95maxrider's Rally-x '88 E28 build- caged, head swap and more

[95maxrider]

From now on, when someone's car breaks, they have to drive Russel's old Supra. Not mine

You seem to be forgetting someone else, who almost certainly will be looking hard for a fast car in the off-season. I suspect Chris is not going to run next season in the Celica after not being very competitive. He's too fast of a driver to stick with such a slow car and finish 3rd or 4th every event. I would suggest that you worry about him, not me. I'm not doing much work to my car this winter, so it's not going to get much faster. And I don't see my driving getting much faster (though I am considering taking a couple shots of whiskey before the events to help me drive less tight, lol) [SCCA officials: I kid, I kid!]

You're giving me a bit too much credit though - the only true "upgrades" on my car (other than the M42, which is still way down on power to most of the class), are the bilsteins and H&R springs, e36 rack, and a few bushings. It's "tight' because everything is pretty fresh and it's a light car.... So bringing yours "to that level" should be fairly easy. The biggest difficulty you're going to have is to get the weight down. That's about the only things I"m doing this off-season: quick-remove front bumper (since I need it to keep the car street legal), maybe remove my passenger seat, and a few other minor things. I expect to take another 100lbs out of my car for next season, though it's not all in places that I necessarily need to. That said, I will officially be the lowest-powered car next year in the class with the wanker....uh, wankel gone (and he's probably higher power than me as well, lol).

The thought of a $1.5k light-boost turbo is starting to look more appealing by the day ;)

You may want to think about cutting the front springs 1 coil to gain rate, but then adding in a spring seat spacer like I did to get the height back (and gain a bit more rate, depending on the setup). That really improved things for the balance of my car, as I was about 2 second per run faster vs. Roberto after I put the new suspension on (if I had only done it before the FIRST event, where I threw away the season!!!!!) I would suggest you drop the rear end down rather than the front, honestly. That will settle the car better, IMO.

If you didn't want people driving your car, you should have made it less reliable :-D

I didn't forget about Chris, but he has a lot of work to do to not only find a non-E30 rally-worthy car, but to make it quick and reliable. I'm well aware he's an excellent driver, but I also know he likes to be different and experiment, often to his own detriment. Either way, I do expect to be battling him next year as well. But Chris is a wild card, and you're a known commodity :p

I don't think I gave you too much credit. You've done your experimenting and testing, and now know what works on your car, and there's nothing there that's too crazy or unreliable to give you troubles. You've kept it simple but effective, done your preventative maintenance, and it has come together to be greater than the sum of the parts. Your car is just "in the zone". And with another 100 pounds removed it's going to be even better. And yes, don't those low boost turbo kits look nice? I've been hankering for more power myself....

Keep in mind the car is already raked pretty heavily towards the rear. After we put the stock springs back on, we never came close to scraping the skid plate (which is now basically dead weight), so I'm thinking we have some clearance to spare, and lowering the center of gravity is never a bad thing. Not to mention the car just looks stupid right now with the nose in the air. So just adding the spacer to the front make you 2 seconds quicker, or doing the H&Rs/Bilsteins PLUS the spacer made you 2 seconds quicker?

[95maxrider]

as for the throttle cable, that definitely doesn't look like a good angle. You may want to look into either a longer cable (so it can curve more gradually), or perhaps some kind of "router" that allows that carries the cable around closer curves - though this would probably require you to make some cuts in the outer cable sheathing and put more end caps on, as well as some brackets.

Yeah, I'm not really sure where to being with this one. I wonder if there's a chart floating around the web with different BMW throttle cable lengths....

[irish44j]

So just adding the spacer to the front make you 2 seconds quicker, or doing the H&Rs/Bilsteins PLUS the spacer made you 2 seconds quicker?

It's hardly scientific, but that would be my guess. Getting the reverse rake really helped me keep the rear end planted. With it up in the air I got way too much lift-throttle oversteer (obviously, the spring rates would affect that as well). It may be half mental just in the feel of the car, but after the switch I felt much more confident - particularly in wet conditions. IDK. Or I'm just imagining things, lol.

[irish44j]

Yeah, I'm not really sure where to being with this one. I wonder if there's a chart floating around the web with different BMW throttle cable lengths....

