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

[bluej]

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.

That. We're gonna get creamed!

[irish44j]

We'll see. I beat more than one FFR with my Maxima back in the day. Not everyone can drive a fast car fast ;)

[95maxrider]

Well it's a few weeks late but I'll post up a little recap of the second event.

The temperature had warmed up quite a bit for the second event but the wind was still blowing pretty good on top of our "mountain". While I was installing the rally tires I noticed that RSB had come out of the DS end link, and it really didn't want to go back in there. Chris helped out by lending tools and his hands, and after a while we were able to wrestle the bar back into the end link. I have no idea how or when it came out, but judging by how well the car drove afterwards, I'm guessing it came out sometime during the test and tune/1st race weekend a month earlier. The tech man (Mike) noticed my throttle cable was a little loose too, since we never readjusted it after getting the motor to sit correctly, and throttle response improved slightly after we tightened it up.

The course was pretty dry compared to the first event which limited rutting, but the AWD cars were still digging pretty good trenches for the rest of us to slog through. This made for a generally rough course, which beat up some of the cars pretty good. Josh managed to bash up a section of the floor in his E30, and I'm willing to bet that the rough terrain had something to do with the fan relay failing in Chris Nonack's monster Mustang. Chris was running fast but dirty, and after the relay blew he decided to call it a day and put the car on the trailer in case he blew a HG or something.

In the past, I almost never posted a faster time than Josh (run to run), but this day I beat him in 6 of our 11 runs, which was quite surprising. At the first event I averaged something like 2 seconds slower than him per run, but this day we were neck and neck, trading 1st and 2nd place all day. I got called for two cones on my last AM run, but I really didn't think I hit any that run. At the end of the day, I was 4.6 seconds behind Josh, so the cones wouldn't have saved me.

We had some people taking pictures this day, and I bought some pics from last season that I forgot to buy, so enjoy some pro pics!

Last season at Summit Point:


Is this what bottoming out looks like?






Pics from Frostburg by Jason Catterton








A perfect picture of the shark nose










Remember how I said the course got a bit rough? Well some cars fared better than others.




The croo




Can't forget the videos!

[irish44j]

Next weekend's gonna be fun. Wonder if I remember how to drive fast on tarmac :)

[irish44j]

Get on the ball, man! Slacking on your updates, especially since you finally got me ;)

Do a little gloating, lol...

[95maxrider]

Thanks to Josh's prodding, I give you the....

5/18/14/ Rally-x Event #3 Recap

This is a big one folks! I have finally won a race in the E28! :crazy:

A combination of good driving, good car setup/prep, agreeable course design, and only one other car in my class that finished the day, all led to a rather large 42 second lead in the MR class.

I started the day by finding the rear DS sway bar frame mount rather loose (possibly related to the sway bar coming out of the end link before last race?), so I got that tightened up and tried a slightly lower tire pressure (28 vs 29 before). By the end of the day I had dropped it down to 27, but I can't say I felt a difference.

The course was set up on a new area of the "mountain" top that seemed more hard packed and was set up with fewer slow turns, both of which suited my car nicely. Sure enough, when we got out there to run we found a fast course and no real ruts to speak of, and I was in heaven. The car pretty much did what I asked of it, and even in the two slowest corners it felt pretty good. I'm not sure if all this messing around with the RSB really made that much of a difference or if I'm just getting used to what these rally tires are capable of, but the car just feels awesome. Yeah, it's still big, but it turns pretty well and soaks up bumps better than most.

Anyways, I got a one second lead on Josh in his 318 on the first run, and for the most part continued that trend throughout the day. He ended the morning session with a blazing fast time, but he was still about 7 seconds back after six runs.

The PM sessions was more of the same. I hit my only cone for the day on my first run, which got Josh within spitting distance, but I laid down a damn fast run after that and didn't look back. Josh had one or two messy runs which sealed the deal for the finishing order, so after that we switched cars along with the other Josh and his turbo ETA E30.

I first started in the turbo car, which had been having fuel problems all day and wasn't running right, and was also on a new turbo that it wasn't tuned for, so it was all over the place. Thankfully, he now has Patrick's old snow tires/bottlecaps in place of his AS tires he used for the first event. Oh, and if you're looking, the switches occurred on the 6th and 7th afternoon runs. The car is mostly stock aside from the turbo, and it felt like it. With the stock steering wheel and rack, turn in was much slower than in the E28, and the turbo didn't seem to really spool up until after you had already gotten off the throttle, so that only made things worse. My time was about a second off of Josh's own pace.

