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

[irish44j]

For what it’s worth I installed the same low pressure pump in our track car and it works great!

good to hear :)

[Danny]

For what it’s worth I installed the same low pressure pump in our track car and it works great!

[irish44j]

So, while I've been trailering the car for the last few events, I really would prefer to just drive it there whenever possible, since mountain roads are way more fun when not pulling a big trailer with an SUV. Now that I'm comfortable with the new engine, I expect to start driving the car to and from events again (except two-day events, where having a 2nd vehicle is convenient).

Because of the cage, the car is somewhat inconvenient for hauling a lot of gear, so I have the little tire trailer, which works fine. But I'm kind of tired of using the trailer. Again, less fun with it in the mountains and stuff, would just as well just drive the car there on its own (plus, it gets so little use I'd just as well just sell it and the hitch to make a bit of cash for other stuff).

So, in a move that totally makes no sense, since it will cost money to do, I'm building a roof rack specifically to carry stuff like tires. Also because roof racks are cool, and I want to build something just for fun. Now, I could just buy a Thule or Yakima setup (I can get one for a discount from my ski shop), but that's no fun, and those sitt really high over the roof. I want something lower-profile, kind of like what I have on the Sequoia (also home-built).waffles

A bit of inspiration from the old rack on my Triumph GT6, which had a gutter-mount rack that had little screws through the gutter to bolt it down (vice using a "reverse clamp" like Thule/Yakima does). Anyhow, it's something to do. So I got online and orderd up some steel tubing (16ga) and a few other steel pieces (1/4" x 2" flat plate, and some small round tubing).

After some measuring and sketching, got to work today.



The 1/4" plate cut into 5" sections, which will be my four legs. Thick so they fit right into the gutter with just a bit of play. Then, basically a square (tacked on the car to keep it level and straight).waffles





So, here's where I am now. I'm deciding on my inside bar arrangement to place them both for support and in order to have them a place to allow me to best locate/strap down four tires (and/or other stuff). Once I place the crossbars, the intent is to cover the whole thing with the lightweight chicken coop flooring (farm-tek) that I used on the Sequoia.



Will also probably fab up some kind of mount for a fairing or something, we'll see.waffles

[irish44j]

Little project today. As mentioned earlier, my in-tank low pressure pump broke. It's getting pretty hard to find working used ones, and new ones range from $150 to 250 depending on where you look.

To get me over at the last event I just eliminated it and let the HP pump work a bit harder. Seemed to work fine, but would still rather have it "like the factory wanted it" just to help the life of the HP pump.

This isn't "my" idea, apparently it's pretty popular in the e28 groups at least if not e30 groups, but the grassroots solution is RockAuto, of course. But not BMW parts - you get the in-tank LP (lifter) pump from a 1973-1976 Chevy Vega (and probably other GMs of that era, I'd guess). $15 new.





It's the right size, though doesn't have the bracket. Comes with a new in-tank pre-filter as well. To fit it up, you really just have to put some ring terminals on the original wires and they use small nut attachments to the pump.

One thing is the pump doesn't specify polarity of the terminals, so had to do a bench test to see which way was pumping fuel out vs. in. My 6-year-old helped me..



A couple hose clamps or zipties secure it to the original assembly, oriented to leave space for the fuel level sender



Anyhow, installed it and it seems to work fine. The HP pump's buzz seems substantially quieter now as well (though the buzz at all kind of annoys me since it's a pretty new Bosch pump). So, some peace of mind at very least.

[irish44j]

yeah, but all this time you had 4cyl right?
when I had m42, I also had no problems, not with rally gravel tires nor with street tires, but after swap to m52b28 it became a real problem as I mentioned.

for small engines if I am not mistaken till 2.0L there was these ''small'' driveshafts, and from 2.0L up, big ones.

shaft diameter is bit bigger and CVjoints as well
in pic you can see difference, 3rd is ''small one'', and as I saw in your pictures, seems like you have ''small ones''. I just know how bad feeling is when you have to end event because of it, so maybe its worth to think about this aspect

That's interesting. I have plenty of spares here and to my knowledge they all came from M20B25 or ETA cars, but they are identical to the ones currently on the car (which are not original, as they have the lip for ABS rings, which I removed).

Can you measure the diameter of the shafts of the "big" and "small" ones? Would be interested to compare.

EDIT: looks like you're right. I just went and measured the ones I have on the car now, and the axle thickness is 25.5mm on both, whereas the half-dozen spares I have in my garage actually have a thickness of 27mm. Never even noticed. So that's interesting. Maybe will think about swapping them out now. Guess I'll be getting greasy putting new CV boots on them this weekend :/

Side note: I did some research and looks like here in the US, the only cars with the thinner axles were 1985 and earlier M10 cars (with the smaller CVs to fit in the rear drum brake flanges, which my car had long, long ago). Apparently all other e30s over here had the thicker axles and larger CV joints.

