Half-Life | '91 DS 318iS Slicktop | Track & Weekend Warrior

[Digitalwave]

RISING EDGE
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How Sim Racing Is Making Me Faster
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Why I Like: Chassis-Mount Shifters
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BMW Chassis-Mount Shifter Buyer's Guide
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FCP Euro Lifetime Guarantee
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Time Attack: Style and Substance
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[Digitalwave]

Not a ton of updates since my last post, but trying to stay current and not fall too far behind.

After my last event at CMP, I was supposed to go to FL and race at Sebring in the middle of December. I got sick at the airport and my flight ended up getting cancelled anyways, so Florida was a bust!

In January our season kicked off already, at Roebling Road. Not my favorite track, but it's alright. On Saturday I finished second place to my friend Nish who beat me by about 2 tenths. He reset his own track record there in the process. On Sunday, I beat his record from the day before by about 3 tenths! Then, in the very last session of the weekend, he beat me again, by 3 HUNDREDTHS this time. So he got the record back and won both days, and won all the contingency tires. I was kinda bummed, but also thrilled at how close the competition was.

Didn't take many pictures, but there's a gratuitous podium photo (me on left).













Been working on some random projects, and keeping up with maintenance. I finally swapped out my blue tool cart for a matching white one. Love this HF 5 drawer cart. I took the lid off the new one, since I never close it, and it's easier to get in and out from under the cabinets now.











I had the AST 4100s on the grey car rebuilt. They got a clean bill of health. Replaced the dry rotted bump stops with some new ones.










The AST rear height adjusters are bewildering. They don't have a clamp or a set screw like GC adjusters due. Instead, they use some sort of square thread that is self-locking when pressure is on it. It works OK, but I would rather have a locking collar. The head scratcher is that there is a gap between the spring perch and the center portion, and it fills up with dirt, sand, pebbles, and other crap. It was a bear freeing them up so they could spin freely. Dumb design.













The only good part that URO makes. About $20 and is well worth it!









Replaced my season old ducting, it never lasts forever.













While doing a bolt check and visual inspection of the car, I found aot of little issues. The vacuum line from the FPR to the intake manifold had a slice in it, since one of the hood vents of the CF hood sits really close to it. One of the silicone hoses going to my catch can had split due to the angle it was being stressed at. There were a couple more that I can't remember. Check over your car between every event!





Had to sell these Hoosiers as they don't work with the class I'm in. This is a good example of tire sizes meaning nothing. The left is 225/45-16 Toyo R888R on a 16x8" wheel. The right is 225/50-15 Hoosier R7 on 15x7" wheel.






Last week I put new pads and rotors on the black car. They weren't totally shot, but the rotors were looking pretty rough, and the pads are thin enough that the pedal feel isn't great anymore. One of the front pads disintegrated when I took it off, so I'd say it was due. PFC 08 aren't available in my pad size anymore, so I am trying Pagid RSL29s this time around.

The rear caliber bolts are awkward to reach with the rear shock installed. I tried torquing them with a 12" extension on the torque wrench, but the inaccuracy lead to snapping one of the bolts. Luckily it came out of the carrier easily by just cutting a slot into it with a dremel and using a flat head screwdriver to back it out.


















Hat tip to @moatilliatta for recommending billetautomotivebuttons.com to me. I bought some indicators from them for my grey car, since I deleted the gauge cluster. They were pretty cheap and look great! I'm using them as, left to right, ABS, Battery, and CEL.






My tire corner is getting out of control again. I sold the Hoosiers, sold a set of wheels, and I built a shelf in the corner (out of sight in this picture). It's more clean now. Forgot to take an "after" photo.






Lastly, both cars needed new windshields, so I had a local shop come over and install them for me. They look great. Screw that 35 year old pitted crap. Forgot to take pics of the new windshields, though.

Headed to CMP again next week, we have enough entires for contingency again, so I hope to win some more tires!

[Digitalwave]

Not much new to report today. I was supposed to be in Florida this weekend running the E90 at Sebring, but I got sick at the airport last night (terribly airport food) and then my flight ended up being cancelled anyways. I was looking forward to it since the weather has been so terrible in NC the last couple of weeks!

Last week I picked up the AST's after they were rebuilt by RE Suspension Inc. in Mooresville. Also picked up new bump stops for them. These will be going back on the grey car with some stiffer springs. The car has 400f and 600r springs which is too soft for a heavy 24v track car IMO. It also came with a set of 600f and 800r so I'll be putting those on when I reinstall. My black car has been running 650f and 850r which I am generally happy with. The ASTs are adjustable and have digressive valving, so they should be more "modern" feeling than my linear and super stiff Bilstein Group N's.


RISING EDGE
🏁 Let's drive fast and have fun.
✏ New article every Thursday!
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Here is some of the latest content from Rising Edge:


Saving R3VLimited
This one should be relevant to the readers of this thread! This article covers some of the history of R3VLimited including my early involvement, and how some of us are banding together to try and help James revitalize and bring new and lasting life to the site.

