Pikes Peak Int. Hill Climb Turbo E30 Build

[Motheye99]

Do you have under carriage areo? Id love to see what your areo looks like up close.

[Zodow]

2019 Plans/Goals

For 2019, my goals are pretty simple. Id like to make it to the top again, have another smooth practice week and see if we can get a faster time than last year.

A couple ways were are looking to go faster is by dropping some more weight, getting a built Diff in a slightly different ratio and trying to fine tune the car as it sits even more.

For weight the biggest drop I can easily do now is the battery. Im still using a stock size battery and Im looking to drop that 30-35lbs down to 4 or 5 with a lithium battery. With all the add ons, bigger brakes aero etc we are still in the 2400# and I'd love to get it down to the high 2300's if possible.

Ive been running a stock diff every year and Im hoping a 4 clutch unit with a good setup for the peak will help shave some times.
With as difficult as the surface is on the peak I think it could make a big difference in cornering and exit speed.

Working on some sponsorship for both these items so well see how that goes.

[Zodow]

2018 recap - Race Day

For the first year we got through all of practice with out an issue... until the very last run of the very last day.. of course.
We tried to get it on a local dyno last min but that fell through and we just had too much to do to get it to Denver or a track anywhere.

Without being able to test, we loaded up the car to take to the mountain still without a solid plan or solution to our problem- they have to spend the night on the hill the Saturday before the race to help things go smoothly on race day.




We had a misfire but it only showed up with full boost and I had to really put my foot into it. We had just changed plugs and
I thought maybe we forgot to gap a plug, verified they were all right and we started scratching out heads wondering what else it could be

The only thing that had changed from one day to the next was the plugs to a new set. So there was a debate in the crew as to if it was really a new plug bad out of the box or if something else had happened with a plug wire/coil etc.



I realized that when the car was completely cold it ran weird when it had this problem. We pulled one plug at a time until we realized that #4 was the culprit.

I made the decision to run the old #4 plug, a new coil and our backup plug wire set and just hoped one of those things fixed it.









To my joy on the first corner of the race I knew we fixed the issue with one of those fixes. Being only 3 tenths of a second under 10mins probably wouldn't have happened with that misfire.


Coming off the line knowing the problem was fixed I gave it everything I had, and they car held up amazingly the whole way.

The only thing slightly off was the road being damp, when we woke up that morning the entire mountain was covered in a thick cloud although not raining. The road just seemed to have extra dew especially towards the top on it like we experience in practice some days.

At first I thought we might have overheated the tires with the warmers. I didn't realize it was moisture until after the race talking with someone who broke down and could see the road up close.

On top for the 6th year!




The yellow Porsche is the one that took the win and smoked the time attack record.



Hanging out in the summit house waiting for weather to clear



The weather on the peak can be quite strange even in late June!











Getting a close view of the VW they were pretty tight with pictures of this thing so I took my opportunity.




















Safe and sound the bottom - Before getting an impromptu shower of some random bud light ;/


One of my favorite pics from this year



A good racer/photographer friend helped me get a good article into this Grassroots Motorsport Magazine


[IMG]https://scontent.fapa1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/61016695_10157143786669898_5911274956771033088_n.j pg?_nc_cat=103&_nc_eui2=AeHyDTyhLOA-3omdtXqVeC8i1djfU5O-LKQWgKsi76DY808NKyrDVTmcB1KgTGiKL-o3wKk4nDX9WufulzV0-x2Ni3hEPmIZ5r_bDg_VonXDdA&_nc_ht=scontent




In the local paper










Awards ceremony in the Broadmoor - We were eager to get the trophy and showed up a little early haha







How my (girlfriend at the time) wife lets me do this I still don't know...



Fishing the next week for a little R&R

[Zodow]

2018 recap part 3

We were very fortunate to get a set of Hoosier A7's sponsored for the 2018 run


Im not sure I would have been able to afford a new set that year so Im glad they were able to help



We've been running a6's/a7s since my rookie year and they've been a kick ass tire ever year.

Getting a real alignment done for the first time from a buddy/sponsor smark - smarkamyth racing. We were somewhat close with the string/plate method but much better to have it done with lasers.



Cleaned up the garage as best I could


This is how we get it up and down the steep ass driveway with all the aero on. We use the same boards to load onto the trailer


New throttle pedal with hook made from aluminum instead of steel



Shined up for tech inspection on Monday of peak week.





Diesel Bug







The "VW" - it scaled at just over 2k lbs








Passed tech with another sticker added!