[abit]

yeah, but all this time you had 4cyl right?
when I had m42, I also had no problems, not with rally gravel tires nor with street tires, but after swap to m52b28 it became a real problem as I mentioned.

for small engines if I am not mistaken till 2.0L there was these ''small'' driveshafts, and from 2.0L up, big ones.

shaft diameter is bit bigger and CVjoints as well
in pic you can see difference, 3rd is ''small one'', and as I saw in your pictures, seems like you have ''small ones''. I just know how bad feeling is when you have to end event because of it, so maybe its worth to think about this aspect

[irish44j]

I probably wouldn't wear a helmet either when just driving around. I love your projects and passion for the scene.

Thanks, it's a much something to keep me from being unbearably bored living here in the suburbs, as anything else :) Plus the best part about racing is always all the people you meet. Once you are my age, in the burbs, with kids and married - you don't really meet all that many new people in everyday living. But racing, you can double your friend-count in a pretty short time haha.......

[Bearmw]

I probably wouldn't wear a helmet either when just driving around. I love your projects and passion for the scene.

[irish44j]

Hahahah, nice translate for sure :D

naah, Germany is pretty far away from me. yes, we have a lot of events on gravel, auto x, rally, rallysprints etc, thats for sure.


actually, what rear driveshafts you are running? e30 ''big'' ones?
do they hold pressure? :D

I remember how when we went from 1.8is to 2.8, almost at every event we broke some axle(we had small engine axles), now I built in axles from e34 and they work perfect.


aaand how is rear bilsteins b6 holding ?
I was running b8, because I have dropped rear, and after actually one normal summer season on mixed road surfaces they are toast :(

Now temporary I have Koni's 80-2522sport from my e30, hope I wont kill them as well :D actually I like how they work, but as they are twin-tube so I believe they will heat up very hard at summer events on gravel, B8's got really hot.

I've always just run regular e30 axles. No idea if they are the "big ones" or the "small ones." I have a dozen or so here in a box and they all look to be about the same. So far in about 8-9 years I've never broken one, and only replaced one or two total, that because they were getting noisy or had ripped boots.

The Bilsteins hold up fine. I replace the front or rear pair on occasion, but I woudln't say "often." I don't go very big on jumps so i think that helps :)

When you drive it on the street do you still wear a helmet?

do you mean on stage transits, or just driving around? In both cases, the answer is no. I mean, the bars are padded, and let's just *say* I got in an accident or something, there's really no difference in my head hitting the bars compared with hitting a metal part of the original car.

But with no helmet on, my head is nowhere near the cage. We have the seats really low in the car. Now, with our big-ass balloon-head Stilo helmets on, it's pretty close lol.

[Bearmw]

When you drive it on the street do you still wear a helmet?

[abit]

ha, nice! Impressive built. Unfortunately Google Translate isn't very good at Latvian! It does make for some entertaining writing though!

"hanging 6cyl springs in front of the markings got some kind of average hardness, together with the aliens who were already standing there :D"

There is a large group of e30/e36 318is rallyists in Germany - look up "RG318is Cup" - maybe they are within travel distance for you to run with them? In any case, I'm always jealous at the amount of rally events there are in Europe - so few here in the US within reasonable driving distance. I would love it if we had European-style rallycross, also.

If you are on facebook, come join our e30 (and e36) rally page. It started off for local people, but now we have people from all over the world on it: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dirtyethirties/

Hahahah, nice translate for sure :D

naah, Germany is pretty far away from me. yes, we have a lot of events on gravel, auto x, rally, rallysprints etc, thats for sure.


actually, what rear driveshafts you are running? e30 ''big'' ones?
do they hold pressure? :D

I remember how when we went from 1.8is to 2.8, almost at every event we broke some axle(we had small engine axles), now I built in axles from e34 and they work perfect.


aaand how is rear bilsteins b6 holding ?
I was running b8, because I have dropped rear, and after actually one normal summer season on mixed road surfaces they are toast :(

Now temporary I have Koni's 80-2522sport from my e30, hope I wont kill them as well :D actually I like how they work, but as they are twin-tube so I believe they will heat up very hard at summer events on gravel, B8's got really hot.

[irish44j]

some little stuff....

First, with the e30 more or less "there" for the moment, I took a break to do a bit of Porsche work, You may recall over the winter I replaced the OEM-style headlights with some e-code H4 Hellas. But with the extra wattage, that's a strain on the OEM wiring. So, started putting together a standalone wiring harness with relays. Not the cleanest install for them moment, but I have a plan to clean up/hide all these relays and wiring when I get around to it. First I want to check functionality.





