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

[irish44j]

Today I ran up to Germantown to work on the ChumpETA with the guys and pick up the trailer, since it was still at Chris's place after they towed up to Watkins Glen a couple weeks ago. A variety of little projects on that in preparation for Chump Summit Point in 2 weeks. Some random pics from that.



Chris the master fabricator, sketching out his design for a sheetmetal intake scoop for our new headlight delete plates


the shop


some paint touch-up after a few contacts at the Glen


When I got home I just loaded up the rallycrosser on the trailer so it takes up less driveway space until next weekend's 2-day day/twilight rallycross. A few minor issues still with the short ramps making a bad angle on the back of the trailer (it's not a dovetail), but I'm fabbing something up tomorrow to take care of that. Also found that I have to be creative with the rear straps since the 318 exhaust is not in the same place as the 325 exhaust, so I have to route the straps differently. But whatever....just a pic.

[irish44j]

So I've been slacking a bit on this, but since I'm sitting at a 4-hour layover at the airport in San Fran, might as well do some updates. Since last I posted, our 2-day rallycross was postponed due to excessive flooding of the venue. Since I'm not one to check my messages at 5am, of course I towed the car 2.5 hours into the mountains to get there, not knowing I had three messages telling me not to. Ooop.....

I did run the tow rig and trailer through the course though so not all was lost. :)





In any case, that event is now taking place on July 12th weekend, so basically 4 days after I get back from a 10-day work trip to Hawaii. I'm sure my wife and kids will be thrilled to have me gone for the weekend immediately.

In the meantime, we also ran the Chumpcar race at Summit Point last weekend in the ETA. All started off well, with us actually leading the pack for the first 2 hours in the rain (when the power cars coudln't use their power). As it dried out we dropped to 3rd for the next 4 hours (including my driving stint). I really enjoy Shenandoah Circuit personally - lots of curves and well-suited to cars that handle well and brake well, and power isn't quite as important as it is at most other tracks.

Unfortunately, our 4th driver got a bit too agressive on a pass and spun the car backwards into a concrete wall, thus ending our weekend. Fortunately he was unhurt and actually drove a lap afterwards, not knowing the damage was so bad, lol.... Car is likely reparable, but we'll see. That's racing, eh?







So that's the update for now. May have some interesting news soon relating to a future local event, but will wait until that's confirmed to say anything :)

[shiboujin]

How is that repairable? lol

[irish44j]

nothing was bent at all forward of the diff crossmember. It won't be "repairable to look stock" but for a Chumpcar who cares....we may just chop it and make the car into a e30 "compact" lol. this isn't drift where the car has to look all pretty and stuff ;)

Alternately, Chris is a master metalworker (literally, he has metalworking machines bigger than an e30)....so if we really want to make it "look' repaired, he could likely graft a new rear end on from a junked e30.

Again, we'll see. It'll come down to what is less expensive: repair, or get a new shell and have to do a new cage, etc etc...

[irish44j]

we weren't the only e30 with damage. Another one is a total loss with much less visible damage....direct hit on the front shock tower, pushed it over almost 6" inward :O

[95maxrider]

Damn, that really sucks about the Chump car :( Glad everyone's okay though. I will see you next weekend! Let me know if you want to get another hotel room ;)

[irish44j]

Event #4 in the books. Write-up later this week when I get a chance, but here's a quick list of "things I learned" at this weekend's 2-day rallycross:

1. An e30 can survive over 60 total runs on a brutal course with no damage....

2. .....But the rear DMack rally tires will go from 70% tread to approximately racing slicks (fronts hardly wore at all).

3. A guy in a new Lotus Evora will chase a $1000 rallycross car down on the highway, only to slow down next to it and give a thumbs-up :)

4. If the guy who is 7 seconds ahead of you breaks his suspension after 5 runs, and you loan him your car for the other 20+ runs of the event....you will lose to him by 7 seconds in the end. Seriously.

5. On a rough, slidey, high-speed gravel course my car can hang with and/or beat all of the stock AWD cars and many of the PA and M4 cars when driven well.

6. There is no auto parts store within a 100-mile radius of Frostburg, MD that carries a rear strut for an e28 BMW (Nick).

7. When it's a steamy 90 degrees in DC, it's a comfortable 75 degrees with a nice breeze in Frostburg.

8. A suction-mount GoPro mounted to the front of the room CAN come off during a run, and somehow fly through the air and stick itself onto the trunk of the car, still pointing forward. And its owner CAN spend 20 minutes searching through a tall field looking for it before it is discovered on the trunk of the car (video coming ... it was Nick's GoPro on my car).

9. As always, the WDCR rallycross crew is always willing and able to lend a hand in tough situations that come up at a long-weekend event.

