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

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    Awesome upgrades. The chain link mod is definitely something I will be using in the future.
    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


      Not all that motivated today, but got a few things done nonetheless. For those of you who like the chain-link tiedown things, here's some more of that. Two of these welded to the ends of the harness bars on the cage. This is for front attachment points for our helmet net in the back. Since it's going to be over the spare tire now, it needs to be able to be detached quickly (currently it's wrapped around the bars and isn't quick to remove. So, it'll have carabiners holding it at all four corners for quick removal.




      I have a couple DOM tubes on the way to do some lower rear bars from the foot of the cage to the rear shock tower, but those won't be here for a few days. Since I didn't feel much like any cutting or real welding today, I did more painting. Basically the main hoop, crossbar X, backstays, and other nearby areas. Since this paint takes a couple days to fully dry I like to do things sectionally. The next few days I'll mostly be working up front in the car so don't need access to the back until it's dry.







      Also, made up some coroplast door cards for the rear doors. They've always been just gutted and empty, which doesn't really hurt anything but just looks like crap and annoys me since they just get filled with dust and other crap. Coroplast weighs almost nothing and I have a huge sheet of it sitting around from another project, so what the hell. It's white, so after I cut them out I gave one each to my daughters and let them do some artwork on them. So, now the car has rainbows and princesses and tractors and stuff. :)





      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


        ...Keep On Trucking! all day. I love it.
        Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. -Mark Twain

        Comment


          moving on to the front section of the car. After pulling out stuff got the flap wheel out and smoothed out some areas that needed some cosmetic attention in preparation for painting.




          After pulling out Jim's footrest, found some rust. This area for a long time had a leak from somewhere on the firewall that I've since fixed, but years of water dripping and probably getting caught behind the footrest, combined with that part of the floor taking a beating from below since it doesn't have an underguard (yet), the metal there was probably kind of beat up.

          I found three or four small holes, one right above the exhaust collector, one kind of above the frame rail, and one outside.




          All were pretty small, so just cut them out with a hole saw and patched them with some fresh sheet metal.




          The one section overlapped with the side of the frame rail, so just put a crappy little patch on the outside as well.




          Anyhow, then seam sealed it and then doused in some undercoat.




          So good as new. Then got going on painting the front passenger area and some other small stuff in the vicinity. Didn't paint over the undercoat yet, figured I'll do that in a few days when it's good and dry.







          A bit out of order, since last night I re-wrapped the door bar padding so I put that on already. I know, super-exciting.




          Also put some new grip tape on the footrest since it was sitting there




          And, since you guys know I like to do goofy cosmetic stuff. Well, I have like three rolls of burgundy vinyl for some reason. So out with the knife and had a bit of fun with it....because straight beige everywhere is kind of no fun at all....but don't worry, I'm only going to do the backstays (which have always been red), not the rest of the cage 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

          Comment


            Hopefully today I finished up all the painting and stuff (I really don't enjoy it, especially since this stuff takes several days to fully dry). In order to do that I needed to get off my butt and finish up my other least favorite thing....welding. Since I didn't want to buy a 20' stick of DOM tube from the local metal place, and the stuff I have here is all 1.75" and I don't want to use that, I ordered up a couple 3' sticks of 1.50 DOM off ebay and it got here yesterday. The intent here is to add lower rear tubes from the foot of the main hoop back to the rear shock towers. First order of business was to get some 12ga plate and plate the front side of the towers (the inside and rear are already plated), so I don't have to weld to sheet metal. This area is pretty tight do deal with since both backstays terminate right next to it, and it has generous factory seam sealer as well, and of course it's too tight there to get any good contact with a wire wheel or any other abrasive I could attach to any powered accessory. So basically I scrubbed the area really good with sandpaper and scotchbrite to get as much off as possible. Got most of it, but enough was left to make for some shitty weld breaks and a few little fires.

            I did consider attaching directly to the backstay bottom end, but my goal was to keep this tube tight to the inner wheel well (which, incidentally, needed substantial persuasion with my 5lb mini-sledge in order to get enough clearance to run a straight tube. I used some 1.5" PVC tube to mock up the pieces for the cuts, and for once I got them pretty damn exact with my sawzall and a flap wheel.

            Also, needed to make completely sure that the main hoop end of the bar was as low as physically possible, since with these bars here I will only have about 1" of total clearance to get my spare tire out of the backseat area (I tested it with my largest rally spare...my snow tires and maxsports fit more easily).

