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

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    Honestly, this new board format drives me crazy so I've mostly just been posting updates in the "original" thread over on GRM, so sorry to leave you guys hanging. If you want to catch up over the pst 6 months, just head over there and catch up: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/fo...5/#post3052217

    Cliff notes: I won the season last year / the winter rally was cancelled while they rebuild part of the STPR course / We planned to do Ohio Forest Rally but it got postponed / We planned to do STPR again, but it got cancelled by COVID / I did a rallycross at a new venue early this year and won my class / The first 3 months of DC rallycross got cancelled by COVID / I put a big spoiler on the car / I did a full build of a 1989 Dodge Raider (a full build thread on that is on GRM as well, if you're interested)

    Here's a teaser pic of that...



    I'll try to make an effort to get this one going again going forward now that DC rallycross is back in action. So here goes (and yes, this is a carbon copy of the GRM build thread, so there are some GRM references that you can ignore):

    Finally back to some action. This weekend we had (finally) the first DC rallycross, making up some earlier missed events with a doubleheader (two individual events). Turnout was huge – 75 entires, which may be the most our program has ever had, and a monster entry in MR class as usual, with 16 or 17 drivers signed up. The usual bunch of BMWs, a Miata or two, a couple MR2s, and a couple BR-Zs, including Chris Nonack doing some testing in his BR-Z (er...FR-S) before he cages it for stage rally.

    First a socially-distanced driver's meeting..





    Then off to grid..





    We were back at Summit Point this time and the weather broke dry and fairly hot. Saturday we ran the smaller course (which has no “name” yet), which is really a handling course. I used to love it with the M42 in this car because the more powerful cars couldn't use their power on it. Now I have a powerful car, so no more advantage lol.





    As expected, the top 10 or so in the class came out of the box on full “go,” and throughout the day the top half of the class swapped positions repeatedly for the most part. Most of us were out there on Maxsports with others on gravels. Josh Sennett had two studs break/back out while setting up, and since he couldn't use his spacers with the shorter replacements, he had to run on his street tires, which really hurt him in the morning. He went out at lunch to try to find some others and couldn't get back fo rthe PM due to part of summit point being locked down because some gunfire had (hit?) a Porsche on the main circuit at the big PCA track day. IDK if it was hunters or what, didn't hear what they found out.





    In any case, we battled it out, but nobody could catch Stephen Nichols, who held on for the win on Saturday, with me taking 2nd. About 5 other e30s followed up, and Nick didn't have a good day in the M3, actually hitting several cones right off the bat (He hit one cone last SEASON and I think none the season before). It was a tight and slippery course for his “big” M3.


    Other GRM builds were there....like, about 5 or 6 of them.....





    Also fun seeing my old “backup shell” rebuilt into Eric and Neil's new rallycross car (still hasn't had its paint job done, so still has remnants of my old door stripes and stuff). It was less fun when they were both beating me midway through the day, but I managed to pass both of them eventually.





    Incidentally, Shawn (the hundred-time MR/PR champion) in his PR Miata running at the same time as MR......beat our entire class by 6 second. Doh. Happy he stayed in PR for the season haha...


    Sunday we moved to the huge Barn Course, which is generally high-speed, hard-pack, and favors the powerful cars.








    We worked first. It was hot





    Pretty much everyond stayed with their setup from the day before (Maxsports), but with the sun baking the clay, I thought my Federal rally gravels might be better, so I swapped them on. During the recce run I felt like things were not that grippy, though. So my first run I was extremely tentative, which is odd since I usually go out of the gate full-blast to try to get a lead. But after the first run.....yikes.....I was slow. 8th place slow. Behind every other BMW in the class, ugh. No time to change tires, so in an effort to get more grip I basically just dumped air. Usually I run the gravels in the mid-20s psi, but I dumped the rears down to 17-18 and the fronts to 22, which is pretty borderline. It gave immediate results (with some improved lines from me) and I got some time back on the 2nd and 3rd runs. On the fourth and final run of the morning I put down the fastest time in the class and jumped into 3rd place, with Nonack (who had been leading the class) getting a couple cones and dropping to 4th – leaving Stephen in the lead....again.