10. Do not go behind a late-model STi, or you will be dodging fender liners multiple times throughout the day on course.

11. I drive faster with music blaring.

12. Specifically, Iron Maiden's Wasted Years and 2 Minutes to Midnight are the fastest songs in my arsenal, according to my research over 25 runs of various music.

13. Letting a friend race your car when his breaks is a good thing. Losing to him sucks, but I'll stock the karma away for future use.

14. The time you don't trailer the car to an event is the time you really wish you had a trailer and tow rig with you...

15. Mountainous gravel fields, when not used for a month, grow tall, prickly plants everywhere. And when it's the middle of summer and all you bring are shorts and ankle socks, you're gonna pay for it - count on it.

When there's a 15mph breeze, a dusty surface, and a 180* turnaround, you WILL end up driving into the smokescreen you made coming the other direction, and if you're lucky you won't run over any course workers and will manage to find the next few gates. And you will brake in the middle of a straight transition section because you have no clue where the course is.

More recap, photos, etc at some point......

[irish44j]

So, for anyone who wants to look at results. Why I lost is pretty obvious: 30 total runs over 2 days. I hit 21 cones. Nick hit 6 cones. Our times otherwise were pretty similar across the board, whether he was driving his car or my car. Clearly he is good at avoiding cones in my car, since he's used to driving his bigger e28....

http://www.wdcr-scca.org/RallyCross/ResultsRX/WDCRRallyX420147121314/tabid/1810/Default.aspx

The one outlyer, I'll note, is that he laid down a 69-second run late on day 2 - that and the run after it were in the PR/MR 325e that the other guys run, and he was taking it easy. His last few runs in my car I asked him to take it easy too, since he had the victory locked up and I didn't want a late-day breakage of anything. So his times for the last few runs are intentionally slow (I was personally trying to break the 60-second mark clean, which I didn't quite due thanks to a Subaru STi wheel liner on the course that I had to avoid, but whatever...). I was pretty happy with how I was driving on the last couple runs. Fast and clean. Wish I could have done it when it mattered....:whatthe:

So, though on paper he beat me by 6 seconds over 30 runs....in reality he beat me by about 25 seconds or a bit more if he didn't let up at the end.

I have work to do...on the car and on my driving. Clearly.

We are currently discussing going to the Great Lakes Divisional Challenge next month instead of our local event. WOuld be interesting to try out a surface that is totally different from our surface. Will keep you posted......

[irish44j]

So some pics.....

So, here's what 60 runs on gravel will do to rally tires. My rears on the left. Fronts on the right. Fronts hardly wore at all...they were the same when I started..



Nick's e28 looking hella-stanced



the ETA boys



Jeremy Miller doing what Jeremy Miller does. He still won PA class by a mile...



Our fearless dirty leader



Into the dusty twilight





MF champ Nick Landis



my run group. lots 'o blue GCs



Miester Flick, flicking it...



Matt Peterson out with his stage rally car



Katie in the RX7 of death, coming toward me in the dust. Not even close to where the course it, but she couldn't see it...



more of Jeremy doing what he does

[irish44j]

So I pulled the skid to do an oil change today and found that once again its rubbing on the oil pan. It definitely took some very hard hits at the last event over 60 runs, and the rear edge got bent up a little bit.



Luckily, I have a tool that can fix that:



straight again



I'll also check out the motor mounts and other stuff this weekend to see if anything else broke from all the punishment.

In other news, I'm 99% sure now that I'm going to run at the Great Lakes Divisional Challenge in Ohio next month. It falls on the same day as one of our local points event, so I'll have to skip that one. We get 2 drop events this season (out of 9), so that'll be one, and the NEDiv Challenge at our home venue will be my other, since it doubles as a points event for WDCR, and I have to miss the first day.

The real question now is whether Nick will come to GLDiv challenge or stay home and run (and likely win) the WDCR event that weekend. If the latter, that will give him 3 wins and he can drop his 2 second-place finishes. I'll be left with 2 wins and 2 second place finishes with no drops left....so bascially I'd need to win pretty much every event from here on out, a tall order. Once again letting a top competitor use my car may come back to haunt me at the end of the season, but it's not like there's money on the line or anything, so I'm (mostly) ok with that, lol.

Given that dilemma, it's time to work on making the car better again. My driving doesn't seem to be improving much at this point, at least not enough. So time to go back to what I'm good at: making the car faster. In the near term:

1. Get my 80% fresh set of DMack rally tires from Nonack up in Jersey. Especially since 2 of my current tires are now shot. Fresh tires may not make much difference locally due to the surface, but they should help in the grass/dirt in Ohio at least.

2. Ordered some Ireland Engineering front swaybar bushings/reinforcing brackets. Not sure if these will give a tangible change in performance, but at worst I hope they give me a bit more response compared to the decades-old rubber sway bushings currently on the car. We'll see.

