush or Saleen with Ford Mustangs, etc.
Trust me either of those options will be more than anyone but the 1% top skilled or thrill seeking individuals can handle.