[Digitalwave]

I think you'll love Barber. Its a great track and the 30 is super easy to go fast in.
As always, car looks great with meats!

I've definitely heard a lot of good things about the track.

Quite honestly I don't get much out of working on my cars anymore. I am looking into finding a local shop to help support the cars, and possibly help with transport/track support, so I can do more events. That will help me immensely.

Looks amazing on track! The pics are sweet.

Thanks, appreciate that!

Great updates and pictures. Sounds like you've got things rather dialed in. If the black car may get more street time, can we expect some (Kevin/il duce) wheel turned pics?

I've yet to use FCP's return policy, but just as you said, store credit is just as good as a refund --- it's a revolving cycle of money that goes to them anyways.

If possible I try to buy from them for their service for most things. Which reminds me I need to send back on vent valve for a different one.

That's quite the sim setup too!

The car really is the best it's even been on the track. I actually wish I could go back a couple years and skip over the super stiff/17" wheel phase. I'm surprised I was able to achieve some of the times I did back then, and that I only had one more incident on track. The car was sooooo on edge before. I didn't realize it at the time.

FCP has always treated me well. I think of all the orders I've done with them, I only ever had one item mis-shipped, and they took care of it quickly. Really easy to work with.

[DEV0 E30]

Great updates and pictures. Sounds like you've got things rather dialed in. If the black car may get more street time, can we expect some (Kevin/il duce) wheel turned pics?

I've yet to use FCP's return policy, but just as you said, store credit is just as good as a refund --- it's a revolving cycle of money that goes to them anyways.

If possible I try to buy from them for their service for most things. Which reminds me I need to send back on vent valve for a different one.

That's quite the sim setup too!

[CubbyChowder]

Looks amazing on track! The pics are sweet.

[amcp]

I think you'll love Barber. Its a great track and the 30 is super easy to go fast in.
As always, car looks great with meats!

[Digitalwave]

adding weight, losing aero and taking podiums... love it

Thanks man. I have to say it felt really good to win with a deep field. My only other wins have been in small fields of 2-5 cars. Plus, with a field of 5+ I was able to win contingecy money (thus the Toyo Tires stickers that are in some photos and not in others). I won a full set of Toyo RR's.

Tis the season! Interesting how much a difference visually the splitter, spoiler, & 17's make. How did it compare without the light aero?

Looks like a killer rig! Anytime I have to get onto Iracing is usually gets chewed up with itself Updating...

Cool to hear there was a big field, I guess small enough to get some clean laps in TT?

Any Barber events next year? Some locals are trying to get me to go down there.

I would say that the car felt better than ever. If anything with the added weight it was pushing more, especially when the tires got hot. ~2850lbs with 225/50 Toyo RR is asking a lot of the tire IMO. However I have been spending the better part of a year dialing out oversteer and making the car easier to drive/push hard, I guess making it more forgiving and confidence inspiring. I was very happy with the balance, and think that I can overcome some of the issues with some more alignment changes.

For sure I can feel the difference with the small spoiler and small splitters that I have, but neither of them make a dramatic difference especially not under ~80mph.

The car looked totally different 2 years ago and even a year ago. I actually really don't care for the stock body look and I like the look of the 17's better, but the car is way more competitive in this class and the car is better than ever to drive on the 15's. Performance wise I could never go back to the 17's. THAT is a dramatic difference. The compliance and lighter weight of the 15" wheels is one of the best things I've done to the car in recent memory.

All that said this car isn't going anywhere, but it is probably going to morph back more to a street car than be used on track, except maybe for one day events that I do for fun with my friends (like Track Night in America). Next year I will be running the caged M52 grey E30 in ST5 as well as driving a Spec E9X car in Florida, and possibly another E90/E92 in GLTC. We will see, though.

Usually our TT group varies between about 25-45 cars overall for all classes. On some tracks like Roebling Road that is pretty hectic and you are always facing traffic. I think at the last event we had about 30-35 cars overall and traffic wasn't too bad. It has definitely made me aware of pushing hard in warmup as it sets the grid for the day. Sometimes if you get bad grid placement, it takes you all day to overcome that, and then you finally get clean laps when its 2 PM or 3 PM afternoon heat and you can't compete with the morning's times.

I'm about 6 hours from Barber now so it will be feasible to visit at some point, but I don't have any plans at this point. I have heard from a lot of racers that it is one of their favorite tracks in the country, though, so I would definitely like to try it at some point.

[moatilliatta]

Tis the season! Interesting how much a difference visually the splitter, spoiler, & 17's make. How did it compare without the light aero?

Looks like a killer rig! Anytime I have to get onto Iracing is usually gets chewed up with itself Updating...

Cool to hear there was a big field, I guess small enough to get some clean laps in TT?

Any Barber events next year? Some locals are trying to get me to go down there.

[2mAn]

adding weight, losing aero and taking podiums... love it

[Digitalwave]

And as usual, I leave you with the photo set from the most recent event @ CMP. Beautiful fall leaves going on!

