This is turning into one of my favorite builds!
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Thanks man!! Awesome to hear!Originally posted by iXguido View Post
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In preparation for the track event I had planned, it was finally time to stop dragging my feet and get going on the basic mechanical prep. The car hadn't really been run longer than 5 mins or driven more than 100 meters since last October, so it was imperative to at the very least do an oil change. On the lift, I was greeted by an alarming sight... the steering rack leaked. The boots were full of oil! If you recall further back in this thread, I already had some past drama with steering racks, and this was the third one I've installed into this car. Well, a leaking rack can't cure itself on its own, so I was forced to do it again, three days before I was scheduled for the track event. A local E30 buddy provided a good used stock unit for me to pop in, and Its almost to the point of ridiculous where I can say I'm getting quick at replacing these racks lol... Luckily the replacement is working great, no leaks anywhere, or on any of the fittings I touched throughout the install. Sweet!! I did have to do an alignment, luckily it wasn't terribly far out. Settled on 2mm total toe out, and also readjusted the rear to 3mm total toe in. Oil change done, I would like to have done a brake fluid flush but I ran short on time, so I'd have to leave that for another day. Filled the car up with fuel, got two spare gas cans, a set of wheels with the old slicks on, plus two spares, and my tools. Good to go!
I love the drive out to this track. Even being a 3 hour tow, I don't even notice the time spent on the way to get there. Pretty and scenic, lots of curvy smooth roads too, the closer you get to the track. Makes me wish I was driving a car instead of towing an entire rig!
When I arrived at the track, I was surprised to be greeted by some track friends who were also attending the event, testing out an E36 Champcar. Awesome! The track event is just a giant open session, so people can go on track whenever they please. I decided to go out on my roller wheels that have street tires, good enough to just get the car up to temp slowly and make sure there were no major issues. The car looks best on the BBS wheels anyways :)
Warmup of three laps later, I came back in to swap the slicks on, and go out again, for a few more laps. I'd end up managing to do 6 sessions of 5-6 laps each, more than enough to actually need a splash of fuel to get me through the last session. So good! I managed to do a few different shock changes, at the rear I installed old AST 4100s from my M3 (which I never got to try last October) and multiple different front shock settings. I felt that this day, at this track, the car felt best at nearly full soft from the front shock damping adjustment setting, a complete opposite to what I'd felt last year at Mosport. Weird... but I'll take it!
Some of the following pics are mine, some pics are from my buddy, one of the drivers of that Champcar you can see in the background.
Lets get some sound on this thread!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf7v61ddhNE
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Awesome!Comment
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Why did you stay 5 lug? Measure caster yet, you have non-M knuckles correct?
I like camber gain at the knuckle better than strut if you have the inner tire clearance.
Nice to see the car back together.
MT1.5! spoiler is a bit of twist to look at, but exciting otherwise.Comment
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Great question... I guess mostly cost, and what I had available to me at the time. Since it already had the 5 bolt stuff at the rear when I got it (which I now surmise is E30 M3 parts, not E36-based as previously thought) it was easier to recycle some E36 front end parts I had kicking around (yup, non-M knuckles), have the small advantage of the bigger front wheel bearings and have it all match. I don't have turnplates, so I can't measure caster super accurately, but my guess is its at least around 9, maybe 10 degrees. I am glad to have put power steering back in, as it masks some of the steering effort created by this suspension, but I still think there are some geometry handicaps to using E36 parts. I am not enough of a suspension guru to know what the exact causes are, but the best way I can describe it is the car just doesn't seem as nimble, or eager to change direction as other E30s I've driven in the past... On a higher speed track like Mosport, its a non-issue. But on tighter tracks, I do wonder how it would feel if I were able to do a back to back comparison of the same wheel/tire size, spring/shock combo, alignment settings, but then analyze the geometry differences and characteristics between the original 4 bolt front struts, and the E36 non-M parts.Originally posted by moatilliatta View Post
Haha, MT1.5... I like that!
I'm a huge fan of the M Tech 2 rear spoiler. I think it pairs well with a 4 door silhouette. The purist in me cringes as well with all the inaccuracies going on, but I like that I had free reign here to take what I felt was the best of all worlds and blend it into one product. I've certainly never seen any of this combination all together on one car before.
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I had a local photographer shoot the car two days after the track event, both digital, and some in film too. Just waiting on those to come back, but here is a teaser!
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I feel like the NON-M knuckles are a bit more friendly geometry wise compared to the E30 4 lug.
