390,000 Mile Weekend Track Warrior

[GSU_ENGR]

?Since today was the day I would have been participating in my first track event, I’ll just post an update on the car since in place of the canceled event. I’ve still been battling a clunk sound up front when turning slow. It almost felt like a side to side shift. So I was hoping going into the weekend that the new motor mounts, steering coupler or strut mount would solve this issue.
First order of business was new motor mounts. I had noticed the passenger side looked off, and with all the write ups I’ve seen saying replace them anyways to prevent the fan from smashing the radiator upon hard braking, I decided to get some new ones.

Clearly they needed to go, because they were definitely planning on taking out my radiator and cutting my first track day short. So, in with the new ones.

I wish I could have kept these bad boys clean, but i'm not building a show car.
Next up was probably one of the hardest parts I have tried to replace. The steering coupler. I would not recommend anyone that just plans to daily their car to replace it with a solid coupler. I knew going into it that it was going to be a challenge and debating doing it at all. But I had been under the car previously trying to find the source of the clunking and when investigating this part, I could get it to flex too much for comfort. The method I got to work was this:
Take the bolts off the top and bottom off the shaft completely. REMOVE the bolts that mount the steering rack to the subframe and take the tie rods off the strut assembly. This is important to do so you can get more movement out of the rack. I did not mark the position of the shaft where it was on the splines of the steering rack. Marking where the assembly meets the steering column splines is not as important due to the fact that you can just take the steering wheel off and re-center it. Now it gets tough. Remove the top where it meets the steering column spline. I had a lot easier movement there. Next, if you are lucky, you can get the bottom part of the shaft off of the rack by using a pry bar. I was not lucky and had to hammer upwards on the shaft for about an hour to get it to come off.

Now to remove the cracked rubber coupler. This was not a walk in the park either. You need to cut off the flared ends and then grind it flush. Then take a punch and hammer out the bolt or whatever it is BMW used for this. Next, my new bolts were bigger in diameter than the older ones so I had to drill the holes out to make them fit.

Now for even more difficulty. I just lost all flexibility of the coupler by replacing it with a solid one, so installation was more difficult. My method was this:
Put the shaft on the steering rack first and get it to go as far on the splines as possible. For me, this involved bringing the hammer back out.
Get the upper started on the steering column splines.
Bolt the steering rack up
Move the shaft up to it's final resting spot on the splines by hitting it with a hammer about 2352934 more times.
Torque it all back up.

Finally I replaced the upper strut mounts and I forgot to take pictures of the process but it was pretty straight forward. The old bearings did not move easily at all, so breaking that bolt was a blessing in disguise.

The test drive revealed no more clunking and a lot more vibration due to all the new solid parts, which is cool to me because race car (kinda). I have the car to a point where I am happy with it and feel ready for the track. But that will now have to wait until July.

[GSU_ENGR]

I have run out of new parts to put on, so It's time to get into some projects I have been putting off due to them not being necessary. A few months ago, I scored a set of plastic bumpers. Since I have no new parts to put on, I figured I would mock it up to see how it looks and if I actually like it. I went into this thinking it would be a simple 30 minute deal, but I was way wrong. I have never removed bumpers from an E30 so it was all a good learning experience. Nothing exciting here, just a quick update.



The last pic is mocked up with my track wheels for when the day finally comes, which is July as of right now. I do like how the bumper looks, now to just get it painted and put back on whenever I can go visit my dad and use his paint skills to do it. Also, what a PITA it is just to do all of this. Putting the correct bumper back on was no walk in the park.

[GSU_ENGR]

While I had the bumper off, I decided to remove the rest of the A/C system from that area. All that was left was the condenser and one hose. As everyone knows, removing this takes away the mounts for the electric fan. I didn't feel like buying mounts and it was already too late since I took the condenser off, so I just made my own. Since I have no welder, this was not as quick as I would have liked it to be, but here is what I did.
First I drilled the rivets out of the frame for the condenser so I can utilize the factory mounts.

Rivet is in the bottom left for reference.
Next I cut a piece to run from the top bracket to the bottom and made two 90 degree brackets to bolt them to the factory brackets.

Top bracket

Bottom Bracket

Fan mounted back up and ready for use. I haven't gotten around to wiring it to run off of a switch yet for two reasons. I'm not 100% sure how to do it yet, and I'm already running low on projects, so I will save it for another time. But for about $15, the fan is mounted back up and no more A/C system up front.

[paynemw]

If you can swing it, grab another oil pan now and get it baffled. It is absolutely needed for tracked m20b25's. Also, get yourself set up to do one or two autoX events, not because I think you should do that over track days, just because they are really cheap and really help you understand what it's like to drive your car in a prepared state. I've literally driven a e28 535is with NO preparation after buying it the weekend prior, so don't feel like your car isn't ready. This experiment will really help you ID what you need to do.