In other news, I'm always happy when the Porsche is in the garage. The fresh leather seats still have that fresh leather smell, so my whole garage smells like it when the car is in there lol.

Meanwhile, for the e30 I got some new street tires. My street tires (mounted on old Euroweaves) for about 7 years have been some old Star Specs. Not only are they highly sketchy in early/late season drives in the mountains where it's cold and sometimes wintry, but they are also a smallish sidewall (originally bought for autocross gearing) at 195/55/15.

So with Tire Rack now giving free shipping, and a $50 BFG gift card offer, I ordered some new all-seasons. They're not particularly high performance (though the treads look a heck of a lot like the Comp 2's on the Porsche/GTI), as they have a softish sidewall, but that's ok since these are primarily for driving to events and general cruising, where a little extra comfort won't be a bad thing in this car.

Took them over to Shawn's (moxnix's) house as he graciously mounted them up for me. Shawn's house, if you're not following his thread, would put most Mazda dealers to shame with something like 6 Miatas, a Protege, an RX-7 all sitting in the driveway or nearby (plus an MR2, van/trailer, and an old Impreza) - did I miss any?



Also, saw "Dirty Snow" (the rallycross impreza that has seen many events)'s infamous broken steely sitting in the basement



Anyhow, the tires are some BFG grand touring "sport" tires in 205/60/15 - so a lot taller than the Star Specs. Better highway gearing for the long drives to rallycrosses and they look a bit less silly on a car that sits on such tall suspension lol.







(also, I sold the old Star Specs on FB marketplace in 20 minutes for $50, so that's nice).

So that's it for the moment. A few other little things going on, but mostly working on tweaking a few things and some other projects...

[irish44j]

Wrapping up a few things so I can do other stuff this weekend and not be under the car....

First order of business was to check all my bolts on the rear end, snug up the axle nut, and bleed the recently-disconnected right rear brake caliper.

With the car on the ground, the difference is apparent in terms of toe and camber. Feels like forever since the rear wheels were more or less straight up.





So went from 2.5* negative to under 1* and no toe. That should substantially help out the handling of this car and make things more predictable (and grippy) on the gravel.



In addition, got in some new street tires for the car. For years I've used some old Star Specs for street driving, and in a size that is shorter than I like (for looks or for gearing) at 195/55/15, which makes for some high revs on the highway with the G240. Now that I actually have some torque, I really don't want those high revs any more lol.

Plus, the Star Specs are sketchy in these early and late-season events in the W.Va. mountains where it's often sub-freezing roads and maybe some snow. I've been towing to events recently but plan to get back to driving the car there since the roads to Panthera are a lot of fun in a car and a lot of big-ass hills that make towing tedious.

So, Tire Rack deal, plus a $50 gift card, and all told just a bit over $300 for a set of all-seasons to may door. They're not super high-performance tires (grand touring), but that's ok. Oddly, they seem to have very similar tread pattern to the BFG Comp 2 A/S I have on the Porsche. Anyhow, will get them mounted up on my Euroweaves - these are 205/60/15 by the way



And last of all, got the drill out and made some mount holes for the skidplate and got it all set up. I have a few modifications I want to do to further strengthen things for stage, but for rallycross it'll be fine, and it'll be a while before the next stage rally

Kind of scraped up my new paint while getting it all set up lol. It looks lower in this shot than it is in reality, though it IS lower than with the M42 by about an inch or so. I'll recover that with taller tires when i move all my rally wheels to 15s.





The plate is lower, but I left more pan clearance than i had with the M42. I plan to eventually add a longitudinal brace bar from the front to rear mount bars in order to further strengthen things and prevent the bar from bowing in.

[irish44j]

You shouldn't have an issue. It's definitely a bit easier to do the tank with the subframe out, but I managed to replace my tank without much trouble leaving it in. Mine is a late model but I doubt it's different.

Stoked to see you back at it after the swap :devil:

good to know. And this being an early (smaller) tank, that could conceivably make it easier. Guess I'll find out at some point lol.

[irish44j]

ha, nice! Impressive built. Unfortunately Google Translate isn't very good at Latvian! It does make for some entertaining writing though!

"hanging 6cyl springs in front of the markings got some kind of average hardness, together with the aliens who were already standing there :D"

There is a large group of e30/e36 318is rallyists in Germany - look up "RG318is Cup" - maybe they are within travel distance for you to run with them? In any case, I'm always jealous at the amount of rally events there are in Europe - so few here in the US within reasonable driving distance. I would love it if we had European-style rallycross, also.

If you are on facebook, come join our e30 (and e36) rally page. It started off for local people, but now we have people from all over the world on it: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dirtyethirties/