Barn Built Turbo M42 drift car

[ccsdo5]

So I kept hitting the frame on my car lock to lock so I put my friends e46 control arms on the car since he put extended e36 on his now. Basically pulled the wheel back in well and fixing my caster and camber problems that I had with the e36 m3 control arms. Also used e90 inner tie rods with e36 outer tie rods to get the length needed since the e46 arm is so much longer than a typical e30/36 one.







So now it pokes, like a lot...






Other than continuing to ruin the suspension on my car I found out I cracked my exhaust manifold. Sorta a bummer because I found out like 2 days before a drift event...



Yesterday I finally took the car to it's first drift event after owning it for almost 3 years. I drove it up just about 2 hours from my house with a few friends, drifted it for most of the day, then drove it back home. All with the cracked manifold, which is now even worse and extremely loud. Thankfully it wasn't bad enough the car still made 8psi of boost. But I did notice my AFR was all sorts of whacked out since I was losing a lot of exhaust before the sensor. It was still reading like 12.9-13 in boost so I said screw it and crossed my fingers it wouldn't blow up.





I pulled off just to double check everything was good with my car when I started to notice the lean air fuel reading on my gauge, this guy saw us drive by and pulled off as well. Super cool dude with a really clean e34 535i Turns out he is friends with my buddies snap-on guy who owns a e36 with a s54 swap. Small world awesome to meet new people randomly too!



So I love the M42 turbo as far as drifting is concerned. It is the perfect amount of power right now, it felt super smooth and really liked being clucth kicked. For my first event I did mehh the car is really snappy and is gonna take me a little to figure out by the end of the day I was doing a lot better thanks to all my friends and everyone else helping me figure it out at the track or realistically parking lot lol.

Here's a few other pictures I took yesterday







Now I need to fix my car for next weekend since it is freedom moves and I plan on driving that too!

[econti]

Removed rear sway bar yeah?

[varg]

Holy crap that suspension geometry! I think cracked exhaust manifolds are just a fact of life on DIY turbo cars. Mine has cracked a couple of times, it's garbage so that's to be expected, but I've also seen professionally made manifolds that cost as much as my turbocharger crack so I've just resigned myself to dealing with it and not beating myself up over my lack of fabricating skills when it happens. You pretty much have to stick with well made cast iron manifolds or thick walled tubing if you don't want to deal with cracks.

[ccsdo5]

Removed rear sway bar yeah?

Why would disconnecting the rear sway bar help? I know people do it but what does it accomplish?

Holy crap that suspension geometry!

Oh yeah my suspension geometry is all sorts of funny now. My wheel still sits back a little too much I think if I can machine down the e46 arms from the Hexagon style CAB to the typical circle and can fit them in the SRS lollipop's I have it'll position my wheel in the perfect spot and I can spin my camber plates 90 degree's to adjust caster. The only good thing about putting the e46 arms on is that the front wheels have basically full contact to the ground when at full lock for maximum grip up front.

I think cracked exhaust manifolds are just a fact of life on DIY turbo cars. Mine has cracked a couple of times, it's garbage so that's to be expected, but I've also seen professionally made manifolds that cost as much as my turbocharger crack so I've just resigned myself to dealing with it and not beating myself up over my lack of fabricating skills when it happens. You pretty much have to stick with well made cast iron manifolds or thick walled tubing if you don't want to deal with cracks.

This is true I'm not mad it cracked, I knew it was going to happen at some point. It is probably my poorly made 3" exhaust which hangs a little too low for the NY area with all our pot holes and stuff. The part that broke looks to be a different pipe that was cut and rewelded when DJ Buttchug made the manifold originally. I'm not a great fabricator myself but if there was a way to get a cast manifold for the m42 I would get it. But I'll just deal with fixing this one for the time being until I decide on what I want to do with my car and either stay M42 turbo or put something else in it in the future.


Anyway manifold started as a crack which was annoying, but taking the car for a day of abuse last friday really took a toll on the manifold. I'm sorry Buttchug, your manifold might be on its last life this time.



I took my turo off since I couldn't really repair this while it was on the car. As I was checking the little T25 for shaft play, which is has a little nothing terrible though, a small piece of metal fell out from the exhaust housing. Yes that's the missing part of the manifold. Thankfully I only had this T25 on the car and not my nice gt2871r I would've cried if I messed that turbo up.



