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

[irish44j]

Little project today. As mentioned earlier, my in-tank low pressure pump broke. It's getting pretty hard to find working used ones, and new ones range from $150 to 250 depending on where you look.

To get me over at the last event I just eliminated it and let the HP pump work a bit harder. Seemed to work fine, but would still rather have it "like the factory wanted it" just to help the life of the HP pump.

This isn't "my" idea, apparently it's pretty popular in the e28 groups at least if not e30 groups, but the grassroots solution is RockAuto, of course. But not BMW parts - you get the in-tank LP (lifter) pump from a 1973-1976 Chevy Vega (and probably other GMs of that era, I'd guess). $15 new.





It's the right size, though doesn't have the bracket. Comes with a new in-tank pre-filter as well. To fit it up, you really just have to put some ring terminals on the original wires and they use small nut attachments to the pump.

One thing is the pump doesn't specify polarity of the terminals, so had to do a bench test to see which way was pumping fuel out vs. in. My 6-year-old helped me..



A couple hose clamps or zipties secure it to the original assembly, oriented to leave space for the fuel level sender



Anyhow, installed it and it seems to work fine. The HP pump's buzz seems substantially quieter now as well (though the buzz at all kind of annoys me since it's a pretty new Bosch pump). So, some peace of mind at very least.

[irish44j]

So, while I've been trailering the car for the last few events, I really would prefer to just drive it there whenever possible, since mountain roads are way more fun when not pulling a big trailer with an SUV. Now that I'm comfortable with the new engine, I expect to start driving the car to and from events again (except two-day events, where having a 2nd vehicle is convenient).

Because of the cage, the car is somewhat inconvenient for hauling a lot of gear, so I have the little tire trailer, which works fine. But I'm kind of tired of using the trailer. Again, less fun with it in the mountains and stuff, would just as well just drive the car there on its own (plus, it gets so little use I'd just as well just sell it and the hitch to make a bit of cash for other stuff).

So, in a move that totally makes no sense, since it will cost money to do, I'm building a roof rack specifically to carry stuff like tires. Also because roof racks are cool, and I want to build something just for fun. Now, I could just buy a Thule or Yakima setup (I can get one for a discount from my ski shop), but that's no fun, and those sitt really high over the roof. I want something lower-profile, kind of like what I have on the Sequoia (also home-built).waffles

A bit of inspiration from the old rack on my Triumph GT6, which had a gutter-mount rack that had little screws through the gutter to bolt it down (vice using a "reverse clamp" like Thule/Yakima does). Anyhow, it's something to do. So I got online and orderd up some steel tubing (16ga) and a few other steel pieces (1/4" x 2" flat plate, and some small round tubing).

After some measuring and sketching, got to work today.



The 1/4" plate cut into 5" sections, which will be my four legs. Thick so they fit right into the gutter with just a bit of play. Then, basically a square (tacked on the car to keep it level and straight).waffles





So, here's where I am now. I'm deciding on my inside bar arrangement to place them both for support and in order to have them a place to allow me to best locate/strap down four tires (and/or other stuff). Once I place the crossbars, the intent is to cover the whole thing with the lightweight chicken coop flooring (farm-tek) that I used on the Sequoia.



Will also probably fab up some kind of mount for a fairing or something, we'll see.waffles

[Danny]

For what it’s worth I installed the same low pressure pump in our track car and it works great!

[irish44j]

For what it’s worth I installed the same low pressure pump in our track car and it works great!

good to hear :)

[irish44j]

continued with the rack project today after a stop at home depot for a couple extra pieces of bar. I went with a design that would allow me to carry a variety of things, including 2 or 4 tires depending on what I need for rallycross conditions.



With the basic design done I wanted to fit it to double-check, and figure out where I'd want tires on it so I could make some integrated tie-down eyes.





So I decided to make some flush-mount tiedown eyes. Usually eye-bolts would work fine, but just in case I ever want to put something flat up there, figured might as well make it a bit more seamless. I decided to locate them directly under the middle of where a 4-wheel set would sit, enabling a number of variations. yeah, I know I could just wrap the hooks around the bar, but that's always annoying to do.

So, this is what I came up with:



Though I still have to finish the feet, decided to put a base-coat of paint the rest of it, since I plan to put several on this weekend.



