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

[TeXJ]

I hate the new layout, no more email notifications.... rip

[Sirotto]

New layout has Gonaherpsiffilaids

[irish44j]

This layout still sucks, but I'll try to still post stuff here when I remember. I'm going *every* post in the Grassroots Motorsports forum builds sectoin, so feel free to follow it there.

No Porsche work other than regreasing the steering/horn ring that was making a bit of grindy noise. But it is running GREAT and I'm happy to be driving it again without worries.




Got our annual fire extinguisher certification. Very exciting, but necessary.




Jim came by today so we could check some stuff on the car, including making our ebrake work reasonably well for once, and trying to work out some bugs in our GoPro/audio input stuff that failed out at NEFR.




So the car has had a kind of light knocking noise from the driveline someplace, which is extremely hard to located. The best we could do was kind of locate it to the input flange of the diff, or the rear u-joint of the driveshaft, or maybe a CV axle. It's so faint when spinning the wheels by hand it's almost impossible to locate, but I can feel/hear it when driving - but only when clutch-in or out of gear coasting. So, it's something that is affected by "loading" of the driveline. So, yeah, all that stuff.

Well, I was going to be lazy and not do it, but seems as good a time as any to eliminate the diff as a culprit by swapping in the 4.10 rear end (the 3.73 was in the car due to its better gearing for rallycross to avoid having to use a 3rd gear shift). But for rally, the 4.10 is better gearing, so yeah. So, after much hassle getting it out (because the e36 driveshaft has a slip-joint on the FRONT of the CSB, so you have to uninstall the heat shields and crap to get to it, which I stupidly decided not to do initially)...




While it was out, decided to do what I'd been meaning to do for a while: make access holes to tighten the upper diff bolts that are a major PITA to get to otherwise. With the diff out, I drilled pilot holes straight up through the trunk floor and then used a holesaw to make them large enough for a 19mm socket, from the top...in the trunk just behind the bulkhead.







So yeah, that works pretty well and is immeasurably easier to tighten the upper bolts than it used to be!







Oh, and I had forgotten this, on the driveshaft.....




So....

After a quick drive, changing the diff didn't do anything for the knocking sound. While it was off I moved the U-joint on the DS around and it felt smooth and tight, so I really don't think it's the suspect. The CSB is almost brand-new so also unlikely to be bad. So that leaves me (probably) with one of the two CV axles - which have been on the car for years - or something farther forward toward the transmission. It's just really tough to tell. This transmisison is pretty noisy already, and G240s get the "Getrag Rattle" big time. Guess we'll see if this all holds up for STPR. I have a 2nd spare transmission out in the shed that I've never used, may drag that to STPR just in case.......

[econti]

put it on stands, run the car and look underneath while someone else drives it

[irish44j]

Yeah, it's almost certainly the rear u-joint on the driveshaft. It only makes the noise when not under load. Any load, and it's silent. So. I guess I'll just have to make sure to be on the throttle all the time at STPR :)

[Kershaw]

If more lighting is ever an issue, swapping in 5 3/4" LED flood lights for the high beams is really easy. Takes a bit more to fit Hayley Daymakers into the lows, but I know you can knock it out in an afternoon. You remember my lights, right? No reason to run ellipsoids when you can sell them off and switch to LED light systems for $0.

[irish44j]

lol, these are fake ellipsoids, I woudln't risk the real thing. That said, these actually have outstanding output, especially the lighting depth, on the low beams. I don't even use the high beams, honestly.

Guess we'll see how all the new lighting is at STPR next week, since there are several night stages :)

Side note, fixed the driveshaft noise. Looks like the CSB slipped and lost its preload. Once I positioned it correctly again, the slack in the ujoint went away and no noise again :)

[irish44j]

So, totally forgot to cross-post my recap from STPR here. It's was a good event and we ended up on the podium (2nd place in Open 2WD regional class), which is a big accomplishment for us against a very competitive field. There were a lot of crashes in this rally, and weather was hit and miss, but the car came through it flawlessly. I can't really copy my GRM post with all the details (since the image code gets all messed up), so please head over there if you want to read the details.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/fo...7/#post2828503

In the meantime, here are a few pics to keep you satisfied

No helmet, because we are on a transit, not a competition stage here...

















