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

[moatilliatta]

What a great update! :)

15's are pretty awesome, I do wish they had better 16" options though, even E38 style 5's are getting hard to come by.. Good to see progress still being made and looks like a good move, everything is looking awesome!

I'm playing that tire fitment game now. .

[Digitalwave]

225/50/15? Any reason you didn't go 225/45/15?
15s for life!

Several, actually. #1 is that even though they are "225s", they are skinnier than any of the 50 series options, by quite a bit actually. Secondly, this car runs a 4.45 final drive, and its spot on perfect with 24" tires. With 23" tires, I'd have to go back to a 4.10 or 4.27. I don't run a skid plate and I don't like how much lower they make the car sit. Lastly, I just don't think the tiny diameter tires look very good unless the car is absolutely slammed. That said, I have a set of 225/45-15 Toyo RR. You can see how easily they fit, to the point that they look weaksauce for fitment. I'd have to run spacers with them. But at least they don't have any fender clearance issues.

That's a hell of a HP and TQ gain from just a head and re tune. Awesome. Imagine if you ran ITBs as well. Probably get you in the 190+ HP range and better throttle response. Again awesome stuff you got going on.

I was really surprised by the gain. I expected it to be about the same, honestly. ITBs have been something I wanted to do since I bought this car, but I don't really want to commit to them yet. They're a fairly large project and I don't know anything about tuning Alpha N and ITBs, so I don't want to get in over my head. To be competitive in the class I am in, I would need to run aero (a real wing and a real splitter) and Hoosiers, which I could do, but I really have no desire to go faster in this car than I already do with the half cage, so I think this car is going to remain mostly as-is. If I have one desire for it for now, it's to upgrade the dampers to something digressive like Ohlins TTX or MCS 2-ways. Thanks for the comment!

What a great update! :)

15's are pretty awesome, I do wish they had better 16" options though, even E38 style 5's are getting hard to come by.. Good to see progress still being made and looks like a good move, everything is looking awesome!

I'm playing that tire fitment game now. .

Thanks bruh. Are you going to The Vintage? I might come out (won't bring a car, though).

I actually have a couple sets of nice 16" wheels, but tires are more of the problem. There are very few choices for DOT slicks in 16" sizes (see comments above about diameter). There are plenty of choices in 15" and 17", though. Looks wise I have always thought 16" is the best for E30s. Perfect compromise of wheel size, brake clearance, and tire sidewall.

If I had larger brakes I wouldn't have really minded staying at 17", but without needing the brake clearance, I think it was worth removing the roll center spacers. The 15" wheels seem to be a net positive in ride quality, handling, and acceleration due to their decreased mass. The tires are a good $300-400 a set cheaper, too. That's not the end all be all for me, but I can't say as though it isn't nice when they are only competitive for 2 weekends.

[DEV0 E30]

All of the details and knowledge you've been sharing with different setups is awesome.

Also, the purple details are bangin'. I think you could use another 10+ sets of wheels though.

You're making me want that hood some day too, I know the fitment isn't perfect, but I wonder of color matched would look good on another color.

[Digitalwave]

All of the details and knowledge you've been sharing with different setups is awesome.

Also, the purple details are bangin'. I think you could use another 10+ sets of wheels though.

You're making me want that hood some day too, I know the fitment isn't perfect, but I wonder of color matched would look good on another color.

Thanks dude. I think I own 13 sets of E30 wheels right now... tons of duplicates so I need to clear some of them out for sure lol.

The hood fits fine for my needs but it definitely would look out of place on a track car. It's so high compared to the fenders. I do love the overall look though.

[Joeyz31]

So stoked to catch up on this and really appreciate the updates! I know how much time it takes for such detailed posts.
I have been following along on Instagram and really enjoy the more detailed updates. I am loving the way this car looks with the 15s and you have me wanting to swap my 15x7 FFDs for 15x8s

The car seems like it rips with the 170hp and the diff ratio you ended up with.
Looking forward to what comes next!

