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

[phenryiv1]

have you ever seen a Contico box? This thing is beefy as hell....it's not some rubbermaid bin. I'd expect the bolts to rip thought the wood floor or the trailer to flip before it would break through the box :)

I was a construction project manager before I went to FEMA...I've seen a few Contico boxes.

Your point about the wood ripping out before the box is probably accurate, but I thought that yo uhad it secured through the plywood and into metal bracing.

At any rate, I stand by my previous statement: With how you over-engineer things, I am shocked that you did not further reinforce the mounting points out of perceived need or simple boredom. :p

[silence]

looking good, i love that little trailer!

[irish44j]

The OEM catback ( minus muffler) came in today. Got it basically for the price of shipping, but to keep that reasonable I had him cut it in half. I wanted this to get the OEM resonator back, since it fits well into the driveshaft/heatshield tunnel there, and the OEM resonator with the Dynomax muffler should sound excellent.

IDK why he also cut off the hanger mount....so now I have to cut it off my other one (which I just welded on) to put on this, lol....lots of welding practice!



and some more, putting the two pipes back together. Next to the "other" exhaust I got, which doesn't follow the "tunnel" well and hangs too low :P



Will try to deal with this later this week and get the car back on the road.

Also got an envelope from Mike Caldwell out in Cali, who rallycrosses an e30 and swapped me for a couple of our team stickers :)

[irish44j]

I was a construction project manager before I went to FEMA...I've seen a few Contico boxes.

Your point about the wood ripping out before the box is probably accurate, but I thought that yo uhad it secured through the plywood and into metal bracing.

At any rate, I stand by my previous statement: With how you over-engineer things, I am shocked that you did not further reinforce the mounting points out of perceived need or simple boredom. :p

The box is going to carry some tools, and then mostly light stuff like spare oil pan, some fluids, change of clothes, a tarp, etc. Anything heavy in there is going to be sitting in the bottom, which won't exert much in the way of side loads. On the box side those are 2" washers sitting on the vertical ridges. It would take a thousand pounds of force at least to break that. ON the floor side, they're going through 3/4" plywood.

The force to rip the bolts out from either the wood or from the box far exceeds the force it would take to flip the trailer. And if shit is going that crazy on the tow, I'd just as well the box break off the trailer, lol. Because my rally wheels and tires will already be long gone, lol. My jack and jackstands will be in the trunk of the car.

I over-engineer things that I think might need to at some point withstand a certain force. For the box bolt-down, I consider it well beyond any forces I ever expect to act on it. ;)

[irish44j]

got the exhaust back together today with quite a bit of ghetto welding on my back under the car. Not enjoyable. But.....it fits well, tucks up into the "tunnel" much better than the old setup, and sounds considerably better and a bit quieter than the old setup without the resonator. Still have to finish a few details (like the front hanger), but all in all pretty pleased with how it came out.





Also killed off the last 10% of a spraycan of matte white on the top of my gear box. Figure the white will keep it cooler inside sitting in the sun all day. Plus it matches my trunk :)



I'm actually considering doing my entire roof white as well, to keep the car cooler sitting out there all day. Probably won't do that for a few months ....wait until it warms up.

Really the only significant thing left to do before event #1 (March 23rd) is to set up the car-side wiring and 4-pin connector for the trailer. Other than that, I'm hopefully good to go. Now that I have the exhaust on, I do plan to do some extended hard driving to make sure no issues come up, so fingers crossed.

[irish44j]

Got the new skid in today, made by (username) Red46 on R3vlimited. It's 11-gauge stainless steel and very beefy. As is it attaches at the rear using the M10 steering rack bolts, and in front on the radiator support using a steel backing plate (with welded backing bolts). My intention is to do some reinforcement on several areas, but for the moment I just put it on, since I'm not sure if I'll have time to do that work before the first event.

The plan is to add a crossbeam down near the bend, attached to the frame rails, as well as to reinforce the radiator support. Probably will also add some steel brackets coming off the front subframe to reinforce the steering rack mount.

In any case, the plate is a perfect fit in every way, which is saying a lot. Plus the cost shipped of the plate was just a bit more than a blank sheet of 11-ga stainless would cost me at the local steel supply place. But this one is laser-cut and press-bent to the right shape already. Usually I like to make things myself, but in this case for a bit more money it's worth it to have someone with the right machines/tools do it :)

I'll also add some "side spats" made of more cut-out rubbermaid bin tops, to keep mud/rocks from entering through the sides and spraying the engine....

pics:




clearance on the pan



rear mount. I am going to have to get some longer bolts at Fastenal tomorrow. These are just barely long enough. I flipped them to drop from the top to make installation easier than trying to fish the nut up there like on the old skid.





It's narrower than my old giant beast of a skid...now my front valence cutout looks pretty stupid. oh well.

