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

[dnick]

looking forward to see this!

[irish44j]

In the spirit of 1980s amateur motorsports, I bring you the 1980s Mr.T t-shirt seat cover.

Because sweaty back on black leather Porsche seats is unsatisfactory

[A Sucked Orange]

Looks sweet. How did you get the SCCA cover? Neato.

[irish44j]

SCCA cover?

[irish44j]

a few days to go, and more or less wrapping up "stage 1" of this car: Stage 1 being "make sure it can get to the course, survive the day, and get me back home." We shall see.

In the meantime took a couple hours tonight to further read the excellent build thread for the Vorshlag $2010 Grassroots Motorsports challenge car. I feel like I've accomplished alot on this car in a short time, but when I read their thread its pretty humbling how much they did with about half the money in half the time with about 10x the performance, lol.

Also reinforces the fact that I WILL be taking a welding class in the near future and buying some welding gear. So much I could do if I could weld. Should have learned how to 20 years go........grr.

For those who haven't read the thread, I think it's on several forums - I've been reading the one on corner-carvers, which seems to be a well-informed forum of guys with alot of car knowledge.

http://forums.corner-carvers.com/showthread.php?t=42099&highlight=vorshlag

So, after my eyes got tired from their pics and text (which puts this thread to shame!), got to a few other little details on my own subtle build

1. On large bumps the exhaust bangs on the underside of the car at the flange connecting the front and rear sections. I tinkered around with the muffler hangars (spacing the entire muffler down about 1/2" to keep IT from hitting the heatshield above it), and the whole exhaust was down farther off the car. But, the worn rear pipe hanger (which comes off the rear subframe) is pretty shot and has a 1/2" or so gap above the metal hangar, allowing the whole pipe to move upward on a hard bump and bang the bottom of the car.

The easy way would be to get a new hangar. But too late for that at the moment, since that odd design doesn't seem to be present in the local parts store, of course.

So filled the gap with a couple pieces of cut fuel injection hose, zip-tied in place. This keeps the exhaust from moving up. We'll see how long that solution lasts. I'll get the right hangar next week after the event, most likely.

2. Had some worries, mentioned earlier, about the throttle cable. It was kinked in one place, and the adjuster piece was snapped. Plus the bushing at the pedal linkage was all worn out. $20 for replacement cable and bushing, put it all back in. Can't feel much difference, but it's peace of mind....don't want the cable to break or seize or anything, that would suck.

Also noticed more German ingenuity - the butterfly/TB cable pull piece has a plastic insert. The cable end can be attached at the bottom or higher up on this insert, presumably to change the pedal effort on throttle. There's also a double cable hangar, allowing different angle approached for the cable as well (not sure what difference that would make though, really. Anyhow, I just used the standard locations, but something to tinker with at some point.

new vs. old - you can see the broken adjuster piece on the right


old vs. new - note cable kink/stretch at bottom


cable adjustment/attachment plate. It's a 2-piece thing, to allow the cable end to be removed. It snaps together and seems to be holding ok, but I wrapped it up with a piece of electrical tape just to make sure it all stays together ok. The p/o had it wrapped the same way



new cable, bushing, etc.



Now just starting to load up my stuff, make a list of things I want to bring, etc. I'm pretty happy about how huge this car's trunk is....it can hold about twice as much as the WRX, which is a much bigger car overall :)

But now, all is quiet tonight...

[FunfGan]

Btw, I'd move the throttle to the lower spot. Much harder to push, but feels much much better and gives more response.

[irish44j]

you mean the higher spot? It's on the lower spot providing a longer lever arm and more pedal travel needed for throttle input.

Remember, I daily drive a Subaru so I'm used to light throttle pedal. And my GT6 pretty much has a hair-trigger throttle. I once drove a Z3M and couldn't modulate it at all it was so damn heavy on the pedal. Spun it twice on course, lol..

But, may play around with it after this event.

How is the SpencerStuart ride coming along? You guys gonna be all ready?

[FunfGan]

you mean the higher spot? It's on the lower spot providing a longer lever arm and more pedal travel needed for throttle input.

Remember, I daily drive a Subaru so I'm used to light throttle pedal. And my GT6 pretty much has a hair-trigger throttle. I once drove a Z3M and couldn't modulate it at all it was so damn heavy on the pedal. Spun it twice on course, lol..

But, may play around with it after this event.

How is the SpencerStuart ride coming along? You guys gonna be all ready?

Yep! Just an oil change and some hitting of a hammer away haha. Spencer got the front suspension back on yesterday.

[irish44j]

Packing up a bit, since I have other things to do tomorrow and don't want to be up all night before the event, especially on St.Paddy's. Damn I'm bringing alot of stuff, 3x as much as I'd bring for any autocross.....some spare hardware, tons of tools, electrical stuff, air tank, spare clothes/shoes, etc. Plus a cooler, set of wheels + spare, jack, piece of wood for under the jack, helmet, GoPro stuff, etc etc.

The more amazing part is that half this amount of stuff used to take every bit of space in the WRX for autocrosses - that car was packed to the gills when I wasn't bringing much at all other than wheels and a few basic things.

In the e30, damn there's alot of trunk space, even with the full-size spare in there. And still plenty of room that I'll need on the way home, since a buddy coming to the event is bringing me a box full of random e30 parts that he has sitting around his garage.

I was going to bring my pop-up shelter as well - there is plenty of room for it. But I forgot I loaned it to a buddy at the last autocross last season and don't think I got it back from him yet. doh.

Back end is really squatting at this point with these soft springs. I could probably stick my whole head into the front wheel gap at this point, haha..

in the box...


fully packed, except a cooler that will go up front


btw, repainted the two white wheels to a gunmetal. Because the black-and white thing did look pretty wierd as many remarked...


