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

[irish44j]

of note, I'm also running oil temp and oil pressure gauges in this car now, so I'll have a bit more insight into "what the oil is doing" than a stock e30 driver would have :)

[irish44j]

been slacking a bit on the updates....mostly because I'm pretty close to "ready" for the season at this point (and just bought my season membership today!), but also because I had a minor snafu....



yeah, that's a big-ass burn. Was welding on my skidplate (mostly just for practice, since I don't care about it). Stopped to talk to the wife. Then went to lean over to pick up the gloves again, stumbled a bit, and put my hand down DIRECTLY on the weld I had just done. Serious suckage.

Anyhow, took good care of it for a couple days and hand is almost back to normal.....will surely have a nice scar to show for it though, lol. Lesson learned.

On to one of the few remaining projects: the exhaust. I'm swapping the magnaflow for a stock muffler since I'm going to get a ticket....the M42 with no resonator and the magnaflow is just too loud and raspy and annoying-sounding. Will throw a stocker on there and figure out something later to make the car sound good.

So, had to adapt the M42 exhaust to fit correctly on the car, since it's a different arrangement of hangars, and the one on there didn't work well...held the exhaust too low.

So, I cut off the original hangar bracket from the M10 exhaust:



welded it onto the M42 in the spot I wanted it. My first "functional" weld. Not beautiful, but it is strong. Bashed the hell out of it with a hammer to check, lol.

Also switched to .030 wire from the .035. It seems to work much better and I'm starting to figure out the settings on this welder that work ok. Still have much practice to do!





still have to get it all hooked up to the rest of the system.

So within an hour of registration opening, 21 cars signed up for the first event - including most of our team. Right now 19 subies, 7 BMWs, and 2 front-drivers. Looks like Shawn, who won modified RWD last year in the RX7, is moving to modified front this year in an '86 Celica (which I think he's co-driving). Bit sad on this, as I wanted to see this season if another year of experience and the work I've done on the car were enough to catch up to him, but guess I'll never know. Roberto in the PR-champ RX7 (also driven by Gorka for 2nd in MR) is moving to MR this season, and has improved his car somewhat as well. Nick and Pat/Jason have been doing a lot to their cars as well, so looks like it should be a competitive bunch in MR this year.

The blue ETA (Scott, Helgesen, Spoth, etc) got some upgrades as well and will be running 2 drivers in PR and 1 in MR this year. Scott, the first e30 rallycrosser I met, isn't doing it this year - I think he wants to spend more time on the track and maybe his back isn't holding up to the rallycross beating. Also too bad, always enjoyed his conversation and sass at the events.

Looks like Jesse is the only e30 in RWD Stock this year, so wonder if he'll bump up to run with the rest of us or not.

[irish44j]

put the whole exhaust together today, after doing some welding (which I'm happy to say I'm getting better at, though they're still not too pretty).

Decided after much research to pick up a Dynomax Super Turbo muffler, since they were on sale at the local auto parts store AND I had a $10 off coupon. So for $45 picked it up. Nice and small, and have heard good things about the sound on M42 cars.

Keep in mind, this is some wierd non-stock catback I have that doesn't fit all that well, so I just patched it together to get it to fit. It also has no resonator in it.

After getting it all together, went for a drive. It actually sounds great at all throttle levels, and there is little to no rasp whatsoever. That said, it's still a bit louder than I'd like in this county, where enforcement is pretty strict.

I looked around trying to find a small resonator, but the way the b-pipe is made there's really no place to put one longer than about 8-10", which sucks.

Luckily, I happened to just find someone on R3V who is selling me the rear pipe, a stock one with the stock resonator. So it's cheaper than buying a resonator AND is the correct shape to fit in my heat sheilded area/"exhaust tunnel" correctly. The OEM resonator should bring the sound level down to where I want it.

Overall, pretty pleased with the progress. The exhaust is "almost" there with just over 4 weeks to go before the first event :)

pics:
First weld. Some splatter, but not terrible :)




cheated and used some reducers since the inlet pipe wasn't the right size...




blackout


installed. as you can see, this particular pipe doesn't follow the stock exhaust route, and sits too low (lowest point of the car, basically)



will work out a permanent hanger setup once I get the new pipe in


so, this is the garage after a week of working on stuff and not cleaning...


so spent the rest of the day cleaning...


Lexy went with me to the parts store. I wasn't buying paint, but she really wanted some yellow engine paint, lol


out front spotted a very nice Peugeot 505sti....nice

[phenryiv1]

What inlet/outlet size is that muffler? And what is the model number?

Lexy has good taste in paint colors!

[irish44j]

model 17731

inlet and outlet are 2 1/4"
inlet is offset
outlet is centered

but they have about 2 dozen different configurations of that muffler....I just got what they had at the local store.....could have ordered one for more $$ to fit a bit better.

[phenryiv1]

model 17731

inlet and outlet are 2 1/4"
inlet is offset
outlet is centered

but they have about 2 dozen different configurations of that muffler....I just got what they had at the local store.....could have ordered one for more $$ to fit a bit better.

Thanks. I found a couple 2.5/2.5 options. I might have to grab one.

[irish44j]

weather was a bit nicer today, with some sun to go with the 35 degrees. Time for some little projects.

First: I require a cupholder when I drive. Period. Screw those universal fit ones at the auto parts store. Let's get some 3" PVC pipe:



Cut it and do some profile grinding.



Use some marine epoxy to secure it in place. Cometically ghetto. Functionally excellent for bottles, cups, or whatever.




