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

[irish44j]

1 week til next event. You better catch up on your updates :)

Car ready to roll?

[95maxrider]

1 week til next event. You better catch up on your updates :)

Car ready to roll?

Car now has rally-x roof vent, 2" more head room, a matching Recaro passenger seat, and a "custom" FSTB that clears the IM from the 885 head swap. Pics are coming!

[irish44j]

I hope your custom FSTB is better than my custom FSTB, lol.

I still want to see your write-up from last event. I always like reading other peoples' thoughts on things :)

[95maxrider]

Rally-x #1, 3/16/14

We left off around 9 PM on the Friday night before the first rally-x TnT and race, with a new slave cylinder and clutch line in the car. I got the car home and started packing for the long weekend ahead. I was on the road at 6 the following morning to meet up with Josh and the other E30 guys, and it seems we have a new member to the club. It's a GRM Challenge car, a turbo E30 ETA, and proved to be quite capable.

Our new racing venue is in Frostburg, MD, which is much further out than the old Summit Point location. We arrive to a constant 20 mph wind, which didn't let up the whole day. Our venue is the top of an old strip mined mountain, and it's just a wide open field of gravel. It's a far cry from the hard packed clay we had at SP, and proved to be quite annoying since it rutted up so easily.

After some difficulty in removing the 5 mm spacers, I eventually got the 12 mm ones on (damn rust/corrosion), and had all four rally wheels/tires on the car for the first time. I just had to snap some pics.

They will never look this clean again.



After a lot of runs at the test and tune, the car looked like this:











Sunday was the race, and thankfully the winds had died down to normal levels and you didn't have to struggle to walk into the wind. The results after the first run basically previewed the finishing order for the day, with Josh and his 318 in first, me in second, and Chris and his insane 5.0 (ok, 4.9) Fox body Mustang in third. The Mustang is new this year and was untested before we began, but is gutted beyond belief (no rear hatch whatsoever) and has a heavily modded motor probably putting out about 320 HP. It has by far the best power to weight ratio in our MR class, but it struggles to put it all down. In fact, probably about half of the cones he got penalized for were from his rooster tails, not for any body contact. Chris is fundamentally opposed to adding any weight to the Mustang, so my (our?) only hope is that he doesn't wise up and get some mudflaps. The turbo ETA E30 was on AS tires, but by the end of the day it actually posted the fastest time in the afternoon in the class! If and when he gets real tires on that thing, the E28 is really gonna be in trouble.

Everything was going smoothly until my third run in the afternoon, when I finished the run and noticed some steam coming from the hood and my temp gauge slowly rising. The culprit was a rerouted coolant hose that got caught by the alternator fan blade. Josh, being the good sport and generous guy that he is, let me finish my afternoon runs in his lovely 318, allowing me to not get a DNF for the day. Driving his car is worlds different than the E28; the steering is tight and quick, body motions are well controlled, and the car just seems to float over deep ruts where my much heavier car would want to sink into them. It's so nimble I didn't ever think twice about hitting a cone when driving. It was really quite eye opening.

Thanks to the generous help and supplies from Chris and Josh, we got the car fixed up after the race without having to go to the parts store by shortening the hose to go over the head, and we began our caravan back home with the snow beginning to fall. Of course, the one time it snows during a rally is the first time I've ever had summer tires on the car, as my old snow tires were all I had to commute and race on. Even so, the car made it home just fine, and I was glad to be home.

Overall, I was very pleased with the car. While the new rally tires didn't quite do what I was expecting, they were a necessary addition as the new surface is so rough that any snow tire would only last a race or two. The suspension on the car really feels better and very tight after installing the rubber spring spacers, and I think is pretty close to ideal. If the car was bottoming out, it was not nearly as noticeable as in Josh's 318, so I think we have a good combination of wheel travel and suspension firmness. Even so, I can't help but think about cutting a coil off the front springs....

[Gary Horneck]

Looking real good. Excellent re-cap of the event also.

[irish44j]

If the car was bottoming out, it was not nearly as noticeable as in Josh's 318, so I think we have a good combination of wheel travel and suspension firmness. Even so, I can't help but think about cutting a coil off the front springs....

Yeah, I'm not totally pleased with the H&R sports on mine. At Summit they were great since there weren't as many deep "holes" that developed throughout the day. But at Frostburg I definitely take some hard hits on the bumpstops (though not nearly as much as the other e30s). I may have to think about going to something a bit stiffer and/or taller, but I'm gonna wait and see how that surface pans out as it warms up.

Oddly with Chris - cones knocked down by wheelspray don't count in the standard SCCA rallycross rule, but apparently they're written into WDCR local rules (or so he says).

Either way, if you reduced his cone count by 50%, I think we both still beat him at that event. I'm interested in seeing how he tames that wild mustang...

btw, there are some good shots of your car in AJ's album - don't know if you saw them.

