390,000 Mile Weekend Track Warrior

[GSU_ENGR]

So, I've decided I want to go to the track, and what better car for it than a 390k mile 1987 325is. A little background. I bought the car in 2017 about 3 months after I graduated college to get started on my first solo project. The original plan was to have it for a reliable daily/something fun to drive. Fast forward to now; so far, I have just done basic maintenance on the car (New PS belt, Alt belt, oil change), no major upgrades. I've been wanting to drive on track since I was a child and decided what better time to get into the sport than now, so here we go. Any tips anyone has along the way would be appreciated. I am not new to working on cars, but I am new to making them work on a racetrack.

Here it is the day I brought it home


The Goal: Turn this 390,000-mile car into one that is fit for HPDE events and still easy for the street. This will mainly involve refreshing a lot of the bits on the car since the mileage on them is unknown. I will Start off by getting the car to a point to where I think it will handle the abuse on track, then I will upgrade seats, cage etc.

Car Background:

• Previous Owner Upgrades:
  • H&R Sport Springs w/Bilstein Shocks
  • Slotted front rotors
  • SS brake lines
  • “E36 M3 Steering rack”-Not sure if it’s true, but it is an E36 non the less.
  • Poly Rear Subframe bushings
  • KA Motors Intake
  • Aftermarket Exhaust
  • Z3 short shift kit
• My Planned Upgrades/Part Refresh
  • Sway Bar Bushings and End links.
  • Tie Rods-Alignment
  • DOT 4 Brake Fluid and Trackish Pads
  • Oil Pressure & Oil Temp Gauge
  • Battery Tie Down
  • Coolant Flush
  • Rebuild PS Pump
  • Spark plugs

Here Is the car now

I will post a follow along as I go through my list of To-Do's. I'm sure I have left a ton of info out, but I will be sure to edit and fill in as I go along.

[ForcedFirebird]

Long slippery road, it's quite addictive, Godspeed!

The list looks decent for a beginner, except for the slotted rotors - they warp like mad over just quality blanks. Centric makes a heavy duty rotor that's not overly expensive - we actually use them in endurance races since we generally do 10-14hr enduros. Once you do a few track days and speeds start going up, I would suggest a better brake fluid - DOT4 isn't quite sufficient, specially when you get real track pads. Pick a brand, but you want something with a higher boiling point such as Motul 600 (or 660) etc. Just keep in mind the high temp brake fluid is hydroscopic, and must be changed completely at regular intervals to avoid water intrusion.

[GSU_ENGR]

Long slippery road, it's quite addictive, Godspeed!

The list looks decent for a beginner, except for the slotted rotors - they warp like mad over just quality blanks. Centric makes a heavy duty rotor that's not overly expensive - we actually use them in endurance races since we generally do 10-14hr enduros. Once you do a few track days and speeds start going up, I would suggest a better brake fluid - DOT4 isn't quite sufficient, specially when you get real track pads. Pick a brand, but you want something with a higher boiling point such as Motul 600 (or 660) etc. Just keep in mind the high temp brake fluid is hydroscopic, and must be changed completely at regular intervals to avoid water intrusion.

I hear you loud and clear. I got some ATE type 200 to start off with. The price comparison was too much for me since I'll be staring out. Thanks for the info!

[-J-]

Long slippery road, it's quite addictive

That's 100% accurate. I went from Skip Barber to SCCA wheel-to-wheel in about a year and a half.

I'd highly recommend track pads. The aftermarket is rife with street/track pads that claim to do both. I've yet to find one that didn't scare the shit out of me on track. Pad changes are easy so swapping them for track use is a no-brainer. I've had good experience with Carbotech and PFC. I've had horrible experiences with EBC and Hawk.

Welcome to the financially irresponsible world of the race track!

[jeenyus]

good information on the brake fluid. I will stick with DOT4 until it's an obvious necessity to change.

[GSU_ENGR]

Let's do some catching up since I may have told a little lie. I have done more than just maintenance. My first plan of attack was to refresh some suspension parts up front. I had been experiencing some rattling up front at low speed when going over bumps. Upon further investigation, here is what I found.





























