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

[irish44j]

nice fleet he has :D

The joys of being a single guy I guess.....he's owned 25+ cars, trailers, and tow rigs in the 12 years I've known him, lol. The vette there is something like 600hp IIRC.

[TeXJ]

the joys of being a single guy i guess.....he's owned 25+ cars, trailers, and tow rigs in the 12 years i've known him, lol. The vette there is something like 600hp iirc.

dang gina!

[irish44j]

Ok, so the internals for rebuilding the 3.91 LSD are on the way from Thayer Motorsport and should be here in a day or two. In the meantime, I also managed to pick up a low-miles 3.73 medium-case LSD (30k miles since full rebuild), both to use in the meantime while I rebuild the 3.91, and then to later add a third clutch pack to when this car finally is ready to stage rally.

In any case, I loaded it up with some fresh Mobil1 (mix of 90 and 140 weight) and installed. Only kicker is that one of the upper bolts had been stripped by the P/O and retapped to a 1/2" (vice M12) thread. No biggie, still bolts up fine. At some point I may tap out to a larger M14 just to make sure the threads are strong, but that's TBD.

So that's in the car. It seems a little more "grumbly" than my 3.91, but it could just be my imagination - especially since I put a thousand miles on the WRX in the last few days and its drivetrain is very smooth (seriously...).



Being on my back doing diff install turned Summit Point's Shennandoah Circuit into a rallycross course, clearly...



While killing some time today I saw some paint, and some tape. So of course I had to take 15 minutes and do this:



That's it for now :)

[stonea]

So whats happening to the 3.73 after you rebuild the 3.91?

[irish44j]

It's staying around as a spare for now, and will be the primary diff once this car is ready for stage rally since I can put a third clutch pack in and make it 60% lock (40% lock is stock for medium case). The small-case is only 25% lock and can't add a third clutch without machining, so it's better for rallycross.

[irish44j]

Well, with a long weekend and the wife and kids down at the lake, I had nothing much to do. So I worked on Jason's new rallycross Miata - because....well, it's something to do between going out at night.

So he brought it over

And we put on some new stuff





and I drilled some stuff



yup



and it's a rally miata, so ...



then Jason rolled out on a date and left the car there. And I had some paint around and stuff. And the crappy old paint on the Miata is boring.

so I got a beer and a 4" roller and a couple gallons of rustoleum professional in black and safety red and started rolling...



then I painted his swaybar safety blue for no reason at all...



Then on Sunday I took a break to meet a few of the local guys for some private test&tune and beers and burgers at a fellow rally driver's country house...



The 40% lock on the 3.73 LSD is nice. The car really puts down the whopping 140hp a lot better now :)

Then today I did some more painting..

and it was done.



with his street Miata, which is a little lower and a lot nicer



So now my driveway has a Miata, a BMW, and a WRX in it. And ironically, the WRX is the only one that never sees dirt...





Another event this coming weekend, so we'll see how that goes.

[TeXJ]

Great update!

[irish44j]

Great update!

I live in boring suburban hell. Doing projects (even on someone else's car) is the only thing that keeps me from going insane around here, lol.

[irish44j]

Well, was all packed this morning and ready to go for tomorrow, and drove the car to get some gas and noticed my voltmeter only showing 11v. Hmm.

After some tests, not getting any juice from the alternator and the dash light isn't coming on during start. Did the usual tests as outlined in Bentley and elsewhere (ground the exciter line to chassis to test if the bulb comes on - it did), cleaned grounds, checked all wiring. Coudln't figure it out. Then swapped in my other alternator (which came out of a running car but has been sitting for a few months). Still no dice. Checked the brushes in the regulators on both, and both were in decent shape (the 2nd alternator looks almost new). Battery is at full charge (it had gotten down to 50%) and accepted juice from my charger fine, and is holding it. It's a 3-year old red top....so battery is fine. Just no alternator voltage anywhere, including from the post on the alternator.

So I'm at a total loss now, other than some internal issue with the alternator. Will have to find a new/reman'd one (noplace locally has one so that'll have to wait).

So for tomorrow's rallycross I'm bumming a co-drive from Eric Eisele, whose usual codriver Neil Cox can't make the event in their 325i.

As (bad) luck would have it, Nick and Bobby replaced their gas tank (rusted) this week and have a major leak problem now, so they can't run either. Nick is likely going to run with Eric/Chris Helgesen in their PR-prepped car. Jason isn't going to make it with the Miata, else I'd probably ask him. In any case, I'm briging my gravels to put on the other e30 if they want to use them in place of the BFG all-terrains they usually use.

We'll see how it goes. The one plus is that I get to cruise up and back 2 1/2 hours to the site in the WRX with my A/C, comfortable seats, and good stereo :)

[irish44j]

I'm pretty tired so just a quick recap from today:

With my car down Eric Eisele (currently 4th in MR points, I think) graciously lent me his co-driver seat with his usual partner Neil Cox absent. We used my gravel tires rather than the BFG all-terrains they usually run.

