Pitchblack Motorsports Rally e30 318i (now with M50) - and some Porsche 924S stuff.

[95maxrider]

Gettin dat ass up in the air. 6 days until the next event :)

Damn, where'd you get that one from? Looks good!

[irish44j]

AJ posted up his pics. You should check the DE30's FB page more often ;)

[irish44j]

So, a bit of catching up to do.

First off, quick update on the (not actually mine) chumpcar. After the wreck at Summit last year, they guys have been on and off working on rebuilding it/grafting on a new rear end. A few weeks ago they decided that they want to do Watkins Glen later this month, so they crash-worked to get it done, and it’s done (minus some details and cosmetics). I can’t say I did much work since it’s not too close to me and my time is limited, but it’s good to see it ready to race again. Hopefully I’ll be able to jump in at a later race since I can’t do the Glen. A few pics pulling it out and I towed it up to Jim’s place so he can do the last-second finishing touches.

So some quick pics:





And with the M3


Minor part change on my car. My crappy home-built front strut bar use pretty thin metal and never fit quite right (since it was originally from an e36 before I hacked it up, lol) and used to contact the hood. I had some paypal balance, and Garagistic was doing a GD on M42-specific front bars that wrap around the back of the engine, for pretty cheap. So I just picked one up (non-powdercoated) and painted it up. It won’t make the car any faster, but sometimes you just need to get something non-ghetto.



Ok, on to WDCR event #2. A beautiful weather day in Frostburg, about the best we’ve ever seen. Also a big MR field with 9 cars (8 of them BMWs, plus an MR2). Some of the newer guys are pretty fast, and some of them have fresh tires and rebuilt B25 motors, so their cars are good and I expect they’ll be serious competition this year. Josh S. didn’t quite get the M52 swap done on his, so he skipped this event to finish it up so he can run it at the end of the month at Event #3 and then STPR the week after.





Anyhow…..morning course was as wide-open as I’ve ever seen, mostly because the wet ground was sure to rut up with anything tight (which it did periodically anyhow). But slaloms were wide enough to drive a truck through and the course was extremely fast almost all the way around. Pair that with a surface that felt looser than usual, or so it felt.

And Nick found perfect dandelions



Started off the morning neck-and-neck with Nick and Eric Helgesen, but the car felt extremely loose and I picked up a few cones with the rear end of the car, with it being a bit more frisky than I’m used to. At the break after 6 runs, I was about 3 seconds behind Nick with Eric nipping at my heels and new e30 rallycrosser Eric Eisele (he of fresh tires and freshly-rebuilt B25) also right there as well. Not too concerning since the afternoon courses tend to be tighter and I usually gain ground after lunch, typically.



And right on cue, first afternoon run was fast and I got a full second back. Now I will note that because of the wind direction, the “back straight slalom” area was getting dust kicked up and then blowing directly back down the line at the following car, but the breeze was light enough (rare for this place) that it wasn’t clearing out very fast. On the second run, Andy Thomas’s MF-winning celica kicked up a wicked dust storm and maybe the start spacing was a bit close (we tend to do tight spacing to get a lot of runs, and it’s usually great). In any case, I came around the first main left, where there is a kink-in cone, and I couldn’t see the cone at all until too late. I was on the wrong side of it, so hard on the brakes, hard right and then hard left to clip the cone and stay on course, and between the cone and the deviation it cost me about 5 seconds right there. Which pretty much sealed the deal, even with us getting 8 runs in the afternoon. But against Nick, anything outside of 5 seconds on the big Frostburg courses, and it’s over. In retrospect I guess I could have requested a re-run (Mike Golden said I should have), but I don’t want to be that guy who demands re-runs for anything short of a red-flag (ahem, certain competitors from past years), so I didn’t.

Cone…


In any case, I’ve taken to thinking of that line in Top Gun where Goose is like “Mav, that’s Iceman. They call him iceman because that’s how he flies: ice-cold, no mistakes. He wears you down, you do something stupid, he’s got you.”