The sway bar bushings, end links and the tie rods were shot. Did I mention this car has high miles? I ordered some Lemforder tie rods, meyle sway bar end links and powerflex sway bar bushings. If I recall correctly, the tie rods and end links came from FCP Euro and the powerflex bushings came from bimmerworld. I thought this was going to be an easy job (as it should have been), but the cold weather had other plans. Removing the tie rods gave me the most trouble. The inner tie rod has a locking washer that you are supposed to bend back out of the way so it can rotate. I bent it back, but the tie rod would not budge. I'm summarizing the event but it took around 4 hours of me trying it the nice way before I decided to go the "Hit it with fire" approach. A generous amount of heat from a torch and a quick bump from a pipe wrench later, the tie rods finally came off along with all the skin on my knuckles. Removing the sway bar end links and bushings was easy. after everything came off, I put the new shiny stuff on. Tie rods went on easy, there are plenty of how to-s on that along with the end links. I knew the sway bar bushings would be difficult from some research I did. Upon installing them, I did not have too much trouble. I was not able to take pictures of my technique since I only had two hands and no friends to stand around and watch. My method was this; put busing on sway bar, insert busing into the holder, place the notched part of the holder into it's place on the subframe, align the holes of the holder up to the holes on the subframe with a screwdriver, use vice-grips to pull the holder up to the subframe and hold it there, quickly remove screwdriver and start to thread the bolt, pick up the vice-grips that just fell on your face and start over . This method was actually pretty easy even though I probably butchered the description.



I took some time to clean it up and it turned out nice, I think. It seems the previous owner liked blue and I don't mind it too much either. Once everything got torqued to spec, I did a quick string alignment on the car to make it derivable. All of this work led to a far significant increase in ride quality, sharpness and importantly no more rattling up there. The next few posts I have will be catching everyone up to speed on what else has been done so far.

[moatilliatta]

Don’t forget sway bar reinforcements front and rear. If you can swing it, do eccentrics / Posi locs for fear camber toe adjustment. I still think this is one of the best upgrades to an e30 period.

If your cars maintance is good and will pass tech by a recommended shop, there no waiting to do a track day. Just do it. :)

[ForcedFirebird]

That's 100% accurate. I went from Skip Barber to SCCA wheel-to-wheel in about a year and a half.

I'd highly recommend track pads. The aftermarket is rife with street/track pads that claim to do both. I've yet to find one that didn't scare the shit out of me on track. Pad changes are easy so swapping them for track use is a no-brainer. I've had good experience with Carbotech and PFC. I've had horrible experiences with EBC and Hawk.

Welcome to the financially irresponsible world of the race track!

Yup! "Imma just gonna do a track days." lol

I am quite opposite with preference of brake pads. Typically run DTC 70 rear and DTC 60 front, and have been for about 7yr now. Started out with Carbotech for the first couple years, decent, but they tear up rotors, and they didn't last the long enudo races, got converted once my buddy talked me into Chumpcar (now Champcar). Did spec e30 a little too, but enjoy the builder type series better (get to tinker with the cars). Brakes compounds are very subjective.

One of the cars we re-built at the shop (some people have no business "building" cars in their garage), customer preferred PFC and had me drive the car on it's first test outing. Was totally expecting a hard initial bite t7 at Homestead and was way too hot after braking - took the corner anyways with a LOT of counter-steering, car owner was int he passenger seats and said "how did you do THAT!".

[GSU_ENGR]

Don’t forget sway bar reinforcements front and rear. If you can swing it, do eccentrics / Posi locs for fear camber toe adjustment. I still think this is one of the best upgrades to an e30 period.

If your cars maintance is good and will pass tech by a recommended shop, there no waiting to do a track day. Just do it. :)

Track day is booked for April 4th and 5th. Just wanted to give myself time to get some stuff done on it. Just some peace of mind things. And I’ll look into getting those things once more track days will be hitting my schedule. Good call on those.

[GSU_ENGR]

Oil Temp and Pressure Gauge Install:

