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

[irish44j]

It's been on the car since before I bought it, so yeah it does.

cool, started it up today and the tach worked great, so that's good news.

Nice score on the welder! Welcome to the world of fabrication.

Pick up some bits of metal to weld together and practice a ton.

oh, definitely will. Once it warms up a bit. Need to get some wire and gas first.

[irish44j]

bit of a non-sequitur. Went to a buddy's 80s-themed birthday party tonight, and someone actually showed up both dressed the part AND in a Fiero. And it was a V6, manual transmission Formula which is pretty much the only truly cool fiero. Epic 80s win. SO of course everyone had to take pictures by it, lol...

[irish44j]

doing other things today, but did get a bit of mail - my VDO oil pres gauge. So, can finally put it all together and get all the wiring set. Still waiting on the oil pressure and temp senders though.



I managed to find both of them with M12 thread, which is apparently pretty rare and which will allow me not not have to use adaptors or t-fittings. The downside is that they take a while to get for some reason.

Anyhow, here's the gauge pod, with wiring, etc in case anyone cares. I still need to figure out a good way to attach it to the dash and a place for a hole for the wiring, but that shouldn't be too hard.

[irish44j]

gauges installed, and everything works (except for the oil temp and pres gauges, since they're not yet hooked to senders). The pod is secured, but I need to think of a bit cleaner way of doing it :)

[loudes13]

What is your opinion on snow tires vs all seasons? I just bought a beater e36 and it needs tires. I don't want to go prepared with rally tires. On a honda civic, I rallyx'd with a mismatched set of all-seasons one cheapo performance tire. That car could regularly fight for top 2wd time of day. With a similar CRX on Winterforces, I remained fast, but never won 2wd ftd. It seemed to me snows were not the best choice for the dirt, but would be desirable if we get some snow here in Chicago.

Any input or suggestions?

[irish44j]

So this is what I do when i'm bored.....

[irish44j]

Some issues today. Ran the car in the driveway for about half an hour so I could bleed the cooling system/radiator.

Then mounted the muffler and ran a flex pipe in place of the catback I still don't have (though someone is sending me a used on in a week or so)

Then I went for a spin up the street. WHen under load it was apparent that I had a misfire.....

checked for spark: good
checked compression: actually very good across all four cylinders.
so that left fuel.

pulled the plugs and cylinder #3 plug was new-looking, while the other three had some soot. It seemed to have some gasoline on it, but hard to tell.

Long story short, ended up pulling the intake manifold and the injectors. Tested resistance and all were within spec, wtf.....The injectors, as you recall, are rebuilt Mustang 19# units. But after the hassle of pulling it all out, figured worth checking a different one, so I threw in one of my nasty old OEM ones and put everything back together (and my garage smells like a gas station now......)

Anyhow, fired it up and now hitting on all 4. Ran up the street real quick and the car pulled nicely (much harder than the M10, for sure :) ). The tranny is a bit whiney it seems, but could just be because its cold and I was in 1st/2nd on and off the gas the whole time. Once I get the full exhaust in I'll run out on some faster roads.

Anyhow, Maksim (who I got the injectors from) is sending me a new one so that should take car of that.

So....getting close:



Also decided I probably won't get new rally tires for this year. I just can't justify $800+ shipped for them at the moment. Also want to see how much faster I am compared to the competition using the old ones but with the new engine, just for comparison's sake.

I am looking for a groover (or someone who can groove tires) to clean up the outside edge, though. Good basic ones run $350+ so not ready to buy one, but we'll see.....

[irish44j]

SCORE!

Scouring craigslist I came upon a pair of Sparco Torino 2 seats for cheap (<$300 for the pair). Only problem they were in Va. Beach 3+ hours away and the guy had already gotten some calls. After getting him to hold them for me for a day, decided to bail from work at lunch today, get in the car (the WRX!) and roll down there, pick up the seats, and roll back up to DC. 8 total hours in the car today (including my morning commute to work)....fun. But traffic was surprisingly excellent and the two seats actually fit easily into the WRX.

Closer inspection shows that they are actually in GREAT shape aside from serious color fade (which I don't care about at all). One seat has a small hole in the seat bottom, but otherwise they show almost no wear at all, all the adjustments work perfectly, all the knobs and parts are there, and they have Honda Civic mounts on them. The civic mounts look like they will be fairly easy to adapt to use on the e30 - may just have to weld on a couple pairs of new "feet" on each.

All in all, quite a score in my book. I know they're more "street tuner" seats than race seats, but I have to drive this car to events and like to drive it on weekends. Plus sometimes I have co-drivers. So I wanted seats that were comfortable and adjustable. They still feel very stout and fit me quite well. The bolstering is better than the Porsche seats by far, and also better than the nice stock seats in my WRX.



and yes, they're real. Multiple tags and product numbers confirm.