In terms of the car, it's pretty much ready to go I guess. Still getting a drip from the transmission rear seal and/or the shifter input rod seal, but shouldn't be an issue. Also a small leak from one side of the diff (the side that I didn't replace the seal of). And the fuel pump is humming a bit - not sure if it was doing it before and I just didn't notice, or if that's new. Just a low-volume hum, so hopefully will be ok for the time being - probably something worth replacing in the near future.

[irish44j]

and yeah, I have to bring the race jack dammit. Neither of my little floor jacks that I use for autocross actually can go high enough to get this 4x4 off the ground, lol....

[irish44j]

packed and ready to go. 250lbs of wheels, tires, and other stuff in the trunk = saggy butt. Hope my alarm actually wakes me up at 5:30am...ugh.

[irish44j]

Event #1 COMPLETE!

Today's event at Summit Point had a good turnout (about 50 cars), and the weather was perfect. Unfortunately, Stuart and Spencer (who have a 318is) couldn't get the car up there today due to lack of tags/trailer, so I let them co-drive mine (with trepidation!). Ironically, one of them got to do the first run in my car, not me, lol. All I asked of them is not to break it!

Anyhow, the course was alot of fun - water truck early, dried out late. Morning runs were around 60 seconds for the really fast guys (my best was about 69 seconds). At the lunchbreak we had 5 runs complete. I was about 30 seconds behind the class leader in an RX-7 (who won the class last year), and about 7 total seconds behind the 2nd place car (another RX-7). I was ahead of my co-drivers, and the co-drivers for both of the RX-7s.

Morning course was fairly soft and got rutted up later in the session, but overall was a nice setup, and aside from my complete lack of power killing me exiting a few slow transitions I thought the car handled pretty well. It was blanced with a slight nod toward oversteer, rotated well when I wanted it to, and overall felt very light on its feet.

I was running about 33psi cold on the rally tires, which is higher than the more experienced guys do. Wanted to be sure not to de-bead as I learned this car, but I think I'll drop a bit next time out. Traction really wasn't a major issue though, I feel like I had plenty of it.....the lack of power really killed me. I need to learn to carry more speed through slow transitions - hard to do since I'm a WRX/V6 guy who is used to power on-tap when I want it, lol.

In the afternoon the reversed the course and changed up alot of it. It was VERY hardpack, pretty rough, and very fast on a long downhill multi-slalom into a R-L-R sweeper. I was probably more tentative on the downhill than I should have been, and on the 2nd run I tried to adjust, carried too much speed, and LTO'd around (but managed to stay on course after a stop/drift backwards/go evolution).

We'll see how the times end up when they're posted.

A few things I learned about my driving:
- need to work on carrying exit speed
- need to work on using the rear end to line me up better
- need a keep the car in its powerband better, though gearing is going to make that difficult.

A few things about the car:
- car made it through with no damage or anything that I can tell, and the drive home was fine (though I might need to tweak the alignment).
- I did get an occasional clunk from the right rear (as did my co-drivers), but couldn't pinpoint when or why it was happening specifically. Will inspect to make sure all the subframe stuff is fully tightened up, then check for other things.
- I need to put this magnaflow on. Not being able to hear the exhaust over the rocks/gravel/wind noise sucks. And it's boring.
- Steering wasn't as much of an issue as I thought it would be. I will still put the e36 rack on, but I didn't have any trouble with trying to make quick moves on steering, that I noticed.
- Remember to seal up the trunk side-sill vents. My entire trunk had a 1/2" of dust inside it after the runs. doh.
- Car height is good. Looks like my skid only contacted anything once, since there's a muddy smear on one side of it. I'd say only 4 or 5 other cars there had more overall ground clearance than I did.

All in all, had a great time and found that rallycross is SO much more fun than autocross (which I've loved for years). Even in a 100hp M10 e30, I enjoyed today's driving more than I've ever enjoyed a day of autocross (100+ events). Overall a well-setup event that ran on time, ran without a hitch (other than a few course adjustments and a subie that blew out a LCA/axle on his first run), and the weather was beautiful. Standing in a scenic field with barns and trees nearby is preferable than standing on a hot parking lot :)

Also I like how the course changes on every run. From runs 1 to 5, the course required TOTALLY different driving technique due to compacting, material relocation, rutting, etc. Keeps it interesting.

ok, so here's a couple vids of the course (am and pm sessions), and some random pics. There were a few REAL photographers there, so these are just a few snaps from my compact camera. The ones of my car are with one of the co-drivers running, obviously.

vid:


scenic Summit Point


kickin it




the 4-person ETA team, who ran strong (not sure if I beat them or not). They get a hell of alot of action out of a 4200-rpm redline. ONe of them said they had to go into 4th on occasion!!


through the trees


muddddded


the ETA guys had the radiator crack or something, just thought this was an epic pic


at lunch, swung through the main circuit paddock. It was apparently supercar day there....R8s, GT-Rs, Porches, and other things I can never afford were all over the place.

I did get a funny look from a SpecE30 racer (older gentleman) who drove by me the opposite direction in the paddock, lol.

yum




cruisin' home with the GC 2.5RS boys..two of the fastest cars of the day, I'm betting.

[irish44j]

oops, here's the vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINRjpC-xBY&feature=youtu.be

[FunfGan]

Thanks again Josh! Car felt awesome, especially for this being the first outing in it. Curious to see how the "real" rally tires on your car compares to the snow tires we'll be running.

[shEck3lls0]

Thank you as well. Made my weekend. Let me know if you ever need anything. Appreciate letting us beat it up in your car... I mean, be very careful as we drive around the course leisurely.