So, it will sit like this



I'm also planning on making some brackets to put a fairing on the front to reduce wind drag/noise a bit (and because it will look better). Got my first bracket cut and bent, need to do a couple more and then cut a fairing out of whatever material I have sitting around (probably some scrap Lexan or something, we'll see). I want the fairing 5-6" out front of the front bar to allow some tire overhang once I move to larger 15" wheels in the future.



So, that's where I am. Will plan to finish it up this weekend.

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In competition news, after trying to sock away money unsuccessfully for Southern Ohio Forest Rally, decided will just hold off on that one til next year. Not sure what (if anything) the stage rally schedule will hold for us this year, we'll see how the budget looks. I do plan to go down to SOFR to crew for Dan Downey and Kevin Brolin in their e30, which should have a good shot at a podium since Dan is fast as hell and he's dropping an M52 into after breaking a rocker on his M20 (while still finishing the rally strong). So, that should hopefully be fun. that's in about a month.

[rzerob]

That turned out really nice. I am interested to see how it is mounted.

[irish44j]

So, went out for drinks tonight, but before that my automotive ADD would not allow me to not work on the rack. Today's goal was to make the mounts and a couple other things.

So, for the mounts, I took a page out of the 1970s rack my Triumph used to have, and basically did this the exact same way. With some small-diameter steel tubing. cut into 2" pieces and welded to the sides of the legs. Then drilled a hole in the bottom of the gutter where it lined up. My welding still needs a good bit of practice for sure, but this is all overkill anyhow....



Now, the issue with this is that the e30 gutters are not flat, they're angled upwards. So the bolts (M6) won't sit totally flush, and there isn't much clearance. I took the ginder and ground down the back side of the bolt head so they essentially hold themselves in place at the bottom (requiring only one wrench, at the nut at the top). It's not perfect, but it'll work and just a bit visible under the outer weatherstripping.

Finished up with the correct size washers





The last order of business was to make some brackets for a fairing. Still need to scrounge up some material to make a fairing with, but mostly anything will work. So mocked it up and made some cuts and bends.





And did some painting. So I think the fabbing is done. I've never been a great fabricator and this is admittedly not that complex a thing, but I'm pretty pleased that i managed to think things out and it came out pretty much exactly as I'd hoped. So, that's good.



Final shots this weekend once I get a fairing and do a final fit on the car....

[irish44j]

ok, so finished things up with the rack. The last order of business was to build a fairing. After digging through various sheet materials i had on-hand, i stumbled across a dusty old Thule fairing from like 15 years ago sitting up in my garage loft. Talk about good luck. So, since it was from my old Jeep and pretty big, had to do some cutting to get it to a more e30-ish size. Then got it mounted up on the car





I think it came out pretty good as far as fit and alignment go, and it sticks up a couple inches above the rack itself so hopefully will stop any whistling from wind, etc. Also "test-fit" some wheels up there (i.e. wanted to take some photos), so here's the whole setup loaded (though not strapped down)





Also took a quick drive in the Porsche to finally test out my new headlight wiring and the H4 Hella e-code headlights. WOW. Talk about an upgrade - this setup is lightyears better than the stock US sealed beams in terms of light distance and cutoff. I am really pleased with this setup, gotta say...(though I need to aim the right light down a bit, it's not that far off - I'm just parked crooked on the sloped driveway in this pic...so it looks like it's higher on the door than it is.

[irish44j]

So enough tinkering, let's do some rallycross. Last weekend was DC's 2nd event of the season. As you may recall, at the first event with the M50 I was a mess in the morning but got it mostly sorted out in the afternoon, so was hoping to continue that trend.

instead of towing, I decided to drive the car the 2 hours to the venue in West Virginia. In retrospect, kind of remembered why I tow now....even moreso the car is loud and uncomfortable to be in for any extended time - though a few factors that I'll mention below later contribute to that as well. In any case, loaded up the tires and started driving 2 hours in the rain...I will mention the rack worked great, and no tires went flying off the car. However, tires on an uninsulated roof sure make a lot of wind noise at 70-80mph.....



It didn't stop raining until about half an hour after arrival, which didn't bode well for things. Panthera is VERY hilly and also has some pretty significant drop-offs that could end up causing a roll or other damage if you overshoot the wrong corner too much.


