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

[irish44j]

The skid plate looks good. I bent mine when I hit road construction and it took about have a hour beating it with a sledge to get it right but now you would have a hard time telling. I would keep this modified one to run on the especially bad courses that way if it got beat up further, who cares.

I am interested to see how much better you do with the more hp. Next year boost?

not a bad idea to have a spare. But, I'm not worried about the new one being beat-up too lol....

The only thing i don't like about this cut-short version is it doesn't protect the radiator core support at all. Not that it's a likely place to get hit, but I do like the "lip-up" end that it used to have (and the new one will have), for extra protection (and because it looks cooler, of course ;)

yeah, I'm interested to see as well lol. I'm hoping it won't screw up my handling or driving too much. Definitely not going to boost it though. For a lightish RWD car, 200hp is pretty close to the limit of how much you can realistically put to the ground, especially with an e30 rear suspension. Power wasn't much of an issue with the M42 other than in a few key areas (like hills), and now I have almost double the torque. The real issue will be smoothly putting it down and keeping the car straight.

[rzerob]

The skid plate looks good. I bent mine when I hit road construction and it took about have a hour beating it with a sledge to get it right but now you would have a hard time telling. I would keep this modified one to run on the especially bad courses that way if it got beat up further, who cares.

I am interested to see how much better you do with the more hp. Next year boost?

[TeXJ]

NICE! you made some great progress on this!

[irish44j]

Just a few days left until the first rallycross. As noted earlier, Red46 is building me a new/custom skidplate, but he had some issues with his supplier and his latest shipment of steel was late. Though it's on the way, Oregon is a long way from here via ground shipping so it's not going to be here by the weekend.

So, with that in mind, time to cut and modify the old skidplate as a stopgap. Remember, this is 1/8" stainless steel, so it's pretty damn thick. I went out and got some fresh heavy steel-cutting jigsaw blades since I have to shorten it substantially - else it would stick out several inches past the bumper, which woud not only look dumb but would also probably take out someone's knee in the paddock.

So, time to cut. generous cutting oil, very, very slow. Took me about 15 minutes to make the full cut (and two blades) being as careful as I could with heat and speed.



The front holes could be re-used since the brackets on the main bar are in the same relative position to the bend. The rears, however, had to move back several inches. While I may have been able to do some measurements to determine the position, the plate is a bit warped/bent and wasn't confident I could accurately do that. So I put the bolts into the weld nuts on the subframe, screwed them in, and then coated the heads with a little brush and some Testor's model paint that was sitting in my cabinet. Then i installed the front bolts and jacked the rear up until they pushed against the bolts, leaving a nice round blue dot at the drill points.

After some slow drilling so as not to kill my bits, had two holes and as it turns out they lined up perfectly. So, the old skidplate is now on. Not all that pretty, and since it's bent there's less clearance at the back of the pan than I will want for stage rally, but should be fine for now.







So with that (and tightening the clamp on one radiator hose that had dripped a few drops out), I think I'm ready to rallycross this weekend. I'll do one last once-over of all the nuts and bolts I can think of to make sure everything is tightened to spec, but hopefully will be all good to go, and not suck!

So, to the few of you who actually follow along on this build, next post should hopefully have some pictures of actual motorsports :)

[irish44j]

Trying to knock the last few things off the "to do" list. Red46 is having some issues with their materials supplier, so no skidplatewafflesyet, but sounds like he may have gotten part of his shipment and will be making it tonight. If I don't have it by the weekend I'll just bolt up the old one and look a bit goofy for one event since it'll sick out about 3-4" farther in the front lol.

Other than that, the last order of business under the car for the moment was a couple additional exhaust hangers, though probably not necessary for rallycrosswafflesspecifically. Taking Nonack's advice, I got some of the square-bushing type with the L-shaped rod. While these are damn near impossible to get the rod out of the bushing once on the car, I decided to just make it so the mounts themselves could be easily unbolted from the car, so I drilled a few holes and put some weld nuts in, for if I need to drop the exhaust.waffles

I put one up just forward of the 02 sensor on the y-pipe to give extra support to the front half of the exhaust



In the rear, i put one basically where the stock one is, just behind the subframe. The stock design sucks and provides almost no support either down or up, so is pretty useless for rally. So I put another weld nut in and mounted it to the backside of the subframe. Since it sticks down about an inch or two and is flat/square, I wanted to protect the bushing bracket, so I tacked on a piece of sheet steel as a mini-skidplate of sorts.





Random picture for no reason other than to distract from ugly exhaust...

