phenryiv1's Rally Cross 87 325- Caged, B25 Swapped, Rear suspension refresh Last Page

[silence]

Its coming together nicely.

[phenryiv1]

A little more progress as I approach this weekend. Not much left to do that will be done before the race, so tying up loose ends.

I installed (physically) the 16" electric fan. Wiring is not yet done, but the fan is in and secured. If I had it to do again, I'd have gone with a 14" fan (for space reasons) but I went with a 16" because I measured and thought it would fit with more room to spare. As it turns out, it fits, but barely.







To get it to fit a little better I had to rotate it about 10-15 degrees, but it still works. There was a mounting "nub" at the 6 o'clock position that would have moved it up another 1/2" making it tougher to fit in under the upper radiator support.\



In other news (related to the e30) I was able to get started on the install of a transmission cooler on my Comanche, which I use to tow the e30 to and from the track. Unfortunately the install kit had an incorrect threaded fitting for the connection at the radiator so I am in a holding pattern to finish the install. More on that later.

[chance]

I put a 16" fan on my radiator, it fit with way more room than yours. My fan was a lot thinner I believe.

It sure does a good job of keeping the engine cool though. It never goes above half way on the temp gauge.

[95maxrider]

I sure am interested to see how you wire that fan up :)

[phenryiv1]

I sure am interested to see how you wire that fan up :)

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=210783

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105294

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1214345-*DIY-Electric-Fan-Retrofit

[phenryiv1]

So the last 48 hours with the car were quite productive.

Several things were accomplished, but first and foremost, I actually drove the car in competition. I made it to my event (WDCR SCCA RallyCross #2) and the car "survived" the event.

That is the good news. The bad news: I have a LOT of work to do.

While waiting for the co-driver to get to my house for final prep, I went ahead and installed the passenger seat. I had planned to use the OMP seat but the bracket lacked a provision for the stock seatbelt and I was too pressed for time to install the harnesses on Saturday. FOr that reason, the stock seat went back in, complete with seatbelt.



Hopefully I will get it swapped out before the next event, but as you will see in a minute, I have other things to worry about.

In other news, last week I had started the install of the electric fan. Look- I know that some people on here go WAY out of the way to use as much of the stock wiring/mounting/routing as possible. I printed 3 different how-to threads, ready a half dozen more, and basically was all ready to do it the "right" R3v/e30tech way.

And then I spent $26 and 20 minutes and did it the right AFTERMARKET way.

After about an hour of searching for how to re-use the OEM stuff, I finally just ordered the Hayden/Imperial kit and installed it in less time than it took to actually go get it.

Since I had the Hayden/Imperial 16" fan, I looked at their controllers and found that they have a simple thermostatically-controlled, self-contained fan control unit. It is Part No. 226204 and is $36, but I had an Advance coupon code so it was $26 and I walked in, grabbed it, and walked out.

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_adjustable-thermostatic-fan-control-imperial_3670006-p

I installed it near the passenger side headlight, hooked it up to the fan (with reverse wiring since it was to be in "push" configuration) and wired the controller to the car. The wiring is ugly but it worked for the race.

I wired the 12V+ to the firewall terminal, grounded the fan and controller to the same point on the chassis, and tapped a 12V Ignition from one of the many things that I removed in the fender area behind the headlight. I think that it was the A/C wiring.

The temp probe went in the radiator as directed and the can functioned as it was supposed to. Once the car warned up the needle remained stationary all day long in racing.



We covered the factory wiring on the floor with split loom to clean it up a bit and then re-installed (well, installed new in the place of old) insulation to fight heat on the transmission tunnel.





The next item of concern was the shifter.

I made some posts a while back about the eBay short shift setup that I had bought while swapping out/in the new shift parts. I was comfortable with the fit but somehow missed the posts about the circlip interference that other people experienced. Basically, when in certain positions, the inner circlip that holds the shifter up will contact the outer circlip that holds the pivot in place. I can't really explain it well, but I experienced the issue and had to remedy it by replacing the broken circlip and having 2-3 more on-hand for the race.

I don't know how comfortable I am with it as a long-term solution, but for now I am dealing with it.

This was actually a HUGE issue on race day, but I will post about that in the next update.