[Digitalwave]

So the big update is I bought another car back in February. I check RacingJunk once in a while just for the hell of it. One day saw this E30 listed for a pretty good price, and I got really excited when I started reading about it. It was like the real race car version of my car. Quick list:

• M52B28
• AST 4100s
• IRP spherical trailing arm adjusters
• Very nice FIA style cage
• Tons of spare parts

The price was fair, didn't even negotiate. It was a few hours away in Georgia, so I committed to it, and went to get it the following weekend. It came with so many spares I couldn't even fit them all on the trailer, in my X5, and inside the E30. It came with 4 extra medium case LSD's, 4 extra sets of wheels/tires, an extra composite hood, a brand new never used Bimmerworld V3 carbon fiber wing, ceramic coated Euro S50 headers, consumables like pads, some maintenance parts, a bunch of new and used iS front lips and rear spoilers, and even more I can't recall. I was packed up to the gills, and couldn't fit the composite hood. A friend of mine picked it up in GA for me and brought it to our next race for me.

























The next day when I unloaded everything, it was a bit of "oh crap, where is all this stuff going to go." After sorting through it, I posted some stuff for sale, and packed some stuff away that I knew I was going to want to keep.















Cool center jack points that are integrated into the roll cage at the door bars.






Too many wheels... I've been dismounting shot tires and will need to clean up at least 3-4 of the sets to be sold.






So prior to me purchasing the car, about 2 years ago, the PO had crashed the car at Road Atlanta during his first BMWCCA club race. The body was repaired and the car was repainted BMW Space Grey, which is actually the same color as my X5. The paint job and body work are pretty good. The passenger side rear quarter panel was replaced and the fender isn't rolled like the other side is, so I will definitely need to do that.

The cage is super nice, one of my favorite parts of the car. It's just designed well, bars are all noded, the FIA style door bars are kicked out all the way to the outer door skins, triangle foot saver bars. All the goodies.

The seat mount frame is attached to the cage which is a nice touch. They also notched the tranny tunnel so the seat can be more centered. The steering column support was cutout and new mounts were made that attach to the roll cage dash bar. That centers and straightens out the steering column better than factory.

The rest of the interior is meh. It didn't have a dash. The gauge cluster was attached to the dash bar and it was wayyy too high. I knew I'd want to add a dash to the car and clean up the interior a lot. I sold the passenger seat and harness. It took me a while to find a dash. I found a pretty rough one an hour away. Price was okay. It actually had minimal cracking, but it was soooo faded and nasty. After hosing it off and soaking it in 303 Aerospace protectant, I laughed to myself, because the dash cleaned up sooooo well. This is a dash people would swap out for on a nice street car. And I cut the crap out of to fit it around the cage.

My plan for this car is to fix it up some, get it sorted/straightened out, and then do "comp school" with it later this year to get my racing license. It will be a TT5/ST5 car, like my black car, but probably a lot more competitive.

After cleaning up and reorganizing the garage (thank God for the lockers/cabinets, etc.), I really wanted to mount of the Bimmerworld wing. I'm not sure if I will run it straight away, but long term I do want to run full aero on this car. The wing and a large, solid front splitter to match it. I will probably shake the car down without it, so I know what I'm starting with, before mixing in the aero. I don't have any experience with aero, so it will be a good learning process.


They had previous put the stand offs on the trunk, and the trunk had holes for an iS spoiler. I had 4 iS spoilers that came with the car, so I knew I wanted to modify one of them to fit with the wing on the car as well. And I really wanted to see the wing on the car.











One of the few interior shots I have... I didn't take many because it was so ugly with no dash and everything clamped to the dash bar.









Zip tie grave yard after taking all the FIA padding off the passenger side. Still a lot of residue I have to clean up.






The big ass Hoosiers fit this car easily, it has more camber due to the fully adjustable rear. I will have to roll the passenger side flat or maybe cut out the inner lip, though. The passenger side is touching. Plenty of clearance on the rolled/pulled driver side.









Painted the spoiler and got the wing mounted up on the car.














Ahhh here is the interior in all it's glory. This is actually after removing everything on the passenger side! There was more stuff up there on the dash bar, and another seat/passenger for a passenger... started working on the dash. Tried to be patient and cut only a little at a time. Since the A-pillar support bars that span from the door bar to the middle of the A-pillar bar are more narrow than the A-pillar bars themselves, the dash had to be cut even more narrow than normal to be able to fit in between those bars. I got it, eventually.














Sorting out what was going on with the wiring. That is probably the weak point of this car. The wiring isn't very clean or well thought out. I've been fixing and repairing some of it, while trying to not go too crazy. Just making sure it's safe, and functional. There was an adder fuse box already for accessories, so that is kind of nice. I have electronics to add in, so I don't need to cut up any stock wiring to do so.