    Off to lunch we went. Someone mentioned possible rain in the PM so after lunch I hauled my Maxsports out to grid to do a quick change if needed, and our group went out to work the course. As luck would have it, 2 runs in to the other run group, the skies opened up and the temps plummeted form mid-80s to mid-60 and we all got soaked to the bone, and the wind was cold. Not fun.





    Event was put on hold to see how fast it would blow over and we trudged back to the paddock area. After about 20 minutes (with three Stock FWD cars stuck at the now-flooded start area), one of the Mod AWD subies did a course test and was all over the place – so it was decided to call the event. Which kind of sucks, since I'm pretty good in mud and had brand-new Maxsports sitting there, but it is what it is. So I finished 3rd, Stephen 1st, and Neil (in my old shell took 2nd).


    After the course was picked up, we got do to some “fun runs” in the mud and giant puddles. About a dozen cars stuck around, only two of us RWD – me and Thomas Helgesen's Volvo. Needless to say, we had a good time:





    After I took a couple, I let Brian Battocchi (fellow stage rally driver and the day's MA class winner) take a run in my car since he'd never driven an e30 before, and I ran out to take photos....he seemed to enjoy it





    Adam Kimmet in Mike Julian's car chased him down on course and did a bit of tandem drift action before passing him lol...







    Packed up and headed home, really muddy, overlooking the track where the Porsches were probably not muddy, lol.





    So....as expected, the class is fast AF this year once again, but even deeper in fast cars/drivers. Which is awesome, but is going to be tough to win events. Stephen is already driving great this year.....Nick having a hard time so far, but that won't last. And another half-dozen guys who can win any time.


    Takeaways: switching back to the IX rear springs from the e36 M3 springs was probably a good idea. Car felt balanced with nothing in the trunk (but one spare tire in the back seat on the passenger side), so I'm happy with that choice.


    The big trunk spoiler, not sure. I mean, I was pretty fast today but hard to say if I was getting any real downforce back there. However, several people said the spoiler was putting up a pretty big “dust vortex” when I was on course, so it's definitely getting some air to it at least. Obviously it's mostly intended to be used in stage rally, whenever we get to do one again.


    Speaking of which, there were quite a few stage cars there this weekend besides mine and Brian's Impreza (both regulars). Roberto Moreton (who you may remember from about 7-8 years ago in this thread as the RX-7 driver who beat me my first couple seasons) returned, but with an old SCCA Pro Rally VW Golf, and promptly won a large MF class on Saturday. Anthony Burden, from up in New England (I think) showed up in his old Turbo Jetta (which is an ARA/current rally car) and won MF on Sunday with the more open course. Our buddies Alan Edwards and Baker (who you've seen many times in my recaps at WMWR and STPR, also showed up to test out their new motor in their stage rally Neon. And some old B13 Sentra with CARS markings (Canadian Rally Series) was there too, but not sure what the story with it is (its skidplate fell off on course, so it may need some love lol).











    All in all, happy with the car's performance other than the coolant temp a bit higher than I like (it was a hot day, with long runs) and I think if I had the PM session today I might have been able to reel Stevie in. Oh well.


    Today I got out the powerwasher......and remembered how sticky Summit's red clay is....



    Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
    Track/street e21 build
    visit Condor Speed Shop
    visit Motorsport Hardware



    [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

    Comment


      I really like the old rotary phone looking wheels. What is the plan for the Mini wheels you scored on? I looked of GRM and could not find the build of your raider. Can you post a hyper link to that build thread?
      Last edited by rzerob; 07-14-2020, 08:58 AM.
      How to remove, install or convert to pop out windows
      http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=297611


      Could be better, could be worse.

      Comment


        Originally posted by rzerob View Post
        I really like the old rotary phone looking wheels. What is the plan for the Mini wheels you scored on? I looked of GRM and could not find the build of your raider. Can you post a hyper link to that build thread?
        The phone dial wheels are also Mini wheels - I like them the best, but they're the hardest to find for cheap. So I have those, I have two sets of other Mini wheels (the 5-spokes), and I have the ones I recently got (the ones that look more like minilites). All of them are for rally use - I have 4 sets of different rally tires right now. Also have 2 sets of snow tires (on bottlecaps). The street tires for the car are on Euroweaves, just like they've been from the start.

        The new mini wheels have some Yokohama Mud+Snow Rally tires on them now.