Car does speak simplicity.Comment
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MRT Engineering on FB ( Can't remember his r3v handle... but AKA Magnus Racing Team) has posted a LOT of 3d scan comparisons recently... a ton of which are E36 knuckle geometry comparisons... I think there are some e30 in there somewhere too.
Need to scroll a bit...Last edited by Northern; 09-17-2024, 11:27 AM.Originally posted by priapismOriginally posted by shamesonComment
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Thanks for that! I'd never seen all that stuff before! I have to spend some time reading, and see if it correlates to my findings.Originally posted by Northern View Post
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The photoshoot pics came in. Still a few extras to be uploaded, but for the most part, you can find them here if you're interested in taking a look:
The past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind... and its bittersweet to say this, but the car has a lucky new owner. A friend of a friend expressed some interest in the car as soon as it was back from paint some time ago, and a commitment was made last week to buy the car. I promised to make the car race-ready for our local racing organization, so there's still a few updates left, but a conclusion is on its way soon as far as this thread is concerned. I don't know the new owner very well, so I'm not sure if the thread will continue once I hand over the proverbial key for the car, but the plans are for the car to participate in the local vintage racing circuit.
All that said, I still need to make it race ready. And tie up a few loose ends, so lets get going on that.
First up was a rain light. Most contemporary racing orgs now require some sort of LED light at the rear of the vehicle so it is visible in rain/poor weather conditions. I have a few extra wires purposely run inside the wiring harness of the car when I put it together, so it was more less as simple as digging one out, attaching a switch on one side, and a light on the other side. I planned to utilize the original e30 Hazard button as the rain light toggle, and thankfully that parts car donated the plug base, along with a few wires that I could run under the dash.
Marking everything and running a few extra wires. I also took this chance to start on tidying up the wiring under the dash for the final time. I'll post pictures of the final product later, but here is the warzone during sorting out the wiring/buttons, etc.
Doing some testing with an old rain light I had kicking around
The new one showed up in the mail within two days. That was a good surprise! Substantially larger than the 'afterburner' style light I showed in the previous pic (old style, now superseded).
And now comes the part where I have to say: Don't work late/when you're super tired or you'll end up making really dumb mistakes... Let me explain.
In my usual detail-oriented fashion, I wanted the rain light to be integrated into the original tail light, as I'm not really a fan of cutting a hole into the rear tail panel of the car where the light could stick out of. Since I'm a self-proclaimed hoarder, I still had my smashed tail light from the wreck, and I used that a guinea pig to cut up and see how the new LED light could be made to fit within one of the compartments of the taillight. Without giving it much thought, I decided to cut the reflector out, and put the LED light in place. Okay... once I had a plan figured out, I took the real light off the car, taped it up so it wouldn't get dusty/scratched, and I installed the light. Got it all nice and fitted... Wired up and put onto the car (do you see a problem yet?)
Wired up... stood back, admiring my handiwork... Damn that's a slick install. Until I went to install the light bulb tray back into the light lense housing and realized I PUT IT IN THE WRONG SPOT! F@#%$@... I totally didn't even think that this compartment on an Early model E30 is where the running light is, and I was supposed to have put it in the outer most Red compartment, where a fog light would be on a european spec E30. What an idiot. So now, I'd cut up/damaged the reflector, so I had to go back to my wrecked lense, cut what remained of the reflector, and clear epoxy everything back as best as I could so I could get back to square one.
Two days later of cutting, gluing, and just general damage control of repairing my last driver side tail light, I got it back to a place where I could start to focus again on getting that LED light installed. Same procedure, lots of cutting, test fitting, but I got it all in place. I had to shave the case of the LED light just a tad, as the corners of it ended up where the tail light mounts to the body of the car. Pfewww!
With that out of the way, next thing was a passenger seat, as I'd planned to bring the car out to the next BMW Club event at Mosport so the car could be seen in action. Again, I temporarily stole the mounts out of my M3 for this, but part of what I promised will go with the car is a set of new mounting hardware in order to facilitate an easy solution for a passenger seat as the car is slated to do a handful of driving school/lapping day type of events before it goes wheel to wheel racing next spring.
And at the track... this opportunity was just to run the car at lunchtime, during a planned parade lap lead-follow type of deal. It ended up being a bit of a snooze-fest, but the new owner got a chance to drive the car at slow speeds, and just get acquainted with it. When one buys their first racecar, I totally understand that it's an overwhelming event. A lot to process!
Back at the shop a few days later, the new seat belts arrived for the car. Nice shiny new FIA spec belts. Got those installed, adjusted, and pinned. Sweet! Within the week, I also cut out some vinyl stickers for the kill switch, tow hooks, and also brush painted the tow hooks red.
