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

[Smrtpunk]

Thanks for getting back! I should be good with that.

Ian

[deutschman]

I really love all the work and driving in this thread. Real good stuff.

[irish44j]

Thanks....so let me pose a question to those who are following this thread....

Now that I'm putting the IE setup with the 2.5" springs on, it looks like my bilstein dust boots most likely aren't going to fit inside the springs. So the options are:

1. go without and count on the cap and the shock tube seals to do the job.
2. find something that will fit inside and somehow rig it up
3. go with an exterior dustboot (e.g. outside of the spring) like some baja guys do.

Thoughts?

[stonea]

I like the idea of outer dust boots

[SkiFree]

2. find something that will fit inside and somehow rig it up

E21 power steering boot, no joke. I'll send over the part number tomorrow.

[irish44j]

E21 power steering boot, no joke. I'll send over the part number tomorrow.

thx. funny part is I just sold an e21 with a couple spare boots, lol.

that said, talking to rally guys, it seems that most suggest to run no boots, to make it easier to clean the piston afte events. After taking apart my current setup (with boots), the boots had tons of dirt and stuff inside of them so they really weren't doing jack.

I'll probably use baja-style spring jackets at events and not use anything on the street, now that I've gotten a close look at how good the collar and shock seals are.

[irish44j]

Ok well let's get this on. Suspension arrived today, as well as some nuts and bolts and stuff I ordered from McMaster.



First thing was to take apart the old suspension. Everything still in good shape after 2 seasons of beating, amazingly.

As you can see, there was quite a bit of crud on everything:




more interestingly, a lot of stuff had gotten under the dust boots, which again supports my thought that I'll just do without from here on out, and make sure to clean the shock shaft after events.



The offset top hats once cleaned up were pristine, though a lot of dust and stuff had gotten into the bearing. I spent some time cleaning the bearing, got the action nice and smooth, dried it all out, and regreased. Looks like new now.



For this setup, since I'm not lowering the car I'll just re-use the stock perch to mount the lower threaded section. I don't need the whole perch (and it makes adjusting more cumbersome) so out with the grinder and off with it!





And then some assembly. These fronts are 8" 250lb springs with tender springs so they stay aligned under fool droop. Also got fixed camber plates. With the car going up, I want to maintain the 2.5* or so I'm running right now with the offset top hats at the lower height.





Before installation, I used a die to chase the threads on the balljoint and the one tie-rod end I'm going to re-use, and put on new locknuts (note that the tie-rod ends use a 1.0 pitch thread - so can't really get these at the local auto parts store). I just ordered bags of a few sizes that I use on the suspension, because you can never have too many of "the right size" nuts and bolts



So, bolted it all up, no problemo.

Here's the camber plate and installed...





blingy for now





So granted the car hasn't been driven so it will settle, but after bouncing up and down on the bumper for a while, the height with the adjusters near the bottom is about the height I was at before, if not 1/2" higher. I'll do measurements after driving the car and letting things settle. But that's good news, since the old height was as low as I'll ever want to go, while now I have the ability to go up a few inches if I want to do some trail-running, or a rough course, or go with larger tires. Time will tell. Bouncing on the car it certainly feels more firm than the old setup, but not "stiff" and definitely not as stiff as the WRX (on 330# springs).



So that's it for now. More once I do the rears and get it back on the road I guess...

[irish44j]

Ok, got the rest of the suspension on, including new tie rod ends (which were on clearance at RockAuto for $13, in case anyone needs some)



Install was easy, though I inverted the setup from how I've seen it on other cars, with the adjuster on top. First this should keep it from caking up with as much dirt and mud, but more importanly it allowed it to seat better. When mounted to the bottom, it wasn't really clearing the spring well and that setup made me pretty nervous. Doing it the other way seems to work better.