I wonder if RealOEM has the length....could be worth checking. Or just annoy someone at pelicanparts or Blunttech or one of the other retailers ;D

[95maxrider]

It's hardly scientific, but that would be my guess. Getting the reverse rake really helped me keep the rear end planted. With it up in the air I got way too much lift-throttle oversteer (obviously, the spring rates would affect that as well). It may be half mental just in the feel of the car, but after the switch I felt much more confident - particularly in wet conditions. IDK. Or I'm just imagining things, lol.

Hmm, we don't have any problems with lift-off oversteer as far as I can tell, but I know there's more to it than that.

So was that 2 seconds just from lifting up the front, or did that happen after the suspension swap AND lifting the front?

[irish44j]

Hmm, we don't have any problems with lift-off oversteer as far as I can tell, but I know there's more to it than that.

So was that 2 seconds just from lifting up the front, or did that happen after the suspension swap AND lifting the front?

they were done at the same time.

also, the rear end of my car is substantially lighter than the rear end of yours :)

[95maxrider]

they were done at the same time.

also, the rear end of my car is substantially lighter than the rear end of yours :)

Ehh, if they were done at the same time, I doubt the rake accounted for more than 1/10th of that difference. Only one way to find out :p

Is your rear really that much lighter? I can see the front and cabin being heavier, but our rear is just as gutted as yours, and there just isn't much back there. I'd be curious to see the weight distributions of all the cars in our class....

[irish44j]

Ehh, if they were done at the same time, I doubt the rake accounted for more than 1/10th of that difference. Only one way to find out :p

Is your rear really that much lighter? I can see the front and cabin being heavier, but our rear is just as gutted as yours, and there just isn't much back there. I'd be curious to see the weight distributions of all the cars in our class....

well, I didn't mean the rake did it by itself, but in addition to changing the spring rate. But I much prefer the "feel" of the car with the rear end sitting down, personally. The reverse rake does change the center of mass of the car to some extent, in terms of physics ;)

rear end on mine is lighter also because I have a small-case diff, lighter rear subframe, 4-lug, lighter brakes, etc etc. So not all of it is sprung weight necessarily.

IDK I wish I knew someone with scales, because I'd love to get some numbers as well just out of curiosity. You know anyone with scales?

[DrLeadFoot]

Looks like a great time.

[95maxrider]

Update time!

Picking up where I left off at the end of last season, we had a rusted out gas pedal hinge that might have been a cause of the throttle getting stuck open during one of my runs, a throttle cable that was inexplicably tight, and a broken exhaust hanger that we assumed was the culprit of the exhaust resting on the driveshaft. Driving home 100 miles at 70 mph with the exhaust on the driveshaft is not a pleasant experience. As the beginning of the season is quickly approaching, getting those items fixed were our priorities.

So this Saturday we took the car to a friend's garage and started looking things over. We had purchased new pitman arms since ours looked pretty beat, and decided to throw them on first since they were an easy job. I had no idea how completely dead ours were. The bearings were shot and moved around with ease. We replaced them with a HD set of Meyle arms, and my god is the difference enormous.









We also removed the FSB end links and reinstalled with blue loctite, since the upper nuts have come loose twice so far, and I don't want that to happen again.



And in anticipation of the E46 rally wheels and Style 4s, we got an extended stud conversion kit!



Here's the broken hanger we thought was behind our exhaust problems:



Alas, it would not be that simple. I was casually looking around the engine bay when we got it on the lift and noticed something slightly alarming:



Umm, yeah. We broke the PS motor mount support bracket. Too much powah!



Of course, BMW doesn't stock the part and it's a 3 week wait to get one from Germany. So off to the junkyards we went. In what must be the best luck I have ever experienced in working on cars, we actually found one E28 in the first junkyard we went to and we able to get it's bracket and mount. This junkyard had tons of E34s, E39s, E46s, etc, but no E30s, and just our one E28. I could not believe our luck.

Upon getting back to the shop, we quickly realized the other motor mount had broken, but thankfully the bracket was still intact. Oh, and we fixed up a very minor coolant leak.