[irish44j]

So today not much car work. I did get the ebaywaffles20mmwafflesspacers in. As expected, they're going to need about 1mm bored from the inner diameter to clear the e30 hub centerbore. So will likely just have a machine shop do that, we'll see. Otherwise, they're pretty standard spacers



In related news, yesterday I was browsing FB marketplace and saw some Integra 15" wheels listed for $75 (down from 100) for a full set up in Harrisburg, PA. A bit out of my range, so I shot a message to my man Rusty who lives up there ( you may recall him from way earlier in this thread, rallycrossing a green and black and pink Celica Supra). Anyhow, Rusty went and got them for me (and talked her down to $60, to boot). So, I just got some pretty nice Acura Integra 15s for $60. Can't beat that! We'll see what other wheels I can dig up over the next few months. These are pretty lightweight and I like the looks of them, so I may use them as a street set (and maybe sell my Euroweaves, since they're kind of wasted as street wheels on a rally car, and probably worth a good bit at this point).waffles



Then shot out in the VW to farm country Maryland to Andy's house, where his multiple rallycross/autocross Celicas live as does the DC Rallycross gear van.waffles



So a bunch of us met out there to pull all the crap, dirty cones, and gear out of it and clean, organize, and figure out what we could toss (20-30 destroyed cones) and needed to replace.





Also last night i printed out some 3-foot versions of our DC Rallycross stickers, since the van needed some ;)



And swung by BMW of Sterling to pick up a $3 lock ring for my rear axle bolt. Never been in there before and never want to again. Talk about a douchey place....feel like it should be a 4-star hotel, not a car dealer. The parts "kiosk" (not counter) is literally a tiny little table hidden back behind all the BMW-logo shirts and other vanity shit. When I finally found it, I wasn't even sure if it was a parts counter. The guy actually seemed surprised I was asking for a car part and not a BMW Motorsports polo shirt or something. But at least he charged me regular price and not some crazy markup. Anyhow, happy I can order things online usually and not have to go to these douchey dealers. I had to walk through the sales floor to get there (in dirty cargo pants and a hoodie, since I was going to clean out the rally van), and it almost seemed as if the 10 salespeople on the floor actively walked away from me as I walked in haha.....

[TeXJ]

in for vids as well!

[irish44j]

Awesome thread! Can't wait to see/hear a video of this beast on the track.

Hopefully will get some vid at next weekend's rallycross season opener :)

[e30RS]

Awesome thread! Can't wait to see/hear a video of this beast on the track.

[irish44j]

Today, the job I haven't been looking forward to, since it always sucks: trailing arms.

So, as mentioned before my RTA's were pretty badly bent, a ton of toe-out and negative camber, especially on the driver's side (passenger side isn't too bad). So today some reinforcing pieces came in from Garagistic. Now usually I'd just cut/fab this stuff myself, but I'm running a bit short of time and don't have much metal in my scrap bin at the moment, so figured I'd just kill some paypal balance with pre-cut parts. The Garagistic stuff is always well-measured and cut so makes for a lot less work. The biggest work was stripping off the thick rubberized coating on these trailing arms - maybe the ones on the car never had it, or maybe it just all wore off, but it's some tough stuff.waffles After getting some clean metal, I mocked up stuff and started welding, trying to take my time and not overheat/warp anything.

This kit has a connecting bar from the shock mount ot the body, hopefully to reinforce against toe-out. One end is welded to the cast shock mount, so I really took my time there, hopefully had enough penetration using the .25 wire in my welder that I've been using for exhaust (I hate to say I was too lazy to change in the .30 or .35 spool). Then for the "plate" section connecting the arms, I did a series of short welds in order to try to keep the heat down. So hopefully this will strengthen things. I'll do the other one maybe next month when I have a chance.waffles

So there's the triangulating brace:



And the plated bottom, which is 1/4" steel and needed a huge clamp and hammer to form it to the curves



So after that I pressed a new bearing in and put the hub on.



And some of you may noticed, I forgot to put the dust shield on first, which I should have done. Dammit. I need it there to secure the brake line as well as the backing springs for the e-brake shoes. So, choice was to either pull the hub again and risk messing up the brand-new bearing (nope), or to get some snips out and cut the shield in half, install it, and tack it back together (yep). Super-ghetto. Whatever.



Then spent an hour putting it all back together. Not all that hard, excect the RTA bolts to the subframe. Whatever German decided to orient them that way should be kicked, with really difficult accessibility for the outer ones. I know the "easy' way is to drop the whole subframe as one piece, but that requires pulling the diff and the other side brake lines as well, so is really just more work. But, it's all back in there, and then the wife helped me bleed the caliper.



I'll mention this: The HF air bleeder kit (which I didn't use in this case since my wife was close by) comes with a "feeder bottle" for the reservoir. This thing always works great, and is the one and only thing I like about bleeding brakes, since I never have to check fluid level.waffles



Anyhow, all back together and it's plain as day the toe and negative camber is gone (well, camber reduced by over 1 degree, and toe is around zero, based on my quick measurements.



