E30 Rally Build Thread

[MasterOfPuppets]

That sucks. I had no idea that it would fail anytime soon.

What about taking the clutch packs from the stock 3.73 LSD and putting them in the 4.10 LSD? Or go the other route, take the gears from the 4.10 and put them in the 3.73? The 3.73 will have the lowest mileage. It might require re-shimming... You could take the diffs to a transmission shop and they might be able to do the swap for you.

Of course there is always the quaife option ($$$).

Yeah, it seemed fine when I bought it. No odd noises, and it definetely functioned then. Is what it is.

Good idea on the parts swappage... I'll have to dig into how hard that is. Most likely, I won't have time to touch it before my 1600mi trek up to MI, at which point it will only be driven for shakedown purposes and so fooling around with diffs becomes easier. We'll see.

[Frog]

I can't seem to find it in the thread, but can you tell me what you used to cover your dash?

[difuser]

A little late to the replies but the HDPE skidding is great advice but I would say to use full length sheets down each side with a small Alum/ Steel plate as a diverter for all the roost off the front wheels at your exhaust. Over time the leading pipe will easily get ovalled.
We use it on our RS in 2-3 overlapping sections. I also did the same with my old AE86 Corolla.

Think of the underside of your car getting a firehose filled with gravel aimed at it and anything square you will want to have some sort of skidding or?? to divert that blast.

The build looks great so far. Your camera mount when you get to any kind of official scrutineering will be vetoed quickly.

Advice on cage, we built our first one and paid for the rest. Find a shop who does Rally builds and get to know the owner. They will build a cage that follows the car and tie it in properly. You as a driver want as much room as you can get around you. Elbows and ankles hitting bars hurt...
If you are not involved locally now get on with a team to learn the ins and outs and people who can help you $$$ reducing your cost because you know them. You will also understand the ebb and flow of a day competing alot better than walking in blind. It can be very crazy your first Rally or 2.

Good luck, I've built 4 Stage legal cars and it was a blast but also can be frustrating getting the last details nailed down. I've been away the last 6-7yrs and was very suprised how much they have changed the rulebook with cage design and construction.

I'm looking for a decent E30 for my wife to use as a RallyX car. She got a ride last weekend in the RS at a local event and is hooked now....

[Fusion]

Just want to chime in with the gears - the reverse on my 260 really has to be pushed left with a fair amount of force and I've never been afraid of accidentally engaging it.
Not sure if/what has been done to it.
Nice build. I would love to build a car like this.

[MasterOfPuppets]

Advice on cage, we built our first one and paid for the rest. Find a shop who does Rally builds and get to know the owner. They will build a cage that follows the car and tie it in properly. You as a driver want as much room as you can get around you. Elbows and ankles hitting bars hurt...

Thanks for signing up to post... I have just one question: Do elbows and ankles hitting bars hurt more than the price tag of a pro cage build? Because that hurts a lot... :mrgreen:

But seriously, good points... and the firehose o' gravel will be a good image to consider as I shield up the underside of the car this winter.

Just want to chime in with the gears - the reverse on my 260 really has to be pushed left with a fair amount of force and I've never been afraid of accidentally engaging it.
Not sure if/what has been done to it.

Hmmm... wonder if mine's just really tired. I still do it when I drive the car now even after not having the Z06 for a few months. I think a reverse lockout bar will have to be implemented.

In other news, as soon as the USG gets off their collective ass and pays me for my move, I'll be ordering wheels and tires for the car. As a sanity check, here are my wheel and tire choices:

Wheels: TRM C1 15x7" +25mm offset:



Tires: Lassa Rally 3 195/65R15



The wheels will get painted two orange, two blue to help keep the directional sides separate (and to help with the crazed look). Total cost for the wheels and tires (four each) shipped will be just over $1100. Yes, I know I will want more later for spares, but for now I just need to cram them on the car to see how they fit and gauge the need for a suspension lift.

