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

[irish44j]

A quick off topic question...
I'm thinking of getting a newer & more reliable car as a daily driver.
I'm considering a WRX - since you have one, would you prefer a WRX as
a daily driver and occasional autocross car? I'll read any advice you have
about buying one, too.

Would I prefer it to what? Mine is approaching 100k miles and I still enjoy it as a daily driver and road-trip car (the seats are the best I've ever had in terms of long-distance comfort, believe it or not). Other than the engine issue at 9k miles (a well-known issue only on the first 2 months of the '09 model, that was fixed), the car has had zero things break in 100k miles of hard driving.

For autocross it was fairly fun, though not competitive since it runs in STU with the Evos/STi's. For DD, I like it other than the lousy fuel economy (typical tank is about 24mpg mixed driving, and has to run premium). If we didn't have snow in the winter, I probably could do without AWD. I'm actually thinking about a BRZ in a few years for a DD since it gets much better mileage, still fun to drive, and I have no need for a backseat/back doors, to be honest. The kids ride in the SUV, not my car.

Otherwise, it's not too bad on tires, doesn't burn oil after 100k miles, still just as quick as when it was new. Note that I do have Bilstein/Racecomp Yellow Cup suspension, plus sways and all the bushings done. So the suspension is nowhere near stock. Engine is stock except for a Cobb stage 1 flash and SPT catback.

As for buying used....all I can say is maybe stay away from modded ones, but that's always the rule with all cars I guess. I like it overall, and even after 5+ years I'm not tired of it, I still enjoy driving it.

Feel free to PM me for more questions if you want.

[Mark 42]

I like it other than the lousy fuel economy (typical tank is about 24mpg mixed driving, and has to run premium). If we didn't have snow in the winter, I probably could do without AWD. I'm actually thinking about a BRZ in a few years for a DD since it gets much better mileage, still fun to drive, and I have no need for a backseat/back doors, to be honest.
As for buying used....all I can say is maybe stay away from modded ones, but that's always the rule with all cars I guess. I like it overall, and even after 5+ years I'm not tired of it, I still enjoy driving it.

I'm tired of fixing little things on my E30, so I'm ready for something newer.
Electrical system is always going haywire (which why the car is named Fritz), and things like door handles and dome light crack & break.

I actually was thinking a car with mods, if they were done right, would save me money versus doing them later myself. I saw a WRX with COBB Stage 2 (not sure what that means, exactly... just started learning). But heavy mods probably indicate hard usage, which means back to fixing things.

I've had good luck with Toyotas, but Subaru looks interesting. Is the BRZ the one that is like a Scion FRS? Doesn't that have a back seat?

I'll PM you when I get closer to buying something, if it's a Subaru.

[irish44j]

Cobb Stage 2 is just the AccessPort tuner + a downpipe and maybe an intake. Stage 1 is nothing, just an improved fuel map for a stock engine. It really depends on the mods and what the person does with the car. The drivetrain is pretty stout as long as maintained well, and assuming the guy wasn't doing drag launches at every stoplight. Subies have some rattles and some cheap plastic, but mine has held up well and I drive on terrible roads, and don't do it slowly ;) But for a 300hp, $25k car new, I consider it to be well worth it for some of its (minor) annoyances. And even with those, its still far, far more civilized than even the best-condition e30 in almost every way, but still has enough rawness that you can have fun in it.

BRZ = FRS. Same car. Subaru drivetrain, Subaru-Yota chassis, mostly Subaru interior. A few cosmetic changes and minor suspension rate differences. It has a backseat, but only for people with no legs (e.g. "insurance helper").

[Mark 42]

My son (16 yr old car nut) says hold out for the 2015 WRX.
I like the BRZ / FRS. I only need a back seat for 5 miles on 3 days/week
for my daughter, who is about 5'2" and 100 lb. My wife drops the kids
at Taekwondo and I go there straight from work, do the class with them,
and then bring them home.
Both are out of my budget, so a used WRX will probably be good.
Or an Alltrac Celica, if I could find one in immaculate condition (I like Toyotas).
I just need to get away from old beater used cars as daily drivers.

[irish44j]

My son (16 yr old car nut) says hold out for the 2015 WRX.
I like the BRZ / FRS. I only need a back seat for 5 miles on 3 days/week
for my daughter, who is about 5'2" and 100 lb. My wife drops the kids
at Taekwondo and I go there straight from work, do the class with them,
and then bring them home.
Both are out of my budget, so a used WRX will probably be good.
Or an Alltrac Celica, if I could find one in immaculate condition (I like Toyotas).
I just need to get away from old beater used cars as daily drivers.

A celica alltrac in immaculate condition will run you far more than a used WRX, haha....

btw, IIRC the 2015 WRX is out now.

