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

[phenryiv1]

yeah, they should be here tomorrow, though I probably won't be able to get them on til later in the week.

I just need to order before the end of the sale.

[irish44j]

Some good shots from the event by AJ@SquaredAwayPhotography, who took over 70 shots of just my car alone. I knew having all the vinyl on there would get me in more....last season he'd only get about 15 of me, lol.

[unevolved]

Lookin' good.

[irish44j]

This weekend we had a planned family trip down to my parents' place on the bay, and as fate would have it my grandfather died on Good Friday (it was long expected, as he sadly had alzheimer's). That got the whole extended family down there in short order. But this isn't really the place to talk about that further except to say that he'll be missed. In the meantime, a few things:

For the first time in a while got to take the boat out.....me and the dog Finn went solo on a cold, clear day..





Then driving home saw this beauty



On Saturday with not much going on other than family sitting around, I dragged dad out to do something he's needed to do for years: paint the marina's utility pickup. We did it with some flat black automotive paint, brush and roller. It's country-fabulous, lol.

before/after:



So when we got home this evening the UPS man had (as I left a note) deposited a package in the trunk of the e30 in the driveway :)



These are the part number for early 318s with the M10, rather than the ones most e30 drivers buy. They're the sports (not the race). We'll see how they turn out.



I have some of my super-tall stock 318i springs in the garage (the car has late 318is springs on it) and the H&R's are about 1.75" shorter unsprung. We'll see how that translates on the car....I may add the thicker spring pads (I currently have the very thin ones on there).




Also got a couple pieces of mail.....one from red46, who made my skidplate and sells them for a great price on R3Vlimited so figured I'd give him some car space. And one from Seth Lemke out in the Texas region (mazdeuce on GrassrootsMotorsports forum), which I'll swap back for a couple of ours :)

[irish44j]

So after consulting with the wife....I registered for the Dixie National Tour event in Tennessee in June. Which is the weekend before our own WDCR 2-day "Conquer the Summit" event. Hence why I needed spousal pre-authorization.

Now to decided if I want to drive this car 8 hours with the trailer, or if I want to tow it down there, or what.....

[irish44j]

Came home early today to catch some opening day Orioles' baseball. Got home extra early so figured I'd go do the rear springs before the game.

For just the rears, my "before" measurement from hub center to wheel arch (early high arches, remember) was 14.5" (this with my spare in the trunk + trunk battery + rollbar). That matches up with what I've seen for fully stock early 318i's.



After doing just the rears I'm getting a measurement of about 13.25," but that will go up just a bit once I lower the front down. I still have about 6" from ground to anything at the rear of the car (exhaust, muffler, diff, etc) so that's sufficient I think. Right now I have one medium/thick and one thin spring pad in, and I may swap that thin one out with a "thick" pad to get back 1/4" or so, if I get a chance.



After a quick drive the rear does feel more planted and stiffer. Basically feels a lot like adding a thicker swaybar but also moving the car's CG downward, never a bad thing. So, more on this once I get the whole car done later this week.

For the front, I've seen that this model of H&R sport actually has a 2.25" actual drop (on other early 318i's), which is more than I want. So I also got some 1" C-channel spring spacers from Jegs that I'll use. I may also weld some small "ears" onto the strut spring seats to make sure the springs stay where I want them. We'll see once I have it all set up. So more on that later. Time to watch some baseball.

GO O'S!

[95maxrider]

I'm pretty sure this is the point where I'm supposed to make fun of you for putting lowering springs on your rally car.....

[irish44j]

I'm pretty sure this is the point where I'm supposed to make fun of you for putting lowering springs on your rally car.....

I'm not the one who knocked my skidplate off last year ;)

I'll still sit higher than you will with stock springs, and have more ground clearance. :D

The point isn't to make the car lower, the point is to add some spring rate. I won't be much lower anyhow.

[irish44j]

So this worked out pretty well so far. After reading that the springs I got generally give about a 2" drop in the front, I decided to pick up some spacers from Jegs. They are 1" lift spacers for this spring diameter.



As you can see, the unsprung height of stock vs. the H&Rs....yikes



Everything apart. Forgot how much I hate balljoints....and e30 ones seem to be impossible to use any balljoint seperation tools on for some reason...



So....first thing. These particular spacers are best used on the bottom of the spring. But of course they lift the spring out of the seat itself. I'm not really sure if there's anything to worry about since 4x4 guys do this kind of spacer all the time, but I kind of like to play it a bit safer, so I welded on some metal "tabs" as retainers in case the spring/spacers for some reason decide to walk off the side. I highly doubt this would happen, but it can't hurt to have a little insurance, especially with all the slamming around this car does:

hardly all that stout, but it's 16ga stainless....should be good enough for what it is supposed to do. And more ugly welds...



installed


so a couple issues I ran into:

1. no idea how it happened (maybe when removing the spindle from the lower balljoint, I guess), but the top 3 threads on the balljoint got all messed up. Luckily, the nut leaves about 3 threads above it when tightened. So I just dremeled the 3 bad threads smooth and reinstalled the nut fine. Since there's less surface for the nyloc section of the nut to "grip" now, I drilled a hole in the upper stud so I could pop in a cotter pin. Again, better safe than sorry.



2. When torquing everything down, I was doing the upper strut mount nuts. Set my 3/8 torque wrench to the correct setting (it's low), reached over to grab the right socket size (13mm). Went to tighten. Tightening....tightening....damn, I must be weak tonight because it's starting to get pretty tight and no click. I'm going on, waiting for the click. And then I shear the stud off. WTF??? Oh look, instead of putting the socket on the torque wrench I put it on a regular long-neck ratchet....So I probably torqued it to like 70ft-lbs and snapped it. IDK what the hell I was thinking, but now I need to go source a new stud.

Ironically, this EXACT SAME stud was the one that stripped out when I did the suspension last time (year+ ago), and I replaced it then. So, I officially hate this particular stud. screw it.

So....did one side tonight....dropped the car back down....rolled it around a bit and jumped up and down on the bumper to settle things.

The result, comparing the stock on one side and new setup on the other: looks like I'm going to net about 1/2"-3/4" drop all told, which is just about what I'd like, plus with the stiffer rate.

Anyhow, will do the other side tomorrow and test-drive friday and see how it works out. More updates later, of course...

Hardly slammed, lol

[phenryiv1]

Stanzwerkz, y0

[95maxrider]

Stanzwerkz, y0

Hellaflush

[irish44j]

y u hating////

[Mark 42]

Couldn't you find longer springs from some other application with the same diameter
and spring rate you need (maybe something like a small SUV)?
By using a spacer, wouldn't you lose some travel (you could gain that
travel by moving the bump stop if it is the limiting factor)

[silence]

Eventually you may decide that homemade Coilovers are the way to go ;)

[phenryiv1]

Eventually you may decide that homemade Coilovers are the way to go ;)

I actually had a long talk with Ground Control about that option for my 325, but ultimately went with a conventional spring setup because unless I get the length and rates PERFECT, something where the guess work was removed should be better at bridging the gap between tarmac and rallycross. Too soft or too stiff and they will kill dampers and will either be too bouncy or get you into thge bumpstops on eveyr bump for rallyX, killin gsteering and handling.

I decided after not knowing where to go with rates and length on th ecoilovers to run OE Sports. Josh went all-out (relatively speakeing) and went with Sports.

Only time will tell who was more crazy.