Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

[moving3e]

arghhhhhh moar updates! I feel like a stalker following this on two different forums!

[Fair!]

cant wait to see the finished project. What do you plan on doing with the car after the challenge? Ill take it off your hands for ya...

We're still trying to figure that out. More than likely we'll go back and upgrade the car for regular Time Trial/track/autocross use. We would do things like put ASTs on the car, install a full cage, install a real fuel cell (if we don't do that before the Challenge), build a more radical version of the V8 we're using (which we still have not announced), things like that. Make it faster, safer, more reliable. :)

[Fair!]

Mini Update for May 5, 2010: Just a quick shot of the rear cross beam we added with the diff bolted in place. The brace and diff are perfectly aligned and fitted. We'll start adding the new rear mount structure when I'm back from Spain.



Adios!

[lifeiskaos]

You might want to check clearance with non M3 front fenders. I believe the arch is different.

[Fair!]

Update for May 24, 2010: Not very glamorous work this time, but its all necessary for this project. I was out of the country for a couple of weeks (read my Barcelona F1 race write-up, with pics from the F1 Paddock and a tour of the McLaren pits/garages here) but four of us on the team got back to work on the car again this last Thursday night, and I spent all day Sunday welding on the E30 as well. Chris, Sean and Matt worked on some things after work one night when I was out of town, which was a nice surprise. They finished the trailing arms - cleaned, primed, and painted them then pushed the cleaned up hubs and bearings in place. Excellent work on the trailing arms, guys! Looks as good as new.


L: The bushings and sleeves are pressed in. R: Who knew 25 year old bits could look this good!? With enough elbow grease, anything is possible.

So this last Thursday night it was Costas, Chris, Sean and me. We had the 4-point roll bar bolted together in the car, ready to go in, but we realized I needed to repair the big floor pan rust hole before the bar could be bolted down. When we pulled the carpet out to fix that floor panel patch, we found all of the factory glued on insulation and some other crud that needed to go. We were looking to remove at least 60 pounds from the interior - to offset the 60 pound Kirk Racing 4-point roll bar we were adding - and we've found it before even including the front seat replacements we have planned.


L: Kirk Racing 4-point sitting in the car. R: This can't be good...

We discussed the extent of the weight removal for the project and decided that - yes, we wanted it to still be street legal and "street usable". The final final plan is to keep the heater functional, blowing through the defrost vents only, while the the rest of the ducting and the A/C bits were slated to be removed. There's no reason to keep A/C in this "racey" of a car, but it will still have a working defrost, door windows, wipers, horn, lights, turn signals, carpet, upholstered front seats, and all of the factory glass.


Pulling the dash and lightening the HVAC bits

In all we pulled out over 40 more pounds of insulation and junk from the interior. Sean scraped off the under-carpet sound insulation that was bonded to the old floor pan repair and cleaned the goo from that sheet metal. Removing the back seat itself dropped a full 30 pound. The front and rear seats have already been sold, as has the engine and trans, so the car is valued at $0 and we've even gone negative by a bit. We've sold off more in parts from the car than we paid for it by $75 - but zero is as low as we can show for the car on the $2010 GRM Challenge budget. We've even got some more parts from the original car to sell... not to mention off of the V8 engine (which I won't mention). :)



The guys got the dash pad out intact, without having to drop the column (which is held in place with lame security bolts), which isn't supposed to be possible. Likely we'll put that back in place after dropping the column (and replacing the snap-off-head bolts), because it was a bear to remove. Once the dash pad was extracted the HVAC system was partially pulled away from the firewall and torn into. We were after the A/C evap core and its 6.1 lbs of dead weight...


L: Evap core was 6 lbs. R: The carpet, center console, & interior panels are to be reinstalled

With the evap core removed we had a big hole to cover up, so I made a block off panel that will be bolted in place. My new electric sheet metal sheers ($35 at HF) made quick work on the 20 gauge sheet metal scrap, then I started on the floor panel repair work. The remaining wiring harness will be left alone; there's probably 5-10 pounds of unused wiring left, but we're not going to spend too many hours chasing that.


Little cover made to cover the hole left by the removal of the evap core. We'll shoot it with paint then screw it into place

As we tear into this Texas car we keep finding little spots of rust, not from road salt, but from long ignored leaks (the sunroof and trunk seal), which probably went unattended for years. Sean prepped the big hole in the left backseat floor pan area for a patch I began and finished welding on Sunday. He pulled the old patch panel (that was bolted and held in place with spray foam!) then sanded the surface to bare metal on both sides. I've still got a little stitch welding there to finish then I'll prime it top and bottom.





One of our team members (who shall remain nameless) tried to patch a small rust hole in the passenger front seat firewall/floor pan, also from another leak that was left for too long. Anyway, this team member tried to weld in a series of small patches - using the wrong welding wire and settings - and ended up making a mess of the whole area. By the time I saw it 3 hours and lots of welding wire had disappeared, and the remaining holes were bigger than the original. Hehe.... we gave him lots of grief.