Took me the morning to get used to the car and Eric jumped out to a nice lead of about 10 seconds by that point (with me in 3rd overall at the break). In the afternoon I ran a bit faster than him but wasn't able to catch up, since he drove fast, consistent, and clean all afternoon.

So, Eric took his first WDCR class win (in the e30, though he won in his WRX last year), and I took 2nd c0-driving his car. Also by taking 2nd I *think* i locked up at least a tie for the season points title, regardless of what I do in the next two events. So that's good :)

[irish44j]

So, on to the event #6 full wrap-up. This was kind of an odd one. After I knew my car woudln't make it Eric Eisele (who is 4th in class points) offered up a co-drive. Quite an offer since he and co-owner Neil Cox had run the rallycross at VIR on Saturday and driven the 300+ miles that night to Frostburg! Then come to find out that Nick and Bobby, after replacing their gas tank, had a major fuel leak issue and no time to solve it.

So Nick and I rolled up there together in my WRX without our rally cars...



Upon arrival, saw Eric's car covered with mud, lol. They had used their usual BFG all-terrains for the mud event, but I brough my Dmack gravels to use there, as tradeoff for using his car.



Meanwhile, Nick scored a co-drive in the e36 318i that has been challenging Shawn for the PR lead all season and is surprisingly quick – since MR ran in the separate run session.



So we started off...

Eric E., the car owner, of course ran consistent and fast all morning with no major mistakes. He also seemed to be enjoying having smaller gravels on the car rather than the tall BFGs.

I had a bit of learning curve on my morning runs. The car is obviously a 6cyl B25 car, but with the stock e30 rack, power steering delete, stock comfort seats and seatbelt. On the curvy morning course I found that the car would really snap-back hard on heavy throttle corrections, which I'm not used to in my car. And this car liked to step out a lot more in the back than mind does, for sure. There was a point that I repeatedly nailed my helmet on the side of the door frame with little seat or seatbelt support, and once had both hands ripped off the stylin' wooden steering wheel when I got crossed up and couldn't slide my hands sufficiently.

Meanwhile, Nick was having to learn about the e36, with its welded diff, and not liking it initially.

Corey finally got out with his 740 Turbo-engine-swapped Volvo 240 and was running pretty quick on snow tires, a second or so per run behind me IIRC. Eric Helgesen picked up where he left off and was running fast and clean all morning. The rest of the class was a bit farther back but not too far.

At the lunchbreak, Eric E. (my codriver) was leading by 5 seconds over Eric H. in the ETA. I was 4 seconds back of him with Nick and Corey right with me.

Then it got interesting in the afternoon. Preface to say we did 4 morning runs but 10 afternoon runs.

I got the hang of the car in the afternoon and actually ran slightly faster than Eric E. for most of the afternoon, but also picked up some cones and couldn't gain much ground since he was so damn clean. There was a good amount of water on course as well, which was fun getting a face-full of it and some gravel when I drilled a deep puddle and it come through the passenger floor plug drain, lol.

Nick picked it up a bit in the e36 and was right with me for most of the afternoon until falling off over the last few runs.

Eric H. managed to BREAK the shift selector rod before his first afternoon run. So he jumped into Shawn Roberts' class-leading PR Miata. Eric has never rallycrossed any car except his own and never driven a Miata (he's 17). So he had some trouble in his first couple runs and gave back 8 or 9 seconds before he got the hang of the car and started puttting down some good times. For his PR co-drivers, they managed to mend the shifter using some wire and cut-up flathead screwdrivers in time to run it in the second session of the afternoon (making their runs entirely in 3rd gear!).

After Eric E. pushed the car to the paddock area, lol..



Corey somehow blew up something in the Volvo on one of his first runs, coolant from either a burst hose or head gasket – not sure. In any case, he also jumped into the e36 and started putting down some wicked fast times, but not all that clean.

And he did some damage



The two Jeffs stayed reasonably close in the other e30 but were a bit off the pace. They're getting better.

In the end, it was hard-fought with some great driving throughout the class and no major mistakes from anyone (at least judging by times), other thank Eric H. having a couple cone-heavy runs (he's usually very clean)

Final results had Eric E. winning his first MR event with WDCR (after winning the class at THSCC rallycross the day before at VIR). So great weekend for him.

I ended up about 7 seconds behind him....was catching him half a second at a time all afternoon but not nearly enough runs to make up the defecit from the morning. Either way, pretty pleased since his car is like night and day compared to mine in all ways other than both being e30s.

Also might mention that Eric E. and I both beat ALL of the stock and prepared AWD class cars that were in our run group :)



At the time, I thought Nick finished behind me in 3rd a ways back, but as it turns out Corey actually put down some monster times and almost caught me after being back 10+ seconds, and passed Nick knocking him to 4th.