So Nick is pretty much Iceman (except he doesn’t get as many girls). Because he drives no –mistakes (or at least, very occasional) and if his competitors make a mistake it’s pretty much over because Nick may not always put up the FTD runs, but he always puts down consistently near-fastest runs and never has any major screw-ups to let you back in once you make a mistake. He actually got 2 cones (in 14 runs) which is unusually high for him, but with the lead he just kept on laying down good run and none of them deviated by about more than 1 second from each other, so that’s pretty consistent on a course with constantly-changing conditions. He also laid down the fastest clean run of the MR class at 46.3 seconds on his last run. My last run I actually laid down a 45.5, but somehow clipped one of the finish cones while crossing the line half-sideways (damn rear overhang!), which didn’t get hit hard, but hard enough to fall over. Didn’t really matter, but would have been nice to at least salvage the “autocross win” with the fastest single run.

In the end, I finished 9 seconds back with 4 total cones. So between the screw-up on course and a few extra cones, that made it too easy for Nick. Eric Eisele finished 11 seconds back of me, with Eric Helgesen in the ETA 4 seconds farther back. Neil Cox (Eisele’s co-driver) 30 seconds behind that, and Rusty Probst in his MR2 was another 30 seconds. Then Alp Seyhan in his soon-to-be-stage rally e30 325i (which I crew for) 8 seconds back of that (I get trash-talking rights for beating him by over 80 seconds, lol. “Team Jeff” (Geier and Holmes) in the other M42 e30 brought up the rear in their 2nd ever event – but running with some generic snow tires and managing to break both their alternator and power steering belts during the event, resulting in some DNFs.

In MR, Shawn in the Miata started out early crushing the class by multiple seconds a run, but then something went wrong and the car had major overheating problems and DNF’d. I let Shawn and Katie drive my car non-comp in the afternoon, which was fun to watch someone else driving it – especially someone like Shawn who I consider to be one of the best RWD rallycross drivers out there. I think they found the car to be a bit twitchy. Shawn was laying down some decent times with a lot of cones, and Katie was all over the place. They attributed it to “all that power” lol…….

Miata fixin….everyone involved





Surprisingly, Jeremy Sitar actually pulled off the PR win in his e36 318i, with Shawn out, but managed to beat Chris and Stephen in the ETA, which I think is simply going to fall apart on course one of these days.

Jeremy did run over his own fog light though..



Anyhow, nice day, had some great runs and one terrible run, and still a bit sloppy with 4 cones in 14 runs isn’t gonna get it done against Nick. Car did a total of 30 runs between the drivers today with no issues once again, so that’s a good thing.

Going forward, I think the rear swaybar (stock 325i bar) is coming off …. I need to settle the rear end down a bit. With the higher spring rates there’s a tad bit more oversteer than I want and all four of my cone hits were the back of the car while “too sideways.” So that’s the wrap. Tied for the points lead after 2 events. I’m happy with my speed, not very happy with my lack of consistency (again). Less than a month until the next event…..

Some other pics from the day

Jim Golden trying to re-attach his muffler


And yet another Subaru exhaust on course…


Katie taking my car in the deep stuff


Katie hitting cones and stuff


The rally Volvo


Colin Bombara’s sick RSTi rally car…


Jon Kramer’s rally GC


The ETA boyz

[irish44j]

Some little things this weekend. First, got around to working on the tow rig by replacing the front shocks with some Bilstein HDs (the rears I'll do later since they will be a major PITA and I'll probably have to cut the shafts since the top hats are rusted solid and are very hard to access). Should have been an easy job as the front is double-wishbone, but I had to hacksaw off the top bolt. Damn northern cars.



yeah, you could say the lower bushings were kinda shot


But, they're in now. One less thing..


Then did some tinkering on the e30. Though I love the way the new suspension rates feel, the back end feels a bit more "on edge" than before and Shawn also noted that it wasn't ideal for the kinds of rallycrosses we run. Taking after what he did on his Miata, I disconnected the rear swaybar to see if that settles things down. For the time being I just have it tied up out of the way in case I hate the change and want to bolt it back up mid-event next time.



While I was at it I turned the rear coil seats down about 1/2" to bring the rear end down a bit, since that had good results last time I did it.



and some other little night work things...


Something that no autocrosser would allow, lol

[irish44j]

Well, I’m quite a ways behind on the updates, as it’s been a busy month.