        Here's a link to the Raider thread: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/fo.../160959/page1/
        Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
        Track/street e21 build
        visit Condor Speed Shop
        visit Motorsport Hardware



        [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

        Comment


          Nothing too exciting to update concerning the rally car. A few more weeks until the next rallycross and some rumors of a rallysprint in PA in September, but I'm not holding my breath since we can't collectively seem to get our shit together regarding COVID, which is causing a lot of events to get cancelled. So, we'll see how it all shakes out.

          In the meantime, today I took the tow rig to get some new tires. I've had a couple sets of Bridgestone Dueller Revo 2's but have found that they don't get half the miles expected before being too worn for me to feel safe. They've also always been a beet "mushy" for my liking when towing in particular - I guess that's the tradeoff for having a really comfortable ride and being very quiet.

          In any case, this time around decided to take advice of a few friends and get Falken Wildpeaks, and in the Load Range E (10-ply). So I went and got that done today









          They're a good price and look damn nice. Driving around in DC and some highway today....wow. They are MUCH more responsive and all the sloppy handling/ride is now nice and firm, more like a car. They are about 10lbs heavier than the Revos and you can feel it, but I don't see that as being much of a big deal seeing as this is a big SUV and not a sportscar. Kind of looking forward to towing with them to see how much more stable they are than the Revos.

          From there I headed into DC to Josh S's house (fellow rallycrosser and crew chief for our rally effort). Josh has an M52 (formerly turbo M20) e30 but is going a different direction now (find his build thread on GRM if you want to read about it). The M52 in the car has low compression and he described it as generally "tired." Anyhow, I wanted the e34 oil pan for a spare on my M50 and he said if I came and took the whole engine away I could have whatever I wanted off of it. Plus it was nice to get out of the house and wrench with someone else. I got there at noon and he hadn't yet pulled the engine, so we turned some bolts...



          The nice thing about having a lift is we just dropped it all out the bottom....





          Took off the subframe and transmission and other stuff....and a bit of twinning...



          Then using the hoist we shoehorned it into the back of the Sequioa with fairly minimal effort.





          And I rolled home. The plan is to strip the engine of anything that could be useful as a spare for the rally car and then dispose of the rest in one way or another (i.e. leave it in my shed for a couple years until the next parts shell needs to go to the scrapper, lol...)



          Maybe next update will have something more interesting (or maybe not). But that's where I'm at....

          Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
          Track/street e21 build
          visit Condor Speed Shop
          visit Motorsport Hardware



          [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

          Comment


            Ok, let's do a wrapup on last weekend. This was events 3&4, a doubleheader with DC rallycross at Summit Point Motorsports Park. The sign-up list had 89 drivers for the weekend (about 75 each day, with some people only doing one day), which was by far our biggest event ever. Upside is seeing other new people, downside of course is less runs. Anyhow, the weather was great on Saturday and we set up to run the "Barn Course," which back in the day I was pretty good at but recently I've been less successful. It's a fairly smooth, high-speed course.

            (actually Sunday's) grid and non-grid area during the first run group. Lots of cars







            One of the reasons for the high turnout is a local car club joining us as part of a "$1500 challenge" of sorts, where they all bought "grampa" cars for that price and are doing various racing with them. So we had a crown vic, about a half-dozen 90s Mercedes (including an S360 and and S500), some Volvos, a Camry wagon, a Corolla wagon, and a few other randoms. A couple of them were pretty quick with good drivers but overall not all that fast, as to be expected. However, they were amusing to watch:










            Also there was a Galant VR4 on Sunday- I've never seen one of these at a rallycross or much of anyplace in years. Turbo, AWD, 4-wheel steering....and it actually finished the event!




            And....a "Paco" Miata with big ass tires and a turbo 1.8. It was amusing, and the owner was just there for kicks, but it literally finished dead last of like 70 cars on Saturday, even being beaten by 10 seconds by the S500 giant Benz. Looked to have pretty much no suspension travel and must have been a tight squeeze on some gates lol




            So MR, as usual, was the largest class at the event. All of the usuals were there (except Josh S, who was busy doing his duratec e30 swap as documented in another GRM thread). By my count there were four prior season class champions and about a dozen others who had won individual events in the recent past....so yeah, a ton of fast dudes. Nonack also showed up again with his BRZ (among 4 total BRZs that came this weekend), and Mike Golden had his MR2 back in shape to join Michael Stock's MR2 (also documented here on GRM). All in all we had 17 cars in MR on Saturday on a BIG course (averaging about 80 seconds in length).