Here's a shot of Brian Battocchi towing out Paul and Ozgur's car after the crash. As you can see, it was a very hard hit but the cage did it's job. Ozgur had a pretty bad arm injury, but he's out of the hospital today and heading home, which is great news.

[mike.bmw]

Congrats on the podium finish!

[TeXJ]

Congrats on the podium!

[irish44j]

Event #7 and #3 (makeup) Recap


This weekend we had a double-event up at Panthera, our last at that location for the season. This was the regularly-scheduled Event 7 and also the make-up date for Event 3, so a lot on the line. The weather forecast looked sketchy, with a big storm expected there over the weekend. For that reason, only about half or a bit more of the typical attendees showed up, but among those were all of the Mod RWD top drivers with our class being one of the few with a several-car points race still underway.


So headed up into a the beautiful autumn mountains, arriving above the morning clouds in West Virginia.


[img]





Because this is rallycross, all the usual oddballs competitors were there...





And of course the usuals....








The morning session on Saturday started off as usual, with everyone full-throttle and Adam casting spells on the cones





Right out of the box, Nick, me, Stephen, Eric, and Jermy laid down similar first runs, foreboding a tight competition all day. Unfortunately, Jeremy's e36 threw its serpentine belt and soon after its LSD diff became an open diff and he had to retire.





Jason Smith was co-driving with him and while Jeremy felt ok with just calling it a day, I offered Jason a co-drive with me for the day. For those who don't know him, Jason co-drives for Jon Kramer in a very fast NA class stage rally Subaru (which wins a lot) and also has rallied both a Volvo 240 and his e36 as a driver, so he knows his way around a RWD rally car, and he spent the entire day laying down runs pretty damn close to my own.




Meanwhile, Nick, Stephen and I battled for the lead as Eric Eisele had some issues with his own e30 losing all its oil over the morning runs and he ended up finishing the day driving Shawn and Katie's turbo Miata (I think)





Meanwhile, Nick and I were going time for time while Stephen quietly pulled away from us in the lead. In the afteroon, Nick's uber-reliable M3 finally got a chink in its armor, breaking the connection for the clutch slave cylinder to the pedal (BMW makes this of PLASTIC??) and unable to finish in his car.





IIRC he also finished in the Miata, but hurt his times somewhat learning a totally new car. At the end of the day. Stephen took a commanding win by over 20 seconds, which was pretty strong since I thought I drove pretty well taking 2^nd. That said, Stephen went out on four MaxSport grasstrack tires and I was on less sticky, stiffer, and heavier Federal gravel rally tires. With intermittent rain and the course staying damn, the Maxsports were in their element. At one poitn I thought about swapping on my own (heavily worn) maxsports but the small run group didn't really leave time to do a tire change with two drivers running the car, and it was probably too late by then to try to catch him anyhow. In the end, we did 18 total runs over the day for over 1200 seconds of course time (that's 20 minutes of runs, autocrossers ;) )





And I got to take pics of my own car in action with Jason driving...











Final results were me 1^st, Stephen 2^nd, Eric 3^rd (I think?), Nick 4^th or 5^th, not sure – results aren't posted yet. Jason ran in “X” class so as not to mess up class ponts race since he isn't usually here, but not sure where he would have been in the final if he had stayed in MR. I'll note that Nick's car is usually rock-solid, and when cars break there's usually another similar BMW to jump into. But with the smaller turnout and the three remaining BMWs already having co-drivers, Nick had to jump into something unfamiliar and will drop this event from the season points. Of course, it's worth remembering that I also too an 8^th place finish earlier this season when my car had electrical issues and I spent half the event “trying out” all the other cars in my class (I think I drove 5 different cars). So, that's the breaks. Like most motorsports, rallycross is half about the driving, and half about the car not breaking – or at least not breaking badly enough to DNF – whether it's just a dumb-luck think like Nick's clutch pedal or dumb-luck like my electrical stuff.


To add insult to eric's oil issue, one of his wheels came loose somehow coming down the mountain at the end of the day and came off, screwing up his hub and lugs (though a tap and die, and some loaner lugs from me fixed the issue)





And Chris spent some time re-attaching his and Stevie's exhaust





Kimmett, as usual, put on a show while taking FTD in his STI








Then we all headed over to some rental townhouses that Panthera owns to clean up, went out and got some Mexican dinner at a 20-foot-long table, some shots of Tequila for MF-class leader John Royer's birthday, and then back to the houses, where Shawn and Katie, as usual, brough out their large selection of moonshine, liquor fruit balls, and spicy things and everyone partied til after midnight (well I bailed a bit earlier as I was pretty tired).








