what is an easy? cheap car to make into a 450 + HP car ? need a project ! thanks !

1) Fast 2) Cheap 3) Reliable Pick two, you can't really get all three. And what kind of racing are you wanting to do. Cone dodging, Rally cross, 1/4mile, 1/8th mile, or red light warrior?

buy an old ford muscle car and put a 460 engine in it, headers and a mild cam, pushing 900 horses

you seem to have missed the cheap part... best bet would be to get a 5.0 mustang of some sort and add intake exhaust and the like, then slap some nos to it.... about the only way your going to get any decent amount of power cheaply, well by my definition of cheap at least

So far ^ this is the post that makes the most sense. You need to specify what kind of racing you want to do and what your definition of "cheap" is. Those two pieces of info will really help the rest of us to give you usable and helpful suggestions! I daily drive a 450+ hp car, it is a 4-door sedan with a usable trunk, it can get to 60 in around 3 seconds and pull over 1.05G on the skid pad, it works in all weather due to AWD and I get 28+mpg on the freeway. I also take it to the racetrack (roadcourse) for track days, and I have yet to find another street car on street tires that can keep up... It has 38k miles on the current build with no problems reliability problem at all. do you know what car it is? Click on my avatar for details. I would highly recommend it as a great all around daily and overall supercar killer.

What's your definition of cheap? Turbocharged cars are cheaper to get power out of than N.A. ones but may cost you more in the long run.

Jap Tuner stuff is cheap fast and reliable, Toyota Supra, Nissan Skylines, Mitsubishi GTO's, Nissan 200's push 300bhp as std they don't cost alot and 450bhp is nothing for these cars indeed a 3.0 Supra Turbo can push 600 on stock internals, and it'll manage 30mpg on a run. Plus parts for these engines are easy to get.

cheap and fast go get a 5.7L TPI camaro from the 80s and slap a vortech supercharger on it. close to 400hp. not the 450 you want. not reliable either. a budget really needs to be stated in order to see what "cheap" really is. also, why do you need 450+ hp for a daily driver? if you are going to race get 2 cars.

none of those are cheap cars, they would all cost a fortune just to get the car let alone make it 450 hp.... and no way is a 450 hp supra going to get 30 mpg, a 200 hp supra couldn't get 30 mpg

actually i think its 700hp on stock internals lol

anything that has a B18 in it put a turbo on it. that wouldnt be to much. I honestly dont think you will be able to get a car thats 450hp without spending a decent amount of coin on it to get it there. pick up a 2003 evo or 2004 sti for like 18k and upgrade the turbo you will def get at least 400hp out of it

In this country I've seen decent Supra Turbo's for 2 grand and 4 will get you a good example. Well the supra will still do better than the yank crap that struggles to get 20mpg

boar the block put in hyperutecktick pistons in it and shave the head a bit and shorten the throw if u can that will help in a power boost then if u whant to u can gat a tubo for a super charger depending in what ur working on

i dont think anyone understands cheap... seriously if you want 450 hp car for cheap, nos is the way to go anything else will not be cheap... people mention a turbo/supercharger... the kit alone will cost 4k+ let alone the price of the car, imports are expensive, and domestics are cheap

He probably wants constant reliable power than bursts of nitrous. Rather than saying you want a 450hp ride, put it in terms on power to weight ratio. Having an old lightweight with less power can match the heavier cars of today, especially if its a dedicated track car and you're willing to rip everything unnecessary out of it.

your not very knowledgable are you? if you run Nitrous your going to smoke the internals you have to beef up the iternals at least a little to get longevity out of the motor. You cant just slap a fogger system onto a engine and call it good theres a lot of tuning involved which equals a lot of money. And also if you knew about buying turbos then you would know that it would be stupid to buy a kit. You should always piece it together it will cut the cost to at least half everytime probably more. and imports arent expensive in the long wrong compared to domestics

