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

[econti]

Any videos?

[irish44j]

coming soon.

[irish44j]

Here's video of a run from the first night before the rain came and made it VERY slow. Was still pretty slippery even before the rain, and this was my second run so was still feeling out the course with no ability to "look ahead"

https://youtu.be/7COMz_DCXFM

[irish44j]

And also some vid (no sound, whoops) of fooling around on the circle track. Much more exciting in person than on video, however...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QndPbKWBhs0&feature=youtu.be

[stonea]

^ That looks like so much fun. I'd love to find a big open dirt track or something to fool around on.

[irish44j]

So.....happy halloween and all that. I pushed the "easy button" to take the girls trick-or-treating and just threw on some of my race stuff. Which turned out to be pretty popular with all of their friends lol.





Meanwhile.....cut out the broken exhaust piece



And got a patch pipe and welded it in (please once again ignore my sloppy welds....)



In other news, Ozgur is building the cage for his e30 (the white one that I took the drivetrain out of). But more importantly for this thread, he's bending a second tubing for my car at the same time, as can be seen sitting off to the left in this pic.



So, that's pretty exciting news I guess. Next weekend is the last local event of the season, so once that's done will get down to ripping out the interior, selling the 4-point rollbar, pulling the dash, and prepping for cage install later this winter. Ozgur is building an FIA cage, with sill boxes, so we should be able to get it tighter to the shell and have good access to upper welds. I'm also planning to link it into the front and rear shock towers as well (though the front left is going to be a challenge for sure). Anyhow, more on that when the time comes.

[irish44j]

So, a quick wrap up of the last event of the season, and will talk more about the season and off-season plans when I get a chance later....

WDCR Event #8

Having already locked up the class win, this was essentially a "for fun" event for me - though of course would like to win it as well just because. With Nick's e28 totaled I let him co-drive with me as well - he needed a 4th place or better finish to lock up 2nd in points for the season over Eric Eisele, who has been charging hard in the second half. Josh Sennett also finally made it out to an event, but again not in his car - he borrowed Mike Palcynski's PR 318is. MR class had 11 cars in a large (60-car) field.

In any case, since I didn't need the win I didn't bring my new/fresh set of tires and instead brought my old ones, 4 of which were at best 20% tread lol. Save the good ones for next year!

The course for the day was the longest we've ever run at this venue, very high-speed but with average times from 80-100 seconds depending on class.

Corey McKenzie also finally had the Volvo 240 (with turbo 740 engine swap) running again, and a few other volvos were out there as well in a Germany vs. Sweden battle.

So.....short recap of the event:

I was the first car in class off (third overall) in the morning session, so basically the "sweeper" car for loose gravel. And it was loose. First run was pretty fast but I took out three cones as there must have been 150 cones on this very, very long course and I had no rear grip with the shot tires (still up over 30lbs because we forgot to let air out!!).

Nick and Eric and Corey were fast right out of the gate and fairly clean so found myself once again playing catch up (this seems to happen a lot....). Going into the lunch break I was back about 9-10 seconds from the lead in 4th or 5th, IIRC.

In the afternoon the rear tires were treadbare so switched the better fronts to the back and put some much better ones on the front (which actually had some square shoulder left). The result was instant and I got the car more in-line and laid down a few very fast runs, getting back within about 5 seconds of the lead (into 3rd) with 2 runs left.

By earlier agreement, I wanted to do a run in Corey's Volvo (turbo, but with mostly stock suspension, most of its interior, stock comfy seats, and welded diff). I knew this was going to cost me some time (not to mention he was more or less tied with me for 3rd and driving my car was sure to help him). Be that as it may, wanted to do it since results didn't matter anyways.

His car is a TANK. But boy does it have some power. First half of the course took me a while to figure otu the welded diff, super-slow steering, and all the power. Then I got it down and tore up the second half. I ran about an 88 second run = about 3 seconds slower than my previous done in my own car, but still about what leader Eric Eisele ran in his own car. So....not terrible. Meanwhile, Corey was busy in my car laying down a 84 second run jumping him into the lead with one run left.

So for the last run I went back to my car and went full-bore just for the hell of it. And what do you know, I ran in the 82s, by far the fastest run of the day in the class. But I did cone. In the end, I ended up 3rd, less than 5 seconds behind Eric and Corey (who won by 0.2 seconds).

So....never know what "would" have happened, but suffice to say that if I had stayed in my car the whole time and Corey has stayed in his, that would have been roughly a 5-6 second swing there and I might have actually won the event (or at least been very, very close). But whatever - it was worth it to finally try out a Volvo 240 on course, since in the beginning 4 years ago I almost got one instead of the e30.

So, here's the final MR results for the event - the red arrow is the run I did in Corey's car showing the time difference and how it cost me (and helped him). In any case, will do a full-season wrap and off-season plans writeup in the near future.

[irish44j]

The Rally Build Begins...

ok, so it's always been the long-term plan that everything has been built toward, but now it's time to make the car better, stronger, more reliable, and safer as we built toward Rally America/NASA Rally Sport.

While Ozgur builds the cage up in New York (to be installed later this winter) it's time to take care of some things that need taking care of. First of all the rear suspension/subframe. I've been getting some bad toe change in street driving and some banging off-road from the rear end and that's indicative of bad subframe/RTAB bushings. So let's take all that crap apart.

The Subframe bushings are OEM ones I put in 4 years ago, diff bushing is even older than that, and RTABs are Ireland Engineering poly bushes that seem to seize a bit.

So in advance, ordered new poly RTABs from IE and my man Carlos at Condor Speed Shop sent me some UHMW subframe and diff bushings. In a car like this I'm willing to suffer more NVH, since this entire care IS NVH, lol.