With that in mind, the course designers made it tighter than usual to slow things down, with a ton of offsets, slaloms, and other features meant to keep everyone safe within rally-x rules. For me, that's music to my ears, since I love the technical courses.



Our run group got lucky and got to run 2nd (though I spent about 2 minutes trying to get unstuck just transiting up to the top where we gridded, since there was deep/wet grass going up a steep hill). Ugh. But by the time we started running, the course had dried enough to actually be pretty tacky and not slippery at all if you stayed "on the line" more or less.







As usual, MR was the largest class. Due to the weather the event was smaller than usual with only 40 or so people showing up out (we usually get 50-60). MR had 12 entries, down from our usual 15-20, but only one of the regular "fast guys" was missing - Stephen Nichols. In his place Chris's 17-year old son Thomas ran in MR. Thomas had been running in PR since he got his license and actually starting to get close to Shawn, so he's pretty fast. It was interesting seeing him put down times pretty close to the MR leaders (but with a few too many cones). more competition. As usual, Nick was there in the M3 and Jeremy was there in his e36 (they went 1-2 at the first event and are always fast). Chris, Eric and Neil, and Josh S. rounded out the usual 'fast group' with Dan Gugger still learning the Porsche. Also had a turbo Miata there, but they drive fairly conservatively from what I can tell.

We did 5 morning runs of about 70 seconds, and as usual, the top half of the class stayed pretty clean and consistent. Nick got off to a slow start, but as usual was called for no cones. I picked up a couple cones as did Jeremy, and Josh, Chris, and Eric all had a bad run here or there. Neil ran at the back of the pack (as the 2nd driver in his car) and quietly was putting down really good times. At lunch break, Neil and Jeremy were pretty much tied, and I was about half a second behind them, with Nick and a couple others just a couple seconds back.

Vid of the morning course;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuWif5On-k4

In the afternoon, I didn't make any real changes other than taking one of the two spare tires out of my trunk to try to help with rotation at the big haripin, which had more traction than I would have liked. I wanted to focus on consistency and on this afternoon I did, running five more runs, all of them clean, and all of them faster than the previous. The car felt good and the PM course had a really good rhythm to it. Meanwhile, Nick was picking up speed (with no cones), Neil was running fast as well, and Jeremy was matching my times on each run. Coming into the last run I had jumped slightly ahead of Neil and Jeremy with Nick just behind them and Josh closing in with some super-fast runs. I went for it on the last run and put down the fastest run in the class all afternoon (clean). Jeremy went for it and got a bit out of sorts, picking up three cones and dropping from 2nd to 4th (that's how close this class is). Neil was ultra-consistent all afternoon but not quite as fast, finishing about 8 seconds behind me in the end, with Nick 4 seconds behind him. Jeremy and Josh were right behind him. Chris took a bit of an excursion and shattered the oil pan on their 325i with two runs left, so he ran his last two in Jeremy's car (and had his best time in it, I think...). I let Thomas do his last run in mine and he seemed impressed by the handling and braking compared to their car and immediately told his dad the things they needed to "upgrade" lol.
I'll also note, for what it's worth (not much) that I was 2nd place overall (out of 40 cars, including things like an STI Type RA). The only car that beat me was Adam Kimmett, who is ultra-fast in his STi (and also an extremely fast stage driver), who is almost always FTD. And I was only about 5 seconds behind him. So, that's kind of neat and it speaks to how good this car is on technical courses.

Also interesting that among the top handful of MR drivers, there were VERY few cone hits - like low single-digits in 10 runs. Meanwhile, we had some experienced/fast Subaru guys (including Kimmett) picking up 20+ cones as they understeered their way through the tight sections. I think one of the usual Mod AWD front-runners had something like 35 cones on his own, which is insane.waffles

vid of the afternoon course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AssMyhsK2Cw

So, here's the final standings for class:





A little follow-up. As I may have mentioned, I used my "backup" transmisison when I did this swap. Now I remember why it was a backup, because the idler shaft bearnings are really, really loud. Doesn't seem to be a performance issue, but boy it's annying, especially with hard mounts and no insulation in this car. Driving home both the bearings and a leak at the exhaust/header joint were making things pretty unpleasant in the car, honestly.