[GSU_ENGR]

Last weekend was my first track event, but first let's catch up on the work on the car.

Since the original date for my track day in April was canceled, I decided to beef up the safety of the car by getting a roll bar. I looked into all of my options and after some time, I decided to go with Kinematic Speed in NC. The quality of this bar is amazing. There are multiple options they give to match what you have/want. I highly recommend anyone, especially those in the southeast that are looking at roll bars to go with Kinematic. The install was very easy. I'm sure you can get away with not even removing the carpet to install it, but I installed my 6pt harness at the same time, so it had to come out. My main concern was how the mounting points would interfere with the fuel rails. There is no issue with these mounting points because Kinematic supplies buttonhead bolts so they do not interfere with the positioning of the rails.
While the carpet was out, I decided to try to dye it black. Instead, I now have a dark navy blue carpet because apparently I don't know how to dye carpet. But I can live with it. I got the interior put back together, 6pt harness installed and OMP halo seat installed to keep me safe on track.

[GSU_ENGR]

To the track!
Loaded up and ready to get down to Roebling Road Raceway.

This is a day I have been dreaming of since a little boy. I booked this event with NASA-SE due to great feedback from others and the structure in which they have their events. Normally for the HPDE1 group, in car instructors are provided, but with the COVID guidelines in place this weekend would be lead-follow only. I got there on Friday to give myself plenty of time to get ready for the weekend ahead and to help out my friend that was going through the competition school in his Spec E30. My car passed tech and I was good to go for 4 sessions on track Saturday and 5 on Sunday.


Saturday:
The day begins for the HPDE1 group in class where instructors go over the basics of being on track and what is to be expected of us throughout the weekend. After the class session was over, the instructor handed out track passes that we would give to the workers so we could get out onto the grid for the session. Next it was time for the first on track session of the day. With my nerves going crazy, I got in the car, tightened the harness to where I could barely breathe and made my way to grid. Pulling up to the grid I realized I did not put my track pass where I could hand it to the workers. Not wanting to undo the harness, I tried to get into my pockets to pull it out but I had no luck. I explained to the workers how much of an idiot I was and after some discussion they let me go onto grid with my promise of bringing it to them after the session was over. With my tail between my legs, I pulled behind my instructor and sat in the 98 degree heat until the session began. As soon as the tires touched the track, everything I was fearing went away and the fun began. The format for lead follow would be the Instructor and two of us behind him. The instructor I had was in a beautiful '68 gt350 and the other car with us was a s2000. I knew I couldn't keep up on the straights, but that's not why we buy E30's.
I was all smiles after the session ended and couldn't get over how great the car felt on track. As the weekend went on, I gained a ton of respect for my 392,000 mile car.
Unfortunately for the S2000, his clutch went out in the 3rd session and he was done for the day. I received some good feedback from the instructor and we went out for the last session of the day.


Sunday:
After the second session of the day, the instructor decided I had proven that I could go solo for the rest of the day. I was ecstatic. I had proven that I could hold my own in just 6 sessions EVER on track. Now it was time to see how much fun I could really have. It only took 2 laps for me to completely pull away from the instructor and start catching the groups in front. The car did fantastic. I hung around another pair of S2000's for the rest of the sessions. They would lose me on the straight and I would catch them just in time for us to get back on the straight again and do it all over. I did my part of keeping it shiny side up all weekend and finished the last lap of the last session with the low fuel light on. Perfect. Car back on the trailer and I was headed home. Or so I thought. I ran over what seemed to be the remains of a pocket knife in my truck and had to put a spare on and finish my journey.


After watching some In car footage I had, I noticed my oil pressure dropping drastically through turn 3 which is a fast sweeping left hander. So the next step will be a baffle to keep this engine alive. But I'm hooked.

[GSU_ENGR]

Finally addressing the oil pressure loss during sweeping left handers. After researching and taking with some of my racing buddies, I bought a second oil pan, AAF oil pan baffle and IE crank-scraper. This should solve my issue and prolong the life of this 390k mile toy.
I bought the oil pan off of FB marketplace. Upon arrival, it had some nastiness on the gasket mating surface so cleaning that was first on the list of to-do's along with removing what looks like welding splatter in the oil pan but it's more than like just casting imperfections.



The install went smoothly until it didn't, more on that later. I supported the engine with a engine support bar from HF. From there, I went the route of remove the subframe along with the suspension to give me as much room as possible. This wasn't hard, just time consuming. The higher up in the air your car is, the easier it is to get everything out.

