The Ecobeamer

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

Glad it's still around, and that you had a chance to use it, but it looks like you need some more rivets for your rear flare.

very cheeky, i can assure you there is an abundance. that gap you see is to help ventilate heat generated by the cars brilliance ;)

[roguetoaster]

Glad it's still around, and that you had a chance to use it, but it looks like you need some more rivets for your rear flare.

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

With all that being said, the car is badass. Its power to weight is very strong(around 6.5 lbs per hp) nearly enough to put it at the limit of NASA ST1 classing and its weight distribution is not going to be beat by almost any other bmw considering that i made it mid engine. people love the side-dump exhaust and when it bangs off the limiter, its pretty loud. it was popular at the event because people didnt know what was in it and its funky, of course i did receive a comment about the terrible body work and paint lol.

i just need to figure out what route i want to go with the car and take it that way because i like to see things get used, it deserves it.

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

i needed some pictures from this build so the thread was a good resource, thought i would post an update while im here.

ecobeem has been in storage for a long while, pretty much after i finished it and enjoyed it for a little bit. ive been occupied with rebuilding my cobra and other things. late last year i decided to get the bmw going for a drift event, it deserved use and i needed some motorsports. there were a couple things to adress that were never 100% (side dump exhaust, rear brake circuit) but other than that the car was good to go.

heres a little video i made of my first outing in this car on a track, she performed very well if you ask me. towards the end of the event i did blow a coolant hose and lost all my coolant but thats no big deal.

https://youtu.be/OMytCoe7rEw

as far as the car goes one of the biggest takeaways ive learned is that a large displacement 4 cyl with no balance shafts and solid motor mounts is pretty rough. its a very vibrating rattling type of car you can feel resonant vibrations through the car. solid motor mounts in my cobra i love they are great, in this bmw with 4cyl no thankyou. ive learned im not a big fan of 4cyl in general. the weight savings isnt enough and they sound bad. I Think NA v8s and v12s are where its at nowadays, inline 6 is always nice too.

other than that i still dont have much seat time in car as far as motorsports usage is concerned. for the future im considering sending the thing off road doing rally type stuff with it. would have to be pretty slow though because the car is not at a high level of safety standard to me. the reasons being the fuel cell and the roll bar should be a cage for rally offroad

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

Kinda bummed on the cage. Check out some Motorsports cages for a second iteration. :)

cages are hard to do well. im building a cage to nasa spec for a different car right now and it reminds me how much i despise dealing with the super dirty and contaminated bmw sheet metal. it sucks. ive come to the conclusion that unibody cars kinda suck in general and that tube chassis race car is the way

[moatilliatta]

Kinda bummed on the cage. Check out some Motorsports cages for a second iteration. :)

[roguetoaster]

will probably have to figure out a solution to get my front camber somewhere reasonable for anything but drift

I don't see the problem with drifting everywhere, but if you do solve it you really need rivets, or at a minimum, rivnuts to be part of the fix.

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

will probably have to figure out a solution to get my front camber somewhere reasonable for anything but drift

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

Nice video, still an amazing build.

thanks man, the builds been a really good learning experience for me, mostly from the numerous mistakes lol but the car has served me well so far and someday will be dialed in very well and i can look forward to seeing how it competes to other similar level track cars.

[roguetoaster]

Nice video, still an amazing build.

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

cool progress. can you give some feedback on the z4 steering rack/ looking to use in an endurance race car but unsure if it will be low enough effort to make it worth while

im a big fan of the rack; its very compact, light, very cheap too(i got mine in great condition for a little over hundred bucks)

it provides very quick steering and the effort is good. i think of it like this:
the effort is not all that different than when i had my stock e30 rack with deleted power steering. so z4 with 2.5 turns lock to lock vs old unit with what like 4:1? and they are are pretty similar speaks to the light effort of the rack in my opinion. its doing more work for similar effort so id say that the effort is definitely good

[Dr. Rivet (hkv)]

Nice shift knob!

thanks man! it is really cool, took a few hours to make

[downforce22]

cool progress. can you give some feedback on the z4 steering rack/ looking to use in an endurance race car but unsure if it will be low enough effort to make it worth while

[DividedBeing]

Nice shift knob!