Matt, if that's what you fancy doing, then go for it!

I'd love to strip mine out and put a cage in .... may be one day ...

Unless you can be bothered swap all your mods (and let's face it the engine alone has been well-breathed on) into a standard 20VT and keep the LE standard inside, I would say do it Matt

It's your car & it will still look like an LE at the end of the day.

I would be inclined to keep all the lovely LE bits just in case though - just in case you ever decide to convert the car back or if you decide to sell it on (god forbid)

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Maybe in standard form but mine is not standard, and it is a formidable track weapon. There is plenty of evidence to prove the coops capabilities eg. Totb, time attack, how all the coops did at spa.
They are very fast when you know how to drive them.

tell that to sparco, nigel etc....

Or tell that to Flea, who has one of the fastest Coupés in the land and yet chooses to race the Senator. The Coupé is FWD = Not a *track* car = End of.

I suppose it depends what you are looking for

I love taking my Coupe on the track - the speed, handling and looks always generate favourable comments from others - and I always have an absolute riot using *some* of its potential (my abilities, rather than the Coupes, are usually the issue )

In fact, I'm not sure why you'd own a fast car, and not track it as there is nowhere else you can use it anywhere near to its potential in safety.

If you ever fancy a ride/drive on a track, Brewster, you'd be more than welcome
It's good fun seeing what 'track' cars a Coupe can happily keep up with

i say do it!

its an LE yer but at the end of the sday its what makes you happy mate!

strip that bad boy and put a cage in!

at the end of the day the car was made for you to have fun, go for it!

Brewster you talk rubbish. Some of the best track cars around are FWD. Clio, civic, integra.

Coupe with a few handling mods is a good weapon, end of.

In my experience, the ones who mock the coupes are usually the ones who can't drive them properly.

Having driven many different cars on many different tracks I think I can comment on this.

Standard 20v: had an old M3 around a short twisty track - BMW crashed out doing a slower speed.
Standard 20vt+: 4 wheel slides on the limit fantastic if you know how to drive it and set your tyre pressures correctly (after two laps warm-up I went for 2.0 front and 2.1 rear on the standard half-worn P Zero's and standards wheels) but I would have altered them in different conditions.

The Coupe is an easy car to drive hard, but a difficult car to drive perfect. It requires you to KNOW the limits. If you have to accelerate to get TO the limit IN a corner then forget it. If you have to brake in a corner then forget it.

The car I've driven most on a twisty technical track was my Punto HGT which I could use in the wet to keep up with 300+ bhp Cossies on there. In the dry there wasn't that much in it (except for the straights) and there is a picture somewhere of it doing some oversteer ballet with a Cossie.

But hey - I'm sure the likes of Peter Rasmussen can do more to convince you - he won the Advan Cup in 1999 using a Fiat Coupe 16v (non-turbo 200bhp).

http://www.vha-trim.dk/images/VHA-Trim_Racing_Team_Pa_gridden..jpg

game, set and match.....

Good post Kayjey

What an uninformed opinion you have Brewster.

How many track days in your own car have you been to, if any at all?

Also how do you think a car with the engine mounted behind the rear axle behaves on track...

Unfortunately most manufacturers dont have 40 years to make such a cockeyed drivetrain setup work reasonably well.

Sorry, bit late to this party about roll cages.

Matt, if you're serious about caging it, then you have 2 choices, OMP bolt in cage or a custom one. When i asked demon thieves about the Sparco cage they listed, they told me it wasn't available anymore, so went with the OMP. The OMP cage, requires the dashboard to be taken out and cut too, so maybe get yourself a spare dash if you do think about the LE and reverting at a future point. With the OMP being a bolt in, you could take it out quite easily, but i would make it a weld in one instead, as their jig must be a little of of alignment as nothing would fit correctly.

At the end of the day, the choice is yours, but the cage does make it more rigid, as mine shows

Thanks for that begbie, its all food for thought. Sounds like the OMP cage is the way to go.

If i could weld i'd probably try and install one myself, but i cant!

Be interesting to see cost differences between a custom made one and the OMP. I dare say that somebody who is handy with a welder could knock one up in no time

Like the most successful production racing car ever made

I'm not saying you can't have fun driving a Coupé at its limits, I simply think that there are far better cars if all you want is a track day weapon, and to strip an LE for that purpose is a waste.

That is a fair point Brewster, i was thinking along the same lines really

Matt, it's your car, you love it. You love driving it on track (and very well I might add), cars are made to be driven. It handles great and goes like stink, and you have taken it to another level where it really is on the same grid as some very fast exotica. There is no right or wrong answer...

