Anyone - Experience With Radical Race Cars?

[Feffman]

Good Evening:

I made the mistake of looking closely at a Radical (www.Radicalextremesportscars.com)while at Hallett earlier this week. Those with experience, could/would you please share your thoughts on the Radical most notably on servicability (I'll be forced to do most minor work), fun for the dollar and of course maintenance cost. Thanks in advance.

Mark Pfeffer

[79TA]

My cousin, when not building Saleen S7's, worked for Radical for about a year. He was involved in the program where Radical would transport and service all the cars for the trackdays in which, of course, the owners drove. I'll ask him about some of their reliablility issues. I know he had to swap out alot of fried gearboxes.

The radical's biggest racing weakness is that they do not have a huge top end. When at Willow Springs, the biggest roadcourse in the Socal/Nevada area, they'd hit top end a little too soon on the big straight and suffered various issues from that abuse. Anyway, that's not usually not an issue as most tracks don't have straights like that. They're brutally quick little track cars. I'll see what I can learn.

[novass]

I worked on a SR3 some time ago. It had a Kawasaki ZX 1100 engine in it which seemed to be its biggest weakness according to various bike people I spoke to in search of parts (most notably trannys, like 79TA mentioned). I am not really a bike person so I don't really know about the drivetrain portion of the car. The car itself, chassis, etc, was really easy to work on and extremely accesible since the whole body comes off. It is a pretty simple design as well so it should be a easy car to work on by yourself with limited equipment. It does require some higher grade hardware IIRC which can add up. I would think the higher costs would come from the engine depending on which model you are looking at. You could call up some bike shops and ask them what kinds of costs they would charge to rebuild, etc that engine to get a better idea as well.

All in all, they are great cars and will provide some good fun at a lower cost than some other options out there and they are damn fast.

[Evo]

I raced the radical SR3 last year for a whole season.

The car is very easy to maintain if you know what you are doing.

Draw back on the car is that you have to refreash the engine every 30 hours and the back bushing usually wear out.. Other than the normal Oil change and go through every bold and nut before every race weekend it was a perfect car.

Amount of grip is very nice. The car is a forgiving car to drive and lets you push it.
Setting up the car is tricky as you have a lot of things which you can change to play with the setup.

[Feffman]

Thank you gents. Maybe the Radical SR5 with a Honda V-TEC may be easier.

Feff