Unsprung comparison with the H&R sports



Here's how it sits at the moment



A few pages back I did some measurements of the H&R setup which were as follows:

Height from hub center to wheel arch
LF: 14 1/8"
RF: 14 3/8"
LR: 13 3/8"
RR: 13 1/4"

Static camber
LF: -1 3/4
RF: -2
LR: -2 1/8
RR: -2 1/8

Current measurements as I have it set now. Fronts are where I want them. Rears will go down about 1/2" or so I think. I have about 3/4" additional "lowering" on each end I can do (and several inches going up if I want to for some reason)

Height from hub center to wheel arch
LF: 14 1/2"
RF: 14 1/2"
LR: 14 3/8"
RR: 14 2/8"

Static camber
LF: -2 1/4
RF: -2 1/4
LR: - 1
RR: -1

So I lost about a degree of negative camber in the back by going up one inch in height.

So took it for a quick test drive. Initial impressions:

Car is on winterforces so handling so everything is pretty vague, but it's clearly much flatter in cornering and dive and pitch when braking/accelerating. I didn't notice any significant difference in ride quality over bumps, but that said it's damn near impossible to find a rough dirt road or torn-up road here in Fairfax - I'll have to go farther out and find some rough stuff at some point. Definitely feels good though - as if the rates go well with the Billie HDs. Rear is actually softer than I expected. Front about what I expected.

Also while on test-drive I got to check two other things:

First, the on-wiper sprayers actually work great, even at highway speeds. In fact, they work way better than the OEM setup. So pretty pleased with that improvisation working out!

Second, water temp gauge works well. I was showing 205* water temp after driving around hard for 20 minutes, which is right where it should be considering the weather, etc. So, another mission accomplished.

[irish44j]

one other mini-mod. side vent ducting has been deleted, so why not make use of the old vents instead of just having a hole there. I know some guys put a gauge there, but I don't need any more gauge spots. So....take all the vent stuff out of the housing, block off the back end of the vent, and it's a perfect size to stick your iPod, phone, or other small stuff - especially if your car is stripped out and doesn't have a center console or other handy places to stash phone, wallet, cigs, or whatever..

[ScottyB]

Thanks for posting your suspension choice! I had no idea what to go with on the spring values. You made me go from being a lurker to registering. I am ordering mine today.

Forgive me if I missed it but do you know the overall weight of the car at this point?

[irish44j]

Not precisely. Based on the stock weight an what I've removed/added/etc I'd expect it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 2200lbs, give or take. I need to find someone local with scales, or just go hit the dump scales one of these days...

As to the rates....admittedly it will be a while before I now if I chose the correct rates for rallycross. They feel pretty good, but it's a limited sample size on admittedly pretty smooth roads. Feel

[ScottyB]

Ok thanks. Ours is at 2211 w/o driver when I weighed it last weekend but that's with a 2.7 m20 so maybe a little heavier in the front? I will probably start with the same values. At least we have a lot of choices in springs with this setup.

[irish44j]

Ok thanks. Ours is at 2211 w/o driver when I weighed it last weekend but that's with a 2.7 m20 so maybe a little heavier in the front? I will probably start with the same values. At least we have a lot of choices in springs with this setup.

mine may be lighter than 2200 then (the M20 guys that drive my car constantly comment on how light it is). Figure the M42/G240 setup is about 100lbs lighter than the M20/G260 setup, plus the 318 also has small case diff, which is lighter than the medium case in 6cyl cars.

I just say 2200 because once you start claiming lighter than that, people start calling bullshit on you unless you actually have weighed it, and I don't want to deal with that, lol.

That said, my seats are pretty heavy, and I have dash and bumpers and lights and such. Not sure how much you guys have removed.

[ScottyB]

I have been inspired by your thread so we started our own. Thanks for sharing.

[irish44j]

A bit of work tonight. Drove the car quite a bit last weekend. The suspension feels good overall, but I noticed on hard turn-ins to parking lots and stuff that there was a bit of a little "crunch" at the rear end (no noise from the front end).

After some inspection, looks like when the spring goes from full droop to full compression, it was making a bit of contact to the very bottom of the threaded collar



Since I will NEVER need it threaded that far down, I took off an inch of so of the threaded section with a hacksaw. Haven't test-driven it yet, but from what I can tell this should eliminate the contact to the thread.