This weekend's project was installing my VDO oil temp and pressure gauges. I kept the stock low pressure switch and got the single pole pressure sender. I read a lot about vibrations from the motor causing the pressure sender to fail so I decided to go the remote mounting route. To do this, I bought a T-fitting from Race German, a 2ft Braided SS hose and AN to NPT adapters from summit. To get temperature readings, I went with the oil filter sandwich plate from KAmotors and installed it directly into one of the ports. Installing these were fairly simple and straight forward. While I was in there, I put in a new oil cooler I scored at the local pull-a-part since mine was leaky. Now for the wiring. Getting power and ground to the gauges was simple. I tied into the 12v power going to the stereo and for ground I did the same thing. Next, signal wires were ran from the gauges to the appropriate senders. I routed them where the AC lines come through the car in the firewall since I had easy access from removing my non working AC. Once the signal wires were connected, I found a problem. I turned the key to on and my pressure gauge would max out with the motor not running. I checked all my wires, made sure correct voltage was going to the gauge etc. Still nothing. So I went to the internet. When remote mounting the pressure sender, you lose the grounding capabilities of being mounted to the motor, so you have to create a new ground for the sender. This was easily done by connecting one end of a wire to the actual body of the sender and the other end of the wire to a good ground source. I did this by sandwiching one end of the wire between the body of the sender and a rubber insulated clamp. The other end of this wire was then connected to the ground on the strut tower. This solved my problem. Now for the gauge mounts. I decided to integrate them into the existing A/C vents. So I hollowed out the vent housing and got some ABS plastic and went to work. Me never working with ABS led to me not being super pleased with my final result, but it works for now.

T-Fitting for stock low pressure switch and SS line for remote pressure sender. Above this you can see the signal wire for the oil temp running to the sandwich plate.

Oil temp sensor on port in sandwich plate

Remote Oil pressure sender. You can somewhat see where the ground (black wire) goes to the body of the sender. Location is behind passenger headlight.

Wiring madness

ABS mount didn't turn out well. I'll make another one.


A few steps closer to being track ready. Being able to see this data gives me some peace of mind with the car having so many miles. And the kid in me has always wanted some cool gauges. I'm a big fan of how the VDO gauges match the factory setup, but no thanks to me.

[GSU_ENGR]

Battery Tie Down:

I had a hard time finding a good write up with visuals on how to make a good battery tie-down, which is required for tech. I was at a NASA-SE event recently and walk around and looked at what some drivers had to get some ideas. Here Is what I did. Materials were just threaded rod, nuts, washers and a piece of steel I had laying around. I ran the threaded rod through the bottom of the battery tray by drilling a hole and placing a nut and washer on the outside of the car, then another nut on the threaded rod in the car to hold it in place. I also found some rust, this can be dealt with at a later time.



Next I drilled a hole on the outer lip where the trunk area opens up to the battery tray. Then I used a torch to bend the threaded rod into a J so it self anchored to the drilled hole.



Last step was to measure and drill holes in the steel and bolt into place.



Gave it the ol' "That ain't going nowhere" and called it a success.

[moatilliatta]

I would consider a bright oil pressure light at 20psi, You'll see that before your gauge tanks.

Good to see progress!

[GSU_ENGR]

Time to play catch up again. It's been a busy few weeks that have not allowed me to get into the car, but this past weekend I was completely free. The first thing on my list was to make a new gauge mount due to me being very unhappy with the first iteration. This time I took the simple path and kept the ABS flat and cut to fit in the upper vent area. The result is far better in my opinion. It almost looks like it belongs.

The next item was my leaky/non working power steering pump. This has been an ongoing issue that I just haven't addressed until now. I got a BMW rebuild kit from either bimmerworld or FCP, I can't remember. The process was pretty simple. Drain the system, remove pump, rebuild etc. The fluid still had good color to it and the inside of the pump was nice and clean with little marring on the inside. My problem was immediately found when I separated the two housing pieces from each other.

I think it's safe to say that this gasket is original and no longer performing its job. I put all the new gaskets in and bolted it all back up. No more leaks or noises and I can actually turn the wheel with ease.

Last up on the weekend to do was new spark plugs. This went smooth as well and the first one I pulled gave me some concern, but the rest looked pretty good for having an unknown amount of miles on them.

This was the first plug I pulled (Cylinder 6). The others didn't look anywhere near like this but I forgot to take a picture before I disposed of them. The new plugs have made the car a lot more responsive than before and I feel this nasty plug contributed to that before.

All was going well until putting the strut bar back on, I broke a bolt on the strut mount.

This is an unfortunate setback but it probably needed to be replaced anyways. So new ones are on the way and the first thing up on the to-do list!

[ForcedFirebird]

Those studs are just knurled and pressed in. Take a punch and a hammer and knock the rest of the stud out and replace it with nut/bolt for the time being.

[GSU_ENGR]

Those studs are just knurled and pressed in. Take a punch and a hammer and knock the rest of the stud out and replace it with nut/bolt for the time being.

I'm in no hurry to get it fixed. And the bearings don't look that great on the inside, so that pushed me to go ahead and order new ones. The track day I was signed up for on April 4th and 5th was just cancelled which gives me time to get it right.