Second thing. Once again the speedo seems to be not working. The old "jiggle the plug" trick doesn't work any more. I'm tired of dealing with it. It's old BMW.....it will just break again. So we'll do this the easy way:



Did a few other little things, and then decided to go ahead and install the old-school hitch. I don't have anything to use with it at the moment (other than a bike rack that usually goes on the 4Runner), but eventually plan to either make for buy a rack/basket to carry a gearbox on so I don't have to cram every corner of the car with gear on event days. Or might get a cheap HF trailer. ANyhow, this hitch ain't exactly hardcore. It's a Class III, with a tongue weight of 200lbs and tow weight of 2000lbs. Basically it just bolts to the bottom of the bumper and the bottom of the spare tire well. I may add a vertical steel piece to tie into the middle rear trunk support, just because I'm paranoid, lol.





tested it by sticking an old roof rack bar in it and jumping up and down on it (I weigh about 175)....seemed fine.



Also I had previously tucked the bumpers, but never got around to "pinning" the pistons, so when another e30 guy bumps me in grid line from an angle, my bumper pops out on one side, lol. Can't have that now that the hitch is bolted to it.

There are "difficult" ways to do it, but I just did the easy way. Drilled some holes in the bumper, used them to access the pistons, drilled a hole in them, put a bolt through. I'll get some rubber plugs to go in the bumper holes (or maybe I just won't...)

[MattAvino]

(or maybe I just won't...)

Story of my life.

[irish44j]

Got an email today from Norbert Schneider, who runs the RG318is Cup series in Germany, as I've talked about before. A couple weeks ago I mailed him some of our team Dirty e-Thirties stickers, plus an SCCA RallyCross banner and some stickers - as payback for the decal set he previously sent me.

He said they just started their rally season last week and he finished 3rd in an event defined mostly by snow and ice....sounds like much fun :)

Also he asked if I was using a DME chip (I have a Conforti Chip) and offered to send me one of the chips they run in their spec rally cars, which apparently raise the rev limiter to 8000rpm and have an "optimal" torque curve for the M42 318. So I'm definitely interested in that, if the M42 can hold that kind of revs safely. AFAIK they run otherwise stock engines (except for exhaust and perhaps intakes), so if they're running full rallies reliably, should be fine for rallycross. Anyhow, I inquired further :)

[irish44j]

Currently two big things are coming UPS and will arrive next week: the rest of the exhaust, and a skidplate. Will talk about the latter when it arrives, as it should be an upgrade over what I have now in several ways.

In the meantime, with no big projects on the car to do, I pulled the trigger on the trailer idea. Initially I had thought of putting a "rack" coming off the tow hitch, but I'd be very limited in weight and it generally just didn't seem like a great idea with this small hitch. So trailer it was. The obvious choice is the small Harbor Freight 4x4 mini-trailer, which is pretty popular with track guys. Always makes me chuckle seeing a track-built Z06 going to Summit towing a $200 HF trailer with nothing but 4 tires on it :)

But now I'm going to do that. The e30 can fit all my gear in the car, but packing and unpacking is a real hassle and there's no room for other things I'd like to bring but don't "need."

HF had the trailers on sale for $220 this week, so I planned to head down there today to get one. But, then one popped up on NASIOC. Actually being sold by a fellow rallycrosser who just (with his wife), completed a round trip DC-to-Guatemala-to-Oregon-to-DC road rally. In Oregon he bought the trailer to haul back some stuff he picked up there, and then put it up for sale when he arrived. I ended up getting the trailer, already assembled with a deck, plus a new spare tire, for the price of one new at HF, so that was a good deal I think.

as bought:


Anyhow, went out and met Matt to pick it up, and towed it home with the 4runner. Incidentally, behind the 4Runner it is totall invisible...can't see it, can't hear it, even when turning lol.

Got it home and immediately started to work. I had already done some research on GRM and other places on different packing methods, and decided on one that would give me the most flexibility to carry what I wanted to.

So, stage 1....tire/wheel rack. Some people just drop them down in the "void" area between the rails, but I didn't really like that setup exactly, so went with a variation on it. Welded some angle iron pieces at the desired spread to hold the wheels where I want them. This allowed me to put them a few inches further forward than using the "opening" on the trailer, which balances them over the axle better. Right now I only need about 10lbs of weight on the front to have good balance, and I'll probably have 50-75lbs of gear up there at least for the appropriate tongue weight.



test fit. This is not how I'll tie them down, though this method they do not move, even if I push them to the side as hard as possible.



temporarily cut and reused the floor piece previously on it. I have some other plans, so that won't be there for long.

[unevolved]

Looks good!

[irish44j]

more on the trailer today. Picked up some 2" angle iron to complete a front wedge/platform to give a bit more space to the trailer. While I was at Lowes I checked out the various Husky pickup truck gearboxes they had there, but that's more than I want to spend on this. Instead, went with a Contico box. Much cheaper, just as useful and probably tougher anyhow.



also fits small children well, lol



went to work mocking up the front section.



then welded it all up. Also added a piece of wood as a center support for the floor.



Found some beefy plywood back in the shed, and cut out a floor



will eventually paint it and install some tiedowns, but here's a mockup of it all put together. I like the front wedge, gives a place to stash the spare, and some room for other stuff that I might want to bring along...

[phenryiv1]

Aren't you glad I told you about that trailer?

[irish44j]

yes, you saved me about $40 :)

[kts]

I REALLY like your trailer setup. Nice fab work with the welding and plywood floor.