First off I want to thank Rob Lay for his permission to post this here in the General Discussion area, which is generally not accepted. Since I regularly post here and some of you have asked to be informed when and if the car is for sale I thought Id ask Rob to post here where everyone checks in frequently rather than in the ads section where people check once a month. I have made the touch decision to sell my baby! I wont waste all of Robs bandwidth here so you can see most of the details on Ebay where its currently listed : http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2448381957 Unlike other 355 Cs my car is somewhat unique: -Never been raced -95 model can be made street legal -Never been rolled or badly damaged -Spent 75% of its life as a street car before being converted -All service records from day one (Dec 1st, 1994). No other Challenge car in the country has all the service records. It came down to racing vs. track days and with time being limited I really enjoy racing and competition. This car is too nice to trade paint with other racers and to costly to repair if body damage ensues from such so I have made the tough decision to sell it. I may end up getting a road Ferrari in the not too distant future, since I can't imagine not having an F car in my garage. The car is on Ebay to kind of test the waters. I have an offer from an FOW customer who wants to race the car in the new GT series in Grand Am Rolex but the offer is below what I am currently comfortable letting the car go so I would be elated if someone here in F Chat bought the car and kept it in the F CHat community. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or call me at (703) 435-5651. Regards, Jon P. Kofod 1995 F355 Challenge #23 www.flatoutracing.net
You say it was the last challenge built in 1995, but it was used as streetcar first and later converted. Was it originally delivered as challenge then? or listed as challenge because it was converted later? Just curious
Bob, All Challenge cars (355's) were either converted at the factory or at an authorized dealer. My car was the last 355 Challenge car converted in North America in Spring of 2001. It was not the last 95 built but the last 355 Challenge built. The car was a street 355 when delivered new and I purchased the last remaining 355 Challenge kit from FNA. Regards, Jon
Depends on your state requirements. At a minimum you would need to stick the quiet Challenge exhaust on to pass emissions and noise control. Headlights would have to be reinstalled. Some states ban roll cages and harnesses some don't so it would depend on your state's rules. Other than that and running street tires it would be pretty easy. Martin has his 355 c street legal in Florida without much hassle. Regards, Jon
Well, Martin has his car not quite street legal. Martin drives a toilet bowl on wheels because he has dealer tags. You need to do minimum work. Lights have to work obviously, directionals have to, you will need to reinstall the 3-point harness but can leave the optional 5-point. Most states do not allow roll cags in street cars. This has been discussed before.You can take part of the roll cage an de-install it. Muffler needs to be put back on the car, CATs (in theory) and DOT legal tires. For comfort a AC is noce as well as carpets and soundproofing. The financial cost of re-converting is oo high to justify. If you like a street car buy one. if you like a race car, buy Jons. Jons car is excellent and we have seen video that is amazing. (Driver and car). Jon, send me the details and I will list it n my website. Martin
Why in the heck would anyone want to make a Challenge car street legal. For the same price you could get a street 355 and add more aggressive suspension and some race goodies. Easier to go forward than backwards.
Martin, If you can email me your forms. I will get you all the info and some pictures this weekend. If you need my mailing address to mail the forms PM me and I'll send you my address. Regards, Jon
Thanks Jon - I was just curious as to what would be required - It's a great car & anyone looking for a track car would get a great car! Great description on your ebay listing - All the info you could ever ask for!
best of luck with the sale, its tempting but my wife would flip. Question, the conversion cost nearly 45K? were 355 challenges so expensive back in 2000 that it was cheaper to convert a 355 than buy someone else's challenge?
Andreas, Back in 2000/2001 355 C's were going for about $130-$140 (summer of 2000). My main reason for converting the car was that I had some of the Challenge parts on the car and just sold the duplicates. The extra wing brought me 7K, extra wheels 2K, and the sale of my street Tubi exhaust and Brembo F50 brakes another 5K. So after selling surplus parts of 14K the kit cost about 20K w/out labor. Regards, Jon
They were on F Chat for a long time but Rob had to pull them down due to bandwidth restrictions. go to: http://www.f355.homestead.com/glen.html There are some good ones there. Regards, Jon
Jon, I am on my way for some exercise in Sebring tomorrow. Will do all of that on monday unless I can find your e-mail uick on my computer.
Jerry, I downloaded Jon's videos back when they were up... I'll burn you a copy and give it to you the next time we meet up. Martin is right. Nice car, and VERY good driving! Byron
thanks for the info, Its acutally Tom, Andreas does have a similar handle. On the old site it used to show me also as tifosi (TomD)
Nice - Thanks Byron - I always enjoyed watching Rob's track car and this one looks very similar. Was especially interested in the video of the 355 chasing an F40 around the track.
I can attest to the fact that Jon has always kept the car in top condition, using FOW for everything (if I'm not mistaken). If I were to buy a 355C, I'd take a serious look at his. But....the next Squidracing car will be a Trans Am/GT1!!!! His driving skills: so so (hahaha). I'm sure the next owner of your car will be very happy with the car.
Jon, sorry to see you letting the car go! Im sure youll get something even better though Your in-car videos on the track were GREAT in the 355C. I have them all on my computer
Peter, It's just an estimate. Maybe 420 is a bit optomistic. I do know that my engine when it was completely stock (street car) made a verified 384 hp at the crank. We had the engine dynoed on an engine dyno in 2000 (no drive line loss) when it was out to have the rear wiring harness replaced and some other work being done. That was before the ECU software was reprogrammed. After it was converted to a Challenge car we took off all emissions gear. I also added a much better header system from Tubi that is worth some extra hp. Lastly I had a second set of TAP chips made up about 7 months ago after their first set actually lost me hp over the stock factory chips. The Tubi headers are worth 4 hp, the Tubi exhaust gains another 3-4 hp over the standard road exhaust with all it's emmission's gear and the chips showed a 15 hp gain over stock chips on a chassis dyno (less acurate because of the driveline loss). Add them up and and I get about 22-23 extra hp. If the engine was making 384 at the crank and we add 23 then we get somewhere close to 410, so maybe 420 is optomistic. My car dynoed 309 with stock chips, 298 with the first set of TAP chips, and lastly a high of 323 with the second set of TAP chips. Most of the OBDI engines on 95 355's consistently dynoed 7-8 hp higher than the OBDII engines, one reason the Challenge series here in the US used 95 engines in all their Challenge cars. Matt, You thawed out from the big snow storm yet? I actually drove the truck and trailer through that damn storm last week to go to VIR. My wife commented that I must be desperate to get out of the house to brave half a foot of snow to run a freakin Honda in 35 degree weather on a wet and icy track. Happy Holidays and see you next season. regards, Jon
Wow...I'm impressed with the research you did. Most people just talk out of their A$$ when they make HP claims. Interestingly, when I mucked around with my car and a couple of other 355CHs no changing of the exhaust or installing motec made any distinguishable difference in HP. We did not change the headers though.