            Also good to see Dan Gugger back with the 944




            with Stock's GRM MR2




            We all went out hard, expecting fewer runs than normal. The two "2nd drivers" of co-driven cars, Eric Eisele and Chris Helgesen, jumped out ahead with much faster first runs (seeing the course while riding with their higher-ranked codrivers helps..) and the rest of us played catch-up all day. Eric's first run was almost 2 seconds faster than anyone else in the class. My 2nd run was the fastest in the class, but I nudged a cone and it fell over (I watched it happen....), putting me 2 seconds back.


            Also, having the roll-out shelter on the rig has been well-worth it and much less hassle than putting out a pop-up




            For the rest of the day I put down runs that were the fastest or among the fastest in the class, but among the top 5 in the class, only one other cone was hit (Eric's, on a very fast run) and in the end, that was the decider. Eric took first. Nick wheeled his M3 into 2nd place, and I was just behind him, with point leader Stephen Nichols 2/10ths behind me in his e30. All in all, BMWs took the top 5 spots, followed by Nonack, who drove fast but was hurt by three cones over our 8 runs for the day. Golden was really moving in the MR2, battling for the lead for most of the day until an unfortunate snap-oversteer/understeer on his 6th run caused him to wipe out a cone wall for +6, dropping him from 1st to 8th.....

            I do want to note: Even with almost 80 cars on an 80+ second course, we still got 8 runs. That's a testament to how smoothly DC rallycrosses run!

            So, on to Sunday. We lost about a half dozen cars to attrition overall, and several others weren't there for other reasons so we were down to 60 cars, with MR losing two or three drivers (the Helgesen boys, whose Volvo had some wheel bearing issues) and gaining a couple in a BRZ. Sunday we ran the "Tree Course," which is substantially smaller and only about 40 seconds long. It's fun, but also kind of boring and tends to get torn up faster due to its softer and more powdery dirt. The fact that it's surrounded by trees played a role as well, as wind is more blocked so dust hangs a lot longer. While we were running 4-5 cars on course at once on Saturday, Sunday's course only allowed 2 cars at once, and just barely....so, a lot less seat time.

            We all went out of the box hard from the start, with Chris Helgesen, Nichols, and Golden jumping out to a slight edge. All in all, the top-9 drivers were within about 1.8 seconds of 1st...so, really close. Again my 2nd run was the fastest in the class (or close to it), but I picked up a cone (no idea where, I didn't think I was close to any), and in this class that pretty much killed my hopes of winning. For the rest of the morning I hammered down. My 3rd run was fastest in the class, and 4th run was 2nd fastest, but at luch I was sitting in 5th or 6th thanks to that cone. In the afternoon, everyone went out hard again from the start and in my first two runs I jumped a couple people (Nick, Chris, and Neil) into 3rd, but the guys in 1st and 2nd were running the same times I was so couldn't gain on them much. Mike Golden had been leading the class after his first afternoon run, but his MR2's rear skidplate was hanging low and caught the finish line tube, which then wiped out 5 cones at the finish, ending his day. As they tried to repair it, report of lightning came in from the main racetrack and we were forced into a 30-minute delay. So we stood around and sweated.





            The day was late already so at that point they just called it so everyone could get going home (6 runs). In the end, Eric took first again to sweep the weekend, with Nichols just fractions of a second behind him, and me 1.6 seconds back. Neither of them hit cones, nor did Nick, who finished behind me. Take away the one cone I hit and I would have won the event. That's how good this class is. I'll also note that the last run of the day saw Nonack crushing it and putting down the fastest time of the afternoon for the class and the 2nd fastest of anyone in the entire run group - only Adam Kimmett in his Mod All subaru was faster.

            So, two third place finishes, which leaves me 3rd in overall points, with Stephen still in first and Eric in 2nd, with Nick a bit back in 4th. We have two more doubleheaders, but not until October-November, and those will be at Panthera where I've done a bit better and my (and Nick's) extra power should be helpful on the hilly courses there vs. Eric, Neil, Stephen and Chris with their M20s. Of course, can't rule out Golden (2ZZZ-swapped MR2 with about 200hp), Nonack (BRZ on proper suspension and getting more dialed in every day), or a couple other guys. It's always anyone's game in this class - and I will continue to say that in this country, no MR regional class is more competitive than here in DC.

