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

[TeXJ]

Just go to ebay and punch in "20 inch CREE LED light bar" and several variations will come up (all are the same I think, but have different mounting styles). In retrospect, the end-cap mounts may be more convenient for adjusting than the underneath-mounts that the one I got has.

Thanks, I know some of those are cheaper made. Just depends on the importer and where they got it from in China.

[irish44j]

I think this is the exact one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20INCH-126W-CREE-LED-WORK-LIGHT-BAR-SPOT-FLOOD-COMBO-TRUCK-SUV-ATV-BOAT-4WD-LAMP-/301288560222?hash=item462632965e&vxp=mtr

[irish44j]

Got the lights all permanently wired up today with new relays and inline fuses. Had a few options for switches but decided to go ahead with an idea I've had for a while. Pulled the stereo. I still want a stereo in the car, but I have an idea for that as well, which I'll do later this week ;)

In any case, had some scrap Lexan around so built myself a switch panel for the two switches I need right now, and dummies for three more if needed in the future. It fits directly into the radio slot. Since I couldn't figure out an elegant (and easy) way to mount the panel without some fabbing, decided to make it easy to install, and easy to pull the panel if I need to get behind the dash: zipties. Actually it's very solid in there, so I'm pretty happy with it.

The Lexan is painted on the backside with some VHT red tint paint that I have a bit of left, just for the hell of it. IN daylight you can't see through, but with a flash it's a bit interesting seeing the wires behind it, lol.

[TeXJ]

I think this is the exact one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20INCH-126W-...32965e&vxp=mtr

thank you!

[irish44j]

So my little side project, now with the radio delete turning into a switch panel. Since I drive the car to events sometimes several hours away, not doing that listening to exhaust drone and no music....that would suck. Yeah, I could just use headphones (illegal and unsafe in my opinion, and uncomfortable), or just get a standalone speaker for the iPod. The latter would work, but I already have a stereo for this car and (crappy) speakers so no point in spending more money.

Well, not much more. $9, to be exact. Got this off ebay....a waterproof boat radio box.



Wired it up using some OEM BMW disconnects from a spare wiring harness, and mounted it up. It bites into the passenger legroom a little, but nobody ever rides with me to events so it's a moot point. Removed unscrewing two knobs and disconnecting the wires for when on the course. Anyhow, nothing big, just a little something.

[TeXJ]

using headphones is illegal?

[irish44j]

Depends on the state. I actually don't know about Virginia. It's not illegal in DC. Not sure about Maryland. In NY and many states you can only have one earbud/headphone (e.g. your handsfree for your phone, or one iPod earbud, etc), but not in both ears.

I think the idea is that if you have two headphones in, you're not gonna hear that emergency vehicle coming up the cross-street blaring its sirens, or whatever.

But really, I just don't much like wearing earphones when driving ;)

[TeXJ]

I listen to podcasts and so I use my ear buds all the time

[Mark 42]

From a website I found:

Virginia is perhaps the most explicit: "Using earphones is not permitted while operating a motor vehicle, bicycle, electric power-assisted bicycle, or moped."

Other states either included bicycles in other ordinances, didn't mention it, or have no laws prohibiting their use.

[Mark 42]

I ride motorcycles, and we use helmet speakers, which can be a grey area.

Some people even had problems because they wear earplugs for hearing protection while riding

[irish44j]

Event #5



Went into the event tied with Nick in overall points (2 wins each, tied if you drop each two losses, though I’m leading in total points right now). Left a bit earlier than the rest of the crew along with Jason, towing his “new” Miata to its first rallycross. We met some other roadsters along the way, who asked us if we were heading “to the local drag strip” lol



Anyhow, first day of this weekend was a test-and-tune where we were breaking in a “fresh” area of the venue. It was rough as hell though the car was handling it fine, until an issue: A terrible grinding/screeching noise from under the car, which I could feel through the transmission tunnel either going forward or reverse (the sound changed a lot depending on throttle and direction). At first I thought the transmission was self-destructing, but eventually managed to rule that out. After that, based on location I figured it had to be the center support bearing seizing up (4 years of dirt and dust could cause that, I suppose, lol). So put the car halfway up on the trailer and got underneath. Of course had to pull the heat shields above the exhaust first, and managed to dump about 5lbs of gravel (and a few bigger rocks out that were sitting on top of them. Nice.

As it turned out though, that must have been the culprit, because here’s what I saw on the driveshaft:



Apparently a larger rock somehow got itself wedged in there in a manner where it wouldn’t kick out going either forward or backward. So…..a good opportunity to delete the heat shields altogether I guess. Though I may put a smaller shield up there later just to keep direct mud and rocks from the CSB itself.
So with that fixed, I proceeded to run the faster, smoother afternoon test course.

