Alright, my name is Adam, i am from New Brunswick, Canada.

I just bought a 93 Mazda 626 with a 2.5L matched to an automatic transmission for the big price of $250, i will be using it to race on a 3/8 mile dirt oval track.

I'm hoping it will work well, i'm picking it up this weekend and i will begin to tear it down and start building and modifying. While i'm here, i'll be looking for any tips and hints that may help contribute to handling, acceleration, speed, weight reductions, etc.

These cars take a beating so on the weight note anything not needed i would like to remove to help balance out the weight of roll cage, bumpers, etc... Any tips on anything that may help would be greatly appreciated.

Sadly, i have no pictures of the car itself yet, so i'll give you an idea of what i'm using it for with a picture of my last car.



K-Frame broke, didn't feel it was worth fixing so i'm moving to the Mazda

 

Well, we're well into the race season and i seem to have worked out most of the kinks in this little 626, i finally solved my spitting and sputtering problem when i realized it was only doing it when the air was wet or right after it rained, etc. Came down to the distributor, runs great now.

The car suffered a few bruises first race due driving into a dust cloud without letting off apparently isn't the smartest thing to do.

Due to the transmission overheating problems i've heard so much about on these cars i hooked up the tranny cooler from a parts Cherokee i had that had the towing package (came with the extra tranny cooler), i discovered the rims from my parts Cherokee also fit it so i made use of those.. and the windshield.. which will be explained shortly.
Here she sits after a fresh coat of paint and getting the numbers on, sadly didn't get any pictures of it before it raced after i had gotten the sponsor decals on.


This is what it looked like by the end of that day.





Starting to understand the Cherokee windshield now? Amazingly the rad doesn't leak :S

Video of what happened to it, at least the front end damage, the side stuff was just general bumping and scraping, etc.

Here she sits before the second race day of the season, all "fixed"
Duct tape, flat bar, self tappers, and a 32oz ballpeen(?) hammer were my tools of choice for installation.
Believe it or not the windshield from the Jeep fit perfectly in the corner pockets at the bottom, but was about a 1/2" to 3/4" to wide at the top on each side, so i beat the pocket in the pillars flat so it would sit flat on them, then flat bar over top of the edges to prevent it from lifting.


Sadly, i ran into a couple issues that day, first race, half way through we got a red flag, when i attempted to drive off after being stopped i noticed the car wasn't moving as much as it should for the throttle i was giving it, beginning to think i cooked the tranny (knowing the issue), one of my team members pointed out i was leaving a trail of oil behind me, so i shut the car off and had it towed off the track, only to find one of my tranny cooler lines split open, fixed it, bought overpriced tranny fluid at a nearby corner store, and took it out in another race.
The line i stole off a junked car was too short to reach where my tranny cooler was so i moved it into the engine bay for a temporary fix for the day. Two laps into the next race i entered a car locked up in front of me to avoid hitting a spun out car, i tried to avoid it but plowed on the brakes as well, i only have working front brakes, so i hit the car, just missing the steel bumper i welded on the front of it and plowing the drivers front corner into the nice big steel bumper on the back of this Buick, when i hit the gas afterwards, i see oil blow up my windshield from under the hood... when i hit it broke the tranny cooler spraying out all the tranny fluid i just paid way too much money for. Just to add to it i crushed the coolant overflow bottle as well, so i called it quits for the day. So before the next race i will definitely be adding to the size of my front bumper, and modifying the front of the car a bit as it's pretty fubar'd now.
Here's how she sits as of now.

It doesn't look all that bad in this picture, but the unibody (not the "frame") is crumped right up until about 2" before the strut tower, i'm assuming it must have extra reinforcement there, i need to pull the rad support back out, etc... should be fun.

 

I noticed another problem: YOUR AIR FILTER LOCATION!
It is located right behind the radiator. You are sucking in the hottest air possible, which will make you lose power. You need to move it over to front corner (like mine) and create a heat baffle sealed up to hood.

 

If i had an intake on my Kia Forte, i would definitely do that. But this is a 626 i run on dirt track and paid $250 for and spent even less getting it race ready. Shouldn't have too much trouble getting air to it, i have no headlights, there's a large hole in the front corner, which, is also why i don't have the intake over there... if i had it over there it would get caked with dirt and mud, i've had my intake in spots where the air can easily get to it before and i've had that problem where it's not sucking enough air due it gets so dirty.
I know the best spots for it on a road car, or a pavement car, but dirt track is a whole different ball game. Everything i build and do with these cars, you need to take into consideration mud, dirt, and of course, damage, everything needs to be designed and placed to avoid getting damaged, i moved my tranny cooler to a bad spot to get it working and it resulted in it getting crushed for example.
Now, not all dirt tracks are like that, mainly this one. This is my 3rd season running this track, and you learn quick what to do and not to do.

 

I'll let you off this time, LOL and accept your explanation.
Carry on! WIN some.