            Then welded stuff.




            Anyhow, the bars are in, and then I went ahead and painted them. Again though, the rear towers are inaccessible with a flap wheel, so I wasn't able to make things look as clean as I'd have liked. But whatever. Also touched up a few remaining other areas of the car with paint....hopefully I'm all done painting things. I'll let it dry for a couple days and then start getting the interior back together and do more wiring cleanup, etc.










            I considered adding a big gusset to tie in all this stuff at the rear tower, but honestly I just don't care at this point. There's already substantially more steel back there than is required anyhow.


            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


              Well, it hardly seems documenting some of this stuff, but did some work this evening cleaning up and protecting all my wiring going back from the dash. Anyhow, re-ran both looms (driver's side is all the lighting and stuff and splits off to the fuel pump, fuel sender, etc - and passenger side is main power wires, starter wire, etc). All the wiring got re-wrapped and then ran plastic loom on all of it for protection, zip tied everything where I wanted it, etc.







              Also re-routed the cable at the battery to put it in a location less likely to get bounced/shaken/jarred loose, and mounted the slow-blow fusible link up next to it.




              Also cut out some new "guards" for next to the seats. The backstory on this is that we got gigged at tech at NEFR because Don (the inspector) said my harness latch could get caught on the seat mounts and I had to fix it before passing. So we went back to the paddock and found some scrap HDPE sheet and cut it out and ziptied it in place to pass. That stayed on the car for like 2 years. I had planned to actually make some sheet metal plates and tack weld them in place, but changed my mind and just cut out new ones out of coroplast, since it weighs next to nothing and should hold up sufficiently.


              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, let's put some stuff back together now.

                Seats and harnesses back in. Gave me the chance to make a few minor length adjustments on my own harness that have been annoying me, as well. Still funny to have the old red Sparco in there, but the plan is to have Jim go "try on" some halo seats to see what fits him best, and then probably order some up from Murray Motorsport during the black friday sale or whenever I can find the best deal. So for the time being my love of symmetry will have to take a back seat to the mismatch lol.

                Also put in the rest of the front cage padding once I "refurbished" it.







                With the seats in, I installed a couple little things to help with in-car organization. For years we've basically used a 99 cent walmart plastic box to hold little stuff, car registration, etc. It's cracked and the lid falls off sometimes and was time for a bit of a change, so I installed two things:

                First, in its place I put in a Dakine ski goggle soft-case that I had sitting around from years of working at a ski shop. It weighs almost nothing and will be a good place to stash sunglasses and stuff like that, whereas usually I'm asking Jim to stuff my not-cheap sunglasses into the codriver bag or whatever. Probably also a good place to toss some snacks for between stages. In any case, it's out of the way on the tunnel kind of behind the seats, but can still be reached when driving.







                I also picked up this little waterproof fishing tackle holder. It's similar to the inserts on our gearbox in the trunk (same brand). I like the idea of something very waterproof to keep the registration, insurance, and my wallet in when on stage (rather than a sandwich bag). Bolted it into the tacos on the main hoop crossbars. NOT really accessible while driving, but its not something I will need to access very often.







                And last little project was to redo the "Battocchi Net." You may recall this setup from the trunk, which I copied from Brian's subaru. It's a window net with a steel rod on one end and a cable on the other with a ratchet strap. Basically it's a single-release method to hold down the spare tire and the jack securely. Worked great in the trunk, so figured I'd do it in the back seat area where the spare is now. I did need to get a larger new (24x24" instead of 18x24") but seems to fit fine. I'll need to make some tiedows for the ratchet end, still deciding where I want to put them.







                used the factory backseat lockdown loops. They seem to be plenty strong.







                So just test-fit the whole setup, with the helmet net back in place. The idea will be to put helmets in there on transits, and then undo the back two hooks when we put our helmets back on and clip it to hang vertically so it won't be in the way of getting the tire out quickly. I thought it out pretty well so I think it will work fine :)

                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


                  Wow. Awesome job man.
                  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


                    Thanks!