Eric H. put up a good fight in the Miata but finished 5th in the end. And a few others. Here's the class laydown for the day:



All in all a fun event with interesting courses, awesome weather, and the joy of driving my DD WRX home rather than having to hate life in the e30 for 3 hours after a day of racing, lol.

Also here are the season points standing with two events to go. Keep in mind that we get two drop events for the season, so you can do the math.....



And some other pics of the day that I took



The guys that did VIR the day before for epic rallycross weekend....muddy


The ETA boys



The non-turbo Volvo in PR


The “backup” Justy (the other one broke the previous event)




crew..


Shawn's Miata


Celica that ran an autocross the day before



And this thing..

[irish44j]

2nd update (event recap right above) ^^



Now back to the reason my car was not working for this weekend, which is why I drove Eric Eisele's car. No charge from the alternator. Changed it out for one I took out of a running car. Still no dice.

Did all the Bentley diagnostics (dash battery light working, circuits all seem good, battery good, ground good, etc). Still nothing.

So today I pulled the alternator out and had both on the bench. I had narrowed it down to the fact that the small post (for the exciter wire) on the alternator were not giving a negative ground for the 12v on ignition as it should. This was the case on both, or so I thought.



To test, measured continuity of ground with a multimeter between the post and the alternator frame. On the “new” one, nothing. No continuity, no matter what I did. Then I took out the old one and tried it. Nothing at first, but the thing was really dusty and dirty from 4 seasons of rallycross, and the fine dust from the testing weekend last week. So I hit it with some electronics cleaner and compressed air.

And I got continuity.

Did a quick test and it got the light on the dash to work. Hell yes.

In the meantime I swapped out the brush assembly from the old one (which was well below the BMW-recommended replace level) with those from the newer one (which were almost new). Put it all back together, and got....



So....back in action for the next event. And a few other projects coming up before that, so stay tuned.

[TeXJ]

Really wish we had something like this down here.

[irish44j]

So another little update. One that the e30 purist car-show types won't like but whatever. With the OEM sealed-beams night driving has always sucked in this car (can't use the Hellas or LED bar on public roads). I was just going to try to find some used ellipsoids/smilies but didn't really find any good deals on ones in reasonable shape. So I went to ebay and got the E-code ellipsoids from Depo. Yup, the fakes. And four Philips H1 bulbs off Amazon. All told under $200.





Anyhow, we all know these aren't as good as the real thing quality-wise. The biggest complaints I've read about are the adjustors breaking (they worked fine for me, but I lubed them with some silicone spray to make them turn easier since that makes sense....)....and the wiring. IDK what this wiring is for, but it certainly isn't for an early e30 lol. In any case, I rewired the lights directly from the bulbs into my stock harness. Took a few hours but in the end I'm confident that all the wiring is good to go and will hold up to the pounding this car takes.

What else.....also have heard about some people getting leaks so I put some clear silicone around the lens edges and anyplace else that could leak (also sealed all my wiring pass-throughs with silicone).

Installed. They bolt up directly, though I had to cut out some of the splash-shield behind the lights since they're deeper than the sealed beams.



[img][/img]

WIll also put some Lamin-x on the glass to try to reduce breakage...

I also wired up the "city lights" (tapping into my parking light wiring)





I haven't had them out in the dark yet since the car is blocked into the garage at the moment (maybe will do it tomorrow), but it's pretty obvious that the light output is far better than the sealed beams. The lows also have a nice cutoff. I'd say it's damn near as good as the not-cheap bixenon retrofit I have on the WRX.

Another nice thing is that the Depos use H1 bulbs in both highs and lows, which are simply better (IMO) than the 9006/9005 bulbs used in the "real" ones.



Will take some output pics when I get a chance.

[irish44j]

Some minor things....

First, with a Hurricane scheduled to hit us this weekend and several days of rain, put the car in the garage so I have something to do all weekend....



Also got a pair of almost-new DMacks in the other day. Trying to make sure I have a fairly fresh set for New York later this month, since it may end up being muddy and my worn-down tires that do *ok* on gravel will not do well in anything slippery.



While doing some stuff under the car (checking out my subframe and RTAB bushings) I noticed that the little rusty "wing" piece on the front of the passenger wheel well had started to rust through. Not that I really care about minor rust, but this piece does triangulate the mount area for the rear subframe, so it may have some structural benefit.



Cleaned up the area and will patch it up tomorrow after I cut out some metal. Gonna be a bit tricky because of the seam with the rocker panel and tons of seam sealant everywhere that will be difficult to totally remove, but it should be ok



On a side note, I've done some driving with the new lights, and I am REALLY impressed with both the range, clarity, and cutoff. They may actually have better visibility with low-beam than my not-cheap full bixenon projector retrofit on my WRX, which is considered to be a nice kit. So pretty happy with how those turned out. Don't really have pics since night light pics are not easy with a camera phone, lol.