Wangggggg







Another side bar adventure back to FL! I had the chance to go down for 5 days to test the Spec E9X at Sebring for the first event of the year there. This is an ST5/TT5 car, so I had a chance to finally secure the TT5 track record! If you recall I had done the record in my E30, but crashed the same session, getting DQ'd in the process.

Since the last time I had driven the E90, not much had been changed besides aligning and corner balancing it. Changed to a less aggressive front brake pad, but that's about it.












It wouldn't be FL without an afternoon "hurricane" taking out all the tents in the paddock!












Admittedly it was easier setting the record in this car than it was when I did it in my E30. I was able to get it by over 2 seconds in just my second session of the first day. Then I reset it again in the last session of the second day. Got down to a 2:31.7. Carlos did a 2:30.4 in the car in the race group. I know there is still a lot of time left in the car. It should be mid to high 2:20's after some more development.

We were going to test the car back to back with new sticker Toyo RR versus new Maxxis RC-1 R2's, but after battling some brake rotor and ABS issues the first day, and a busy schedule all weekend, we decided against it.


8 E30 tires versus 8 E90 tires:






When I got home, I setup and leveled my scales so I could corner balance the black car again. It had been about 2 years since I'd done it, and in the mean time had changed the rear springs, alignment, and the weight of the car. I expected it to be a bit off, but the balance was spot on. I mean, dead on. I didn't touch it. But at least the levelers are good to go for when I balance the grey car.











That brings us current up to like 2 weeks ago. Have to upload some more photos now...

[Digitalwave]

Okay, I wasn't far behind. Only a few more photos from the car being up on the scales, and the current state of the grey car's interior.

[Digitalwave]

Some pictures from Roebling Road back in January. Still on the 17" wheels here.

[Digitalwave]

And finally, some pictures from Roebling Road in March. These are the 15" wheels. Here's a link to in car video from this event again: https://vimeo.com/705917012

To give you a sense of the power level/gearing for the car, I downshift from 5th to 4th in the braking for turn 1, and then leave the car in 4th for the entire lap. So those lower (not really low, this is a fast track) speed exits around 60mph are pulling from the middle of 4th gear. You can hear it really come on the cam around 4,600 RPM.

[Digitalwave]

So stoked to catch up on this and really appreciate the updates! I know how much time it takes for such detailed posts.
I have been following along on Instagram and really enjoy the more detailed updates. I am loving the way this car looks with the 15s and you have me wanting to swap my 15x7 FFDs for 15x8s

The car seems like it rips with the 170hp and the diff ratio you ended up with.
Looking forward to what comes next!

Thanks! With in reason, wider wheels are better. Even if you stay with the same tire size. The autocross bois have tested this a lot. 15x9" with a 225 is a common setup.

[amcp]

Am I reading this right? Your slicktop with no interior, but a half cage weighs 2553? Is that with ballast?

[Digitalwave]

Am I reading this right? Your slicktop with no interior, but a half cage weighs 2553? Is that with ballast?

Well, you are kind of reading it right. Corner balancing has to be done at full weight, i.e. with actual fuel levels and the driver in the car (gear and all, preferably). Since I weigh just under 200lbs, the car weighs about 2,350-ish (as I did mention above).

Car still has a full size battery, full glass, power windows, door skins, a dash with a bunch of electronics, working locks, all working latches/hinges. Still a lot of ways that it could potentially lose weight, but that I don't really care to do.

[amcp]

2350 is pretty solid. Like you said there's more you could do. Bet its pretty fun on track!

[DEV0 E30]

Haha I love this, so many spares and now a spare race car. Quality update.

[moatilliatta]

Thanks bruh. Are you going to The Vintage? I might come out (won't bring a car, though).

I actually have a couple sets of nice 16" wheels, but tires are more of the problem. There are very few choices for DOT slicks in 16" sizes (see comments above about diameter). There are plenty of choices in 15" and 17", though. Looks wise I have always thought 16" is the best for E30s. Perfect compromise of wheel size, brake clearance, and tire sidewall.

If I had larger brakes I wouldn't have really minded staying at 17", but without needing the brake clearance, I think it was worth removing the roll center spacers. The 15" wheels seem to be a net positive in ride quality, handling, and acceleration due to their decreased mass. The tires are a good $300-400 a set cheaper, too. That's not the end all be all for me, but I can't say as though it isn't nice when they are only competitive for 2 weekends.

So far that's the goal, still got a few things I want to do to my car. Staying on tail of the dragon Wednesday night and up blue ridge Thursday. always a good trip. Cant wait to get away.