I know Pat Henry is looking for seats for their e30 rallycrosser as well, and we had discussed splitting a pair. But I think I'll keep both of these, and if he doesn't find one by the season, possibly letting him and Jason borrow one for their car. I like the idea of having a matching set :)

Always love crossing the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel for the view of NAVSTA Norfolk. Today there were 5 carriers, 3 or 4 big-deck amphibs (LHA/LHD), and a couple of the crappy new LPDs there. May be the last time this many carriers are ever in port at Norfolk, since Enterprise was just decommissioned (in the pic) and one other of the carriers there will probably go to the Pacific soon.

[phenryiv1]

I know Pat Henry is looking for seats for their e30 rallycrosser as well, and we had discussed splitting a pair. But I think I'll keep both of these, and if he doesn't find one by the season, possibly letting him and Jason borrow one for their car. I like the idea of having a matching set :)

I see how it is...

[irish44j]

I see how it is...

Don't worry, I'll find you one too if you don't find one first. And like I said, if not you can use one of these indefinitely.

There is one of them here in Burke for sale - same model. Guy never replied to my text message though.

I still think you guys should just get a fixed-back seat for your car anyhow. You don't drive it to the events or anywhere, so no point in worrying about something comfortable for long drives. Plus, these seats are HEAVY (27lbs each), whereas you can get a fixed that weighs half that (and that costs less). I had to get adjustables, so I had to pay more.

Plus you and Jason are about the same height and overall size, so not like you need to be able to adjust it.

[irish44j]

Some nice weather today, so it's project day again (isn't every day?)

the main tasks today were to get the seat brackets all set, and to start the sunroof delete. Also pulled out the rollbar to give more room to work (not out yet in this photo)



For the seats, as noted above they came with sliders and mounts for a Honda Accord, with some curved "legs" in various places. For the e30, the mounting surface is flat and squared up, so I cut all the legs off with a grinder after seeing that they held the seat up too high in the e30. So the frame can sit flat on the chassis (and I can shim it with washers to adjust the tilt/height if needed).

After configuring it how I want it, I wanted to get some seatbelt tabs put on so I can use the stock (female) belt receptacles. Took the frames to a local r3v member (knucklehead92) along with the "foot" tabs I had previously cut off, and he welded them back on in the best position for mounting the seatbelt. Nice.







So with that all set, I did a test-fit with the seats. Everything fits fine....just a small gap between the upper shoulder of the seat and the b-pillar, but it's enough. The driver's seat sits about 1" to the left due to the bracket setup, but that's ok for me.



Then on to sunroof. After removing all the sunroof, crank, etc I got the cutting wheel out and basically cut the front part of the frame off. I wanted to leave a lip there to give me some options for how I'm going to "fill the hole" when I'm done.







For the rear half, I'll drill the rivets out and then heat the sealant and it should drop right out. Figured it would be easier if I just got rid of the front half separately.

So, that's all for the moment. Time to watch some (more) football GO SKINS~!

[kts]

Now that you have a roll bar and fancy new-to-you seats it's time to look into getting some harnesses for driver and passenger. I recommend 6 point cam lock harnesses. OG Racing has a bunch of options, G Force are cheap, FIA/SFI rated, look great, and will get the job done for ~$150/each.

[irish44j]

Thanks Kevin - yeah, I have a 5-point sparco harness that I used to use for autocross in the wrx that I'll use initially. It's FIA cert is expired, but the certs are a freaking scam anyhow, and since rallycross doesn't require them, I care not :) Also I have an old G-force latch 5-point that....geez...I bought at OG racing like 10 years ago! Been sitting in a box for almost that entire time, haha...

Also will have to figure out the best way to mod these seats to use sub straps.....

I'm not spending money on passengers, lol.....they can wear a regular belt. If someday this car becomes a full-on rally car (possible, though fairly doubtful) then I'll obviously be moving to a full cage, fixed seats, and full harnesses. For now, just making incremental improvments!

[kts]

Nice that you don't have to have non-expired harnesses for rallycross. In that case troll the forums for recently expired one since most people will give them away for free/$beer.

If you can find any 6 points I'd really recommend them over the 5 point. Your family jewels will thank you.

Best way to install the sub belt would be to cut a nice big hole in the bottom of your nice new-to-you seats. :( I wouldn't recommend it but I guess you could just run it as a 4 point.

Yea I guess if they are going for a ride along they deserve what they get. ;)

Sorry my mind is way too into track stuff where what you have for the driver you also have to have for the instructor/passenger. I forget autox/rallx don't have those things which is a real budget saver. :)

Seats and harnesses really should help improve the rallyx experience, I know it's helped the track/autox experience for me since I was losing a lot of speed just trying to stay in my seat and not sliding around. Strapping into a proper seat with harnesses eliminated that and really helped me improve in some areas.

[knuklehead92]

so many pages :crazy:

awesome build!

and that backyard garage is so baller!