The Good Question and My Answer.

[DCColegrove]

Thinning the herd is not necessarily a bad thing....:mrgreen:
I kid, I kid.. good call on your friends behalf IMO.

I'm really of two minds on the subject myself.... But I keep him around to point out my deeply embedded character flaws as well as build killer power-plants.

[Mtriple]

Dan Marx shot me a message telling me that these kids were going to go look at my site and saw holes in their car and cut out panels with a torch without a better explanation and I'd be responsible for their eventual death...
I'd say so what?

But he was adamant and he is my friend.

Thinning the herd is not necessarily a bad thing....:mrgreen:



I kid, I kid.. good call on your friends behalf IMO.

[DCColegrove]

The LCAB Brace.

I keep getting hammered like this " That's the strongest structure in the car why brace it?"

We measured the movement between the LCABs longitudinally, laterally and vertically.

They were flexing in a circular motion... more of an oval of (from memory) of V 12mm X L 8mm.... and by the time this compliance translates to the end of the control arm that's a lot of motion.

ADDED: The longitudinal compliance between the carrier and the point if the frame the LCABs are mounted to was @ 10mm


The LCAB Brace addresses the lateral motion only unlike the X that mitigated to more of a degree all planes of compliance. The X was tested extensively on the big dollar toys. The LCAB Brace was not (I no longer have access to the shaker)

The LCAB could be closer in to the frame however it has been place below the area that could interfere with the designed in safety feature of a drop out power-train in a head on collision (this data was extrapolated from measurements taken through the tunnel compared to the necessary clearance of the highest profile engine assay (M42).

Where as the X brace is calculated (Kind of off the hip but backed up with known design data) to to shear and drop.

The X mitigated that "Circle" down to V 8mm X L 2mm (this number I know for sure).

EDIT:

to be perfectly honest, i dont give a rats ass about this aspect of zen. I want to know more about the featherlight 318.

Latter... I may write a whole single article spanning Datsun 510 to BMW e30.

I can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

And this is important:

Some methods for weight reduction if not done correctly can be really fuckin' dangerous...

You can't just take a hole saw and body shears and start cutting away steel. Some specialized tools are necessary (A flair punch and bead roller for example).

See here: http://bmwzenperformance.com/disclaimer.html

Dan Marx shot me a message telling me that these kids were going to go look at my site and saw holes in their car and cut out panels with a torch without a better explanation and I'd be responsible for their eventual death...
I'd say so what?

But he was adamant and he is my friend.

[VacMan]

to be perfectly honest, i dont give a rats ass about this aspect of zen. I want to know more about the featherlight 318.

Exactly. The 2255lb 318is with full interior and A/C is what piqued my interest as well. Nevermind the claims of aerospace rivets and super-light wiring.

[gazellebeigem3]

to be perfectly honest, i dont give a rats ass about this aspect of zen. I want to know more about the featherlight 318.

[homegrone30]

So, your request is for us to STFU, then you ask the same questions, so by defaut, STFU!

Dammit Farbin are you stalking me on R3v?

[DCColegrove]

I am trying to answer some of your questions here.

I have also gone back through and added info to my posts here as well... (I'm getting a lot of questions regarding the posts on the side).

Note: I don't type very fast...

[DarkWing6]

Wow, I must have missed something.
A private businessman is trying to expand the aftermarket for a 18+ year old car, puts said car on a machine that NO OTHER aftermarket company has bothered with, and you guys are crucifying him for it?
DC, maybe you do need to get your head examined.
I, for one, am glad that there is SOMEONE willing and able to do this stuff. Yes, it's expensive, and I understand why.
This is the last crowd I would have expected to pull this shit. If it's too expensive for your mommy to put it under the christmas tree, then you need to piss off.

I agree with you 100%. However, the issue is that he is developing things and does not yet have a reputation like a H&R, Sparco, etc. Since some of the claims he has made seem a bit 'far fetched' to say the least, which causes some people to be a bit skeptical. I browse his product line and like what I see, but I am always one to question what I am getting before dropping a few hundred bucks on it. I see both sides of this story and would like to see DC continue to develop e30 products, but I also want make sure I am spending my money on something beneficial for my car.

[Stephen]

A con artist has a hard time making money off a logical, intelligent person. Gullible and uneducated Socal Lyfe people make easy targets. They are too high to think critically.

Okay.. So we're all uneducated and gullible because of our geographical location?

I think thats a bit harsh

[DCColegrove]

I'm going to try to go on like I'm autistic here amidst the heckling and try to pull out honest questions and answer them....

Home sick.... So I have nothing better to do...

EDIT: Well... Until the thread gets locked anyway.

[DCColegrove]

What year / model e30 chassis was this? Just curious.

It was a 1990 325i 2dr with less than 50k on it... Quite the find in it's self.

It had been in someones garage for a dozen years and was totaled because of rodent damage, it wouldn't run and you couldn't sit in it but the chassis was as close to pristine as you can get for really cheap.

Now... Floor pan support (rear brace system)

This is the why:

Not the best image ever but what happened here is the spot welds on the frame channels and trunk floor pan failed.



The new rear brace, specifically the floor-pan support was developed and tested in the old tried methods.

We built a jig from the already developed rear brace and used a sprung dial indicator with a double tell tale. We moved the indicator in order to map the flexing (oil can lid effect) of the floor-pan.

This was tested on an 89 325is, 90 325i and a 1991 318is.

Under hard acceleration and downshifting the floor-pan directly over the rear differential mount channel dropped as much as 10mm on the 89 iS (solid urethane mounted) and rebounded as much as 4mm.

The floor pan brace is built with those joints at the pan mount in order to allow for adjustment because a wide variance was found between all three of these cars and several others.

Added: I should add here that the rear brace is "Over built" because:

1. Weight loss in the back side on the e30 is not a problem

2. It will offer additional support for a true Coil Over suspension

(I didn't make it into work today so I still don't have the exact numbers from the earlier shaker test in the rest of the chassis)

[TDE30]

Where am I in this .bmp?

.jpg edited.

[rwh11385]

We are not crucifying him for that, rather for the 2250 lb m42 powered street car with "light weight wiring harness, composite stock seat frames, and alloy aircraft rivets" not to mention a 11,000 RPM M42 making 280 hp and no prior knowledge of S42, even though it was listed on his website. If he can't provide photo proof of his spot-welded front fenders (takes about 30 seconds), then how can we possibly believe all his other, unsubstantiated claims. It's because he's an engineer, we are supposed to believe him. What a crock of shit.

If he is lying about claims that are very easy to prove (put said car on scale, take some pictures of said modifications), then how do we know he isn't lying about claims that are more difficult to prove? No logical person will ever believe him.

A con artist has a hard time making money off a logical, intelligent person. Gullible and uneducated Socal Lyfe people make easy targets. They are too high to think critically.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Where am I in this .bmp?

[TDE30]

I felt compelled.