So, I pulled out the transmission I had been using with the M42 and did new seals on it today and cleaned it up. So my intention in the next few weeks is to swap it back into the car (and at the same time address the exhaust leak) to try to make it a bit less unpleasant to drive this car - though the convenience of towing will likely make that my regular plan for most summer events where A/C is nice to have on the trip home...

[TeXJ]

With the new power, are you having to learn how the car handles all over again or is the power not that much different in how the car handles?

[irish44j]

With the new power, are you having to learn how the car handles all over again or is the power not that much different in how the car handles?

In terms of "solid-state" handling when not hard on the throttle, not much affect. It feels a bit heavier (because it is) but i think bumping up the front spring rates mostly maintained the suspension balance it previously had. It doesn't quite "dance" like it used to in slaloms and quick transitions, but it still seems to be very balanced in those areas in terms of handling.

The main power thing is learning to roll into it more gradually exiting turns to avoid terminal oversteer. I think I've generally gotten the hang of where to be on the throttle in certain situations now, but still need a bit more practice.

[TeXJ]

awesome man!

[irish44j]

Now, a little work of my own this evening. As noted earlier, I want to put back the transmission that was in the car with the M42. When I swapped I just used my "spare" transmission and now I remember why it's a spare - because the bearings are really loud and annoying. Word is that G240s will go for hundreds of thousands of miles with noisy bearings - and maybe that's ok in a fully insulated/carpeted car where you can't really hear it. Not in this car though...

So, into the garage again



Pulled the exhaust, heat shields, crossbrace, and driveshaft

The roof rack makes a good storage platform lol



But decided that with all that stuff out of the car, seemed like as good a time as any to finally swap in the new gas tank. You may recall it took a beating at NEFR (shot the sender right up through the top of the tank and heavily dented it, so it's short a gallon or so these days, lol



So fuck it, lets do this. First had to drain it. Since my sender is wonky I had estimated about 5-6 gallons in the tank after driving home from the rallycross.waffles



Happy I used the 12-gallon HD bin. Because there was about 10 gallons in the tank, lol. Whoops. So now I have a bin with 10 gallons of gas in it. I drained a few gallons into the Porsche and topped it off. One note: no sign of any debris even in the 35-year-old original tank.waffles

After that, unhooked the hoses at the sender port, unhooked electrical, etc. I had read that the gas tank is a hassle to drop with the subframe in place, and that it's genearlly a 2-person job. However, I think most of those stories are for the larger 325 tank. The 318 tank is smaller and lower capacity and just looking at it from below didn't look like it would be a big problem. So, once everything was detached, i unbolted the 5 bolts (all pretty easy to access) and voila....it dropped right out with little need to maneuver it or anything. Nice.



Did have a few pounds of dried clay on top of it, but otherwise, not bad. So, verified everything was the same as the new tank (bought for dirt-cheap on rockauto - apparently old e30 318 small tanks are not very popular, since it was half the price of a 325 tank)



looks pretty naked under there. Actually pretty interesting how little structure there is connecting the front and rear of the car in this area. Basically just the rockers and some sheet metal, it seems. Whever, guess ze germans know better than I.



So, switched over all the stuff I need from the old tank (pickup, sender, aux pump, crossover pipe, etc)



tomorrow I'll go get some new hoses that run over the top of the tank, since these are the original 1985 hoses. they look in good shape (no UV light under there to degrade them), but better safe than sorry. Then will bolt it back up and move on to doing the transmission swap.waffles

[irish44j]

Let's do some more stuff, because it's a nice day and car work beats yard work. First of all, time to get the new tank in (and unload the 8 gallons of gasoline sitting in a plastic bin in my driveway, before it sets something on fire lol).

Ran out and got some new hoses for the low-pressure side of the tank, the breather pipe, and the main fuel feed that runs over the top of the tank. Lots of surprised auto parts people when I ask for 1/2" fuel hose. Took me three stores to find some. I guess "modern" cars don't use anything that big anyplace, thanks to fuel injection from in-tank pumps.

Anyhow, getting the tank up turned out to be extremely easy, no issues at all. Pushed right up, all the mount holes lined up, piece of cake. This is the first time since I've owned this car it has had a dent-free tank (some p/o clearly had used the old tank as a jacking point at one point)

Looks so nice....for now



You can see why these things get banged up. The lower half of the tank sits lower than the rear floorpan, which is kind of dumb (seeing as the other side is like 6" higher, why not just make them even?). With a new tank in there, I plan to extend my underbody protection (3/16" HDPE sheet) farther back and build some rear mounts off the subframe. Project for this summer (or next weekend, depending on my motivation level)



Nice to see the top of the tank through the access cover, without fuel-smelling mud/dirt caked all around it...



