After helping a friend run a baja race out at our clubs track I kind of want to get into a entry class vehicle to start doing a little racing. I have always been into the rock crawling and trail riding but never the racing. What kind of vehicle should I look for to maybe get started mostly stock but upgradeable as I go? Full size or midsize? I have lots of chevy parts for fullsize traight axle trucks if thats a plus. My friend runs a 75 k5 4x4 but a 2wd th400 and basically blanked out front end till we swaps his beams into it. Anyways here are some pics from the race too: http://powellvalley4wheelers.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=19
Thanks

Howdy. Thanks for putting the baja on up at Powell! I had a blast, but I wish I could have driven. I was in the blue Cherokee flagging and videoing up on the ridge.
I'm biased, but for a low budget starter racer I'd look at a TTB Bronco or F150 short box if you want 4wd or pretty much any 2wd Ford pu from 67 up to 96. Cheap, plenty of them around for parts, and a zillion of them have been raced, so lots of knowledge out there.
In your case, I can see wanting to run a Chev just because of the current stock of parts. Maybe a 60s chevy with the coil rear end?

Charlie did have a good run going. If Jared in the red blazer would have had a better carb and slowed down a little he could have made Charlie really drive. Jared kept overdriving the corners, it seemed like. Jared is also running a ford suspension on the front of his. Empty front housing and 2wd with a camaro 3spd. tranny.

Shane in the white 2wd ford stayed on the same lap with a stock truck with new coils, some tennis balls and 2 used Fox shocks. Cheap. It does have a 6.x geared rearend, though.

A lot depends on where you want to run. Acton has some rules about staying with factory style suspension, whereas the M4x4A rules don't mention that specifically. I don't know how you divided classes in Powell this time. If you want to run down south you may want to look at what other people are doing. I haven't run the dez, so I can't help you there.

hey thanks for helping out and the input. Yeah charlie had a bunch of red paint on his bumper from running around with Jared for the first little bit. I notices his radius arm suspension on the k5, if you were gonne go through changing everything out wouldn't it be better to go with I beams? Also what about carb/efi? I am thinking I want 2wd. My plans are really to only run our track mostly. What about 2wd yotas? etc?

Originally Jared used the 4wd in his setup. That's why the radius arm/solid axle deal. Broke a couple of center sections and gave up the 4wd.
I've had good luck with a Holley 600 vac. Simple, easy to set up. I never built a big gofast engine, though. I used to run an 80 TTB bronco with a used 302 with a cam, intake and headers. 4" skyjacker coils, homemade long radius arms, cheapo shocks, blocks in the rear and a cage and Beard seats. El cheapo racing. Worked for us redneck racers. Worked good for 15-20 mins at a time. After an hour it was a handful.
For what I do, a 4wd racer works better. However, our local racing seems to be fading away again (except over around Missoula and north from there) and a 2wd efi rig is starting to sound pretty good.
There is a lot of knowledge about making the torsion bar ifs chevys work in a Powell type track available now. For our type of budget racing you should be able to make one work good enough not to hurt you. Your biggest expense will probably be DOM. No carb tuning, there is a pile of them around, and stripped down they should make good power/weight.
Right now I've got a 66 EB I'm thinking about selling off to fund a stock 2wd rig. I want to race it a couple of more times just to see if I like it enough to justify some more suspension work or if I should bail now and build a rig for Acton and Powell.
The biggest question is what kind of rules are we going to be running in Powell? If you make classes similar to Acton and/or the Montana 4x4a rules, it would be easier.
HTH,
Blair

yeah we are basically following the M4x4 rules is our current plan, we might alter slightly but for the basics it should be the same since we are so close tot he border and everyone is following those already just makes it easier. I already have a bender and all so cage isn't too big. I only have a 1.75" die for building my rock crawler stuff. Charlie is talking about buying a 2" die and using my bender then we can trade dies and such too. I was wondering about torsion bar vs coil.