Hopping into Josh's 318 felt completely natural at this point. I think I have done 3-4 runs in it now, and it's just so easy to drive. Turn in is super quick, the brakes are incredibly effective, and it just goes where you want it to go. Slaloms are simple. It's just a very effective car, and you can feel every one of the ~500 pounds that it doesn't have compared to my E28. I put down a time about 0.3 slower than his best.

Both Joshes drove the E28, with 318 Josh putting down a time about 2 seconds off my pace, and turbo Josh was about 4 seconds behind my pace. I commend them for not hitting a single cone on either run, as the E28 is significantly bigger than either of their cars and seemed to be a little more tail happy than either of the E30s. They both seemed reasonably impressed with the car, with 318 Josh being totally jealous of the super squishy ride and lack of bump stop smashing.

When it was all said and done, I was about 42 seconds ahead of Josh. If I substitute my best run in for the two where Joshes drove, my total time for the day would be about two seconds (2!) off the pace of the fastest RWD car there, an old clapped out FC RX7. With 15 runs and a total of about 890 seconds, I was basically a cone away from putting down the FTD for 2wd cars. Shawn, the driver of the RX7, must have divine powers, because that car does not look like it could possibly be that fast, so props to him. I'm just very happy to have done so well, and I hope I can keep it up. Given how well the course held up, and how much everyone seemed to like it, I have a feeling Adam is going to set up similar courses in the future, which I think will be to my advantage. :)

Check out my video- it's my best AM run followed by my fast PM run.

[irish44j]

(but you did finish third in the great rallycross car autocross face-off) ;) lol....

I think "messy runs" for me is a bit of an understatement. And I'm gonna drop another 100lbs before the next event. And clearly I'll also need to add some more stickarz....

[bluej]

e46 rack is #2 on my list for the junkyard trip this weekend, after finding an "i" trigger wheel and sensor for the MS. my latest theory for the crappy running is a bad tps after it probably got flooded w/ gas when the fpr failed. i can't wait to properly square off against you guys. OH is going to be fun :) oh, meant to mention this at the last event, but would you guys have any interest in a southern pa event in July? looked barely farther than Frostburg.

[irish44j]

^^ e36 rack, you mean, right?

Will have to see about the PA event. Some of my weekends are already spoken for. I'm 99% definitely in for the Great Lakes regionals in Ohio though. It is inked into the schedule. Want to see how we stack up against other regions, for better or for worse.

[bluej]

Nah, e46. Ratio is between e36 and z3 and easier than z3 to find.

[irish44j]

the e36 and (non-M) z3 rack's main difference is that the z3 is linear, so it's quicker in the 20% on either side of center (e36 is progressive, so it's comparitively quicker closer to full lock than in the center). z3M rack is identical to the standard e36 rack.

Is the e46 rack linear, or progressive? I know it's about 10% quicker overall than the e36 rack. Didn't realize that it fits the e30. Interesting....

[bluej]

I never found an answer on linear or progressive for the e46. There's a chart floating around w/ the distance per turn for all the e30/e36/e46 racks.

Moot for me since there weren't any e46 racks but there was a good e36 rack that only needed the mount bolts and tie rods popped from the knuckles on a member already out of the car. For $25 I wasn't leaving empty handed.

[irish44j]

nice. well it should be quick enough for you I think :)

[phenryiv1]

Bumping Nick's thread to capture info before I forget it.

I replaced the boot and re-packed the inner bearing on the halfshaft on the e28 this weekend and wanted to capture the configuration for the next time when we do the other side.

On the ends, the inner and outer portions have wide and narrow "wings" that have to align for the bearing to have proper motion. The alignment is wide on one part aligned with narrow on the other (Nick has pictures). I assembled the end without the bearings and then added the bearings 2 at a time, 180* opposed. One goes into the cage from the top and the other goes in from the bottom, rotate 60*, repeat. Lastly, the end goes on the half shaft with the raised flange toward the middle.

[irish44j]

Nick is slacking. Especially with his GoPro camera backflip video (you'll see.....if he ever posts it up).

For any who aren't following my thread, Nick is co-driving my car with me at the Great Lakes National Challenge rallycross in Ohio this coming weekend. So hopefully one of us (or Josh S - bluej - driving his turboETA) can beat the bevy of turbo miatas and rx-7s in our class, who are all locals to that course. Should be interesting.