[Digitalwave]

Update on the cars. Not a lot has gone on since the last update. I really haven't been motivated to work on cars. I need to seriously find a local shop that can work on my cars between events. I still want to drive and be at the track, but lately the passion for wrenching just isn't there.

Since Roebling Road and my leaky radiator, I put a new CSF rad in the car. Also got one for the grey car but haven't installed it yet. Found the pin hole on the radiator, something must have hit it.
























Since the end of the 2021 season, I was toying around with classing the car down from TT5 where it wasn't very competitive down to the slower class of TT6 where it would fit better. I never really got around to it until recently. I finally said F it and added a ton of ballast to the car to class down. It took a full tank of gas (usually ran it pretty low) plus 145lbs in the passenger seat and another 100lbs in the trunk to make weight.

Because we were nearly the end of the 2022 season, I didn't want to bother with re-tuning the car to reduce the power at all, since the 2023 rules are coming out soon and there is always the chance of major changes. My car is quite high HP and high weight for the class.

The good news is that the actual balance of the car is quite a bit better now.

Drilling the 8 holes in each weight plate way verrryyyy tedious.









Did a tiny bit of work on the new grey car by finishing up the interior. Since I did a cluster delete in that car I still needed to mount some of the dummy lights somewhere. I put them in a radio blank panel, but I don't really have a good way of securing the bulb holders except for super glue. There in there, but it's probably not a permanent solution. Maybe I'll have a friend 3D print something for me.












Tis the season






Lots of fluids ready to be sent to FCPEuro. They changed their lifetime warranty to store credit instead of a refund. I guess that doesn't matter a lot to me, as I'll continue to use the credits to purchase new stuff, and the cycle will continue.


















With the extra ~300lbs in the car, I needed to re-check my alignment as well as corner balance the car again. The corner balance surprisingly wasn't as far off as I expected, but weight balance/bias improved by quite a bit.

Front weight bias improved from 55.3% down to 52.4%. Left-side weight improved from 52.3% down to 50.6%.

I fixed up the corner balance and was ready for CMP.













In order to fit into TT6 I had to use just about every positive modifier available to me, including BTM (base trim model) aero, which means the body has to be 100% stock as per the base trim model of the generation (in this case a late model 318i). I had to take the spoiler off, put stock mirrors back on, run the thin 'i" front lip. The rules allow you to run a lightweight and/or vented hood, but with the "stock" look overall and needing the ballast, I put the stock steel hood back on for the time being.

The field was stacked with 13 cars and I was able to win both days at my first outing in the class! So even despite having ~500lbs on the Miatas, the setup worked well overall. I am going to keep the car as-is for 2023, it seems, and work on getting the new grey car ready for TT/ST5 (wheel to wheel racing).

I wrote about my first TT6 outing and first time at CMP here on RISING EDGE, if you'd like to read more: https://www.risingxedge.com/cmp-race...november-2022/



Lastly, about a month ago I finally bought a sim rig and started up in iRacing. I still have a lot to learn, but I am doing pretty well as a rookie. Here's some pics of the setup. The short list is: Accuforce 2 direct drive wheel with wireless button box, Fanatec V3 Clubsport pedals, Buttkicker bass shaker, 80/20 rig, triple 27" 144hz 1ms monitors, the PC has an i5 6-core, 32gb RAM, 10gb 3080 GPU, 2tb SSD.

I find it to be quite immersive in the dark room, and I really like racing wheel to wheel in iRacing.

[Digitalwave]

RISING EDGE
🏁 Let's drive fast and have fun.
✏ New article every Thursday morning!
📲 Subscribe for free.


Here is some of the latest content from Rising Edge:


Quick Hits: A052 2nd Try + Sim Racing Update
A bit of a follow up to my Yokohama A052, plus checking in on how sim racing has been going.


Why is safety such an after-thought?
The title says it all. Musings about car safety on track, and the lack of attention that it seems to receive.


Giving Thanks // Black Friday Deals
This one isn't very timely, unfortunately, as the deals have since passed.


CMP Race Report - Nov. '22
My full race report from my first visit to Carolina Motorsports Park. Spoiler alert: I won my class both days, out of 13 racers!


SpecE30 Is Dead
Wherein we discuss the death of SpecE30 as a viable racing class.

[Digitalwave]

I noticed some picture issues on the thread today so I went back and fixed/replaced/removed whatever I could to clean the thread back up. Sorry if anyone came across any issues.

Good luck @ CMP... Interested to hear your thoughts on the track. I've managed to avoid it throughout my entire career in motorsports, but since I've been toying with the idea of getting back on track with this "new" e30 it's been pretty high on my list to check out.

CMP was AWESOME. What a cool track. I wish I'd gone sooner, since it's so close! I'll post pics and more info once I get a chance, and get the photos from the event.

[Jb325is]

Good luck @ CMP... Interested to hear your thoughts on the track. I've managed to avoid it throughout my entire career in motorsports, but since I've been toying with the idea of getting back on track with this "new" e30 it's been pretty high on my list to check out.