3. Ordered some IE rear spring spacers that give around 1/2" lift. The rear end of the car is taking a lot of hits and the diff and rear exhaust pipe spends a lot of time in the gravel. Getting the rear of the car up a bit won't hurt peace of mind, and the ground clearance could help out in the deep-gravel corners that really slow this car down. Again, we'll see.

I have a few other things in mind, but not sure what direction to go. Finances are pretty limited until the winter starts, so probably no giant changes. May play with alignment settings, a bit more weight reduction, and some other things. Will keep the thread updated, of course.....

[irish44j]

So it's official: the car is signed up for the Great Lakes Division National Challenge next month, with me and with Nick co-driving. Josh Sennett is also bringing the turbo e30 (maybe with a co-driver), and the Golden brothers are bringing their SA GC Imprezas.

It's going to be a steep learning curve on how to run on dirt and grass again after all this gravel. And from what I can tell the OVR MR guys are one of the most competitive in the country so hopefully we can keep up or at least not embarrass ourselves, lol. Still need to get my "new" tires down here from New Jersey somehow and find some wheels to mount them on :P

[2mAn]

please make that eta into a E30 compact!! haha

[irish44j]

Trust me, I've suggested it. The main problem is that the rear frame crossmember and the rear strut tower(s) are tweaked, so we have to see if it's possible to get everything straight enough to make it worthwhile to keep racing this car.

[95maxrider]

So it's official: the car is signed up for the Great Lakes Division National Challenge next month, with me and with Nick co-driving. Josh Sennett is also bringing the turbo e30 (maybe with a co-driver), and the Golden brothers are bringing their SA GC Imprezas.

It's going to be a steep learning curve on how to run on dirt and grass again after all this gravel. And from what I can tell the OVR MR guys are one of the most competitive in the country so hopefully we can keep up or at least not embarrass ourselves, lol. Still need to get my "new" tires down here from New Jersey somehow and find some wheels to mount them on :P

Doesn't Patrick have a nice big dirt field behind his house? Maybe we should try and get some practice before the event!

[irish44j]

So, with just over three weeks until Nick and I tackle the Great Lakes National Challenge event, it's time to get some things done. The more I watch the registration, the more I know this is definitely going to be a "challenge" to finish high in the MR field there. So far there are four Miatas - Evan, who finished 2nd at nationals last year in his Turbo. His co-driver also looks to be just as fast, looking at some results. Then there is another Miata that took 2nd at the Dixie/SE National Challenge recently and has won every event in the Tennessee Valley Region this year. And then there's Pete in his RX7, and I've heard plenty about his driving over the past few years.

so yeah, the e30s are gonna have a seriously uphill battle on a surface/venue that is new to us, vs. some fast locals who know the venue well. Guess we'll see how it pans out, and make sure to have fun no matter what. And pray hard for a dry course, because that's the only way we're going to have a chance with our "heavy" cars (only time I've ever thought my car was "heavy" at ~2300lbs, lol).

So here's the lineup so far, and I expect another half-dozen MR cars to sign up before registration closes, so it's going to be quite the epic battle I hope.



So with that in mind, let's do some things to make the car better. Because making the car fast is what I'm best at, even if making my own driving fast is something that needs a lot more work.

First.....finally got my "new" tires from Chris. They've been sitting up there in Jersey for a couple months and finally just sent him money to ship them to me. And I'm pleasantly surprised that they are damn near new. This is the third set I've bought off the same stage rally team and these are, by far, the best tread of the group. A bit of wear on the edges, but otherwise I'm really pleased with them, they should bit hard.



as compared to what is left over from the last 60-run event, which is to say.....some nubs and some cords.



So will get those (plus three new trailer tires) mounted up this weekend once I grab a couple more bottlecaps from the junkyard or friends (Two of my old tires are still good, the ones that were on the front of the car, so will hang on to them)



Also picked up an Ireland Engineering front swaybar bushing/reinforcing bracket set. Not that it's super-important in rallycross, but the old ones were probably decades old and some improved response in the front end can't hurt

old vs new



installed



My middle exhaust hangar was literally torn in two at the last event. Local auto parts store wanted $9 to special order one. Instead I ordered 3 bosal ones from Rockauto for $6 total. Small victories, lol



Also put in some 1/3" spacers in the rear to lift it up just a little bit. Probably a waste of money since I could make these myself for about $2 in cutting boards from wal-mart...but every once in a while I catch myself with an impulse buy.whatever..



Current "stance" yo.....



Then did some trailer work, including some new 2x10 12' boards to get the car up and give better clearance off the back of the trailer as well as clearance for the door over the fender. Also as mentioned above, ordered three new tires to match my one new one currently on there (Goodyear radials this time) to get rid of the crappy flatspotted old ones that the p/o ruined....