Also the exhaust hangers came in, so will start planning where I want to mount a couple of them this weekend

[irish44j]

winding down the stuff I need to do....

installed the new lug studs from Motorsport Hardware. These are longer than the old ones to accommodate larger spacers. Also full bullet-nose, so no more having the tips filled up with dirt.







Then a new tensionerwafflesspring came in from FCP. As I noted earlier,waffles the one in the car was definitely compressed a bit. Maybe a bit less than I thought, but still it's nice to have a new one in there for peace of mind, for $5 and 5 minutes of work. New one at the top



Then, though I haven't reinforced my new trailing arms yet, decided to go ahead and pull the driver's side one (the passenger side one is just a tad bit toe-out and I will probably just do it later, but the driver's side was way toe out and a full degree more negative camber).

So yeah, pulling stuff apart. Gave me a chance to refresh the brake caliper on that side as well. No real issues getting the RTA off other than the tight fit getting to the outside bolt on the subframe.waffles



The brackets and holes on the subframe look good. This summer I may pull all of it and do some reinforcing, but looks ok for the moment.



Even off the car, I did some rudimentary measurements and the RTA from the car is clearly more toe out from the "new" one.

[irish44j]

So I'm sure you guys will hate me for this, but I'm gonna do it anyhow. One of the main issues I'm starting to have is that 14" rally tires are getting slim pickings. Plus with the additional power, it would be nice to go to 15" wheels and the taller 15" rally tires for ground clearance, now that I have the power to turn the heavier wheels.

And as we know, the OEM selection of e30-fit 15s sucks (basically Euroweaves and IX weaves, neither of which are cheap these days, and both of which are soft and sucky for rally).

Yeah, 5-lug swap would be an option, but that won't help much of anything other than wheel selection.

So, we're going the other way: Spacers to FWD offset wheels. Of course, BMW was nice enough to give us the 57.1mm center bore, a mere 1mm larger than basically every 90s Japanese car (56.1mm), but at least with the same 4x100 bolt pattern.

The e30 hub sticks out roughly 15mm. Most FWD offsets are around 45 (and I run 8mm spacers with bottlecaps for rally). So, a 20mm spacer on 6" wide FWD offset wheels will get me back to about where I am now, but with a much huger selection of OEM wheels. Apparently Honda 15s are no longer cool, and FB marketplace is full of them for dirt cheap.

So, I have three options, and I've already decided on which one to do:

1. Just get 20mm flat spacers and have no hub sticking out to center the wheels. We've done this on the track car with no problems, but for rally I'd just as well have the hub there for support if we bend some lugs or whatever.
2. Get a hubcentric 57.1mm spacer (20mm thick) and either mill the lip down 1mm, bore all the wheels 1mm in the center.
3. Get a hubcentric 56.1mm spacer (20mm thick) and bore out the "car side" of the spacer, which is just straight aluminum and won't compromise any strength.

So #3 is what I'm going to do. I'll have to bore about 15mm deep into the backside of the spacer. I may just take them to a machine shop and have it done. But I think first I'm going to try something - I have a Harbor Freight engine hone. Yeah, it's not a very strong abrasive and aluminum will probably clog it pretty quick, but I'm going to see if it has enough to shave fractions of a millimeter.

Of course, there's a chance the spacers will have enough free play to fit with little shaving. My e30 hubs actually measure almost exactly 56mm via calipers, not 57mm. Of course this is to give 1mm of clearance so the wheel isn't a press fit. But Since the spacers won't need to come off often, it may not hurt to have them a very snug fit (I'll drill and tap 2 bolt holes in each so I can "screw" them off like a rusty brake rotor, perhaps.

Anyhow, no pics since I don't have the stuff yet. But thinking out loud. Sound like a plan?

Also, while I'll probably just find some low-key Civic Si or Integra wheels, this also gives me the option of using some 80s-tastic and really beefy/heavy wheels like the ones off Saturns. So, could be fun, a la Nonack-XR4Ti-style.

[irish44j]

Not much going on today with the car.

First, running the car it sounds like there's some chain rattle. I pulled the (likely original) tensionerwafflesspring piston, and measured it. Based on measurements on the web, mine has compressed about 3/16" from the stock length, so it's probably just tired. I ordered a new one which should be here later this week. To test my theory I put a couple small washers under the "cap" above the spring, to take up about 3/16", reinstalled and started the car. Yup, the chain rattle is totally gone. So, that was a good guess. IDK why I didn't replace this while the engine was out, guess I just forgot.