VTEC was kicking in, etc.







Day 2.


Well, first we had NIGHT 1. Once everyone got to sleep, the forecasted storm arrived. Around 5am I woke up to torrential downpour on the metal roof of the house. Great. The rain was forecast to stop by 8am, and so it did. With no available makeup date for this event we were gonna run it anyhow, regardless of course conditions (and rain at this VERY hilly venue makes for some really slippery stuff). With bright sunshine and a warm breeze arriving behind the rain, the decision was made to start the event at noon to let things dry up, and just run one giant session (no am/pm) for each run group.


With Eric's car out of commission, I had offered on Saturday to let him drive mine Sunday, since Jason was heading out and we were staying at Eric's rental house. The upside of this turned out to be that he offered up his tires – a nice set of MaxSports – so we could compete against Stephen in the wet ground. I had planned to mix and match my MaxSports with a pair of cut snow tires, which may or may not have done well. With all the BMWs taken, Nick jumped in with Dan Gugger in his sometimes-troublesome Porsche 944. The course was on the “drier” side of the mountain and an uphill climb of S-curves plus a few flat-out sections. Wiht a few very wet sections, but much of the course drying out fast, it was going to be an adventure.


(random pic of the FTD-winner Mike Julian, handing Kimmett a rare defeat)





I got the jump on Stephen from the start by a bit, but for the first handful of runs, Stephen, I and Eric traded times, with Dan Gugger almost matching us in the Porsche, with Nick somewhat slower in another new car (and he hit his first cones of the season, three in one run). Meanwhile, Jesse Reitz showed up in his M42-powered, Red-baron-looking e30 for the day as well and kept pace with the more powerful cars, suprisingly. Chris H., codriving with Stevie, as usual put down consistent times just a tad slower than the front of the class but always a threat. With more rapid-fire runs, the Porsche was having some overheating issues and mashed its front core support (repaired with big zipties), so Dan kind of shut it down and Nick stopped co-driving so Dan could try to finish with more “cooldown time.” Meanwhile, we continued battling and in the end I took the win, pulling away by about 10 seconds over Eric, also driving my car. I think he might like it. Stephen came in 3^rd just behind Eric, and Nick got a DNF (which will be his 2^nd drop for the season – I've already used my two drops, grr).








Meanwhile, the Jeep Comanche took first in Stock RWD, and looked cool doing it.





Kimmet threw his Sti around so hard trying to catch Mike Julian in M4, he shattered the rear glass in the middle of a run. That's extreme rallycross lol.





Then just when we thought everything was over, We all pulled out to the highway to see Eric pulled over trying to fix something on his e30, for his long drive back to Richmond.








Because rallycross, like 8 cars and trailers pulled over to help or hang out, and we got him back on the road and headed on our way, and that was the weekend.





So, that's the weekend, which worked out well for me in terms of points. With the 1^st and 2^nd place finishes, that gives me 3 wins and 46 points for the season (42 subtracting my two lousy drop events), while Nick also has 3 wins and 44 points for the season (minus dropping both of this weekend's events). Stephen has the other win but is probably out of striking distance since he had to miss an event earlier in the season. So basically it comes down to the last event. If I win it, I win the season. If Nick wins it and I finish 2^nd, we tie. If Nick wins and I finish 3^rd or worse, I'm 2^nd in points.


Kicker: The last event is the day before I leave for a work trip to Canada. If weather postpones it until the next weekend, I'll have to miss the event and will finish 2^nd in points. That would suck, but after my work trip I'm going to the Rally of the Tall Pines up in Bancroft, Ontario to crew for Dan Downey and Kevin Brolin, which will be fun enough to make me feel less bad. But, I still hope the event happens. Fingers crossed..........

[econti]

American autumn is beautiful.

Great results, here's hoping you take the series win

[Nick_S]

Always love seeing updates in this thread.

[downforce22]

Thanks for documenting this thread so well. It is helpful for me as I have been working through an 84 318i going to an m42 swap. Updates?

[econti]

Where's the damn updates?