Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

[Fair!]

Basically what i was trying to say- is the playing field really isnt perfectly even as it is with such a wide range of cars, so its hard to take winning too seriously. I mean, who's going to be faster on an auto-x than a stripped down big HP e30 with 10" rubber? Apples to oranges.

True... but the E30 is hardly a car with a perfect suspension. We dreamed up several other chassis/builds since we built this thing that would lay waste to our little E30. But is it worth it for us to build an all new car from scratch? Hell no! We just don't have the energy. ;)

And the excuse about being overweight.. All the weight reduction carlos and jimmy did was documented on the dirte30 blog. The car was even lighter two years ago in Warbird trim.

Oh, wait... I never meant to imply that the Condor E30 was in any way cheating? You've misunderstood me. That team took it more seriously and got the car down to a very competitive weight (2160). We didn't realize the extent of the "lightness" that had been explored by other teams or we would have done more to "add lightness" to our portly little Bimmer.

We also thought there was more to the "street worthy equipment" portions that we kept in the car. Once again, our noob mistake. We know better now, and will yank all of that fluff out. :p It was simply our inexperience (and my stubbornness) that led us to bring a nearly 2500 pound car to this event. We're still stumped at how we added about 200 pounds from a previous weighing to the final set-up... lots of little things, fluids and safety gear just added up and it got away from us. That's not an excuse, more of a statement of fact. We screwed the pooch. :D

I cant tell you whether or not the white e30 will be back next year, thats up to the owners. (GRM begged us to bring a different car) But whatever happens, whatever car everyone shows up with.. We hope to be competitive, and if we lose, there will be no lame excuses.

-Jay

Sounds good - I hope the Condor Team returns in the same car. Its pretty damn quick, and its pretty damn cool. The flares on the car this year, the bodywork, the paint... flawless. It had some good power this year, as well! I'll be surprised if GRM doesn't do a full article/write-up on that car. It photographs very well and hauls ass!



As for excuses... hey, I've been racing a long ass time, so I've got a million of 'em! :p

[Jonny Cash]

Damn your quick! I initially intended to edit the post you just quoted- because i dont want there to be any bad blood, or any feelings that Im throwing shots at you guys. That wasnt the intention, and i dont want my big mouth speaking for the rest of the team :)

We hope to see you guys at VIR, first beer's on us!

[lostbeachbum]

True... but the E30 is hardly a car with a perfect suspension. We dreamed up several other chassis/builds since we built this thing that would lay waste to our little E30. But is it worth it for us to build an all new car from scratch? Hell no! We just don't have the energy. ;)


Oh, wait... I never meant to imply that the Condor E30 was in any way cheating? You've misunderstood me. That team took it more seriously and got the car down to a very competitive weight (2160). We didn't realize the extent of the "lightness" that had been explored by other teams or we would have done more to "add lightness" to our portly little Bimmer.

We also thought there was more to the "street worthy equipment" portions that we kept in the car. Once again, our noob mistake. We know better now, and will yank all of that fluff out. :p It was simply our inexperience (and my stubbornness) that led us to bring a nearly 2500 pound car to this event. We're still stumped at how we added about 200 pounds from a previous weighing to the final set-up... lots of little things, fluids and safety gear just added up and it got away from us. That's not an excuse, more of a statement of fact. We screwed the pooch. :D

Here are the rules regarding gutting your car #6, 10-12 taken from GRM website. We have made sure to keep the horn and working head lights, brake lights, but other then that it has been yanked. The first year 2007 we came full weight and quickly learned what needed to be done to be competitive

Hopefully this will help you guys shed the unwanted weight on your E30. Enjoy!!

6. Cars must be roadworthy, meaning basic street equipment must be present: functioning headlights, uncracked windshields, working brake lights, working horn and DOT-approved tires.

10. Interiors may be gutted, although the basic dashboard or dashpad must remain. If the original dashboard pad has since rotted or deteriorated away, it may be replaced with a full width piece of aluminum. 11. Windows may be replaced with clear Lexan or polycarbonate that meets all safety requirements. 12. Fenders and hoods may be replaced as long as the replacement is solid and safe, resembles the original piece and has a positive latching device. Exceptions to this rule must be approved prior to the event by the GRM staff.