            Side note: Shawn Roberts won PR nationals last week, so congrats to him. Not surprisingly he also won both days in PR at this event. Pretty sure in the past 5 years or so he has only *not* won PR on one or two occasions. Pretty much like clockwork.




            Side note 2: Eric's winning car, you may recall, is the one that used to be in my shed that I sold to them. Now I'm starting to regret it (j/k), since they've build it much better than their old "cracking-in-half" e30 from prior seasons lol.




            Side note 3: A couple other stage cars there as well.

            Gupta's Protege




            Side note 4: Upon leaving I couldn't get the Sequioa's rear gate open. Figured it was the handle bent again (already replaced once), so had to load heavy stuff through the roll-down rear window. Spent 3 hours today sweating inside the truck trying to get the tailgate open, since the handle was fine and it was actually the mechanism seized, which was a REAL pain in the ass to get open. I basically had to use a mirror to pry stuff inside the door on the backside of the mechanism to unlock the latch. And it started pouring right in the middle of doing that. For as good as Toyota is at making cars, the latch and mechanism design on the Sequoia is absolute garbage.


            Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
            Track/street e21 build
            visit Condor Speed Shop
            visit Motorsport Hardware



            [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

            Comment


              So with that rallycross in the books and the next one (at least for DC) not scheduled until October, time to do some work on the car (note: if a rallysprint pops up in September I'll probably go, or may hit a Susquehanna region event). Anyhow, I've been putting together a mental list of some structural and arrangement upgrades I'd like to do on the car, and got busy today with the cutting tools.

              So before I get into it, there are a number of end-goals for the stuff I'm doing here:

              1. relocate the spare tire into the back seat area to get its weight in front of the rear axle rather than hanging out at the far rear end of the car where it makes more of a pendulum effect.

              2. relocate the battery to the passenger side to counterbalance the weight of the driver's side exhaust. Based on measuring my arch heights, the driver's side is definitely a heavier than passenger.

              3. make a number of things more accessible, including the diff, diff mount bolts, rear strut towers, etc.

              4. finish up certain cage/reinforcement aspects that I didn't do previously, for a variety of reasons

              5. relocate the muffler and rear exhaust to a less vulnerable position.

              6. do all of this while keeping a more or less net-zero weight increase, or at least keep it close.

              So, let's jump into it. First thing out came the grinder, sawzall, and jigsaw and cut out the rear seat bulkhead as cleanly as possible. It's not terribly heavy, and has little structural value in a caged car (in my opinion), and it's in the way of some of the above things.




              It's funny cutting it out, since we built the cage with it there so certain things were not accessible at that time. We didn't plate the front side of the rear shock towers, and apparently didn't manage to paint parts of the rear crossbar either due to it being hard to access. All in all, looks pretty sloppy back there, especially after years of dirt and crap collecting there.




              So one of the reasons for this is to allow the spare to sit down flat in the back seat area. To get it out, just tilt it up toward the front and roll it directly out the door (there's plenty of clearance under the backstays). This should put its weight in a better place. Here's a general mockup of where it's going to sit, and I'll use a similar hold-down system as I was using with it in the trunk.




              I also plan to put two additional cage bars in, running from the backside of the bottom of the main hoop going back and upward to the shock towers (which I'll finish plating/reinforcing first). This will complete the "box" structurally, in theory, though who knows if it's really needed. That's coming later once I find some 3' DOM tubes.

              Hard to see. but in the 2nd photo above you can see two holes kind of in the middle right behind where the bulkhead used to be. Those are access holes for the upper diff bolts. Better than doing it from below the car, but was still hard to get to them way back under the trunk. Now they're easily accessible.

              With the spare moving to there, now I can do something I've wanted to do for a good while:







              The spare well makes arranging the trunk the way I want it, more difficult. Plus it hanging down puts it in the way of all kinds of stuff, including the diff, and forces the exhaust to be in the OEM location. So with that gone, time to put in a delete plate. I have a giant sheet of 12-ga steel out back from the Raider skidplate build, so off to the shed with the jigsaw. Unfortuantely, the sheet is only 24" wide (8' long), and i need the patch piece to be around 27" long, so I decided to cut it out as two pieces:







              I'll weld them together and put a brace crossbar below it going to the frame rails so it's very strong.