[iamsam]

I still can't believe that you are going to paint up these wheels.... I dunno, it might grow on me, kind of like your orange and blue grills did.

[MasterOfPuppets]

Just drove the E30 to work after lunch. On the way, was cruising along at ~45 mph and heard a "ping" in the roof vent directly above my face. Turns out it was a giant wasp/bee of some kind, and if my vents didn't have the grating on the inside, it would have bounced directly into my face. Moral of the story, make sure there's grating on your roof vents.

[325ix]

Grip tape will definitely be grippy, but if you get anything on it, dirt, debris and especially water, it will wear out quickly.

[_r2h]

Of course there is always the quaife option ($$$).

Quaife makes an LSD for the e30. Oh sweet jesus.

[cjm]

1.) Within five minutes of starting to rally, the LSD was no longer L. No idea what caused it, and it still works fine as a one-wheel-wonder, but slip is no longer limited. Pretty irritating, really, since one of the main reasons I bought this particular car was for the 4.10 LSD... oh well. I'm debating welding one up and going locked to remove any concern for reliability... we'll see.

OS Giken makes a clutch based Diff that is supposed to be amazing and does not have the drawbacks of a Quaife when one wheel comes off the ground.

If you want to rebuild your stock LSD, check out these motorsport friction discs: http://store.bimmerworld.com/motorsp...ches-p584.aspx

The E30 5-speed, though, is of course a "5UR-RUL." What this means to me: when I want to do a 3-2 downshift, which seems very common on a rally course, I basically yank the lever down and to the left with quite a bit of pressure to the left. On my Z06 especially, there's a good bit of L-R spring pressure to overcome to go into first or second from third or fourth, in fact almost as much as to put the E30 into reverse. So in the E30, when I attempt to do a 3-2 downshift, I pull down and left on the shifter which slides it into the reverse slot but obviously won't let it pull back since there's no gear there. This is especially apparent in any kind of bumpy situation since any kind of finesse with the shifter goes out the window. I probably did a 3-nothing heel-toed downshift hundreds of times on Saturday :curse:.

I had this 3-2, reverse notch problem a lot at the track and then had the fluid in my tranny replaced. It feels much better and happens a lot less.

[MasterOfPuppets]

OS Giken makes a clutch based Diff that is supposed to be amazing and does not have the drawbacks of a Quaife when one wheel comes off the ground.

If you want to rebuild your stock LSD, check out these motorsport friction discs: http://store.bimmerworld.com/motorsp...ches-p584.aspx

I had this 3-2, reverse notch problem a lot at the track and then had the fluid in my tranny replaced. It feels much better and happens a lot less.

All good points. I don't think I'll go aftermarket diff due to cost, but rebuilding is a likely option. I need to look into the level of effort to do so.

While trans lube seem like an unlikely fix to the 3-2 issue, the car will get a flush this winter so I guess I'll see. Either way, I'll probably make a bar just for psychological reasons... I won't have to worry about it.

[difuser]

If it helps any we paid $2k (2001 dollar)for ours. Expensive but it was well worth it and seeing the latest cage revisions for bars I'd bet it would be a min of $3k now.

If you do it yourself keep it as tight to the shell as you can for room and to be able to tie it into the shell as much as possible. It's amazing how much the shell stiffens. At the time my daily was an RS and it was easy to tell the 2 cars apart before the race goodies went in for suspension due to stifness. Sorry for the hijack, good build thread and good to see what you have started so far.

[freeride53]

This car is bad ass!

[MasterOfPuppets]

Link to FIA Cage Spec

Since I'm in the process of sheetrocking and insulating my garage, I haven't done any work on the car in a while, but I did finally find the most current FIA rollcage spec. Starts on page 6, and it's pretty straightforward. I don't think it should be any issue to cut, bend, notch, and tack it all in place myself even if I don't feel brave enough to tackle the final weld-up.

[MasterOfPuppets]

Minor update

Some new goodies:




Also ordered some wheel studs from Vorschlag along with the appropriate nuts. Garage is almost done... more to come soon!