I figured I wouldn't be able to fix that part of the manifold nicely in time to get my car back together for freedom moves, so I grinded it down best I could hit it with a wire brush and made a sheet metal patch for it to get by for this weekend. My tig welding isn't that great but I had a really hard time last night trying to weld to the manifold. That same area had a few stress cracks that I also welded. You can't see any light through the thing so hopefully it is okay. It's going to break again I know, but I'll see how long this fix works for me.

[Dj Buttchug]

holy shit dude.

[ccsdo5]

Yeah man crazy stuff. I found some pictures online from that event though!















My friends are way better than me, they were on fire all day too. I mean for a parking lot it's a lot of fun.

[ccsdo5]

Found some more pictures of my car to share. Other people make it look wayyyyyyy better than it actually is.





About to smack the cone. oops.















Also went and drove freedom moves this past weekend. Drove my car the 2 hours to get there Saturday night, drove it all Sunday beating the crap out of it, then drove it back home again. It was awesome! I love this thing.

Sadly the turbo manifold didn't survive and cracked again. Probably from flying off track and bottoming out my exhaust. I think part of my problem (other than the low hanging exhaust is my down pipe is sorta tight and is taking all the flex out of flexpipe already so the next weakest part is breaking. I'm going to repair it again this weekend and fix my downpipe and see how it works out for me until I figure out a better solution for a manifold.

[efficient]

Nice drift pics

[econti]

I found that removing rear sway made it much more predictable and less snappy

[ccsdo5]

Nice drift pics

Thanks!

I found that removing rear sway made it much more predictable and less snappy

Interesting next time I go to the track I'll have to do a lap with my swap bar connected, and then a lap after with it disconnected to see how it feels.


So I finally got my friend Patrik to come to clubloose which happened to be the first time I got to drive there too so it was a fun weekend! Here's a few pictures he took, he's a killer photographer.

A34 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

A33 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

A35 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8499 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8930 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8938 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8935 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8932 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_9120 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_9121 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_9123 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_9126 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_9129 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8441 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr

D7K_8783 by Pat_Landor, on Flickr


Okay I'm done spamming pictures in this post. Just look at his flickr if you like drift car thingzzzz. I have to finish fixing my downpipe this weekend so I can stop breaking this manifold and start driving my car again this week so I can get to another event Friday after work.

[varg]

I sure wish we had drifting events like that here. I'd love to slap a set of bottlecaps with all-seasons on the back and git gud

[Dj Buttchug]

looks a little weird with such gnarly camber and angle up front. I think it would be sick to see you smashin more of a stock setup. still bamf all around tho

[ccsdo5]

I sure wish we had drifting events like that here. I'd love to slap a set of bottlecaps with all-seasons on the back and git gud

Yeah dude it's a blast! I'm pretty sure there are a few drifting events in Florida, but I don't how far they are away from you.. But if you ever get the chance just go and have fun!!

looks a little weird with such gnarly camber and angle up front. I think it would be sick to see you smashin more of a stock setup. still bamf all around tho

I agree. I had spacers on it up front but took them off and it looks a little more normal without crazy poke. The camber is actually important though so I don't want to take much out since it maximizes front tire contact when the wheel is fully turned. I'd love to have my car look something like this though. A nice clean mtech2 setup and well fitting wheels / tires.

[ccsdo5]

Was suppose to go to the track and go to the drift clinic thing today in NJ but as usual my car is broken. :(:(
I moved the battery into a battery box so it would pass tech, and because of that I moved the ground to the battery. Started the car it ran idled fine and then just sorta sputtered and shut off. So I moved my ground back to the original spot in the trunk and it started right up again. Pulled it out to go do a drive around the block and halfway around the thing started to sputter and break apart to the point of having to cost back down my road into my driveway. Took a look at the plugs, plugged my laptop in to see if something seemed wrong and nothing really changed. I measured the resistance on the CPS and it read like 900 ohms, that seemed sorta high to me I had a spare one that read 500 ohms so I swapped it out and same thing, car sputters and dies and just hates life. I must've shorted something when I moved that battery ground. So I think I am either ruining the CPS' (I'll check when it isn't raining the resistance of the one I put in now that I started the car) Or I possible messed something up on my megasquirt. I'm feeling pretty stupid about this and I think I am just not allowed to have fun with this car. I'm getting really close to ditching the M42 turbo stuff and just swapping in an SR20 or M50.

lame pic of broken car.

[econti]

swapping a M50 won't stop you shorting things from the battery chief