We had some fun on it (I’m hoping someone has me hitting the middle of this little lake at 50mph or so, lol)





Also since running into twilight got to test out the lights a bit for the first time



And as it got darker, with all the lights on I’m in the middle of a run and start smelling something, like there is an electrical fire or something (hard to tell when mixed with dust). At the same time my right leg and feet started to get very hot and I was like “shit, I think something is on fire down there!!” So killed the lights figuring the new wiring was shorting or something.

Nope.

Heater core go boom. Thankfully I had my gore-text hiking shoes and long pants on so I didn’t get burned. But ended up with a gallon or more of coolant inside the car. Yay. Guess BMW’s brilliant “bypass valve” installed in the hoses specifically for this eventuality didn’t do crap….



So in the dark we managed to loop the coolant hoses behind the engine, fill it back up, and got that all running. And pulled the drains and rinsed the front floor with a gallon of freshwater, lol

Oddly, few to no other cars were having any real issues out there mechanically during the test&tune.

Oh wait. Except the other M42 guys, Jeff and Jeff. Apparently the brand-new tie rod end they put on the passenger side was a bit taller than the old one. And it ground a good 2-3mm of aluminum off the inside of the wheel, lol. Lucky for them, I had a couple spare Moog tie rod ends with me, which they used one of to get back going.

Look closely at the inside of the wheel on the ground!


So that taken care of, it was time for some drinks at the rather pathetic local bar scene. It’s pretty sad for a “college town” (Frostburg State University) on a Saturday night, but did result in a nice semi-hangover the next morning for me. D’oh.

We did have a bit of fun with fellow competitors whose cars were at the hotel, of course…



Next morning perfect weather and about 50 cars (well, 50 drivers, probably 40 cars) there to run for the real event.



Morning course had a ton of cones, lots of slaloms and offsets, but at the same time was very high-speed. It promised to be one of the most challenging courses we’d had in a while to be consistent on. And I was the first car out in the run group, so I got to sweep the loose gravel where course changes from the first run group had taken place. But I did have better tires than last event, with 80% DMacks on the front with nice sharp shoulders. It’s been a LONG time since I had fresh tires with good shoulders, and the steering bite was a major improvement over the last few events for sure.
Oh, I didn’t mention that Josh S. (aka “TurboJosh”) was co-driving with me since his M52 swap isn’t “quite” done. We knew he could drive when he had a running car. We were about to find out for sure. Not to mention MR had a strong 13-car field – mostly e30s (none of them first-timers) Nick in the e28, Brandon Flicker in his 2nd gen MR2, Jason in the Miata, and a couple of RX7s.

In the morning it was a shootout, with me, Nick, Josh S., and Eric Helgesen (ETA) all within a few seconds of each other at the lunchbreak. Nick I think had about a 2-3 second lead at the break. The rest of the field was running pretty well, but having various car troubles. Eric Eisele and Drew broke a motor mount and a diff mount but managed to push on. Jason on his first event with the Miata immediately blew his front left shock and cracked a radiator piece while running mid-pack. I think the other M42 guys had some issue, but kept running. The RX7 blew something up as well. And Ozgur and Alp in the caged soon-to-be Rally America e30 were having issues mostly due to terribly worn old rally tires with no shoulders or grip, lol.

Eric fixing a motor mount in the morning before breaking a diff mount


Jason in the Miata



So on to the afternoon with 5 or 6 cars in striking distance of first still. I’ll mention now that Josh S. all day put down times slightly faster than mine here and there, but with more cones. Nick had been running fast and clean as well. I think I was actually in 3rd just ahead of Eric H. at lunch.
First run I started out with the 5th-fastest time in the group AND a cone, so that dropped me even farther back. I did some tire pressure changes and then decided to really drive aggressively, especially in the U-turn horseshoe at the back, which was tricky and between 1st and 2nd gear. Also it was not a “rhythm” course by any means, so it was hard to make the car “dance” well with a lot of tricky offsets and kinks.

