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

[95maxrider]

So....I picked up another project car, with this one pretty close to where I want it for the moment.

Josh, if you're bored and want to work on something, there's a brown E28 that could use some help.....jesus man.

[irish44j]

Oddly, this new car did come with an e28 Haynes manual in it, if you happen to want it :)

I like working on my cars here at my own pace (e.g. late at night, or whenever I'm bored). It's a lot easier than having to devote an entire day to going to someone else's place and working on things, gas money, etc. I do like helping you guys out when I can, but just like working with Pat on his car....the scheduling and logistics are sometimes inconvenient.

Anyhow, this car will probably see not much work until the winter. All I really plan to do on it this summer is a lot of cleaning and maybe tackle some of the rust. I'll probably fix up the other M42 (or make sure it's in good shape) over the winter too. I don't have the budget for a build right now....just got this one because it was too good a deal to pass up, for future use.

[irish44j]

a new friend arrived today.



it'll get it's own build thread in the near future....



I was going back and forth cleaning out 7 years of dirtiness on "Rusty" and loading up "Dirty" for tomorrow's rallycross :)

[phenryiv1]

Fill of win.

[irish44j]

Points Event #3, Summit Point, 26 May 2013

The third event weather was great. We ran the full "Big Course" - the longest course at Summit when used in its entirety. I've never been great on this course (as compared to Barn Course, where I am very fast), as the surface is pretty rocky in many areas, and there is a long, fast downhill section that I tend to be too tentative on (and lift too much, but more on that later).

Chris Nonack returned (albeit arriving late) with his V6-swapped MR2 AW12 after blowing his engine at the first event and driving Shawn's RX7 at the second (I think he finished 4th at event #2). So a good 4-way shootout for first was going to happen with me, Roberto, Chris, and Jim Spoth in a PR-prepped e30 ETA. Nick in the e28 was close as well, with Jason, Pat, and Margarita a little bit back but getting faster with each event.

In the morning session Roberto made a mistake on his first run so Chris and I were pretty close at the lunch break. Not sure of his times (since he got there late due to multiple issues, he ran his runs after most of us already had a couple done), but I had about a 10 second lead on Roberto.

In the afternoon Chris was supposedly having some issues with his engine being way down on power, but I'm not sure what his times ended up being. He's very fast when the car is working. Roberto had a PM course more to his liking and put down some fast times. My times on the first few runs were good but a little slower than his as I tend to be less aggressive on the long, fast, downhill 1/8-mile or so section running down the treeline, so I lose time there every time on this course. (of note, when we run it reversed and uphill, I'm very quick through there).

Coming into the last run we were in a dead heat for first and Roberto had put down an 80 flat, same as my fastest time of the afteroon. So I really had to go for it on my last run to take the win.

ON the first half of the run (comparing my in-car vids) I was almost 2 seconds ahead of pace....did it really fast and aggressive. And then the downhill. I made myself push it through there, but that meant at the turn at the end I lifted much harder than usual and lost the rear end. I recovered it off the course and smashed through about 10 feet of tall grass to get back on course (no cones, no gates missed), but I knew it was over and then I got really reckless on the finish slalom and punted 3 or 4 cones, basically just not caring and going faster than is possible to do that section clean.

In the end Roberto pulled another 80, and my off-course dalliance put me at 84 (which means I was really ahead of his pace before I did that, since I lost lik 7 seconds there). But I had three cones as well. So AFAIK he won by 10 seconds overall, all 10 seconds coming from my last run botch. Not sure if I beat Nonack or not, but I'm pretty sure I was still safe from the other e30s/e28/RX7 who were farther back.

There were some timing and course issues at this event, plus a big field (60 cars) and long start gap due to dust, and two water truck passes (which didn't really affect my class much). I have a bit of an issue with something unrelated to my own driving, but that's not really worth going into detail about here, and it probably wouldn't have changed the final result anyhow so whatever....

Next event is our big 2-day first-half ender....where we run 3 courses in 2 days and comp time for all three. This year too many people will be there to run "Gravel" course, so I'm really hoping we do Barn twice and Big once, though I suspect it will be the opposite.

This is the event that, last year (IIRC), I blew 2nd place on my last run (out of 20) and lost by 1/10th of a second!!! I am clearly not a "closer" at this point.

So, results when they're posted and good pics of my car when they're posted as well.

A few I took myself, and the rest are here if anyone wants to see:

http://s78.photobucket.com/user/irish44j/library/BMW%20318i%20RallyCross%20Project/26%20May%202013%20Rallycross%20Big%20Course?sort=3&page=1

reppin


the water truck literally drifted this turn on his second pass. that's how slick it was


dirtay


oh look, a blue GC Subaru. Never seen one of those at an event before, Jim Golden :)


With Brian McNamara and Amber Stacy's stage rally car, there for a T&T


Evo parts deposited on course


And he managed to ram his very low tow hook into a berm


This guy was very fast, impressive driving


turbo SR5 pickup in PR


reppin


water truck +1

[irish44j]

Results posted.....and MR was a shootout to the end.