L: This was the aborted repair I found. R: I tried to salvage the 3+ hours of work already burned on this "repair", to no avail. Time for a mulligan.

I tried to salvage the already started repair, and got most of a small patch panel tacked into the largest remaining hole, but the steel in this area was too compromised. Eventually I made a bigger patch panel that covered up all of the bad area here, hammer formed it tight to the original steel, stitch welded it in place, ground is semi-smooth (nobody will ever see this hidden area), and primed it. More than good enough for this project. Sure, its in a car show at the GRM Challenge, but not that kind of car show.


There was too much "weld" and not enough steel left, so I covered the whole mess with new steel

OK, that's all for this week. I know, its kinda boring stuff, but it all had to be done.

Up next: We're still awaiting one stinking fitting to allow us to put the entire drivetrain back in, but I'm going today to find that myself instead of waiting on the supplier I have tasked for this. The floor pan is repaired so the roll bar can be bolted in place, then I'll attack the finish welding on the custom rear cross brace and make the dual eared diff mounts. Once we correct one small error on our trailing arm bushings (waiting for our "team machinist" to return from working in Ireland to tweak some bushings), then we'll put the refreshed rear trailing arms in place and start cutting the rear fenders for tire clearance and mount the rear brakes. This weekend I'll also patch the holes we made in the front inner fender areas for tire clearance (at full lock), then add tubular braces to tie the strut towers to the firewall. I am dying to bolt the 18x11" wheels on the car (which we'll use at the UTCC event) so I might go get some junk tires mounted to them this week.

More soon,

[e30love]

So are you going to be coming out with more parts for the e30s? Like for sale?

[Fair!]

Update for June 1, 2010: We worked a little last Thursday night, and I worked all 3 days over the Memorial Day weekend on the project, with some assistance Monday afternoon from Chris and McCall. We got a lot knocked off the list on the E30 project, but we're quickly running out of time.


Tire clearance was gain at full lock by cutting this corner section out

The front inner fender areas had some tire clearance issues at the rear edges when the 275mm tires were turned full lock, so we cut away a triangular shaped section, made patch panels to cover these/reinforce these areas, and finally welded those in place.


Patch fully welded in place, then spreader plates added, then a reinforcing bar

The diagonal reinforcement tubing (see above) was meant to help transfer cornering/braking loads from the inner fender structure to the firewall - to keep flex under control. We've seen this done on other E30 builds, and it was suggested by Greg S., who came by a month or two back. It cost almost nothing in materials - just a lot of time. Welding to the stock sheet metal is never fun, and when the backside is inaccessible (and covered in paint and/or undercoating) it makes a huge smoky mess when it gets hot.




This is the patch tack welded in place. It was then fully seam welded

There was also some crash damage on this car we found a while back which I worked on this weekend. One part of the strut tower sheet metal was buckled so badly it had pulled away from the firewall at the spot welds. I hammered at this section with body hammers, dollies and drifts for an hour and got the area back into its original shape, but that part of the panel was fried. I cut it out, made a patch, cleaned the surrounding area of paint and undercoating as best I could, and welded in a new 20 gauge patch panel. I then seam welded (or tried to!) the various remaining stock panels in this area. Welding through the stock seam sealer is also NOT fun. Anyway, its stronger than stock now and back in the right location. Spent way too much time on that stinkin' patch.


L: Diff mounting bar stitch welded to trunk floor. R: Floor pan patch re-re-patched

On Monday I worked in the trunk and on the big floorpan patch panel some more while Chris and McCall prepped the floor for and installed the Kirk Racing 4-point competition roll bar (+60 lbs). Got the main diff mount 2x2" tube fully welded in place and ran a stick weld across the entire length of the trunk. I also cut out some more of the trunk floor aft of this bar that was crusty - now its a big 2' x 2' square that will have a simple sheet metal panel screwed into place.



The biggest floor patch panel I made last week had some edges that were still too rusty to seam weld the patch to, so I made two progressively smaller patches to cover these areas up. The "right" repair would have been to bead blast the entire area and cut out all of the rot - but we're so far behind on the schedule that we have skipped proper patch panel repair methods.



Roll bar install is always fun - it takes two people, some patience and several trial fittings before you even start drilling holes. Chris and McCall smoothed out the floor where the main spread plates mounted, they trial fitted the 4-point, marked the holes, drilled them all, primed/painted the new patch panels, then bolted the bar in place. It was about 3 hours work, start to finish. They also painted and drilled the evap core patch panel.



Still need to get to the sunroof patch panel welded in place, then we can concentrate on the rest. We've taken the car as far down to the bare shell as we'll be going, now its time to really start putting it back together.