[irish44j]

So today did a bit of work on the WRX. Timing belt and water pump, etc etc. Spent about 3 1/2 hours doing it, much easier than the Sequoia, that's for sure. And that time included looking for various tools, running to the parts store to find an A/C belt, trying to figure out how to improv a "special tool" for the stretch belt - as well as a few minutes cursing the Orioles for getting spanked by the Tribe on the radio :(

So in case anyone wanted to see what a WRX timing case looks like...notable the old stuff was still in great shape after 95k hard-driven miles. One of the tensioner pulley bearings wasn't as smooth as I like, but otherwise looks like all this stuff could have gone another 100k miles. But better safe than sorry for my DD....





Other than that, went to my great-uncle's farm and helped him out with some emissions issues with his old Roadmaster (don't ask...) and picked some various scrap metal from his giant stash of "metal stuff" lol. Tomorrow I may try to fab up a basic rear strut brace for the e30, which I've been meaning to do for a while after seeing the ETA boys tear one of their rear strut towers apart at an event last season.

[irish44j]

A bit of work on the car today, with all the WRX stuff done yesterday. Ok, well I did wash and wax the subie for once. I usually leave it dirty but what the hell..



So, first things first. Decided to finally make up a rear strut brace. Had some 3/16" old rusty steel plate that I cut into shape (using my Ireland Engineering upper strut mounts as a template). Then I took some fairly heavy galvanized steel pipe, slotted the ends of it and welded it all together (first set in place on the car and tacked, and then finish welded). My welder still sucks, and my welds are still hideously ugly, but for a RSTB who cares. I think I did it pretty strong. Put it back on the car with some blue paint, of course. Perfect fit. Hopefully it will strengthen those towers (not that mine were cracked, but seems like it's pretty common).







Then inspected the front end. Passenger-side front wheel liners are gone. Here's all that's left, lol





The driver's side is cracked up pretty good too. Both coming off. I'm making up some sheet-metal pieces to protect the sides of the engine. Maybe tomorrow.

Also pulled the skidplate off to check things out. I've been using some loose washers to space it down a bit since the oil pan was lightly contacting it and causing a clatter of noise. Decided just to make them permanent and welded some washer stacks on. One less thing to deal with when I take the plate off for various reasons.



It's been getting it's job done though. A few dents from hard hits, but overall still very solid.

[irish44j]

So, not winning the last event got me motivated to do a few random things on the car today. Might as well improve the car since I can't exactly improve my driving between events, right?

First, finished making up a side splash guard for the engine on the passenger side, where the OEM one got shredded at the last event. Just some spare sheet metal from an old gas fireplace. improv...As you can see, I have a stock motor mount on the passenger side for the moment rather than the solid mount. I'm trying to figure out a funny vibration in the car occasionally so put the stock mounts back on for a bit to cut down on NVH while I investigate. Sometimes this car is way too noisy to know what the hell is making noise...



I was bored last night and wanted to play with the drill press, so I pulled the front bumper and added some holes, removed the license plate bracket, and part of the rubber bumper part. All in all saved about 4lbs. Not that that's much, but it all adds up, I guess, and that's 4 lbs right off the very front of the car. Plus provides a bit more air to the radiator, if it matters



I also took off the rear rubber strip from the bumper, which is surprisingly heavy (and had about a pound of red clay packed in behind it.



Then I pulled the passenger seat, seatbelt, ebrake handle cover, and a few other small things....I won't want a passenger riding any more until I win another event. Plus, these seats weigh a ton since they're "street tuner" seats vice real race seats

Total weight savings of all this stuff combined (including a few other things mentioned below): 71 lbs. That's not nothing :)



Washed out the interior.....and touched up a few places where the paint had chipped. Rust prevention, eh?



One thing that's been annoying me is having noplace to put my phone, ipod, cigs, etc when driving to events, other than the passenger seat. With that now gone too, needed to mount something up. Enter $1.97 jewelry box (or something) from Walmart. Pretty well-made actually. Mounted with high-strength double-sided 3M trim tape. Should work nicely :)



random picture....



and one last thing, which I've been meaning to do for a while: the charcoal canister delete. Pretty sure it's not doing anything anyhow in a 28-year old car, and I'm always a fan of taking off useless crap. So removed it, plugged the line to the TB, and for the fuel tank line I put a small fuel filter on the end just to prevent any dust or debris from getting in there, while still allowing the tank to vent.



so that's about it for now. But at least I finally got something accomplished....

[img]

[irish44j]

A few little things today when I had a few minutes.