              Then I cut out the exhaust from just under the CV axle, where the pipe starts to curve. The plan will be to basically flip it and angle it more upward so i can tuck the muffler more toward the center of the car, behind the diff, and higher up to give it better protection from stuff hitting it.




              And with the spare well gone, there is a TON of room under there now. I'll also probably cut out the lower valence under the rear bumper, since now it's basically a big under-car air brake/dirt collector.




              So, last thing today was some test-fitting and deciding on future trunk arrangement, before I weld anything up. Also you can see a bunch of small holes in the photo above (from various old eyebolts I fitted and removed, or other stuff). All of those have been just sealed with aluminum tape for some time, but I'll patch them permanently now. With the trunk open to the cabin now, I want to make sure it's fully sealed from dust, water, etc.


              battery will move over to the right (you can see the box sitting there, and the white patch on the left is where it used to be). This location will also make it easier to access the battery terminals and/or remove it when needed. It was a pain to get to it sitting up under the rear deck.




              So, that's where I am at the moment. I have a few smaller things to do up at the front of the cabin as well, but won't do that until all this stuff is wrapped up.
              Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
              Track/street e21 build
              visit Condor Speed Shop
              visit Motorsport Hardware



              [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

              Comment


                And also, a couple pics someone took last weekend





                Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
                Track/street e21 build
                visit Condor Speed Shop
                visit Motorsport Hardware



                [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

                Comment


                  Solid, steady progress & great commentary. Nice bulkhead removal too, too often that gets left rather ragged.

                  Comment


                    Thanks for keeping this thread going. I enjoy the updates!

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by mike.bmw View Post
                      Thanks for keeping this thread going. I enjoy the updates!
                      I'm with Mike on this one. Been enjoying your detailed posts for years and years now. One of my favorite car threads of all time.
                      My previous build (currently E30-less)
                      http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=170390

                      A 2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD 4x4 Offroad in Inferno is my newest obsession

                      Comment


                        Yeah, it's been kind of a forgotten thread since there have been some big gaps in both racing and work on this car, especially as I went full-in with the Raider project for about 6 months. Now with the Raider mostly done I'm curving back toward upgrading this car a bit over the rest of the year. Future project will include building some actual gravel coilovers for the front (probably over the winter), among a few other things.

                        The one upside of not having any rally this year is the money I put aside to pay for rally gets to go to other automotive project uses :)
                        Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
                        Track/street e21 build
                        visit Condor Speed Shop
                        visit Motorsport Hardware



                        [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

                        Comment


                          Originally posted by roguetoaster View Post
                          Solid, steady progress & great commentary. Nice bulkhead removal too, too often that gets left rather ragged.
                          Since we will probably be doing stuff during service stops, etc that would be near it, it was pretty important to make it not only fairly clean looking, but also no sharp edges. It's already filed down around the edge with all the pinch seams where I cut it off hammered flat, and they'll be covered with seam sealer. Also have a few other things to do to that parcel shelf setup, like add support bars in the middle so it doesn't rattle around. Kind of doing this part of the car with a vague plan of what I want done, and makikng it up as I go along :)
                          Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
                          Track/street e21 build
                          visit Condor Speed Shop
                          visit Motorsport Hardware



                          [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

                          Comment


                            As for car stuff today, continuing on with my interior revamp. First thing was a little morning project which is more as a test case than anything else. So got a bit of steel out and started cutting and bending (mocked up in cardboard in advance)





                            So there will perhaps be two of these, but for the moment just doing one since I want to see how the routing is. Anyhow, it's just a bracket to hold the end of ducting tube that will run to one or both of the rear NACA ducts when the car is NOT being driven someplace dusty (i.e. not for rallycross, generally). Could be nice to add airflow during long rally transits on the road. Anyhow, just tacked it in place so I can test it out, we'll see how it works. Having the rear doors open means I also have to make some kind of bracket for the other end of the tube that will "mate" with the ducts in the rear door windows. Still working on the best way to do that, but I have ideas..



                            So, silly things out of the way and back to the less interesting stuff. Took out the seats and other interior stuff. Also snipped about 50 zipties holding wiring in place, etc. I plan to clean up the main power loom that goes to the battery in the back, since it's always been a bit of a hackjob. More on that once I finish other things and can properly route (and protect) those big fat wires.



