E30 335i - The new track (drift) project

[Erick]

So there was no "D-DAY MINUS 2"

Mainly because I just got home. I have been up for 36 hours straight. Stopped by my place for a much needed shower (some of the shit under that car just doesnt wash off no matter how hard you scrape off your skin), food, and (hopefully) the final parts run.

The motor is sitting in the car while Ter-Tech is taking measurements to make the brackets.

Rear subframe is done
E-Brake cables are hooked up (thanks Hayden!)
Whole rear suspension is back together.
Front subframe is installed.
E36 rack swapped in (what a fucking PITA by the way... the splines are ruthless)
GCs installed all around
5spd swap complete

Argh... it was a lonely night.

Anywho, more updates later on. Gotta get back to the shop, which is an hour away.

- Erick

[Spiff325iS]

Hurry the hell up! You can easily go 130+ hours without sleep...... just do it.

[Eric]

are you going to run some cool rims??? :)

[Erick]

Cool rims still on back up, waiting tires. I gotta roast some 16s before I can move on up ;)

Sadly, it seems like I'm not going to make the deadline. Although we are making good progress in my car, Ter-Tech has their own 2 cars to worry about and I'm kinda #3 on the order of importance.

I just got back home and after spending all night on my own at the shop trying to catch up, I am hanging my gloves in making the IRL.

There's a drift demo here at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday that would probably be more realistic to make it. It's free to participate (as opposed to $200 for the IRL + travel expenses, etc) and I don't have to be at the track by tomorrow night.

Somewhat dissapointed, but I can't say that I set myself up for a sure shot by starting an entire new car within weeks of the IRL.

Seeing this car coming together is quite exciting though. We've literally done everything from suspension, to brakes, to motor, interior, steering, etc.

New things that the old turbo M20 car never saw:

e36 rack
Steering spacers (massive dorito angle)
SS lines
Hydraulic ebrake

And Ground Control hooked me up with a sponsorship too. Many thanks to Jay, Jon and Mark over at GC for helping me out.

I just got some new springs (650f/950r) which will be a nice bump up from the 450f/550r. Also got some custom valved shocks ordered to spec by GC through Koni.

Those guys are awsome with their customer service though. For being the owner of the company (you'd figure the guy would be beyond cluttered to worry about the little guys), he has amazing follow up skills.

As for today's progress. Being tired made me mess up a few things, namely stripping the bolts on the CABs on the driver's side trying to torque them into position. Also made a few minor slip ups that need to be addressed tomorrow.

Biggest progress today was the fact that we got the motor mount brackets made. The motor is sitting super far back. I'm not sure how it compares to the "Position 3" that people talk about, but with a quick mockup with the radiator in place, I have about an inch from the PS pulley, which is the closest to the radiator.

Because I somewhat messed up installing the e36 rack (it sits about an inch taller than it should when I modified the brackets on the subframe) the motor also sits a bit higher. Clearance from the intake manifold to the hood is literally 1/8", if that. When I plug in the TPS sensor, it might hit the hood. I know the intake mani already hit the hood foam.

But everything is lined up and looks good to go.

Interior is starting to come together again.

Anywho, lots of progress, but the biggest lesson of all is to never pull all nighters. At some point, you get so tired it starts taking you half hour to do a 5 minute job, mainly because you're not paying attention and you have to re-do the same thing a million times.

Just putting the subframe in with the rack bolted up took me about an hour.

Never again. I honestly sleep for a few hours and come back to it rested.

- Erick

[M42Technik]

But does it have the wing on yet?

Congrats on the sponsorship!!

[Tree18is]

sweet, looking for the full shoot, videos when its all done.

[Farbin Kaiber]

BA, sorry to hear about the potential missing of the event. Also, I'll suggest durring those all nighters, a 30 min rest/powernap every 2 hours will help cut down on slipups.

[evil_twin]

must be nice to have that sponsorship from GC.

[Erik]

Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to finally meet you and see this beast Erick! Dammit! I really hope you can make it! I'll come up there Sunday for sure if you can!

[Jesse30]

fly me out there. i'll make you an exhaust with a quickness..

:D

[xlr8rbob]

sweet, looking for the full shoot, videos when its all done.

werd

hope it all came together.

[2002maniac]

BA, sorry to hear about the potential missing of the event. Also, I'll suggest durring those all nighters, a 30 min rest/powernap every 2 hours will help cut down on slipups.

or just slip some meth (totally kidding!!)

[Erick]

Unfortunately we didnt get it ready on time... and the project has been put on hold for now. I am going to have to travel out of town for a few weeks so I am getting my car towed back to my house before I can continue to finish it. Not much left on it now though... it's just a matter of putting stuff back together.

- Erick

[ansonivan]

Sucks you missed the deadline but I'm sure the car will go together much easier now that the pressure is off.

Keep up the good work sir.

[Erick]

Today is PICTURE DAY!!! :)

So today I went to pick up the car from Ter-Tech. Since I got there very early, we decided to do some interior work. I finished putting most of the interior together and we also installed the hydraulic ebrake.

It was a battle between me wanting to keep the whole interior, and Ter-Tech wanting to just gut the whole car and do the damn thing. This is where we met somewhere along the middle:


New steering angle:


The M30 + HIDs!!! (They are the only thing connected and working right about now :p)


Clearance shots (Yes it clears miraculously):



Custom engine mounts (if a meteor struck Earth.... these would be one of the few things left intact). Gotta send them to be painted before we finish le project.



As it sat before we loaded it up to put it in storage:


And that's all. For the next few weeks the car will sit in storage until I come back and can resume work on it. Next steps are the driveshaft, get missing parts, start putting everything back together, the works.

Shooting to have this sliding before June. Since we did just about everything in this car (brakes, suspension, steering, etc etc) I have a feeling there will be a LOT of gremlins to diagnose, but hopefully with a bit of patience we can pull through.

- Erick