Going into the last run of the day, the standings were:

Chris Nonack 1st
me 2nd (2 seconds behind Chris)
Roberto 3rd (1 second behind me)

On the final run Roberto ran a clean 80 seconds (which was a very fast run).
On the final run I spun, ran 84 seconds including the spin, and got 3 cones after that for a total time of 90.5 seconds. So he beat me by 10.5 seconds on that run, and he beat me by 10 seconds overall.

Even worse for Chris who must have had a disaster right behind me as he put up a 95 with 4 cones on his last run to drop from 1st to 3rd.

Nick in the e28 finished clean and ended up in 4th by 2 seconds and Jim Spoth only 8 seconds behind him.

So the top 5 in MR finished within 25 seconds of each other over 600+ seconds of comp time. Pretty damn close.

Jason and Pat are getting faster, but since the rest of the field was so packed up at the top I think it didn't show how just much better they drove, as they finished in 7th and 8th with comps about 38 seconds behind me but within 1 second of each other. Don't sweat it guys, you ARE getting faster.

All in all pretty pleased with my overall times if not my last run. For the second straight event I finished with almost exactly the same time as one of the Golden brothers (who go back and forth at the top of stock AWD in their GC 2.5RS's), who drove in the same run group as I did. I consider it a good measuring stick for me personally, I suppose.

PR class went to the e30s as Stephen Nichols drove the ETA to a first-place finish beating defending MR class champ Shawn by 27 seconds (I doubt he's ever lost by that much before, since he rarely loses!), and the ETA co-driver Chris Helgesen took 3rd a ways back from him. Spencer in the other M42 car finished 5th (behind Shawn's co-driver in the RX7) and Jesse finished back in 7th almost 100 seconds off the leader. They had the water truck a couple times in that run group, so I'm guessing that the course conditions were rapidly changing, causing such a wide spread in the same class.

MR didn't really get the water truck to any major extent, which is why we were all pretty close I suppose.

[95maxrider]

Wow, apparently I had the best total time for the PM session (in MR) and beat Roberto by 6 seconds, and Josh by 27. Maybe my car isn't so bad after all. Now if I can just get some real M5 sway bars on my car...

[irish44j]

Wow, apparently I had the best total time for the PM session (in MR) and beat Roberto by 6 seconds, and Josh by 27. Maybe my car isn't so bad after all. Now if I can just get some real M5 sway bars on my car...

I told you, I absolutely hate big course run clockwise.....I'm not fast at all when it's set up like that.....

Will be interesting to see how the 2-day Conquer the Summit works out. Last year we did a half day on Barn, half day on Gravel, and half day on Big. This year with so many entrants we probably won't run Gravel I wouldn't think (which is fine by me). I hope we run 2 sessions at Barn, but more likely it will be 2 on Big, in which case I could be in trouble.......

Of course, it's all weather-dependent too.......

[irish44j]

Wow, apparently I had the best total time for the PM session (in MR) and beat Roberto by 6 seconds, and Josh by 27. Maybe my car isn't so bad after all. Now if I can just get some real M5 sway bars on my car...

btw, might want to check your math. On the afternoon runs you only beat me by about 10 seconds total (about what I lost on my last run by spinning and cone hits). And Roberto was about 4 seconds ahead of you.

The cone hits are already included in the times posted

;)

[95maxrider]

btw, might want to check your math. On the afternoon runs you only beat me by about 10 seconds total (about what I lost on my last run by spinning and cone hits). And Roberto was about 4 seconds ahead of you.

The cone hits are already included in the times posted

;)

Since when are cones included? That's very counter intuitive, and I don't think they do that for auto-x. Or maybe I just don't hit enough cones for me to notice :o

[phenryiv1]

I tried to explain that Sunday but then I confused myself. The time listed just shoes the cones hit to explain to drivers how the number was reached.

[dirty30]

The guy with the GTI is pretty well known in the rally world.

http://quantumrallysport.com/

[95maxrider]

I tried to explain that Sunday but then I confused myself. The time listed just shoes the cones hit to explain to drivers how the number was reached.

Oh, so even at the event the results are posted this way? That's so weird. It would make much more sense if the number of cones hit was in parentheses instead of behind a + sign. I know for sure SCCA Solo doesn't do cones in this manner.

[irish44j]

today's project was to use the e30 to tow the e21 out of the shed up the hill, so I could turn it around. Did fine :) Note: only done because it would have been extremely tight to use the truck back there....my backyard isn't terribly large.



Also AJ at Squared Away Photography finally uploaded the shots from last weekend. Got some good ones :)

I don't hit cones often, but when I do, I prefer to punt them far away...


This is where I spun. Note, however, that I'm still "looking ahead" haha...\




diggin out

[irish44j]

A bit of quiet garage time this evening during the thunderstorm, figured I'd start pulling apart the M42 for lack of anything better to do. So got all the wiring stuff, water pump, etc off for cleanup this week.

Personal Garage Rule #1: When doing anything dealing with draining old nasty dirty coolant into any kind of container, I will always somehow spill said container all over the garage floor. And damn I hate coolant. Would rather have my head put in a vat of motor oil than my hand in a vat of coolant. IDK why, just do....lol

yep, that's one dirty-ass engine.