[2002maniac]

12. Fenders and hoods may be replaced as long as the replacement is solid and safe, resembles the original piece and has a positive latching device. Exceptions to this rule must be approved prior to the event by the GRM staff.

Team Condor was CHEATING! Hood flying off means it was not solid and safe!11!!!

I think you need to be very very careful before you accuse anyone of cheating. If you had any doubts about the 450hp SBC in the MGB you should have walked up and asked Andy how he did it. He could tell you exactly what swap meet he bought the parts in and how much he paid. Circle track is very popular in his region and obsolete race parts sell for pennies on the dollar.

His motors are beasts and to finish it off he makes his own 180 degree tuned headers from scrap parts.

Sorry you didn't win Terry, I hope you do really well next year. There are some very serious cars showing up to the challenge these days.

[Fair!]

Project Update for Oct 21, 2010: Well we had our first $2011 Challenge Team meeting last night and we came up with a solid game plan. Keep it simple: lower the weight, tune the chassis, tackle the reliability issues, and test test test. Many radical changes were discussed and all were tossed out.... except for a few small improvements. We'll talk about those later as we get to them. :)

We're going to definitely shoot for going back to the $2011 GRM Challenge event in the same car. We've also touched base with GRM about a possible $2011 Challenge class at the next Ultimate Track Car Challenge in July 2011. We'll be running it in local auto-x events, and if its halfway competitive we'll run it in XPrepared at the 2011 SCCA Solo Nationals in September. NASA Texas has their 2011 racing schedule up so we're penciling in dates for track testing already, too. We'll run the car in TTU and ballast up to make minimum weight for that class. And the damn thing will make a pass down the dragstrip under power at least once before we head back to Gainesville.

OK, blah blah blah. That was a bunch of boring fluff. I finally got around to editing and uploading some videos today, between hacking away at a backlog of 200 emails and a dozen phone calls. Here's a few in-car videos from the GRM Challenge event in our little E30. The car made a total of 7 autocross runs at the event without (much) incident, including 4 by Costas in competition, and 3 fun more runs by GRM's Scott Lear, me and McCall.


Costas, run 2, fighting for rear grip - click for video


Costas, run 3, his smoothest & fastest - click for video


Fair, fun run, drifting and spinning - click for video

Those were originally 1080P videos, and even compressed they are still pretty large (60-70 Mb each) and might take a bit to cache before you can watch one. As you can see we've got a lot of suspension tuning to do. And brake work. And power steering work. And the gauges need to be hooked up. Oh well, at least we've got 11 months to get it sorted now, instead of a handful of minutes before loading it on the trailer.

Other than a little cone damage to one of the flares, and the wiper motor catching on fire, the car was rock solid reliable. In the autocross. When we got to the drag race portion... not so much. :)



We're still not sure what was the cause of the 2 driveline failures in the drag portion - a halfshaft CV joint exploded first, then 3rd gear shed its teeth - but it was probably the 25 year old, untested halfshaft and junkyard T5's conditions. They both could have "just been about to let go". Totally untested junk. The dragstrip launch pad had LOTS of stick and the Hoosier A6 tires we're not the worst tires we could have had for drag racing (but they were a far cry from real drag slicks). We'll do like Costas mentioned - crack open the next Camaro V6 T5 and take a peek inside before we put the replacement in the car. Nobody knows what the T5 we used looked like before we stuck it in the first time. And we'll test the replacement halfshaft in anger at a drag strip around here. We've gotta make sure our home-brew nitrous system works, you know...

More soon!

[franco90]

DAMM nice car

[Fair!]

Project Update for Nov 23, 2010: Wow, this thread has been dead for a bit. Sorry for the lack of updates on the $2010 E30 - we haven't done much to the little Bimmer since October, but we've been busy on other projects. Let's see...