Started out a couple weeks ago with WDCR event #3 in Frostburg. After arrival, Nick was having some electrical issue and couldn’t start his car, but then he got it going. After a couple runs I was a bit quicker than him (and the rest of the class) as the course was unusually tight and technical compared to the usual Frostburg courses. A ton of cones, but I enjoy the tight stuff so after working a bit harder than usual to read the course I got in a groove. For Nick, disaster struck when he lost electrical power on-course on his (3rd?) run and the car died on course before he could get it started. He ran the rest of the morning in my car (setting similar times to me) but was out of it by then. With Josh Sennett not yet done with his engine swap he wasn’t there, and I had a good 15-second lead on the rest of the pack at the lunch break.
In the afternoon, I was first off again on a loose, modified and reversed course and made a mess, getting 6 cones on one run. Lead: virtually gone. Was ok though, as I then laid down a handful of clean and fast runs and ran back away from the pack, pulling off a win by about 25 seconds. Since we get 2 drop events it’s not a big deal for Nick, he’ll just make this one of his. But it leaves me with two wins and a 2nd place so far this season, so a bit reminiscent of last season. Need to try not to blow the lead this year!

Will have to add some pics later.

I do think I want to dial out some front negative camber, as the front is sliding out more than usual and I don’t think the outside edge on the tires is getting much bite on the gravel surface. That said, I prefer the feel with the rear sway disconnected, so that was a good idea.


The next weekend, I towed the car up to Wellsboro, PA (5 hours) for the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR).



For the first two days I was the primary crew for Jesse Yuvali’s Group 2 car (S52 swapped).

signing autographs. Jessie has been rallying since the 80s and Nomer was a Camel Trophy driver back in the day. Automotive pedigree for sure


Me with the guys


At the Green for the pre-start exhibition

Robert Pepper’s 944 (former rally-x car)


First jump I saw….resulted in a massive wreck by this car


STPR is a pretty brutal rally and there were all kinds of wrecks, blown engines, and damaged cars. IDK what the final count was, but I can’t imagine more than half the large field actually finished. In the end, Yuvali and Nomer finished 2nd in Group 2 (with WDCR Alum Jim Kelly’s escort wrecking ahead of them), finishing only behind a 280Z. Also finished 16th overall (or was it 12th?). More notably, my job as crew was pretty easy, as the car had no major damage other than a broken exhaust at the y-pipe exit (fixed up with some wire), some bent fenders (which I rolled with a ghetto tool), and a few other minor things. No engine issues, no broken suspension. Good rally.

Some random pics

Subaru Global Rallly team. Their rig is kind of big


Our car


The other S52-powered e30 there



The Z that won Group 2 right ahead of us


My man Ozgur Simsek co-driving this beastie


Alvin Fong’s Evo


Some of you may remember early in this thread, Jim Kelly’s teal rallycross escort. Well here it is now…..sadly, he pretty much destroyed it on the last day of the rally, or so I hear.


Our service area….


repairs to McNamara and Amber Stacy’s STi-powered GC


It’s gone viral on the racing interwebz, but here’s Bill Petrow’s 240sx drift/rally car after he rolled it. He’s always a good sport. The car had a fire on the first day


The guys pitting next to us also had some issues



and more carnage


e30s together after the rally


Nice pic of Jesse driving (photo by Nate Michaels)


In other little things, I was out in the hotel parking lot chatting for a few minutes about rally and e30s with some young guy late that night, and it turned out to be Nick Roberts, one of the top Subaru rally drivers out there. Random.
---------------

On Sunday there was a NE Division national challenge rallycross put on by Central NY region, using parts of the Super Special Stage used by the rally the previous evening. We’re a bit spoiled in WDCR with a well-oiled machine for a program that gives lots of runs and few delays. Between course setup and manual timing, this event ran pretty slow, with only 1-2 cars on course at once so we only ended up getting 5 runs in a single-session event with about 40 cars running. MR had a decent turnout with Nick/Josh driving the e28, a few other WDCR e30s there, Rusty’s MR2, and Dan Downey in his e30 down from Massachusetts. The course had some rough sections which kind of wasn’t an issue for me (since I trailered the car there) as it might have been for others. Also had the 180-degree hairpin at the end which I proceeded to botch every single time. Nonetheless, all of my runs were 1-2 seconds faster than anyone else in MR class and I took home the title. In addition I managed to have finished 2nd overall, only 6 seconds behind Cliff Kangas, one of the top AWD drivers in the northeast (running in PA).

