Hi all,
First post for me! So tomorrow i'm going to view a SR3, its engine was rebuilt only 7 hours ago by rlm.
Do you have any pointers on questions i should be asking? Things i should be looking at? Id also like to know the total running time of the car, is there a way i can find this out?
The points i have lined up are:
-Air jacks (operational, see working)
-Diff leaks (visual)
-Gear selector display (check all gears, shifts correctly, paddle shift with auto blip)
-Service records
-Last service
-wheel socket available
-total running time
-max rev's (yellow button on dash)
-check chassis for bends, cracks, suspect welds
thanks all, look forward to see what information you can give me!
Hi Sam! The owner/moderator of this site Charley did a great write up for things to look for when inspecting / pre-purchase. Here is the link: https://radicalsportscarregistry.com/radical-sr3-buyers-guide/
Best of luck and feel free to write us back with specific questions regarding the car. My SR3 is a 2004, also a first gen.
Welcome Sam @m22ble ! As Crit mentioned reading the "SR3 Buyers Guide" should be helpful for learning about the car. The next thing I would recommend is looking up the chassis number in the Registry to see if there is any history on the car. That is also helpful to find out if the car is really the year the seller is saying. It is very common for cars to be advertised as different years then they truly are. If you have any pictures of the car feel free to email them to me at CharleyH@RadicalSportscarRegistry.com and I will be happy to tell you what I see. After seeing the pictures I can also give you other questions to ask.
On the First Generation cars (SuperSports and TrackSports, it is preferable to get a car with a high downforce body. The standard downforce cars are great also but the reason I prefer the high downforce cars (other than the added downforce) is that they have very robust front splitters that can withstand "off track excursions" better then the standard downforce splitters. The standard downforce splitters are mounted directly to the expensive front bodywork, which can cause an expensive repair, while the HDF splitters are mounted directly to the chassis of the car.
Regarding knowing how many hours are on the chassis... it is difficult to know exactly unless the car has an hour meter. Even when they do have an hour meter you never truly know when it was added to the car so it may not represent the total yours. If the car was raced it may have a log book that will give you a good indication. Also there are common wear areas that will give you an indication of chassis hours. Look at the wear on the steering wheel, the foot well, where the nose sits on the front splitter, and the wheel vents.
Some other questions to ask are: 1) How many hours are on the Gear Drive Unit. They should be overhauled when the engine is overhauled but that doesn't always happen. 2) Ask if there are any known issues with the car. 3) Look at the options and make sure it has the options you want. 4) Find out what spares or tools come with the car..... Things like wheel sockets and Air jack wands are fairly expensive so it is great if you can get them with the car. 5) Check if the belts and fire extinguisher are out of date. Out of certification safety items can be replaced, but the do affect what you should pay for the car. 6) Ask when the last time the car was out on the track and how did it run. If the car has been sitting find out how often the car was started. It it hasn't been started for a while it is best to leave the ignition switch off and press the starter button to allow the engine to turn over with out starting. This allows the oil to get into all of the right places before the engine is started.
The rest of your questions look great.
Like I said earlier, feel free to send me pictures and I can tell you what I see. It is most helpful to have pictures from multiple angles of the car, pictures with the nose and tail off, pictures of the interior, and of the foot well.
Let me know if you have any other questions,
Charley