Then the mail came, and in it was a little present from Carlos, since I made an offhand comment a few weeks ago about his new plate frames. For those not up on their geography, the motto on there is Chile's national motto (and the Chilean national coat-of-arms has a Condor in it).....



With the fuel tank all set (and with 8 gallons of gas back in it, not leaking....) time to move on to the transmission. For years I've just used a floor jack to do this, but this time ran out and borrowed Jason's transmission jack. Anyhow, with an actual trans jack it was much easier (duh). My frustration getting certain bellhousing bolts into place when I installed the engine made it easy this time, since I remembered the tricks (especially the hard-to reach starter upper nut, which needed the maximum dexterity my two longest fingers could manage).

So out it came



With the old one, or new one, or whatever.



After switching over the reverse sensor, brass pivot pin, and almost-new throwout bearing, my daughter helped me top off the transmission fluid (ATF on this one).



Then back in the new (old) one went...



I also welded up a few little holes on the exhaust (places I missed the first time, which were apparent from condensation drips) and altered the front connection to the header to try to eliminate the leak there. Very exciting.

---

in unrelated news, i did my errands this morning in the Porsche, and put about 50 miles on it in various types of driving, with zero issues. So looks like I've finally sorted out the little electrical issue(s) I had been having. Good news, since that's my road-trip car!

[irish44j]

Just some annoying BS. This being a rally car, it is expected to be dirty, dusty, wet, etc. I've put a good bit of effort into plugging holes and other places where any of that can get into the car. But I've had a mystery leak somewhere up on the driver's firewall for some time that isn't an issue when driving, but puts a lot of water into my driver's footwell when the car is parked in the driveway during storms. Not a huge deal since I have drain plugs, but still annoying.

Anyhow, using the "pepper in water" method, finally tracked down where it was coming through. The natural water drain from the upper inner fenders (in the engine bay) is down a seam between the inner fender and the firewall, which is also where the big fuse box wiring grommet pass-through is. Not surprisingly, over 30+ years whatever seam sealer was once there has eroded away, and multiple small rust-through areas had formed up out of sight, buried beneath years of dirt and dust - and had done so on both the inner and outer side of the fenderwell.

On the outer side, not a big issue. Easily acceessed through the wheel well. I wire brushed it all, threw some POR-15 on it, and then tacked in a patch plate, and then covered it with a healthy bunch of seam sealant.

On a regular car, I'd probably take more time and cut out a bigger section and weld in a whole new area, but this not being much of a structural area, and the goal to just stop leaks, whatever....this will last probably as long as this car will last at this point...



patch tacked in lazily...



sealed up (will be coated with some bedliner to further seal things up



The inside was another issue. Way up behind the pedals and hard to get to without being on my back in the footwell (doubly hard in a caged car with fixed seats....)

I cut out some of the most rotten parts. The arrow here points to the inner wheel well flange where it intersects with the firewall, where the water/salt/whatever was gathering and causing rust.



A this point I kind of said "fuck it" not really wanting to try to weld a patch in to that area, which would be really tough to get to with the welder, etc. So I bent back the remaining firewall metal (on the right) and basically put a crapload of seam sealer in with my fingers to cause a "sluiceway" of sorts for water to clear the area. Pretty much no other way to access this little nook buried right under the brake M/C. tried to reach it from below as well, but no dice.

so after basically creating a thick seam sealer fill area, I slapped a layer of fiberglass over it to seal the inside (after more POR-15 application). And then used a bunch more seam sealer to finish off and seal the inside. This may or may not actually stop rust from spreading further, but again I suspect this car will have many other structural issues by the time that happens - and in any case, this area is not structural anyhow, so as long as the leak is gone, that's fine.



So, now I can put this car back outside in the driveway and get the (still occasionally leaky from the sunroof) Porsche back inside. Really no reason to park a rally car inside lol....

Off to Ohio for SOFR on Thursday with Chris Nonack to crew. Will have some recap stuff of whatever ends up happening there, once I get back.