Oh, and look, two broken trans mounts! So basically the entire engine/trans was being held in place by the crossmember and our super-duper skid plate bracing (see earlier in the thread for more detailed pics.) Amazingly, there were no weird noises or vibrations from this, and the car drove normally. How? I have no idea.



Of course no parts stores sell the motor mounts, but we were able to get a pair of cheapo trans mounts. I'm awaiting new motor mounts from Pelican that I ordered yesterday. Naturally, with the motor sitting in it's correct location, our throttle cable and exhaust problems pretty much solved themselves.

Oh, and we ordered new spring rubber isolators to try and increase the spring rates since the car is a little soft for my liking. A fellow rally-xer (Chris) gave us a single rubber that was cut in half at lunch on the last race and it firmed up the front of the car nicely. We ordered a pair of full/new ones, but they were too big to fit in the rear springs, so we pulled the half ones from the front and put the new ones in there. In an effort to stiffen up the rear, we moved up the spring perch one notch on the Bilsteins. I'm not entirely sure it did anything yet though.



Oh, and that broken gas pedal hinge? Since the floor is so rusted up, we didn't want to deal with cutting and welding a bunch of stuff, so...door hinge to the rescue! With the matching other half underneath the car for support.





Oh, did I mention we picked up a set of super fresh rally tires for cheap? Oh, and a set of forged Style 46 wheels that weigh ~13 pounds?



Oh yeah, and we picked up a pair of new seats (PS not installed yet). And you might notice I pulled the steering wheel from my I30 and put it in here. More on the seats later.



I don't have pics of everything, but here's a quick list of other things that were fixed.
-Oil change with Rotella T6 5w-40
-Fresh coolant
-Adjusted the valves (one rocker was loose, the rest were in spec)
-The hubs were so rusted up that the rally-x wheels wouldn't get close to flush on the hub so much sanding ensued.
-Some magic with the seats (like I said, more on that later)
-That elusive ABS problem has been solved! The one ABS sensor we replaced on the DS front was apparently defective, so that explains why it didn't solve our problems when we installed it. Thankfully, I had racked up quite a pile of spare ones, and we threw one on, and viola! We finally have ABS again!!
-Threw some Seafoam in the gas, because why not? The gas was a few months old and I wanted to clean things up a bit.
-Got all new tail light bulbs and sockets, which seemed to fix most of our problems.

I think that's it, but I'm probably missing something. Next up, a seat/steering wheel update!

[irish44j]

Nice, I was waiting for this update. You've been so quiet all winter I figured you must have a bunch of things in the works, lol. Those motor/tranny mounts....wow. Love the wheels...what compound are those tires? I'm thinking hard compound is gonna be "what to have" out in Frostburg, looking at the massive rocks that pass for gravel there.

Bit I think you still need more rallykar stickarz ;)

Now I'm feeling lame about how little I did to my car this offseason......

Looks like an interesting MR group shaping up for the first event:

me
you guys (though you haven't signed up yet, reminder...)
Eric and possibly Spoth in the ETA
nonack in the monster mustang
some guy in a turbo ETA e30
Russel now in a 1st gen MR2
Russel's old Supra driven by someone else
That black Benz 190, trying once again to actually complete an event.

And most thankfully, no nasty RX-7s to have to listen to, except Shawn's. Looks like it should be a fun season.

[95maxrider]

Well after doing all that work, we still had to install new motor mounts to replace the one cracked one (the other was just old) and mount the summer tires before heading off to a BMW test and tune on 3/8. As per usual, we were stuck doing this on the Friday night before the event in the cold, and as usual, I managed to find a way to fuck something up. The motor mount install was going pretty well until I over torqued a bolt for the motor mount bracket going into the block on the DS, which left that mount attached with 3 bolts. I hoped it would make it through the TnT the next day.

Then we tried to mount the 16x8 Style 4 wheels with 225/50/16 Hankook V12s. This required using spacers, which REALLY didn't want to fit over our rusty (but already heavily cleaned) hubs. The 5mm spacers seemed to give them enough clearance, so I didn't bother trying out the 12mm ones I had also bought. After much banging with a rubber hammer I got them on and went for a drive. Holy crap do these tires make the car feel good! Granted, we have been used to snow tires, so most anything would have been an improvement. By this point it was about 10 PM and we had to be at the TnT by 8:30 the next morning.