Afterwards, for charity I threw in some money and got to go hoon on the full special stage course. Much rougher than the parts we were using, plus I was improv’ing the course and made a few wrong turns. Car took a beating….some hard skidplate hits on big rocks, and punched out one of the rear floor center plugs. May be more damage. I really thrashed it, but it drives fine and looks fine so will check it out next week. Took Flying Frog Rally (Subaru) codriver Amber Stacy for a ride (since she didn’t want to drive my car) as well as her husband. I suspect I was far less insane than her usual driver, Brian McNamara, lol. But he has an STi-swapped Subaru GC, so my car is also way slower, lol.

No pics of my car yet, but here’s a few I snapped of others


Shawn’s PR-winning Miata, with Nick standing on the hill


e30 crew (minus Mike Palczynski)



Here’s Mike


370Z bumpers don’t like rallycross


Top three :)

[tzdevill]

Dang I hate that I missed meeting you. Stpr was def ruff. I crew for #330 silver impreza rs. We had a ruff first day and ruff start of day 2 but finished!

Oh well there is always next time.

[irish44j]

Dang I hate that I missed meeting you. Stpr was def ruff. I crew for #330 silver impreza rs. We had a ruff first day and ruff start of day 2 but finished!

Oh well there is always next time.

yeah, I'm sure you guys were pretty busy!

[irish44j]

me at rallycross (photo credit: RJ Hawk)


Jesse in the real rally

[TeXJ]

Sweet pics and thanks for the update!

[irish44j]

Well, a few quick and not terribly big updates since the last event and with our 2-day NE Division National Challenge event coming up next weekend.

So after a good washdown of the underneath of the car.......



.....got a chance to examine any damage from the last event at STPR. A few dents here and there, knocked up one of the rear floor plugs, but nothing too bad. Only real things were a broken rear exhaust hangar (my rearmost one, off the muffler tip). Easy enough to replace.



and I managed to crack the washer reservoir down where it sits on the "D" shaped metal bar on the fender. Guess the metal punched through.

I plugged up the hole with some silicone and then added a layer of "padding" so it wouldn't happen again



Also some lessons learned seeing things that happened to other cars at the rally made me think of some things.

First, added a solid support for the electric fan. Currently held on by the through-radiator ziptie-type things, but they seem to be a little looser than before so I wanted to add on something to hold them it more securely. Just some random bracket I had sitting around, but good enough

[img[http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/irish44j/BMW%20318i%20Rallycross%202015/IMG_20150613_133149426.jpg[/img]

Also I've been feeling like the car's front end really hasn't been "biting" in the last few events and the lack of wear on the outside edge of my rally tires points to that as well. Plus the front end has felt a bit unstable at highway speeds on street tires. Since I had almost 3 degrees camber up front (with fixed plates, offset to mounts, and the offset LCA mount)...time to dial that down. The nice part about the coilover setup with the tender springs is that I was able to take off the plates without taking apart the whole front end. So I can put them back on if I want to do a trackday or something. Once removed, I'm measuring at -1.5* camber up front now, which is probably better for rallycross.



Today I went and hit the pick and pull to get a few parts to help Josh S. finish his engine swap (hoping he can make it to the 2-day event, but who knows), as well as to hunt down an early e30 with the small tank to get the fuel sender unit, since mine doesn't seem to work so I've been going guesswork for fuel level for a few months. Not good on a racecar.....so got a sender out of a junkyard car, got it home and wired it all up, calibrated the gauge, and ..... yay.....I now have a functional fuel gauge :)



So, that's about it for the moment. did a few other little things, but nothing much worth talking about.



will update after next weekend's divisionals are complete. Hopefully with another win :)

[econti]

VDO gauges look so good. Where'd you get positive power for them from? Need to do some for mine soon

[irish44j]

VDO gauges look so good. Where'd you get positive power for them from? Need to do some for mine soon

I'd have to think back. I'm using a switched circuit obviously. I'm thinking I may be using the power windows circuit or something, since I retro'd to manual windows and locks. There are plenty of switched power lines if you remove a bunch of the original stuff ;)

[irish44j]

So, with this weekend's national challenge event cancelled due to lots of flooding and lightning at our venue....I had time to do other things. And then this happened today. Running, driving, complete, and absolutely rust-free M42 318is. $1400 on craigslist. More on the plans for this when I have time ;)

[stonea]

^Where did you pick that one up at?

[irish44j]

Craigslist, right here in DC (Tyson's Corner). Had to jump on it fast it was such a good deal. Even had the wife run to do a max withdrawal from the ATM since I couldn't get enough on my card, lol....