                            Then hit the trunk area with seam sealer on all the welded areas and holes I plugged. Also did the bottom side, so hopefully everything will be sealed well from dust




                            While that dried, started on the exhaust. Basically, I added a 6" straight section to where I cut it off in order to be able to clear the diff going more toward the center of the car and still leave some room there. Then I (basically) took the S-shaped pipe and cut it off the muffler and rotated it about 90 degrees, so instead of going "out and up" it now goes "in and up" more. Then tacked it all together with the muffler where I want it. I'll have to fab up some hangers since I can't use the stock ones any more. In any case, this gets the muffler a good 6" higher than it was before and more importantly gets it away from basically everything, so I have full access to the diff, axles, tiedown points brake lines, etc. coming in from the back of the car. So the muffler is tucked in nicely as high as it can go and still clear the bottom of the bumper. It's off-center, makes me think of an e28 stock muffler now :)

                            I'll have to pull the full exhaust to do a complete weld job probably, but even just partially welded the muffler is easily holding its own weight from the hanger under the rear subframe, which is like 3 feet forward. This exhaust is heavy as heck, but it's also strong as heck.





                            So a few small things left to do in the trunk area. You may recall a while back i did this same little trick:



                            So basically you use chain links welded to the floor at 2 (or 4) points directly parallel where you want to hold something down. Then you can just run a Titan Strap between them, put the object above it, and secure the strap around the object. So, I welded down six total of these - two are for holding down the spill kit bag and the other four are for holding down the first aid kit.



                            With all that done and the seam sealer dry (this is much later today), I went ahead and painted up the trunk area. So, if you follow my Raider build, you'll recognize the color as what I used for the roof and skidplate. It's rustoleum Professional "sand" color with a bit of black mixed in to flatten it out/darken it a tiny bit. I still have 2/3rds of a gallon of it an nothign much else I can use it for, so the entire interior of this car (including the lower half of the cage) will be done in that color. I figure it will look fine, keep the car light feeling inside (and I hate white interiors since they always look dirty), and being sand color will nicely hide the coat of dust that's always all over this interior lol.





                            Don't mind the white area - I had to finish something there so didn't paint there yet.

                            So, that's where I'm at. Plugging along...


                            Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
                            Track/street e21 build
                            visit Condor Speed Shop
                            visit Motorsport Hardware



                            [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

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                              Chain link tip is super handy, will 100% be using that on my e36
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                                Originally posted by econti View Post
                                Chain link tip is super handy, will 100% be using that on my e36
                                I do wish I was less half-assed when I weld stuff though. I know it's all strong, but never looks pretty, even on chain links lol.

                                ----

                                This morning wrapped up the exhaust modifications by setting up a couple of hangers on the muffler. I didn't end up using the old mount tabs that I had welded on when I got this muffler, nor did I use the OEM-style handers. Instead, decided to use two more of the rod-style hangers that I used on the other parts of the exhaust, with weld-nuts into the car. Basically this means I can drop the entire exhaust with an impact gun (17mm) at all four locations and two people can simple drop it down in one piece.





                                And yeah, more pictures of ugly welding. Like I care.

                                The bolts come through the trunk floor, which is cosmetically somewhat annoying, but whatever. That open area in the middle of the trunk is just for piling crap in during travel or heading to a rallycross or whatever, so doesnt' really matter. Can still fit two tires in the trunk with this setup.



                                So here's an outside shot of the muffler location, offset from center and tucked up nice and secure. Man, I really do like the easy access to everythign with the spare well out of the way



                                Also semi-permanently sealed up the trunk vents with some seam sealer and coroplast. For years I've just taped it up with aluminum tape, but that eventually gets broken and dirt comes in. I'm really trying to totally seal the trunk from dust/water.



                                So with that done, I went ahead and painted the rear seat area, c-pillars, rear deck, rear roof, and the lower areas of the backstay tubes. Left a few bare areas where I plan to attach tubing or other items. Always fun climbing my 6-foot self in there in between the cage backstays sitting on my side to paint in there lol.






                                Stage rally/rallycross e30 build/competition journal
                                Track/street e21 build
                                visit Condor Speed Shop
                                visit Motorsport Hardware



                                [FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1985 318i/M50 Rally Car - 1988 Porsche 924S - 2005 Sequoia tow pig - 2018 GTI

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