We've been working on my E46 330Ci DSP car, and raced it exactly 2 times after the SCCA Solo Nationals (where it sucked). The 2nd event (SCCA @ Texas Motor Speedway) is the one where the M54 motor went KA-BLAMMO! in October. We have ignored the blown engine and have been slowly turning it back into more of a street worthy car, with the OEM front seats back in, OEM steering wheel back on, airbags reconnected, OEM battery back in, and the factory HK sound system (amp, head unit and speakers) re-installed. We're getting this car ready for an all-new LS1 T56 swap in December, after which it will become a fun track/street car. I need to update the thread for that car to show where we're at on that.



The 2011 Mustang GT project work has been chronicled on several forums, and as you've seen we've been doing some testing on it. Just ordered a pile of exhaust parts for it yesterday (mufflers and header wrap) and even more today (3" ID 100 cell cats). Trying to set-up a trip to the new 1/4 mile dragstrip here to do some baseline passes in the next 2 weeks, before we tear into the I/H/E updates and the first AST suspension & Vorshlag camber plate install.



Matt's '95 M3 LS1/T56 car has been getting attention in our shop the past 2 weeks, with the front end removed for easier access to the engine bay and a bunch of suspension bits installed. We're waiting on some laser cut parts (just finished the updated drawings last night) to arrive so we can make another batch of our 3-channel ABS relocation brackets, which is holding up part of that project now. I'm making a big batch of E36 LS1 motor mount and trans crossmembers here in the shop in the next week, and those drawing updates have gobbled a bunch of my time as well.



I've been working on Paul M's '95 Impreza / '07 STi swap a bit and have some time schedule for this weekend to work on the steel fender flares. This car is being built for SCCA Street Mod and NASA TTB, and as a FWD '95 it started life as one of the lightest Imprezas ever imported to our shores. With the modern AWD 2.5L turbo drivetrain and 18x10" wheels it should be fun.



Our '97 E36 M3 (former STU car) has had some time under the wrench as well, with a new A/C system installed (preventative), new taillight assembly (don't even get me started on the ridiculous ticket/court date I had to deal with due to that brake light being out), and some other shiny, new OEM bits. We're prepping this car for sale, reluctantly. With 5 race ready cars in the shop and one sexy new 412 hp Mustang, this poor M3 is being totally ignored. Its not going to be re-classed in ST* until at least 2012, if then, so we're going to let this car that we've owned for 4 years go to another home soon. :(



I pitched in on some small work on Costas' LeMons Camaro for a couple of weekend days in the past month. He did a bulk of the work this time around, of course, but we tackled the custom seat bracket, gauge install, steering quick release, and the motor install 2 weeks ago. They got it ready for the true 24 hour race in New Orleans last weekend, and finished 11th out of 60, even after tagging a wall and having an electrical fire! They had an epic event - Look for the write-up on our forum thread and on his WDS website.

The $2010 E30 V8 is going on the lift tomorrow evening, actually. I want to work on some things over the 4 day Thanksgiving weekend so we'll probably finish off the gauge install that got skipped, then get the old trans ready to come out and the new one ready to go in.

So we're staying busy at night and on weekends, and the business has really been slammed with orders (not complaining - thanks guys!). I'm trying to develop a bunch of new suspension products for various cars, like camber plates for models we haven't tackled yet, new wheel studs (M14 Porsche/Audi/VW/Mini), new motor & trans mounts, and a list of about 2 dozen other things on my design list. I'm also slowly switching all of our CAD drawings to 3D SolidWorks 2011 files.

More soon,

[mutty]

Waiting for more info on the e46 ls1/t56 swap. Have you figured out the can-bus system as yet?

[Blip Bavarian]

That Imprezza is gonna be awesome. Did you guys ever do anything to work out your brake pedal issues on the e30?
I still havent gotten my car on the gound, but My pedal is gonna be super stiff. The e30 sounds great in the videos. Cheers.

[KrautRocket]

I love Subies, they are like Lego cars! So easy to work on, swap & build as compared to many others I have built. Most other FWD cars that have an AWD variant require so much more (ie. trunk pan, unibody modifications) to get a differential under the back end! Cars look great guys, keep it up!

