Pikes Peak Int. Hill Climb Turbo E30 Build

[Zodow]

Another video

Here's my initial run that was cut short by the unfortunate evo crash.

2012 Red Flag Run

https://youtu.be/6R-H6RUICJU

Enjoy!

[Zodow]

Did you use copper wire for the o-ring because of the MLS?
I've never really seen anyone use an o-ring AND mls on the block. How'd you come to the conclusion to do that?

It certainly is not required with an mls but it does help from my research(Mainly at high boost).

The main reasons why I went this way is because the machine shop already had the block for the other stuff and I decided to have them do it while it was all taken apart for a little extra. Being that pikes peak is a 1 time a year deal I didnt want to be having head gasket trouble, which a few teams have had problems with in the past. Just adds a bit of saftey in my eyes.

From what Ive read though, is that most guys will have trouble with stock internals before MLS trouble so who knows. I didn't have any issue with it sealing and I will continue to do it unless I have a problem.

Here's a buncha info on o-ringing if your curious. :)

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1532029&highlight=mls+block+o-ring

[MT325is]

Damn guys!!! thats a sick roll cage! and the car looks amazing!

[ak-]

Did you use copper wire for the o-ring because of the MLS?
I've never really seen anyone use an o-ring AND mls on the block. How'd you come to the conclusion to do that?

[kamotors]

awesome

[rturbo 930]

at my work we have a 240z, was trying to to a VQ35HR in it but the front timing covers are very wide and get in the way of the steering shaft. we are now putting a VQ35DE into it. the 370z comes with a VQ37VHR, its lay out is much like the HR engine. might be a way to get the VHR in a 240z,my boss was not trying to over complicate things so we went with the DE.

Good to know, maybe by the time I get another one there will be a good solution

Dunno if you guys are familiar with HybridZ, but you might find some useful info in here. I've only skimmed through it, but it seems to address the fitment issues at least somewhat.

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/72109-vq35hr

[Zodow]

at my work we have a 240z, was trying to to a VQ35HR in it but the front timing covers are very wide and get in the way of the steering shaft. we are now putting a VQ35DE into it. the 370z comes with a VQ37VHR, its lay out is much like the HR engine. might be a way to get the VHR in a 240z,my boss was not trying to over complicate things so we went with the DE.

Good to know, maybe by the time I get another one there will be a good solution

[!kid]

Im sure ill get another one some day and toss a 370z motor or something in it.

at my work we have a 240z, was trying to to a VQ35HR in it but the front timing covers are very wide and get in the way of the steering shaft. we are now putting a VQ35DE into it. the 370z comes with a VQ37VHR, its lay out is much like the HR engine. might be a way to get the VHR in a 240z,my boss was not trying to over complicate things so we went with the DE.

[Brew]

Awesome build and ballsy driving! Love the cage design, I'd like to do something very similar on mine someday soon.

[team9]

Well the hoosier a6 225/45/15 's are larger than an average 225. I believe the treadwidth is about 9 inches on em, not sure what the tread width is on your 255's but its probably close-ish. I had no major problem putting the power down(minus some suspension errors) or bite when it came to the course for the speeds I was at last year. If I turn up the wick then I might be worrying about traction, not to mention the rest of the drivetrain..lol

As far as going bigger it mainly comes down to rim choices for larger tires and $. I could upgrade to the 275/35/15 and find a custom deal for 15x10's or go with diamond racing and have a 10~11 inch tire :) with heavier rims :(.
Another option is going above 15, but unless I have stupid power and get a dog box or something, beefy axles and a beefy driveshaft it would be a ticking time bomb. Alot of guys were running 275's or bigger so it sure is tempting though...

Fair enough! Clearly the tires worked considering the time you ran.

[Zodow]

Nice work! The cage looks awesome. Making your own FG hood is pretty sweet too. Looks like you get shit done.

I'd love to hear more about the 240z, since I, too, have a '71 240z (though it needs a shell swap).

Thanks!
Unfortunately I had stripped it all the way down, and ran out of motivation from the amount of bodywork/rustfix it needed so it sat for a while untill I had to make room for this beast. After trying for a few months to sell it, I decided to scrap it :(, Im sure ill get another one some day and toss a 370z motor or something in it.

One of the hidden bondo hack jobs was revealed on this side...


Not too shabby considering the guy paid me 50 bucks to take it off his hands lol.

[Zodow]

I do love Hill Climbs!!! Its just something on a different level than being out on a track. I hope to be able to do Pikes Peak in the next 5 years. That would be the ultimate!

On another note, I'm sure you'll cover this when you get to it, but why did you only run 225's? With 400hp, I would have thought you might have gone bigger.