Taking stuff apart. Less fun when everything is coated with clay and dirt, even with my multiple washdown efforts. The cost of working on a rally car, right?



Dropping the subframe sucked as it was seized into the body mounts. I threaded it and screwed in a big bolt so I could bang it through from the top.



Upon disassembly of the rear end, the problem is clear. The subframe bushes have too much flex and when the subframe goes up during hard rear-end hits, the driveshaft is actually touching against the gas tank shield. That's no good.





Let's press those suckers out, after we remove my 1-piece exhaust (which will be replaced with the 2-piece I have sitting around once I weld the muffler to it.







Then I notice my toe-change issue: The RTAB bolts (original, probably), are worn and grooved and the holes in the rear subframe mounts are ovaled and nowhere near snug on them. So will ahve to either rebuild them or (easier) will just find a good rear subframe to replace it with.





Also pressed in a new diff bushing so everything has the same (small) amount of flex to it





OH, also ordered up some sheets of HDPE for underbody protection. In order to ahve good outer mounts (and protect/strengthen the beat-up rocker seam) I'm welding in some angle-iron pieces along the seam. That'll let me bolt up the underbody sheeting along the sides (and somewhere under the car) and gives me a new jacking point closer to the middle of the car.

[irish44j]

Some progress this weekend on things that I need to do on the car while I'm waiting to get the cage done, continued from above.

I got a box of stuff I ordered from McMaster - nuts and bolts to replace most everything under the car and some "typical" sizes to just have.



With my subframe no good, Jim Spoth was nice enough to give me one of the Chumpcar spares to use, which was in excellent condition. So with that in hand, it was time to start putting everything back together. First order of business was pressing all the new bushings in (some new Ireland poly RTAB bushings and Condor UHMW bushings in the subframe and diff mount:







Then refreshed my rear brake calipers with grease, etc.....and some new pads. Here's what I found when I took them off. Well, that's 4 seasons of OEM rear pads, so not unexpected. Replaced them with some Axxis Metal Masters I had sitting around, but will upgrade at some point



Also did a rear wheel bearing, one of which was TOTALLY shot, which explains the noise I was hearing driving to and from the last event of the season



Then I took a night off to go see Kamelot and Dragonforce at a nearby venue. Love me some progressive metal, and these are two of the best in the world.



Also in the meantime, another package came and it was two 1/4" sheets of HDPE which I'll cut and use for underbody protection under the floorboards to protect the fuel lines, brake lines, and the floors themselves. Need to get some weld nuts and decide how I want to mount them.



Then went ahead and lifted up the whole rear suspension. A tricky one-man job but got it done with few difficulties.



That was exhausting so took a break to switch my Wintersport 4Ds onto the SUbaru since it was in the 40s today and it's about that time...



Then the long process of putting everything back together, torquing things correctly, cleaning or replacing nuts and bolts, etc. But it's all back together now



Also put the "new" exhaust on with new hardware, rebuilt the OEM front hanger which was all rusty and bolts were broken, etc. This time instead of a full 1-piece welded exhaust (which was a major PITA on many occasions) I went with the stock setup with the compression spring bolts between the cat and catback.



And cut some pipe and adapted my muffler to the new exhaust, which runs a little higher to the car than the old one (a good thing)

yup, more ugly welds. But they'll do.




So that's it for the moment. Still need to bleed the brakes, and I put the Star Specs away for the witner so when the car goes back on its wheels it will be on the (ugh...) Winterforces. Torture to drive unless it's snowing.

On that note, met with Jim the other day and we decided to push to make it to the February 20th Waste Management Winter Rally in PA. It's a one-day coefficient 2 rally that is usually snow-covered with few RWD cars showing up. Looks like me, Chris Nonack (with a new RX-7 rally car build), Ozgur (finishing his e30), and Alp (in his e30) will all try to make it. So should be fun if we can all get our shit done in time.

[shiboujin]

Why do you need a cage meow? Yes I still read this thread.

[irish44j]

Why do you need a cage meow? Yes I still read this thread.

You need to read this thread more closely then lol. 2016 will be running Rally America and/or NASA Rally Sport (e.g. stage rally). A substantial cage is required, and also have to round up intercom stuff (for codriver), HANS, and a few other rally-specific items.

That, and all the cool kids have cages, right?

It's been useful crewing for and talking to Jesse Yuvali over the last year to learn the ropes. Though his rally car is S52-powered so it's a bit faster than mine will be initially :)

[2mAn]

I think that S52 rally car is on Bring A Trailer right now...

I tried to read this thread from beginning to the end and Im WAYY behind still lol. I will make it one of these days

[shiboujin]

I look at pretty pictures and skim :) Your shit is dense.

[irish44j]

I think that S52 rally car is on Bring A Trailer right now...

I tried to read this thread from beginning to the end and Im WAYY behind still lol. I will make it one of these days

No, that's a different one. But I've seen that car run/talked to them as well. It also runs Rally America in the eastern US. For $13k, it's a pretty killer deal actually. If I had $13k sitting around, I might buy it and not bother building :)

I think this is the one on bring a trailer (or at least I know this one is for sale right now):

[2mAn]

No, that's a different one. But I've seen that car run/talked to them as well. It also runs Rally America in the eastern US. For $13k, it's a pretty killer deal actually. If I had $13k sitting around, I might buy it and not bother building :)

I think this is the one on bring a trailer (or at least I know this one is for sale right now):

yup, thats the one. I just went and looked.

http://newlondon.craigslist.org/cto/5318869766.html

http://bringatrailer.com/2015/11/22/s52-swapped-1985-bmw-325i-rally-car/