[95maxrider]

Yeah, I'm not totally pleased with the H&R sports on mine. At Summit they were great since there weren't as many deep "holes" that developed throughout the day. But at Frostburg I definitely take some hard hits on the bumpstops (though not nearly as much as the other e30s). I may have to think about going to something a bit stiffer and/or taller, but I'm gonna wait and see how that surface pans out as it warms up.

Oddly with Chris - cones knocked down by wheelspray don't count in the standard SCCA rallycross rule, but apparently they're written into WDCR local rules (or so he says).

Either way, if you reduced his cone count by 50%, I think we both still beat him at that event. I'm interested in seeing how he tames that wild mustang...

btw, there are some good shots of your car in AJ's album - don't know if you saw them.

Does Chris have a build thread anywhere? If you subtract all of his cones, he was putting down the fastest times for the class by far, so even if he reduces them by half I think he is gonna be right on us. Yeah, I saw AJ's album, I just need to buy some of them now.

Oh, and a video couldn't hurt:



And since I can't seem to get the youtube video player to work....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1WVB...re7PD7LGc5McKA

[phenryiv1]

Yeah, I'm not totally pleased with the H&R sports on mine. At Summit they were great since there weren't as many deep "holes" that developed throughout the day. But at Frostburg I definitely take some hard hits on the bumpstops (though not nearly as much as the other e30s). I may have to think about going to something a bit stiffer and/or taller, but I'm gonna wait and see how that surface pans out as it warms up.

My old OE Sports may be a good compromise.

[irish44j]

Does Chris have a build thread anywhere? If you subtract all of his cones, he was putting down the fastest times for the class by far, so even if he reduces them by half I think he is gonna be right on us. Yeah, I saw AJ's album, I just need to buy some of them now.

Oh, and a video couldn't hurt:



And since I can't seem to get the youtube video player to work....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1WVB...re7PD7LGc5McKA

No, I don't think he does. I figured he might do one on GRM, but Chris doesn't seem much one for documenting things and taking photos.

As to cones, you really can't just say "if Chris eliminates all his cones he'll win"....Chris had 21 cones on the day. I had two and you had five. Josh S. had two, Eric had none. Stephen had three. Chris had two. Alp had none. So the BMWs had 14 cones in 70 total runs. Chris had 21 in 10 total runs. And it wasn't a very technical course, and it was pretty easy to run it clean in my opinion. In a more technical course I think we have even more of an edge over him. He'll have a better time on a course with more slow tight corners where he can dig out and we'll get bogged down (ok, more me than you, lol).

But if me or you were willing to hit 20 cones, our times would be a lot faster too since we'd just be cutting corners and straight-lining slaloms, lol......

Taking away EVERYONE's cones (my 2, your 5, Chris's 21):

Josh: 545.691
Nick: 558.775
Chris: 548.304

Guess we'll see though. Granted he has to learn that car, but I also think his power edge isn't as big as you make it to be. He can't put all that power down on gravel (not even close), so it's not as big an advantage as it looks on paper. And his weight balance on that car must be ridiculously front-biased. His big advantage is that he's a fast driver, not that his car is terribly fast at rallycross (IMO). I'd bet dollars that his MR2 was faster than the Mustang will be (except the MR2 always broke).

[95maxrider]

So Saturday we got a lot done to the car, including gutting the sunroof and gaining 2" of headroom, getting the Recaro PS in the car, and getting the old FSTB to fit the 885 IM.

First off was finding a way to remove the stock passenger seat without hacking it apart with a saw. You see, the previous owner decided to weld the two front seat nuts to the frame, which were obscured by the sliders on top of them. Oh, and the motor (of three total) that controls forward and backward movement was broken. After about an hour of trying everything to get it out normally, we disassembled the power seat reclining gears and made the seat manual, and were able to get to the bolts and cut the welds.

Note the new homemade seat adapters, made to drop the seat ~2" from the riser it was on before. Thankfully, our seats adjust for height too :D


The Recaro stands alone, victorious after a grueling battle.


Ahhh


For the sunroof, we considered doing the aluminum sheet method, but ended up retaining the stock one for rigidity. A big part of the reason why we wanted to remove the sunroof was to gain headroom, since my co-driver/owner Bobby is about 5" taller than me at 6'3". By removing all of the interior metal supporting the sunroof and most of the sunroof itself, we gained a little over 2" of headroom, which I think is awesome. However, we ran out of time and some things obviously aren't done. To reattach the sunroof, Wayne (mechanic) did some welding:





WE'RE NOT DONE YET DAMMIT!


This is also just a test fitting. Much more welding needs to be done.


I'll leave you with this

[irish44j]

nicely done, sir. Did you get some weights on the stock power seats vs. the recaros?

interesting vent setup. Why does it stick up like that?

Now you just need a carbon-fiber milk crate for the center console ;)

[phenryiv1]

I love those Recaros.

[bluej]

bump! are you going to run the AX on the 17th with us?

[95maxrider]

bump! are you going to run the AX on the 17th with us?

Yup! And who are you?

[irish44j]

That's the other Josh with the turbo eta. So far it's the three of us vs. a Factory Five Cobra in X Prepared, lol.