Well the hoosier a6 225/45/15 's are larger than an average 225. I believe the treadwidth is about 9 inches on em, not sure what the tread width is on your 255's but its probably close-ish. I had no major problem putting the power down(minus some suspension errors) or bite when it came to the course for the speeds I was at last year. If I turn up the wick then I might be worrying about traction, not to mention the rest of the drivetrain..lol

As far as going bigger it mainly comes down to rim choices for larger tires and $. I could upgrade to the 275/35/15 and find a custom deal for 15x10's or go with diamond racing and have a 10~11 inch tire :) with heavier rims :(.
Another option is going above 15, but unless I have stupid power and get a dog box or something, beefy axles and a beefy driveshaft it would be a ticking time bomb. Alot of guys were running 275's or bigger so it sure is tempting though...

[rturbo 930]

Nice work! The cage looks awesome. Making your own FG hood is pretty sweet too. Looks like you get shit done.

I'd love to hear more about the 240z, since I, too, have a '71 240z (though it needs a shell swap).

[widebodye30]

Awesome build... Nice craftsmanship on cage as well;)

[Zodow]

Wiring, Turbo, and weight reduction

Well one of my least favorite parts of any car is the wiring.

One large hurdle I had with the engine bay wiring was the fuse box location.
In the picture you can see part of my cage goes right where the fuse box was.
so my solution was to cut the wires extend them and resolder them all together. Quite the pain when there is 41 wires going to the fuse box from the engine bay(not every single one needed but most were)


Grrr... I used little tags to number them as I cut them because there were a few of the same color wire. I tried to recycle as much of the unnecessary wiring from the car.


Here's where I relocated the box when I finished the soldering, note we moved this up about about an inch cutting into the dash for a bit more leg clearance.

As you can see I went with the stock dash which is cracked to hell, pain in the arse to get it back in, hopefully next year I can make a carbon fiber one.

Here is the c101 adapter in progress


Mostly all finished


For the guy who asked about the wiring diagram. I used a junkyard c101 and e36 connectors from the junkyard so at this point im unsure of what years etc. they are from so this might not be of much help. Please download the etm for the year/model the e36 engine harness you have came from and your e30's year/model etm and check off that everything you connect is right, it takes some time because the some of the manuals are hard to search but you dont have to wonder whether the car will catch fire or what not.


So I had been on the fence for several months whether to turbo the car or not before the engine was built. It all came down to budget and tuning, I knew I really needed one to be competitive on the mountain. The options were to go with a higher compression s50 or turbocharge an m52.
It all was decided when I found the turbo that I was looking for.


It was a low mileage GT35r .82 a/r that popped up on the ebay for 600 shipped. Not the deal of the century but good enough to get me started in time.

Next came the exhaust manifold(good and tight/blunttech) and the wastegate(tial mvr), Picked the combo it up used for 550 shipped I believe.




Megasquirt 2- I probably should have forked the extra cash for the 3 to do datalogging on the runs. Might go for something else next year.


Heres a better pic of the intercooler just sitting inbetween the frame rails.
Ebay cxracing 31"x12"x3"


Tight...




Another dilemma was how I was going to route the intercooler piping.


Fix






Start of the down pipe 3"




Routed wastegate dump back into the pipe, gonna change this for next year I think.


Braided stuff going on


Stuff back from the welder(I dont own a tig.. yet!)


Polycarbonate windows cut out and taped to spray a black border on the inside.




Lotsa ways to attach them, I used large head rivits
[IMG]hhttps://scontent.fapa1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/12264_10151247107234898_1743622172_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1 04&_nc_ht=scontent.fapa1-2.fna&oh=b9a3e43483c76223d4aaeb1221f38bab&oe=5D63F 532[/IMG]

More weight reduction!
Stock hood with brackets is around 51lbs! So my buddy Skylar helped once again with composite stuff.
We decided to do a positive copy of the hood, which isnt as clean or the exact dimentions of the hood but hell its a race car!

First thing is something to act as a release agent, one cheap way to do it is with packaging tape.

This would be terrible if you were just making a mold as it leaves lines everywhere from the tape overlap. But worked well for what we did.





We did one layer of fiberglass, then a layer of coremat, then a layer of fiberglass.

Vaccumbagged this part.




Second lesson is if you want to vaccum bag something even in the middle of winter in a cold garage use the normal hardener not the fast stuff... by the time we had got all the layers together vaccumbag set up it had mostly set up and we didnt get much epoxy out.

Had to sand the beast for a while to get some of the ripples out.


Used some epoxy filler to help fill in the imperfections, then sanded that all down to a decent paintable surface.


My buddy Jon helping fit the new hood.


added some Styrofoam to the bottom section for strength, this helped alot



Final product weights 7.5 lbs as compared to 51 :)

Most of the stuff that came off the car was weighed, (fairly accurate scales) Here's a list that I made.