E30 Rally Build Thread

[MasterOfPuppets]

Wheels and Tires - On

So, got the tires mounted today and slapped them on immediately after work. One immediate problem leaped out at me:



This was due to a previously mentioned incident involving a fellow E30 owner/driver/racer and 18 seconds on a rally circuit, in which my valence got shoved up and back a few inches. So, once again the Sawzall solved all and actually produced a presentable result:



I then took it for a cruise and seat of the pants gravel test... a few observations:

1.) Gravel rally tires are very, very noisy on pavement
2.) They grip surprisingly well on wet asphalt
3.) They grip crazy well on gravel (specifically, wet gravel)

A few shots of the car as it sits now:





So far so good.

[iamsam]

Sweet man!! Love the wheels.

Oh look, someone from Sheridan!!

Me and a buddy at work were joking that I am the biggest dealer of E28s in Sheridan. I sold two to my buddy up there, and I may be heading up there this weekend, actually, gonna be a relaxing trek across WY, cruise control, and wait.....

Also, I will be selling a third E28 to my buddy (a parts car) AND i may be selling a 4th E28 to another buddy up there in Sheridan. Will prob end up being the only 4 E28s in Sheridan. Ha ha!

[drutt23]

Sweet man!! Love the wheels.

[MasterOfPuppets]

Awesome! When are you getting your rally tires?

Today!




This pic looks stupid, but what I'm showing is the stiffness of the carcass - that's about 150 lbs of my weight on that foot with almost no sidewall deflection. Good stuff.



On a side note - got the 75mm Vorschlag studs done in the back. No drama whatsoever. I'm holding off on front until I decide which struts are my "A" set.



If you're wondering, no, you could not fit the center caps over them.

Tires should be mounted later this week, then it's out to a gravel road for seat-of-the-pants testing (the best kind).

[iamsam]

Awesome! When are you getting your rally tires?

[MasterOfPuppets]

Wheel update

So, as mentioned before, I picked up a set of TRM C1 15x7 wheels from TireRack.com. They shipped incredibly fast and arrived as pictured above. For anyone worried about brake clearance, here's a profile shot:



Here are the wheels prepped for paint after a few minutes with an orbital sander and some foam sanding blocks:



And a few shots of the result after many thin coats of rustoleum:







Gonna be truly ridiculous.

Meeting with Pops tomorrow to discuss making room in the shop for the E30 this winter. Also found a local guy in MI who is a pro welder who can TIG it all up when we get it tacked together. Big updates to come!

Also, I finally tackled the interior cleaning from our CORE rally day. My method may not work as well in a car with parts left on the inside.

[lostininglewood]

Love this thread!! Nice welder pick up, I have the 150 which is the 220v and it's been great over the past 7years.

[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!

[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.

[freeride53]

This car is bad ass!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[_r2h]

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

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

[325ix]

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