                    Also, thanks to any of you following us on IG. We're up to 500 there, which means absolutely nothing at all, but it's a nice round number so why not...




                    ok, so first order of business was to get our water bottle cages installed again. These have some thin aluminum mounts that go around the bars to hold it in place, with tiny M4 bolts holding it all together. They're probably fine for road racing, where the car isn't really getting jarred around, but we've found them to be woefully underbuilt for rally, and for the last year or two they've been secured mostly by a series of tactically-placed zipties. So I got rid of the original bar mounts and cut some large slots in the bottle holder and passed a hose clamp through it, and secured it that way. Now it doesn't move at all, so that's good.




                    Then finished up the tire/jack tiedown setup with a couple of new eyebolts installed down at the bottom of where the trunk/rear seat firewall used to be and through to the wheel well insides with a large backing washer. So this should be sufficiently strong to hold the tire and stuff in place




                    I'd like to find a jack that actually fits INSIDE the wheel, but haven't yet found one so for the moment sticking with this arrangement.





                    And here's the back seat area pretty much all finished up and all the gear in place




                    Also washed it and took it for a quick drive. IDK if it's just my imagination, but the exhaust actually sounds a lot better now under load for some reason. Maybe just different resonance without the big spare tire well back there. IDK




                    Took care of the last few little patches in the trunk sidewells and then buttoned that all up as well. So here's the trunk arrangement more or less. I'd still like to find a better place for the two triangles, but this will do until I figure out a better option.




                    Right side with battery, first aid kit, triangles, and our little gear box (a tool roll will strap on top of that when on stage)




                    Left side are the boxes for our tow strap, impact gun, and the bag with the spill kit. So, that's all the standard rally gear. And still room in the middle to throw a couple wheels/tires if we need to for some reason.



                    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


                      May I suggest that partially deploying the jack may allow it to fit in the spare, and may save seconds on a change. Also, those triangles seem like they are made to fit in the pocket where the antenna usually lives, although a secure mount could be tricky, of course you can always bolt the fixture on through the wheel well.

                      Comment


                        Originally posted by roguetoaster View Post
                        May I suggest that partially deploying the jack may allow it to fit in the spare, and may save seconds on a change. Also, those triangles seem like they are made to fit in the pocket where the antenna usually lives, although a secure mount could be tricky, of course you can always bolt the fixture on through the wheel well.
                        good thought on the jack, and I did try that. Ended up the threaded area is about 1" too long still. I've thought about just cutting the thread shorter, but need to see if I can get sufficient height on the jack if I do (this being a rally car, it needs to go pretty tall). Maybe I'll take another look at it tomorrow.

                        most guys just jam the triangles wherever, frankly. I'm just OCD enough that I want them to have their own special spot lol. They used to have a custom little "rack" on the back of the cage crossbar, but had to move them from there since it got in the way of getting the spare tire out of the backseat area. Also considering making a bracket on the inside of the trunklid since they're light and that would make them very accessible. TBD. I'll check and see if they fit in the antenna pocket area - that might be a good spot if I can figure out a way to secure them there. But, since they don't get used often (hopefully), I may just leave them on the first aid kit like that, even though it kind of annoys me 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

                        Comment


                          Originally posted by irish44j View Post

                          good thought on the jack, and I did try that. Ended up the threaded area is about 1" too long still. I've thought about just cutting the thread shorter, but need to see if I can get sufficient height on the jack if I do (this being a rally car, it needs to go pretty tall). Maybe I'll take another look at it tomorrow.

                          most guys just jam the triangles wherever, frankly. I'm just OCD enough that I want them to have their own special spot lol. They used to have a custom little "rack" on the back of the cage crossbar, but had to move them from there since it got in the way of getting the spare tire out of the backseat area. Also considering making a bracket on the inside of the trunklid since they're light and that would make them very accessible. TBD. I'll check and see if they fit in the antenna pocket area - that might be a good spot if I can figure out a way to secure them there. But, since they don't get used often (hopefully), I may just leave them on the first aid kit like that, even though it kind of annoys me lol
                          I realize after thinking about it for more than half a second that the screw is still the longest part of the system, so no space savings to be had. The trunk lid is a good idea for the triangles, but you're probably right about leaving them for simplicity.