Lol this is starting to feel like deja vu: another weekend, another trip to trailer the car out to the track. However, this weekend would be to present the car to our local racing organization's Tech scrutineers to have it gone over to make sure it was safe to race. The only recommendation is to have the fuel cell vent extended and exit outside the body, but other than that, the car passed with flying colors, first try. Proud and happy with that
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The last time the three musketeers would be together!
I finished up a few last minute items I'd promised with the car, as well as a few maintenance items I felt the car would benefit from, and give the new owner less headache down the road. I extended the vent for the fuel cell (as required from race tech inspection), looped, and just ran the hose out the battery box vent in the trunk floor. I also put a new wheel bearing on the front, as one was suspect... probably not needed, but being that the investment of effort on my side was minimal, I felt it was a nice gesture to give the new owner a car with the least amount of headaches possible. I also made up some spacers to put on the steering rack to prevent the wheels from turning too far. The material I used was 9mm thick, so stacking three spacers on each side of the steering rack ended up with a 27mm block behind each tie rod. This would limit the steering to almost a full turn less on the steering wheel in the car. Great for preventing those tall slicks from contacting anything!
The VDO temp gauge finally came in the mail. NOS unit I found on ebay, matching the original engine coolant temp sensor range of 40-120 C.
That felt good to pop in. I also printed up some labels at work to help give reference to what the driver is looking at on the dash. Labels for the kill switch, coolant, oil temp/press, etc... Much more clarity now for somebody who isn't familiar with the car.
There was also passenger seat installed with a set of Bimmerworld floor mounts. Nice product! Bolted in no problems at all, and gave me ample room and adjustment to get a seat situated. I recommended the new owner eventually move this over to the driver side and mount the seat fixed without a slider down the road once she's a bit more familiar with the car when it comes time to race it.
Last thing on my list was a fuse for the power steering pump, that I never got around to installing. It's an 80amp inline fuse, and its just ziptied around the main engine wiring harness, along for the ride. Yes, of course, I wrapped it in heat shrink after I'd taken the picture.
Ready to rock! Last night in the shop!
The morning of... I went to start the car and load it up, but was greeted by the sound of it idling higher than normal, around 1500 rpm or so. Odd. I understand its a cold day, but it was weird the idle wasn't settling down, even after I let the car run after a minute or so when loading it onto the trailer. Mind you, I'm a bit stressed at this point, as I'm supposed to be delivering to the car to the track, for a track day, and I'm already late. Welpppp... Gotta fix this! I can't show up with a car that's got issues. So I started to poke around a bit. After a couple of minutes, I realized the car didn't really seem to respond to unplugging the TPS. A quick look inside revealed that one of the wires had broken right at the crimp connection at the pins... that explains everything. It must have been upset when I took it off the night before to install the power steering pump fuse. Sigh!
The show must go on, late or not. I backed the now loaded trailer into the shop and started to dig in. My parts car provided a new plug with a bit of wire, and a crimped connection was the solution to get the ball rolling.
I managed to get to the track about a hour later than I'd originally envisioned, but luckily the car wasn't going to hit the track for another 45mins from when I arrived, so not the end of the world. We popped the OZ wheel set on, which now were wrapped in a fresh set of Bridgestone RE71RS tires. A good way to get acquainted with the car before sampling the slicks.
I'm glad to report the car ran the entire day perfectly. I managed to ride along in the passenger seat for the first two sessions to make sure everything was okay. The suspension is a tad on the soft side for Mosport, but at least it's very forgiving while still communicating really well. There should be a flyby video somewhere in this post.
Soaking in the details of this car throughout the day. Love how straight everything lines up on it!
Definitely a huge fan of how this wiper setup turned out... including the driver side grill with the delete cap all molded in. I want to replicate this setup for my M3!
And that's pretty much it! It feels like I forgot a bunch of stuff along the way, and that the thread is coming to an abrupt end... but the car will still be around locally, and I may end up working on it here and there in the future. The new owner is planning to race it next year on the local vintage racing circuit, and it's being taken care of by another friend who has a shop about two hours away, so its not far. Unsure if this thread will continue or not... but for now, thanks for tuning in!
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2 cars gone. Something big next?Comment
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Lol only one car, so far. Although, funny you mention that... I had the M3 out two weeks ago at the track for some open lapping. A local racer messaged me a few days later and asked about it, even though I have no plans to sell. If I were to let that car go as well, it would open up a few doors for sure!
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