[irish44j]

eh, why not one more quick update late-night.

worked for an hour setting up the trailer wiring. For this had to use a converter kit. Got it all wired up. Taillights work. Nothing else works. No signals, no brakes. Tested the wire splices and I'm getting power on the correct wires to the converter box, but not beyond that. Directly jumped the lights on the trailer from the harness and they work that way, so the trailer wiring is fine. Looks like the component is bad. Dammit. Will return it tomorrow and get another one.



Also, now that I have the engine running well, went ahead and took out the stock engine mounts and put the Condor Speed Shop (silence) solid UHMV mounts back on the car :)

[phenryiv1]

Also, now that I have the engine running well, went ahead and took out the stock engine mounts and put the Condor Speed Shop (silence) solid UHMV mounts back on the car :)

Awesome!

And hopefully by the end up today there will be one more e30 running with Condor Speed Shop mounts when i get my B25 swapped in.

[irish44j]

nothing photo-worthy, but wrapped up a few little projects today.

Finished all the trailer wiring on the trailer-side, with dedicated grounds, etc. The car-side is prepped, but I'm waiting for a signal converter from e-trailers, which is a powered converter. I found that running on the car's stock wiring and relays the lights on the trailer were very dim and "confused" and just didn't work all that well. Plus with the lights on when signaling the flasher relay wasn't cutting it....just buzzing not flashing.

Did a few other little things on the car, and then went for a drive in the hilly/woody roads nearby. Car performed well, engine was strong and ran fine. At one point I ground gears downshifting to 2nd, and then again immediately after. But IDK what the deal was....before and after that it didn't happen again. Wonder if a synchro got stuck or something, IDK.

One thing I'll say is that it's still loud as hell in the car. Even with the stock resonator and a muffler not known to be too loud, it really drones inside with no interior and no soundproofing. I may add back a bit of soundproofing on the firewall/tranny tunnel, and trunk. The 5lb penalty will probably be worth it, lol. I want to get someone else to drive the car while I stand outside, to see if it's real loud outside, and not just my "hollow" interior causing a lot of echoes and resonance.


Oh, also.....registered for an autocross next weekend nearby with Autocrossers, Inc (a SCCA-sanctioned club). Might as well...it's a half-day event and only a half-hour drive. Will be a good chance to test the engine out wide-open, and a good way to see how far over a car can lean, haha. By my reading of the rules I'm in E Prepared.....I will get destroyed!

On that note, SCCA 2013 Solo2 rules are 342 pages long!!!!!! Now I remember another reason why RallyCross is awesome....our rules are probably 30 pages long, lol.

[irish44j]

So it's finally freaking snowing here this winter. About time. Took tomorrow off work because the commute is going to be full of morons with SUVs on bald tires trying to go 70mph in the snow on the Beltway. Not trying to be in that mess.

Instead, I'll drive the other direction. We're supposed to get 6-9" here, but well over a foot about an hour to the northwest. So I think I'll go see if I can find some untracked country roads for a scenic drive.

Oh, and this will be in the WRX, not the e30....since the WRX has Wintersports on it and the e30s rally tires or Star Specs probably wouldn't get me up the street!

Anyhow...a few minor projects tonight.

First, got a bunch of stuff in from McMaster-Carr. I only needed a few things, but went ahead and got big bags of M8 and M10 stuff, because that'll fit most of my car stuff and you can never have too many standard-sized nuts, bolts, and washers.



I got 90mm steering rack bolts to replace the 82mm stock ones where the skid attaches, and allow me to put a second nut "above" the skidplate to hold the bolt so I can just take the skid on and off with one wrench from the bottom, rather than contorting to get a wrench on top as well.

So, got the skid installed how it's going to be initially:



Then got the metal snips out and cut up some old backing sheet steel from an old gas fireplace surround sitting out in my shed.



To create some "side spats" for the skid. This is less to prevent against hard hits than it is to keep rocks, mud, dirt, etc coming off the front wheels (especially in puddles and such) from ending up all over the bottom of the engine).

And of course for the mad tyte aero, yo! A few bends, a few rivets, and here we go. I'll take the grinder to the edge tomorrow to clean it up. Can't do noisy stuff late at night with the kids' rooms right above the garage.......

[unevolved]

Looks good!

[kts]

Nice fab work on those side spats!

[95maxrider]

I'm jealous of that beautiful skid plate! It looks beefy. I plan on doing something similar on the sides of our plate, but with old fender liner material instead of metal. Let me know if you want to join us Sunday in Rockville.

[irish44j]

I'm jealous of that beautiful skid plate! It looks beefy. I plan on doing something similar on the sides of our plate, but with old fender liner material instead of metal. Let me know if you want to join us Sunday in Rockville.

yup, I'll probably come up. James Spoth may swing by too since he's in the next town up.

I used cut-up Rubbermaid storage bins on the old skid sides as splash guards. Worked well for that one since they just went straight vertical since the old skid was so wide. This one is a bit narrower and angled, so I had to use something I could make 90* bends in....

[irish44j]

here's the other side....because of the angle-cut on the skid, this one had to have a few more bends. Apologies for the sloppy running spray paint. I had some issues with a stuck nozzle, lol.



and from inside the engine bay