Finally got around to taking off the door rub rails. IDK why I neglected to do this before, but whatever. Anyhow, just for the hell of it I weighed them. 4 lbs more off the car. Little bits adding up I guess :) Plus the pound or two of clay mud packed in underneath them, lol.

Of course with them off there are a bunch of holes along the sides of the doors. Since I'm way too lazy to weld or bondo them shut, I just used some thick trim tape. That stuff has held up for 5 years on the chrome trim on the Subaru, so it's pretty tough and doesn't lose its adhesion. Anyhow, in the black sections you can hardly see it at all. In the white sections you can, obviously, but I'm not too concerned. Also did a bit of painting to continue the lines/graphics that were masked off when the trim strips were there.





Also plugged up some holes in the floor - drain holes I had drilled as well as the seat mounting holes for the passenger side. For this kind of thing where I want to be able to remove them, I like to triple-fold some gray duck tape over the hole (to give it some strength) and then put a large piece of aluminum ducting tape over that, since it forms well to the floor and sticks well when wet/dirty. The aluminum tape doesn't have much strength, so that's why the duck tape is underneath - so it doesn't get broken by the first rock that kicks up. I actually use this stuff all over the place on the car for sealing up things, it's the stickiest most awesome tape out there.



Last thing...since i did the swap the little "snorkel" from the airbox to the area behind the headlight has been gone. The M10 airbox aligns differently so couldn't use that one, and always forget to get an M42-specific one. In the interest of pulling in cooler air from behind the headlight (vice hot air coming out of the back of the radiator) I wanted to reconnect this. Didn't have any dryer vent hose sitting around, so looked for something else with 3" diameter (which is what the OEM one is). Found.....a soda bottle. Took it, wrapped it in more of the aluminum ducting tape (so it doesn't melt from engine heat), and installed. Doesn't look pretty but it should do the job just fine.





The other thing I'm working on is a tall GoPro mount. I want to toy with making some cool video showing the whole car when its on course. So I picked up some square steel tubing from the hardware store. The plan is to mount this, about 4 feet tall, off the rear bumper. I'm going to make it so it can screw into a plate on the bumper so it is on the car "solid" and won't sway around. I think it's stiff enough so it won't flex under the weight of the light GoPro. Should give some neat video angle. May also make a mount point on the front bumper so it can "look back" on the car as I'm driving. More on this once I actually make it :)

[Mark 42]

So, not winning the last event got me motivated to do a few random things on the car today. Might as well improve the car since I can't exactly improve my driving between events, right?

That was the nice thing about having the track on our property (pasture) in Alabama - though I really didn't spend a lot of time practicing even though I had the opportunity.

BTW, you wouldn't happen to have an inner door sill for the front doors of a 4-door? It's the door sill / threshold that holds the edge of the carpet down. The two front doors (Left & Right) are the same part number. I think the 2-door is a longer version of the same plastic extrusion, which i could cut to length. It'd get me one step closer to my WRX. ;)

[silence]

Josh where did you get the flags for your names?

[irish44j]

Josh where did you get the flags for your names?

I'll find the site....some random place located in Estonia, lol. I think they were 8 bucks for a both-sides set. They're not spec size for SE30 or Rally America, though, but they can make other sizes.

[irish44j]

That was the nice thing about having the track on our property (pasture) in Alabama - though I really didn't spend a lot of time practicing even though I had the opportunity.

BTW, you wouldn't happen to have an inner door sill for the front doors of a 4-door? It's the door sill / threshold that holds the edge of the carpet down. The two front doors (Left & Right) are the same part number. I think the 2-door is a longer version of the same plastic extrusion, which i could cut to length. It'd get me one step closer to my WRX. ;)

I'll look, but I"m betting mine were all cracked and broken so I threw them out.

[irish44j]

A bit of fun today. Using some random materials (including some square tubing, a few big washers, some kind of engine bay bracket from an e30, and a big urethane bushing from some vehicle long forgotten) I fabbed up a little project I've been wanting to do for a while: A camera mount that sits behind and a bit to the side of the car to give a "whole car" view when it's on course.

And yes, I did drill a 1" diameter hole in the back corner of the body. Because cheap rallykar, lol. Anyhow, hope it results in some cool video. It feels pretty solid. I had initially wanted to mount it to the rear bumper, but it flexes a good bit and would have caused a lot more vibrations I think. We'll see how this works.

If you can't tell in the pics, the bar goes through the rear corner of the car's bodywork and bolt to a bracket off the inner wheel well. The bushing at the bodywork (the big red thing) has a smaller nub that fits in the hole, and the tube runs through the middle of it tightly. A washer is welded on the top to hold it in place.

More pics tomorrow when it's light out....

[phenryiv1]

Insert Guinness advertisement voice: "Brilliant!"