These pictures sort of show why we did all of this front inner fender re-work; the 285/30/18s are significantly taller

More soon,

[evandael]

These kinds of builds make me happy.


Seriously, what path in life should I pursue to end up doing this stuff in my free time?

[ForcedFirebird]

v8's are to make up for one's short-comings.

You guys sold the $60 Nissan motor, and changed your minds, or what?

These kinds of builds make me happy.


Seriously, what path in life should I pursue to end up doing this stuff in my free time?

Win the lotto? lol j/k, take initiative. I have grown my hobby into a 1000sf shop simply by selling parts out of my garage 3yrs ago - parts I was making for my car, then selling. It has progressed into making parts for 100's of people and I never get to work on my own stuff, though :(

[Fair!]

You guys sold the $60 Nissan motor, and changed your minds, or what?

Yes, we sold the Q45 motor and have had a replacement in the car for awhile... but we haven't released details about the final drivetrain yet.

[Fair!]

Update for June 9, 2010: We've been working on the E30 a lot - here's some of the work done last Thursday and this Tuesday. Let's start with the shifter alignment, tunnel repairs and interior stuff:


Left: Inside of floor patch cleaned and painted. Right: Cover on evap core hole


Left: Interior starting to go back together! Right: Trans in place - needs a new hole

As you can see, once we put the engine and T5 back in the car with our... latest setup... the shifter moved forward. I have to make a new trans crossmember but at least the motor mounts will work as-is. The movement forward is not that big of a deal, as the tunnel needed a big patch panel/repair anyway, so we'll make a bigger patch panel and cut an all new hole with ~2" more room forward. Hope we can make something that clears the stock center console/shifter surround.



Out back, I have been dinking around with the rear subframe reinforcement/diff mount structure for a while, but its finally wrapping up. To make room for the added diff mount structure, and since we have to flare the piss out of the rear fenders, the routing for the fuel filler neck all came out. The filler cap and neck is going to be re-routed so that the fuel cap is either just inside the trunk, or flush with the rear deck itself.


L: The 1x2" tubing mocked up with the diff in place. R: Its notched on the back to fit the crossmember


Some 1x1" tubing was used to gusset the vertical tubes. Magnets make good clamps


Lots of welding and its 95% done out back now. There's some cover plates, to weld on and holes to drill

We also had the return of our team machinist and he put a hunk of Nylon on the lathe and made some shims and some shorter bushings for the trailing arms. Now they slide right in correctly, so the trailing arms can go back in place. That means - we can finally put some wheels back on this "lift clogging hulk".


Left: Paul M whittles out some improved bushings. Right: The changes worked - the trailing arms fit!

The sunroof panel "plug" is getting close to being complete... Basically, Dave cut away the "guts" from the old stock sunroof panel, leaving just the main sheet with its rolled edge. Then Sean hammered the rolled edges flat with a hammer on a wooden table, after which he prepped the opening in the roof for welding with the 3" disc air sander. We'll overlap the opening by this ~1/4" for an easier weld. Its a dead simple way to cover a sunroof hole - it stays all steel, and it retains the double curvature of the roof because it used to be in the exact same spot.



The motor and trans are in for exhaust fab, radiator bracket fab, driveshaft shortening, and other accessory mock-up. We also found a cheap, used aluminum seat, so that will go in right after the dash is buttoned up. Moving right along, but the pace is getting a bit frantic... More later this week,

[JoeyBones]

man thats a damn good idea on the sun roof...I'm going to have to steal that trick when the time comes!

[Fair!]

man thats a damn good idea on the sun roof...I'm going to have to steal that trick when the time comes!

We finished this last night - Dave spent about 2 hours welding and grinding and it looks pretty good. It needs a skim coat of body filler and paint then its done. I'll post up pics later today.

[ozner]

Terry- Its Renzo. I picked up the seats while you were away. I wanted to know if you have picked up any of the money? PM if you want and I can call you.

[SamE30e]

Update for April 24, 2010: Couldn't get any takers for last Thursday night but Jason popped by to help me a bit on Saturday, after we went to Ft Worth to look at this heap of crap he wanted to weigh and possibly buy... [insert 3 hour distraction]



Mazda 323 GTX, AWD turbo rally car built in 1989. 1.6 Mazda motor with a turbo, intercooler, cockpit selectable center diff, tiny little thing. Seems GREAT on paper and it looked classed very well for SCCA Solo, so he wanted to see what it weighed. We heard 2600 but its so small (95" wheelbase, 63" outer track) so how could that be? We had bench raced it to 2400 pounds in our minds... but reality was worse than we had feared. 2703 pounds for this little PoS?! Uhh... this is NOT the car to oust the Civics in ST. Back to the shop we went.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!

Those are amazing/ rare cars! My brother had 2, and an even rarer 323 GT sedan. I've been looking for a clean GTX for the longest time with no luck.