[stinkydriverx]

I cant believe you built that for 2k. I would easily pay 4 or 5k for something like that. Looks like way to much fun!

[JoeyBones]

mark up drawings by hand, scan them and send everything to me, i'll be happy to update for them for you!

[Simon S]

epic thread.

Wow. Thanks for sharing it here.

[Fair!]

Project Up-date for Feb 25, 2011: "I'm not quite dead yet..."

Our $2010 Challenge LSx powered BMW E30 has been ignored for many months while we worked on a number of other Vorshlag project cars. I've enjoyed not working 20-40 extra hours each week on this time-suck project, but its time to get back into the groove and fix some things and tune/improve others on this car.

We were waiting over the winter to find a deal on another Camaro V6 T5, which we did, and its been in Costas' hands for a while. I picked it up last weekend on the way back from the dragstrip; brought the T5 back in the 2011 Mustang's trunk (after running that 12.9@108.6 mph in the 1/4 mile!). Costas had pulled this one apart, eye-balled everything inside, and it looks... like a normal, used T5 in there. Nothing bent or broken, so that's good enough for this $2011 hoopty. Looking is free. Fingers still crossed that it doesn't explode the first time we track it, which is in 2 weeks at a NASA Time Trial event at MSR-Cresson. I'm already signed up in TTU for this car, so here's to wishful thinking! :)



So last Sunday I put the E30 on the lift and and Paul M and I started tearing into the trans swap. Famous last words: "We'll be done in 2 hours, tops!"



We went for the easy route, of course. We planned on just swapping the busted unit for the "new" one, all from underneath, with as little work as possible. We have air tools and a lift and 50+ years of combined wrenching experience between the two of us - how hard could it be?? To get the driveshaft out of this mess of an engine swap (due to the slip yoke into the T5 and the captured rear flange in the E30 rear subframe) you have to either pull the drivetrain forward (and nearly out) or pull the rear axle center section out, so we chose the latter. The hope was to just slide the diff back far enough to get the front yoke to slide out of the trans...



So we're about 2 hours in and we have the trans crossmember out, the engine sitting on the main motor mounts and leaning on a screw-type trans jack and the diff disconnected from the halfshafts and slid backwards several inches, sitting on a trans jack. It was pretty hilarious looking, but remember - we're old and lazy! We got the shifter out, exhaust off, and then removed the 4 bellhousing-to-trans bolts (which took some uber-long extensions and U-joint sockets). We're home free.



Hmm... why won't this damn thing come loose?!? Pulling & prying on the old T5, and then it hit me - we're both old and our memory sucks. So I jumped on the computer and looked at install pics from our own project thread, where I saw/rememberd that we have a trans that was never really meant to go onto this bellhousing! The scattershield (made for an LS1 motor and an old school Ford Toploader 4-spd but, that accidentally bolts to this weird V6 T5) had a port on the side for a clutch FORK but we had a hydraulic throw out bearing/slave cylinder that was BOLTED to the front of the trans, with hydraulic lines sticking through the fork hole. The fork hole which was captive at the rear, so the TOB has to be unbolted to let the trans slide back out of the bellhousing. See where I'm going here? Its not super obvious until you try to remove just the trans from the bellhousing... we had always put the trans onto the scattershield out of the car, then bolted that to the engine, then put the drivetrain in as a unit. With a crazy tilt angle on the cherry picker and lots of muscle to get it pointed WAY downwards, then fighting it unto the cramped engine bay and trans tunnel of the E30. Not. Much. Fun.

We can't access the two bolts on the TOB, of course, so we have to pull the bellhousing off. And to get to all the bolts... the drivetrain has to come out. *insert expletives here*



Off and on this week after work we've managed to disconnect the headers, suspension, wiring & plumbing and have dropped the K-member and drivetrain out of the car as a unit, lifting the car upwards with the lift. This is, unfortunately, the "easy way". Unlike on an E36, the E30's front radiator support bits don't just unbolt so you can slide the drivetrain out from the front on a cherry picker. Not a big deal - this is how you do a drivetrain extraction on many cars with cramped engine bays, like 4th gen Camaros.