you have no idea what you are talking about.... a nitrous 150 shot or so is a temporary flash of power, the wet shot will add stresses to the engine but for such a short period of time its not and issue, a stock 5.0 block can handle 400 hp all day, so 450 for short time periods are not and issue. hell a friend of mine is running a 200 in his 5.0, all he did was add some bigger injectors and reflashed the ecm and making your own turbo kit???? it still costs a fortune, the turbo itself will cost more the the whole 5.0 mustang, let alone all the issues with designing a system that will actually work and not blow the engine to pieces. hell a rebuilt turbo at my shop costs over 1500, so if your going to go cheap you must mean a used turbo, that's a real genius idea, risk your whole engine on a used turbo. then you price in all the plumbing, supporting fuel mods, bov, and any other random stuff that you will need and your looking at over 2500 easy. PLUS you have to do it yourself, with hundreds of hours of labor, while with my 5.0 nos idea would take half a day and be out on the streets before you even know where the turbo is going to be. yeah real genius idea, real simple... and imports cost WAY more then domestic, the cars cost more, the parts are triple... and dont say any of that "imports last longer" bs, any car lasts just as long as any other car if treated right

ok i dont really care about the nitrous i guess i dont know much about it because no one around here needs to use it cause its the pussy way out and plus is highly illegal to have hooked up. It doesnt cost a fortune to fab some piping and get all the materials to do it unless your an idiot and not experienced with adding turbos. they only costly thing would be to have it tuned on the dyno and the turbo itself. And at least if you buy a nice turbo and do the job right you can modify other aspects of the motor to get a lot more power then 450hp if you wanted nitrous is just a one way road. you can get a turbo for say 1200 for a decent one and the header you can get used that isnt an issue. Also the piping wouldnt cost another 2000 dollars. no offense but the 5.0 mustang is hideous design but that my opionion im more of a nice lined and modern looking car kinda guy. i didnt say they last longer at all im not one of the ignorant people that pushes that concept.

the original poster wants a 450 hp car for as cheap as possible... you can get a 5.0 mustang over 400 hp for less then $4000... including the car.... nos is legal here... im not a fan of the 5.0s myself, but they are amazingly cheap to add power to, if you wanted to go with a turbo or supercharger they also have cheap ( 2500 ish) kits that make around 400 hp or so. i know a guy who paid around 7k or so for a 1988 fox body, that ran mid 10s on nitrous, and it was in pretty darn good condition either way its a pretty damm cheap way to go fast in a straight line

Alright, I got the PM from the O.P. a couple days a go, hopefully it'll help ya'll know what he's looking for a bit better... 'I want something that corners like a WRX with a great suspention kit... have about $ 9,000 for entire project.. $ 11,000 max with other mis upgrades... need for speed style ! 140 + MPH top end quick on launches !' ------------------------------- The quick launches and good handling lead me to suggest getting an older unibody and building it from there. As I think lightweight will be the main thing to focus on here. Additionally, I would recommend N/A for low end response. Honestly I think you'll be happy with 200hp if you can get down near the 1 ton point. People constantly start but can't finish conversion projects, I would suggest looking for one such project and finish it. With the economy as it is you should be able to find more than a handful of desperate people looking to sell off their dreams.

he wants a track car so im assuming he doesnt want a drag car so nitrous isnt very useful for a road course

Yay, somebody else agrees on the power/weight ratio. "With the economy as it is you should be able to find more than a handful of desperate people looking to sell off their dreams." lol. Yeah, buy an old car cheap while you can. Something that you can bring down to 800+kg and start worrying about torque steering. At that kind of weight, having 300hp already makes it difficult to handle as a daily driver. The part about handling like a WRX is a problem though. You'd need an AWD, perhaps an old evo?

I had a feeling this would turn into a flame war lol, how cheap is cheap? you talking 2 grand or 10? Power to weight ratio is more important than power. (As my Main man Jin said) A DAF Truck has 450bhp but at 12 ton's with no semi its not gonna win a drag race. You can argue all day about whats what but I think Nitrous costs alot (cos you gotta refill), Turbos superchargers cost a lot, cam's and setup costs alot. If your serious about this project go round different forums (NOT facebook) and ask for specs on how best to get XXXhp out of XXX motor, then make your own decision. It'll save the argument on facebook, where everyone has different opinions and thinks they're right.