                          Comment


                            Ok, this morning got to work making the jack setup better. For years we've used a light floor jack and/or scissor jack and carried a piece of wood along with us for soft surfaces. After some thought about how to easily secure the jack, baseplate, etc I decided to just cut out a steel baseplate that will fit right inside the rim of the spare tire (upside down) and weld the jack to it. This is a bigger baseplate than it really needs, but the last time we've done tire changes were in snow and in deep sand, so bigger is better in our experience. Sure it probably addes an extra pound over the smaller baseplates some guys use, but whatever (more on weight later)

                            So, more cutting from the remaining 6-7 feet of 12ga plate I have in my shed.




                            Then cleaned it up and welded the jack to it. And my welding actually doesn't look like total garbage for once, yay.




                            Modified the upper lug to fit right over our reinforced jack points




                            Painted




                            Fitted into car and strapped down







                            After that I ran out to Brian Battocchi's place to check the car's weight on his scales. I knew this thing was kind of porky since I've never much been concerned about weight. Some things to keep in mind:

                            It's an M50 (so, about 30lbs heavier than an M20 and over 100 heavier than an M42)


                            It still has a G240 rans (so, lighter than a G260 or ZF that many M50 guys use)

                            The exhaust is HEAVY. Some guys consider their rally exhaust to be expendable and replace-after-rally. I built this one to survive, so it's double-plated in some areas and very strong, but of course that makes it heavy too.

                            The skidplates and underbody stuff is heavier than it probably needs to be. I'll sacrifice some lightweight for more protection.

                            Weight was taken with full tank of gas, all skids on, all auxiliary lights on, spare rally wheel/tire in the back, jack in the car, impact gun in the car, toolkit and spares case in the car, and all the other crap we carry on stage. So this is truly "max compeition weight" + ~350lbs for me and Jim on-board..

                            Side note: I did weigh it on my street tires/Euroweaves. The weaves are heavy, but the combo still weighs 5.5lbs less per wheel than the Federal rally tires on the mini wheels. So, add 5.5 lbs per corner or 22lbs overall to the weights below.







                            So, I guessed the car was at about 2700. Jim actually said 2850. So he was closer. 2836 overall. But I am very happy with the cross-weights, and also that it's only 54% front to 46% rear. Most e30s I see seem to be slightly heavier on the nose than that. Probably because my heavy Optima Yellowtop is in the trunk (and I just added 15lbs of rear cage bars, too). Also this shoudl make it easier to corner-weigh when i build the new suspension, since it's already pretty even.

                            Overall, seems about right. I could certainly lose 100lbs from this car with some effort and money, fairly easily. Maybe I'll do a bit of that, but maybe not.

                            For comparison, here's Kelsey Stephens and Cooper's e30 - also an M50 car, coupe, with a ZF. I used to crew for this car when Jesse Yuvali owned it and he always said it had a heavy cage, too. So, slightly lighter than them - the difference is probably about what the ZF's extra weight is vs. the G240




                            And here's Shanti Witt's e30, also an early car like mine and also M50 (not sure what trans). But I know he's put a lot of time into weight reduction. So it's definitely lighter, loaded competition weight as well (2734 if you can't read it).


                            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


                              Though there have been some rumors of perhaps some late-season rally possibilities, at this point I'm pretty much decided to call it a year waiting for that kind of thing. Rallycross will continue, but as for stage, it's time to throw in the towel and wait for 2021 in hopes it'll be a less stupid year.

                              So, time to spend some of the entry money I had stashed away, on something to improve 2021 rallying. For a number of years now I've been running a pretty basic front suspension - stock e30 setup, Bilstein HDs, faux-coilover setup up top. Basically, the cheap and easy way. The HDs have held up pretty well and I've always thought the front of the car has felt reasonably good. Last year I switched the rear setup from the (wimpy) stock-style HDs to the much beefier Mk1/2 Ford Escort Group4 gravel shocks, which made a big difference in making the rear end feel better. So, let's do that to the front as well.

                              If you've followed along Nonack's BRZ build and Thomas's Volvo build, you'll already be familiar with this setup. All of our cars require different tweaks and measurements for this conversion, but all are using more or less the same stuff. For all the e30s rallying in Europe, there still isn't (to my knowledge) an e30 gravel-valved rally damper setup that bolts right up (other than $$$$ Ohlins and Samsonas stuff that's way out of my budget). Many UK/Irish e30 guys use the readily-available Escort stuff with some modifications. That's what I'm doing as well.