Gah, it pains me to look at that home-built header out of the car - what a heap of crap. I really want to make a better looking set, but I don't want to spend the time or budget $ to re-do these anytime soon. So even without the busted transmissions we already had a LOT of sorting to do on the car, mostly with the low-buck suspension and the HORRIBLE brakes (non-working ABS, inconsistent stops, and locking the tires). The car was completely untested before we loaded onto the trailer to drive to Florida for the GRM Challenge event last October, and our 24th place showing (as printed in this month's GRM magazine) shows that. Gotta get the car down the dragstrip under its own power to improve that crap placing, so we've got some drag testing to tackle in the car, too. Our trip to the dragstrip last weekend was partly to scope out the track's "flexibility" with respect to drag racing in a crap can like our e30.

...see more below....

[Fair!]

...part 2 from above...

So, about the lingering problems - most of the braking problem was likely the master cylinder we used is hydraulically mismatched for the E36 rotors and calipers utilized, and the car still has too much caster, even with our hacked up strut towers and home-brew camber plates we added. Since we plan on running the car on the BIG COURSE (ie: fast speeds) at VIR on July 22nd at the GRM UTCC event, as well as at NASA Texas TT events up until then, we wanted to upgrade some things to deal with the added speed and dangers.

We're also planning to use these 18x11" CCW wheels for track events (not the GRM-cheap 15x10" steel wheels), so we can temporarily fit larger diameter brakes than the 15" wheels allowed for. So long story short - over the winter we landed a smoking deal on used E36 M3 spindles/hubs/calipers/master cylinder and we're swapping that all in now. These are 12.5" front diameter rotors, which should help shed some brake heat. Since we saved some money on this particular T5 we have a little money left to spare in our budget, and we could actually afford this upgrade for the GRM event budget, but not the 18" wheels, so we'll figure out what to do with these brakes when we get past VIR. Might be just going back to the 11.5" E36 non-M front brakes and spindles for the autocross events, which easily fit inside the steel 15" wheels.

The sad thing about this trans removal debacle is that I made the damn motor mounts and trans crossmember, installed the trans and TOB, and helped put this drivetrain in and out of the car several times, so I should have remembered the trans has to come out with the drivetrain. Its just been so many months... forgot about the TOB limitation. Getting old sucks. Anyway, the drivetrain is going back in tonight and hopefully I can tackle some minor fixes along the way as I work on it more this weekend.

Pulling the drivetrain uncovered a lot of little mistakes and issues. So many important bolts we removed this past week were "hand tight or looser" when the drivetrain came out. Scary stuff - but I suppose when you have 9 guys working on one car, starting and stopping a lot, and someone else picking up the work the next work night, and a time table that slipped, things do get missed. There was also a hole worn in the heat jacket around one fuel line in the engine bay (now fixed), a few small leaks (surprisingly few, actually) we found and repaired, things like that. And the gauges will finally be connected to the engine and not just window dressing. Many unpainted brackets that were removed will be cleaned-up and spray-bombed this weekend. We're also going to swap in a set of E36 AST 4200s again just for use at the track events - I don't trust the rusty and locked-up Koni fronts or Gas-A-Just rears. And a passenger seat and harness will be added, but removed again for the GRM event in October.

Next update will be after the E30 is running and (hopefully soon) driving again. Then we'll have a post track event report after the March 12th NASA weekend. Going to head out to MSR-Cresson to do some testing on that Friday before, along with AST-USA's WC Subaru and Costas' GT-1 race car. Then (hopefully) run TTU in the E30 on that Saturday (assuming it survives Friday), then autocross the Mustang GT (its 1st!) at an SCCA event in STX class that Sunday. Busy weekend, lots of "firsts" to tackle in both cars, and lots to do before then to prepare. There's a total of 5 track or autocross events we're doing in March, including a ProSolo and National Tour. The winter racing break is over and it doesn't let up again until November...

More soon,