[GSU_ENGR]

Drain oil and remove pan. As everyone says when installing the crank-scraper (windage tray), you have to turn the crank and modify the scraper for proper clearance. I think they may be because the original designs were not as precise as the new ones. Mine required no trimming. Now to the frustrating part. After I tested the scraper, I grabbed the oil pump to put back into the engine and for some reason I decided to spin the oil pump shaft to see how it works and broke one of the "stoppers". Unfortunately my hopes of this being a one day job was ruined by my own stupidity. But they probably should be replaced anyways. I put the oil pan on to seal the engine since I do not have a garage and the car is exposed to the elements. I bought some longer M6x1.00 bolts to help everything line up when installing since you have to balance two gaskets, the scraper and the pan all at once. I forgot to take pictures of how I did this but I have to do it again anyways so I will take pictures then. The BMW dealership near me will have the part within the next two days thankfully (part #11411280950).

[paynemw]

Glad to see you picked up a crank scrapper & oil baffle. Are you going to do any work to that subframe now that you have it out? Might as well get some reinforcement welded in!

[GSU_ENGR]

Glad to see you picked up a crank scrapper & oil baffle. Are you going to do any work to that subframe now that you have it out? Might as well get some reinforcement welded in!

I thought about it but my original plan was to have it all done in one day. Since I don't have a welder, that would turn it into a couple day job. Now I'm wishing I would have got them anyways.

[GSU_ENGR]

The dealership got the parts to me next day, which was awesome. I installed them as close to how there were before I broke them .Once in the engine I could further adjust them to eliminate up and down movement of the oil pump shaft. Oil pan and all was installed without a hitch this time. As for putting the subframe back in, it wasn't as difficult as people make it out to be though it is not super easy either. A jack is your best friend. The hardest part is keeping the shock assemblies in the wheel wells while you jack the subframe up. I primed the oil pump by pulling the fuse relay for the fuel pump and let the engine turn over for a little bit. No funny noises while priming or when actually running so a success in my book. Oil pressure was nice and high but that is normal on a cold start. My alignment somehow is now way off so I need to address that before a test drive to see how the pressure fluctuates now. The picture below show the longer bolt I used when mounting the oil pan. Putting this in on the driver's side of the pan keeps all the gaskets and scraper from sliding around while you maneuver the pan around the oil pump.

[GSU_ENGR]

Next on the list to be replaced is the severely cracked driveshaft guibo.

Two things made this job more difficult than I wanted it to be. 1. the vibration dampener. 2. the custom exhaust by one of the previous owners. The exhaust is a single piece with no midsection, so the exhaust had to be dropped from the manifold. The dampener made it hard to get a socket and wrench on the guibo bolts, but a breaker bar and wrench proved to be the winning combination. While I was in the area, new Condor transmission mounts were installed. I used new nuts on the guibo bolts per recommendation.

Test drive showed no vibrations so we are good to go there. Last week I had the dumb idea to remove and refresh the injectors. I had a hard time actually removing them so I aborted the job and put everything back together. The test drive revealed that my partial attempt at removing the injectors created a problem. The car ran rough but still ran. So now I have no choice but to remove the injectors and finish what I initially stared. This led to more headache. After removing the first injector, I saw "Ford" on the side of the injector. One of the previous owners replaced the stock injectors with injectors from a 90's Mustang.

I'm not sure of all the benefits of this, but the car ran good with them so they are going back in. While removing the #6 injector the pintle cap fell off and in the injector hole in the manifold. After a mild panic and talking myself out of taking the intake manifold off, I shaved off some of the thickness of some fuel hose, duct taped it to my shop vac and stuck it down in the hole. After three tries, it actually worked.

Rain cut this job short of reinstalling the injectors since I do not have a garage. But fyi, a rebuild kit for Bosch EV1 injectors work for these as well. It's not ideal, but I have a track day in two weeks, so it's crunch time.

[GSU_ENGR]

Update. Bosch EV1 rebuild kits DO NOT work with these injectors. I put the injectors back in the car and noticed the fuel rail wasn’t lining up so I pulled up on it only to notice the injector no longer had the cap on it. So I pulled the rail out and all 6 caps are sitting in the injector ports. The vacuum truck didn’t work, this time it just pushed a cap into the port. So now I’ll be taking the manifold off to make sure I get all the caps out. And I’ll be ordering a rebuild kit specifically for these injectors. Unfortunately this means I have to back out of the track day I signed up for on the 13th and 14th.

[Northern]

Well that's unfortunate. I liked the hose/vacuum trick but it's a shame it didn't work twice.
Would be nice to understand what the injectors are haha.

[GSU_ENGR]

Well that's unfortunate. I liked the hose/vacuum trick but it's a shame it didn't work twice.
Would be nice to understand what the injectors are haha.

yeah the vacuum trick not working was a big letdown. The injectors are Denso F1ZE-C2A made for 90-95 mustangs or Ford v8’s. They are 19lb injectors which is a bit high for a stock engine in my opinion. But seeing these makes me wonder if it was tuned/chipped to run these injectors. I may try a smaller hose to get the caps out but I’ve already cancelled my registration for the track so I have the time to pull the intake. It could use a cleaning and the oil return tube shows signs of leaking.