                              So here are the Escort Gp4 dampers. These are valved to 300/70, which is advertised as the "gravel" rate for the Escort. There is also a 260/60 and a 300/100 rate (which is for tarmac rally). Thomas and Chris are both using the 300/100 rate, but on the advice of e30 rally guys I went with the 300/70 and will have a slightly stiffer spring rate. The UK rally guys know what they're talking about and have been doing it for a long time, so not going to second-guess them for the most part.

                              So, here's the Gp4 next to an e30 Bilstein insert. As you can see the e30 instert is longer overall. i could pretty easily fit the Gp4 insterts into the e30 housing with a bit of cutting and welding, but that would leave me with the shorter springs and "fake coilover" setup, whic is half the reason to do this.




                              One thing to note is that even though the Gp4 body is shorter (by about 4"), the actual damper travel is about 1" longer than the e30 setup. I haven't specifically decided, but most likely I'll set it up to have about 3" of droop travel from static height (vs. 2.5" currently) and about 5" of compression travel (vs 4.5" currently). we'll see, that may move a bit once I get things measured out and see what the new top hat setup will be like. I also intend to bring the front of the car up about 3/4" or so from where it currently sits, i think. With the heavier engine and heavy skidplates, it's a bit lower than i like.

                              Here's the guts of both, after cutting open a blown e30 bilstein since I couldn't get it to release the lower shaft thread.




                              Bumpstops are similar in length, but the Gp4 ones are definitely stiffer. Thomas noted that his Gp4 setup has black rubber bump stops, but I reminded him he got the tarmac-valved ones, so they probably have a stiffer stop.




                              This stuff all arrived in 3 days from Ireland, and these inserts cost just a bit more than regular HDs, so that's pretty good.

                              Then when I was messing with it, some of the other parts came in (from England). Ther are only a couple places that sell all this Escort rally stuff and will also ship to the US these days....







                              So this is the threaded body and collars. The threaded body is roughly the same diameter as the e30 stock strut tube (attached to the knuckle permanently). So basically I'll cut that off near the bottom and weld this on (with reinforcement). Or, more accurately I'll have someone who is GOOD at welding and has a TIG do it........Most likely I'll cut it about 1.5" above the knuckle, but I'll make more measurements once I pick up a second set of e30 uprights to chop. I plan to keep what's on the car as a spare and for other purposes.




                              The top hat situation took some thinking, and I haven't gotten them yet. Nonack is using the standard late Mk1/2 top hats (rubber-style) with the "big" center tower setup, for which he extended and plated his shock towers. Thomas is using a flat plate-style solid metal setup with a rose joint. I'm goign to get the "small opening" top mounts, which were from the early Mk1 cars. It's basically the same thing Chris got, but with a smaller central hole (which hopefully will fit in the current e30 center hold in the tower) and a smaller mount bolt pattern. I know I'll have to re-drill at least 1 (or possibly all three) holes in the tower, but I think these will be closer to where I want them and require less massaging. We'll see.

                              Also ordered springs, but they're not here yet. Starting off I picked up some 240# 12" springs with 2.25" ID (which is what these collars take). I'm not positive of clearance and dont' think I can get 14" springs in there without larger wheel spacers, which I'd prefer not to do. Again, TBD, but I think the 12" will be good (currently have 10") and I can set them up with minimal preload).

                              So, once I score up some uprights and the rest of this stuff comes in, I'll start really mocking things up. For the time being, it's just stuff sitting on my workbench.....
                              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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                                Took a little road trip today to pick up these




                                Took them apart




                                And mock up. So I think the plan is going to be to make the cut 2" above the knuckle. This won't increase bump travel by much but it'll add an inch of droop travel to the whole setup. And actually that's not bad since I plan to raise the car up about 1/2" or so from where it is now, so that will compensate and keep my bump travel about where it was.

                                So basically, this will be the orientation




                                Now, I think the upper mounts are a bit shorter than the OEM e30 ones I'm using, so that may have a minor effect. Right now I use offset upper mounts so by using a straight mount I'd lose some negative camber. However, I have some fixed e30 camber plates (that bolt on the top of the upper mount), so I'm going to see if I can actually attach these to the Escort upper mounts in the same way (perhaps with some drilling). That will do three things: 1) get me back that 1/2" of lost stack height, 2) get my my negative camber back, and 3) use the stock e30 tower hole pattern. At least that's my thought process at the moment. We'll have to see once I have all the parts whether it'll work as intended.
                                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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