5-6grand before or after building?  

You're gonna be hard-pressed to buy a car, put a cage in it, and prep it, for $5k.  

Much better off buying someone else's car.

Rally is not for the financially faint of heart I looked at it from both  sides building vs prepped(allegedly).Looked around quite a bit before i went the build route, and found "ALL" those cheap ones will cost you plenty just to get them up to spec/ and fully operational,and your still never really sure about motors/ drivetrains in them, and the safety equipment in most cases is  expired or dam near it/that is even if its included in the deal.Now this is where the conversation gets interesting and I'm sure that if something was left out someone will add it.This was "MY" build, no one is the the same.Car(s) 600.00 on Kijiji, first things first "SAFETY AND E-TEST" the car prior to build, this is very important for obvious reasons.( Note: check compression prior to sale)now that aspect is out of the way, inspect every fuel/brake line, tank re/re anything questionable(think Rally think abuse) when inspecting, next up pull the head, get it checked and resurfaced if the leak test comes up good BONUS!!! interference engines love a new timing belt, (nowadays kits include a water pump too..) get rid of all the air conditioning stuff the while the head is out of the way,its also a good time to install that safety switch to shut 'Everything" down (see cars regs) i also took the opportunity to replace the clutch, and motor mounts while the head and all the crap was out of the way, took a long hard look at the rad and went aluminum(Tig vs Brass or plastic the decision was again obvious) At this point budget is at about $2000.00.Now to consider some safety equipment,( i need some rest .The end result after a lot of research the damage was to the tune of $8766.20 this covered Hans, Helmets, Nomex suits, gloves, shoes, harnesses x2, seats x2, intercom amp, fire extinguishers, plus cage and installation.JRP/CSC were great to work with feel i was treated fairly.So here we are at $10,766.00,Now to consider Suspension & Brakes & Tires, went with K-Sport rally spec GR coilovers, (JRP) $1879.00, K-Sport has completely redesigned their rally spec line(Note: watch the production dates with these coilovers you want a production date after June 2009 there is a "Big" difference between the two in regard to the body size)With brakes i went with cross drilled vented Fronts, cross drilled rears/w Lightning pads,$200.00,while it was all apart i replaced every suspension bushing i could $250.00, boxed all control arms and links. First block of rally tires 15 total $2000.00,(won't be the last) Rally lights x2 pencil, x2 spread H1 130w $280.00 cdn from Australia( ABS housings but cheap plastic rings, i'll modify them to hold up) So in closing i don't think that this is a any more than a must need build at $15,185.00 + over 300+ man hrs.Again Rally is not for the financially faint of heart

I failed to leave out another 1500.00 in incidentals, Comp License, first aid course

Razzy wrote on 03/14/10 at 03:57:45:


If you've ever sat in a rally car, you'll quickly find out that its not something that you would want to use as a daily driver. Its more then possible, but as you'd be stripping everything out of the car, it would be very loud, the suspension would be stiff, and jumping through the roll cage would get annoying, not to mention driving around with a roll cage might gets the cops attention.

Plus if you're going into rally races, they are extremely hard on the cars, and if you ditch your rally car around a corner, you're also ditching your daily driver...

As for the generic starter rally car, golfs are pretty popular. There are quite a lot of them, so finding parts usually isn't an issue, and you can pick one up for fairly cheap The competition is a little more fair, as if you go into the all wheel drive cars, you can end up against the Subaru Sponsored teams  

where could I buy a rollcage?

As someone going through this process now... we purchased the Lada before the holidays which is essentially turnkey expect that the belts and one seat need to be replaced by may.

We figure we will spend at least $4000 plus car cost to get into our first competition  in may...  this includes the new belts, a new seat, 2 x suites, 2 x helmets, 2 x Hans, first aid course, physicals, race license, and other misc...

This does not even take into account insurance....

Derek.

There is a nice Scirocco starter car in the classifieds section... comes with lots of spares, and an engine swap to tinker with before putting in!