The car makes it to the TnT without issue, and I was really enjoying myself on the new tires. The car actually behaved like a proper BMW! Even on fresh rubber, the car felt composed on the course and put down very respectable times. After ~5 runs I parked the car to go to the bathroom. When I came back, the clutch pedal went to the floor and didn't come back up. Crap! Popped the hood and looked under the car to be greeted by a puddle of brake fluid. Double crap! After wiggling a couple things around it was determined the the clutch line had a hole in it. Of course, this being a 26 year old 528e, nobody stocks clutch lines for it, so we had to get it towed to a shop (thank god I did that instead of to my house) and wait for parts.

I ordered a SS clutch line as well as brake lines from Ireland Engineering, since I figured the brake lines wouldn't be too far behind the clutch line. Unfortunately, IE sent the wrong clutch line and the rear brake lines didn't match my calipers either. Suffice it to say that the customer service at IE is pretty horrendous and I don't think I'll be ordering anything from them in the future. So I had to overnight a stock line from Pelican and held off on the brake lines. And of course, when the new clutch line arrived, my mechanic couldn't get the old one off the slave cylinder without stripping it, so we had to get a new slave.

After many problems refilling and bleeding both systems (we did put new SS brake lines on the front since they actually fit), the car felt great! Apparently the fluid that came out of my calipers was watery and filled with rust particles. With new fluid in the pedal felt perfect and the ABS seemed to operate much more smoothly/quietly. I reattached the skid plate, test fitted the rally wheels (they needed the 12mm spacers) and drove it home, not 12 hours before the first rally-x TnT. See a pattern here?

I'll post up a recap of the rally-x filled weekend along with plenty of pics later!

[irish44j]

here's a preview, that's not as bad as it might look ;)

[phenryiv1]

I ordered a SS clutch line as well as brake lines from Ireland Engineering, since I figured the brake lines wouldn't be too far behind the clutch line. Unfortunately, IE sent the wrong clutch line and the rear brake lines didn't match my calipers either. Suffice it to say that the customer service at IE is pretty horrendous and I don't think I'll be ordering anything from them in the future.

My experiences with them have been nothing but great. I love Condor stuff but I bought some IE stuff for the rally car and the '88 before that and every call to them was a good experience.

I would not write them off just yet- everybody has a bad day. I have one mishap (wrong part, wrong price, late shipping, slow response...you name it) from nearly every established e30 parts provider, but so far the correction rate has been 100%.

[95maxrider]

My experiences with them have been nothing but great. I love Condor stuff but I bought some IE stuff for the rally car and the '88 before that and every call to them was a good experience.

I would not write them off just yet- everybody has a bad day. I have one mishap (wrong part, wrong price, late shipping, slow response...you name it) from nearly every established e30 parts provider, but so far the correction rate has been 100%.

Maybe you're right. Part of my frustration comes from paying $40 for 2 day shipping only to receive the wrong parts. Part of my frustration comes from speaking to a rep there today would said he was going to look into my replacement parts and give me a call back, who didn't do so. Part of it comes from the rep telling me they shipped the right part in the first place, only to then say he was shipping me a different part, and his general condescending attitude. Unless I have the trans from an M30/M5 in my car (which I can assure you I don't), they simply shipped me the wrong part and were reluctant to own up to it. Heck, when my mechanic called them up last week to talk about it they first told him to 'just bend' the hard line to make it fit, only to later confirm that they 'forgot' there were 3 different trans options available in the E28, and they must have shipped the wrong one, only to have the same rep today basically say they shipped the correct part. Well, it can't be both. And I don't know if 88 528e cars have different rear brakes, but the lines they sent didn't fit, and they said they had other ones in stock that looked like they would fit. Oh, and one of the front SS brake lines was discolored. So I'm just generally unimpressed, and I don't expect to get a refund for any of this given the attitude I've received so far.

SkiFree- I see you replied but deleted your message. Shoot me a PM if you want to talk. Thanks.