Second, pulled out my spare trailing arms and got going on pulling the hubs and all the other stuff on them to prepare them to be reinforced. After more measuring, it's my driver's side one that is way out of whack, like over 1/2" toe out itself. Passenger side one on the car looks to be ok. So for the time being I may just do the driver's side until I get a chance to do the other side. Plus I only have one new bearing sitting here at the moment. Will try to get this done before the first event, even though I don't think it makes as much of a difference on dirt.waffles





Also got in a package from Motorsport Hardware with some new studs and lugnuts. I put their stuff on this car about 7 years ago and never had any issues. But figured it's time to replace it since the threads are starting to get rounded and lugnutswafflesdon't feel as tight as they used to be. MH gave me a deal since I told them to just give me 'whatever spare colors you have sitting around, mix and match."

Well, it's kinda mix and match :)



Skidplate is being made tonight so I should have it in a few days. Then just do a couple exhaust hangers, and I'm ready for the first event. As noted above, we already have 20+ season memberships signed up, and 8 of those are in MR class! I'm pretty sure we're going to have nearly 20 cars in the class at most events, almost all of them competitive for the class win no less. This class has really NO slackers in this region. It's pretty cool (except for the part about not winning often!)

[irish44j]

Looks like you made a ton of progress today! It was cool seeing this car in person. Thanks for the M42 parts! :)

yessir! LMK if you want that remaining engine, I'll pretty much give it away lol. BTW - man your car looks great!

---

So not a lot of pics today, but the news is: I drove the car!

Got it fired up this morning and went for a drive around the neighborhood, only to discover my temp gauge skyrocketing. It scared me to the point that I shut the car down and coasted the last block or so....was approaching 250 rapidly.

So, I thought I had bled the coolant system well, so of course I got to thinking what other issues it could be. No evidence of head gasket. The water pump and all that stuff are new, but maybe bad thermostat? (the lower radiator hose was ice cold, so no flow). So opened up the thermo housing and threw the (new) thermostat into a bot of boiling water with a thermometer....and it opened right on time.waffles

So, figured I must have just not bled it well. Put it back together, and took my time bleeding everything again, as well as jacking up the front of the car as high as my big floor jack could go (it goes high!).

So ran it in the driveway for about 15 minutes, and temp was pretty solid just sitting there around 200. The electric fan wasn't coming on, even as I held the throttle to 2k for a bit. I know it works, I know the wiring is good, and the switch is new - but it's not supposed to come on until 95 degrees, and that's at the cold side of the radiator. So, went for a spirited drive and go figure....the temp gauge sat at 205 give or take the whole time, which is cooler than the M42 used to sit. So, that's good to go.waffles

Otherwise, the car drove fine. I like the higher rate springs and the car doesn't feel as "heavy" as I expected it to and how some other M20/M50 e30swafflesI've driven feel.waffleswafflesStill feels like "my car" but with a bit more weight. Only thing of course with solid motor and trans mounts, no insulation in the car, etc...yeah, you feel and hear every little thing. When racing with a helmet on, this stuff is forgotten. When cruising on a quiet sundaywafflesmy mind can't help but hear all these little noises and constantly say "what was that?! what was that?!" lol. But everything seemed functionall fine, the car pulls like a frieght train in every gear. I ran it up to redline a couple times. Man, it gets there pretty damn quick compared to the M42!

I had heard the ebaywafflesheaders didn't have a very "full" sounds compared to stock M50 manifolds, and I can see that. They really transmit sound, and are maybe a bit raspy. Whatever.waffles

Also, we'll see how this G240 holds up. This was my "spare" one that I put in, and I remember why it was a spare now - it's a bit noisy compared to the other one. Guess we'll see. I have three of these transmissions here, so not somehting I'm too worried about.waffles

I kind of forgot to actually take any pics, so here's my only proof - you can see my hood as I cruised with a beautiful old Lotus Elan.



And also finally got washed..



Also at the last rally I ran my spare rear shocks (Bilsteinwafflessports). Wiht the price of Bilsteinswafflesrumored to go up soon, I ordered some new rears from FCP Euro, so any price change will be irrelevant with their lifetime warranty (the fronts on the car are also from there). So decided to go ahead and put them on as well, which probably will have no effect on anything, but whatever.waffles



So, a successful day. The list of "to do" stuff is getting pretty short at this point:

1. skidplate (hopefully will arrive soon)

2. reconnect the washer hose that I cut off when removing the hood because I'm lazy

3. add 2-3 exhaust hangers more

Also, side note - there was talk that the 944 brake booster was "less boost" than the e30 stock one, as it's a bit smaller. Granted, I have fresh fluid and a fresh bleed done (with the help of my wife), but I actually thought the brakes felt better than ever today, in spite of the extra weight. Go figure.

[mike.bmw]

Looks like you made a ton of progress today! It was cool seeing this car in person. Thanks for the M42 parts! :)