Started clawing my way back in, gaining on Nick in small increments. Meanwhile, Josh continued to pull ahead and Eric H. kept staying with us as well in the ETA. Nick was clearly a bit slower than the other three of us though he seemed to be driving as he always does. Maybe the tires, IDK….
Midway through our 9 afternoon runs Josh S. took out a few cones and dropped back (I suspect he did it on purpose so as not to beat me and Nick and mess with season points, but he swears otherwise). Meanwhile Eric H. kept charging on and I was about as consistent as I’ve been all season with solid times over and over and over, almost all clean – while Josh S. kept on laying down the fastest times in the group, but picked up cones here and there. I managed to pull back ahead by 2.8 over Josh and Eric H. (in a virtual tie) with Nick a second or two behind them with one run left. For once, I didn’t do anything dumb, just drove a fairly-fast and clean run. Josh put down a nice clean run as well, and Eric put down an even faster run…..but got a cone, one of his few of the day. As it sorted out, I won and Josh S. (in my car) took 2nd 1.8 seconds back. Eric after the cone was 1.7 behind him, and Nick another 1.7 behind Eric. So all in all pretty close top-4 there, after 14 total runs and total time around 800 seconds for the day! The rest of the field either had issues or just were a bit slower. “The Jeffs” took 5th and 6th in the 318is about 30 seconds back of the lead group, and the rest of the cars had a variety of problems and finished farther back, though Neil, Eric E, and Jason were all running respectable times before bowing out with mechanicals.

Now one thing to note is that PR and MR ran in the same group. Shawn Roberts (just recently returning from 2nd place nationals finish in PR) generally beats the entire MR field in his Miata. But not today. I got him by 4 seconds :) Now you say, of course he’s in PR and I’m in MR. But he’s the best RWD rallycross driver in the mid-Atlantic at least (well, in my book), so I consider it an accomplishment.
What we didn’t expect, though, is that Shawn didn’t WIN PR. Jeremy Sitar did, in his ratty e36 318i. So a heavier, full-interior, M42-powered car (albeit I think he had fresh gravel tires) dominated the day, about 10 seconds faster than me in the same run group. Pretty impressive driving there for sure.

Here’s a link to full results if anyone wants to see:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0DAjl8siZI9YWFnYlNIbHRENzA&usp=drive_web

So, that’s about it. I’m sure Nick will give his take in his build thread on R3V, and Josh S. may comment on his thoughts, but in the end, it’s nice for the car to take 1-2 in a strong group, and even nicer that for once my co-driver didn’t beat me, lol

[irish44j]

Justin Roth managed to catch me hitting a large body of water on the rallycross course at high speed, at twilight. Only shame is that he wasn't using a better camera, lol

[95maxrider]

Edit: I assume way too much, and am bitter about losing to Eric.

[bluej]

hey, honest to god, I botched that run and it wasn't intentional. I hit some rut/ditch that kicked me sideways, directly into a cone I hadn't hit all day, and was just out of sorts after that. Josh mentioned that he thinks that he's had random issues with the diff not unlocking and that that may have been what happened.

I had been planning on, and just drove as well as I could for every run until the last of the day. If I was between, or even potentially ahead of the two of you, I planned to trip the start and count out a few seconds or intentionally pick up a cone or two. I didn't want to do it till the last run so I'd know for myself how I stacked up against everyone over the course of the day and would have some idea where I might end up if I didn't purposely chunk the last run. Once it came time for the last run, I knew I wasn't going to catch Josh and that you hadn't caught Eric or Josh, but that I might be able to catch Eric. Since co-driving, I knew where you guys had ended up w/ your last runs finished before mine started.

Another run and I might have caught Josh, too. I was slightly careful to make sure to not cone away my last run with the chance to catch Eric and left a little on the table.

I can't thank Josh enough for letting me run his car, especially with some fresh(er) tires. It was awesome :)

[95maxrider]

hey, honest to god, I botched that run and it wasn't intentional. I hit some rut/ditch that kicked me sideways, directly into a cone I hadn't hit all day, and was just out of sorts after that. Josh mentioned that he thinks that he's had random issues with the diff not unlocking and that that may have been what happened.

I had been planning on, and just drove as well as I could for every run until the last of the day. If I was between, or even potentially ahead of the two of you, I planned to trip the start and count out a few seconds or intentionally pick up a cone or two. I didn't want to do it till the last run so I'd know for myself how I stacked up against everyone over the course of the day and would have some idea where I might end up if I didn't purposely chunk the last run. Once it came time for the last run, I knew I wasn't going to catch Josh and that you hadn't caught Eric or Josh, but that I might be able to catch Eric. Since co-driving, I knew where you guys had ended up w/ your last runs finished before mine started.

Another run and I might have caught Josh, too. I was slightly careful to make sure to not cone away my last run with the chance to catch Eric and left a little on the table.

I can't thank Josh enough for letting me run his car, especially with some fresh(er) tires. It was awesome :)

Well alright then, I stand corrected. That one run just seemed so out of place that I figured it must have been on purpose. You being the gentleman that you are, it seemed as if you were feeling bad about beating Josh in his own car and backed off, but we all know the course can throw surprises at you. I'm just sour about getting beat by Eric in the craptastic ETA