Last REAL thing done for race prep was to secure the exhaust. The whole system is somewhat (okay, totally) rigged up, but even then I needed it held tighter to the underside of the car. I put it up on the lift and used plumbing strapping to secure it as tightly as possible to the bolts that hold the heatshields in place. I had to spend some time marking, drilling out, and re-installing, but after about 30 minutes i had it pretty tight to the underside, and ultimately it survived 21 timed runs and 2 course drive-throughs. Good enough for now.







For safety, I also secured the solar panel that I use to keep the battery charged between events. Because it isn't driven much, this trickle-charges to keep the battery where it needs to be. A couple of zip-ties secured it just fine.



With that, we loaded up and were ready for Sunday.

[phenryiv1]

So the event was great, but I drove like crap. This was the worst driving I have done in a long time. I can't blame the course, the car (not really), or the conditions.

I got beat by my co-driver in the same car (first time that has happened in years), so it isn't the car.
The conditions were identical for all of the 10 cars in my class, and the run order was not at fault. The class ran almost perfectly in the right run order.
No oddball water truck, no errant rainstorm, no mid-day course changes.

So what happened?

I could not get in a rhythm in the car. I was worried about the car, about what needed to be done to it, about what was about to break, about how this or that was affecting my driving and how to compensate...basically I was over-thinking the experience and had my mind on the car and not the drive.

With the shifter popping issue, I was constantly worried that it was going to come loose. I was hesitant to shift, and did so gingerly. I can't use that as an excuse, however- my co-driver out-drove me in the same car and conditions.

About a month ago, Josh and I noted that the subframe bushings were SHOT. On the course, it was apparent. Weight transfer was off, the rear-end was clanging and banging all over the place, and I was so busy THINKING about it that I could not concentrate on driving.

Lastly, the throwout bearing was unbelievably noisy yesterday and all that I could think about was the headache of replacement.

Basically, I was driving distracted and is cost me big time. I lost to many drivers whom I usually beat, and my only reason was my bad driving (and their improvement to some extent).

So anyway, here are some shots from yesterday:

[phenryiv1]

Hmmm, I got an email today from UPS telling me that I have a package arriving today from Turner...which is interesting since I have not ordered anything form Turner in years.

As it turns out, UUC had Turner drop-ship my H&R OE Sport springs that I ordered a month ago. I called once a week to check status and never got a response.

I am glad that the springs are on the way, but it would have been nice of UUC to send me an update.

[phenryiv1]

A couple more pictures:

[phenryiv1]

These arrived:



The ever-elusive H&E OE Sport springs, Part #: 50404-55. Seem to be hard to find and in a state of perpetual backorder.

[95maxrider]

These arrived:



The ever-elusive H&E OE Sport springs, Part #: 50404-55. Seem to be hard to find and in a state of perpetual backorder.

I'm jelly.

[irish44j]

A couple more pictures:

If these two pics are in sequence......they are a good example of where you lost a couple seconds on that run, lol....

but they do look a lot better than my pics at that spot :)

[phenryiv1]

Nothing much new to report. I got home yesterday and found that my M3/ix rear swaybar had arrived, along with a replacement HVAC panel (to replace the one that I broke while pulling the dash for the cage install) and a replacement hood release cable (which finally gave up after being repaired twice).



On the way to me is a 'vert front swaybar and bracketry, so we'll see how the upgraded sways do for controlling body roll.

This weekend I hope to fix some issues with the rear suspension and possibly install the H&Rs.

[phenryiv1]

If these two pics are in sequence......they are a good example of where you lost a couple seconds on that run, lol....

but they do look a lot better than my pics at that spot :)

That was an example of all-show-no-go. Fun, but not effective at getting around the track quickly.

[phenryiv1]

Vert front swaybar arrived. The seller forgot the brackets but shipped them separately. 21mm, with the 14.5mm RSB from the M3/ix:



Subframe and RTABs arrived. I debated long and hard between these and more COndor parts, but the idea of a totally solid subframe bushing was a concern due to me driving under such harsh conditions. If this was a track/tarmac car, I would have done the Condors and never thought twice. With the harsh bangs and hits that the car takes on the dirt, I really wanted some sort of damping between the subframe and the frame to reduce the chance of damage to the frame in a hard hit.