I too would never go back to FWD for a track car. However the coop really is a great car with a little bit of setup time. The bonus of the car is it's easy to drive near the limit and responds very well to chassis and engine mods. I've never had more fun (well I think it was fun ) than being a passenger in Flea's car at Castle Combe

All cars have their compromises and at the end of the day a trackday is all about having fun...

I'm looking at a possible new track car on Saturday- only 135bhp but 380kg Post to follow soon

MattM,
if your serious about this, i will happily come down to leeds to help you strip the LE, i think yours will be a brilliant weapon of choice (i remember the AGM road driving to motormec lol)

dam you court me up fast!!!! (doing the speed limit)

Thanks Leighton, the car is testament to your tuning skills really, was in a bit of a state when i got it, but we've (you've) managed to make it a bit of beast.

Marco - that 10mph to 40mph blast sure was fun!
I might very well take you up on the stripping offer (ooo errr missus)

Just doing a bit of research on cages, i think it would look pretty cool to have a red cage, red bucket seats etc etc

I think red would go very well with the silver Matt.

I would get a crazy colour like hi-vis green lol

But go for it mate! It's a well tuned car waiting for time attack :-)

I think you mean the best selling. Wikipedia can sometimes be misleading

I really fancy arguing with you about FWD, but i feel you are a bit of a lost cause, is there some personal reason you hate FWD cars? I think some driving therapy with an Integra Type-R or Mk1 Golf GTi might help ease some of the tension...

My point about the 911 is that in theory, even though the engine and drivetrain layout of Stuttgarts finest does not make a whole deal of sense to the laws of physics, it can be made to work very, very well. Just like front engined, front wheel driven cars.

On a side note, 4 cylinder engines can also be quite good, very rarely though, obviously.

No, I mean the most successful on track of any production racing car in the world, and that's not from Wiki, it's just a plain fact. It's a moot point anyway.

I agree, all of the FWD cars you've listed are great driver's cars and can be made to go around a track very swiftly, but they are not racing/track cars. I have no vendetta against FWD and I didn't join this thread to advocate the Fatherland's finest. If you see my first post here I suggested a Caterham. I just don't think a Coupé is the best starting place for a stripped out car that will be solely for track use, much less an LE that will be the more desirable of the marque once the chavs have blown up enough that they become rare and wanted.

I think a custom cage will cost you more than an OMP one. Welding skills don't have to be great or find someone you know who can do some welding for you on the cheap? The OMP cage comes as bare metal, so easy enough to paint it up yourself

The best starting point for a track car would be a Radical SR4, but unfortunately not everyone has enough disposable income to afford such luxuries, so you have to make do with what you have. Talking about "racing" cars is completely irrelevant as the requirements and money needed to be competetive in a series is completely different to improving your cars behaviour on a track day.

In Marco's case i agree it would be a waste to bin an LE interior in what i think is a bit of a vain effort to lose weight and increase rigidity, but that does not lend any validity to your statement that coupes are pointless as a track car.

The coupe is a very capable performance car when it is highly modified, it may not have the purest of driving dynamics on the limit in comparison to an Elise or 911, but it is as enjoyable as many other RWD and FWD cars that cost similiar amounts of money.

That's probably just because it's been produced for ages - the same car over and over again. And even then I would have my doubts. I don't see a lot of Porsche victories nowadays. Maybe they've been quite succesful in the past, maybe that's because Porsche has frequently offered cars from the factory that don't need that much of work to take to the track, and maybe it's because they've been trying over 50 years to get that car to work (talking 'Porsche' is talking '911' - although the Cayman just works so much better on a track and Porsche is consciously giving it a lower profile). So yes, maybe it's been taken to the track by good drivers who scored good points, and maybe on average it's a car that's been a good bet to be succesful at racing, but there are a LOT of cars out there that perform way way waaaaaaaaay better on any track - and for the same money. Current FIA GT championship? They're getting their bums kicked by old old cars!

To add a bit of subjective feeling: I just think Porsche is so boring - annoying even. They've always been a top pick because Porsche offered a couple of versions that are just about track ready. But in the end, it's just a car with a wrong layout for racing.

End of the story: it's just the same really as racing a FWD car. People have really gone out of their way to show that any layout can work if you put enough effort and knowledge in it. Same for the Fiat Coupe: I completely share Sparco Marco's vision - it's so satisfying to make the less obvious choice, have fun and prove people wrong. For that, the Fiat Coupe is an excellent basis to start with. Better than an Integra, which is a better track car as standard but on which you can't improve too many things.

Am I biased? Probably. But I don't like the Fiat Coupe because I started this site and forum 9 years ago. I just started the site and forum because I liked the Fiat Coupe so much - quite the other way round.

Get it stripped and caged up!

You can always put it back if you really must.

agreed. hell you could just buy a new LE if you wanted, they're cheap enough now

So Matt, name the date and I'll be round with my angle grinder!