First day of practice






Fun diesel truck named "old smokey" - unfortunately had a bunch of issues because of an off at engineers corner on a tire test day.



Rhys Millens Bentlys stock carbon brakes.







This is who was running p2 Clint Vahsholtz




Early morning traffic jam as a support vehicle for one of the electric cars rolled over with a generator in tow...


You almost always gonna get awesome sunrises on the peak. This was certainly a cool one




David Hackl's pristine race machine


Andy Kingsley standing next to the car - Fellow competitor taking a hiatus helping me out





The sprinter is pretty awesome to have - ill have to make a section about that on the earlier recaps







Ray Evernhams car


Super Fast David Donner probably telling to go faster :)


Qualifying results for most of our class. 4:10 is about 5 seconds faster than I had ever done that section


Being awkward on camera


Last day of practice



Safety guy probably letting me know someone spilt something. This guy has been here for a while - he was there when I had my crash in 2013


Some of the crew


Fan Fest Downtown






We were invited to come down to Winslow BMW a local dealer in Colorado Springs to show off the car before we had to load it on the mountain.

[Zodow]

2018 - Recap Part 2

Next Step - Oil Pressure/ Oil Cooler & Pluming

Before Sealing up the engine, I decided to go with the upgraded oem achilies oil pump with the double D shaft.
A bucket list item would be to get a dry sump but currently I'm going with the "if it aint broke don't fix it" approach as we seem to be okay after our fixes.


2017 seemed to be the year that all of our plumbing/ fittings started to die. We lost a run in qualifying due to a burst oil feed line to the turbo, fuel lines kept weeping or straight up leaking and fittings seemed to be shearing for no reason other than age.

So I decided to just redo them all!

Continuing the K.I.S.S I wanted to simplify the oil cooler ysstem as much as possible.

I contemplated trying to acquire a euro style oil housing but after talking to James at Bimmerworld we decided on an oil distribution cap instead




I had previously just had this fitting tapped, welded it to be certain it wouldn't leak - Quite hard to weld this guy on.


went with this oil cooler -10an



With the cold morning temperatures of pikes peak, combined with running e98 & about 7qts of 15w/50 Mobil 1 - I was quite concerned with getting the engine up to temp quickly so we added an inline oil thermostat. Heavy and more chances for a failure but seemed to do a good job of getting the car up to temp quickly. Mounting it was quite challenging for sure.



Some light mounts for the cooler






hard to tell the lines are even there from this angle - wanted to run the shortest route possible.


Pic of where it sits in the "mouth"


Overall it did seem to help keep oil temps down by a good amount, and in turn help oil pressures stay up during the whole run/practice.
We used to get the loud ticking from the hydraulic lifters and now that's pretty much gone so I don't get weird looks at the end of practice runs.

As far as the AN lines go I really wanted to go with as many crimp fittings as I could. I had seen many cars successfully run true crimp style AN fittings but the price to own a real crimper was still out of reach for me/ hard to justify and I don't like paying people to work on my car.

I stubbed across a different kind of crimp fitting from Russel that uses a barbed end, specific hoses and their own crimp fittings/crimper. Its kind of like a push lock but about 1000x easier to use. Best part was it was all quite a bit cheaper than the traditional crimp fittings. Its certainly not as good as the real deal but for way way cheaper I kind have a product almost just as good and can do it myself anytime. I have problems down the road I will switch, but for now they are working well.

The crimper uses 4 dies which you must change out for each size of hose/fitting.



Here is a sample of what it looks like - this is on the fuel line but later found out the hose isn't recommended for e98 so i redid them with teflon lines.


New fuel lines/oneways/ new filter elements. This Y got rid of a ghetto multi adapter setup i had been using that had like 6 or more connectors.


Fuel cell setup 2x independent walbro 440's each capable of running the car independently provided it can get fuel. We've had a few variations on this. I was worried the duck feet wouldn't work great if one pump died and I was on a turn with the fuel sloshing to the other side. The brake line is to hold the hoses in place as the ethanol with soften the hoses so much they can kink with even slight bends.


The solution was holly hydramats on each pump - not cheap but 100 percent worth it, you can easily run this setup bone dry with no loss in fuel pressure till the bitter end... ask me how I know haha.



Hard to get a picture of it but each cross runs up to the back edge of the cell and the front extends into the front half of the cell.


Every hose clamp has since been wire tied. Speaking of wire tying things - if you do that sort of thing this tool is a wise investment


Still rocking the same garage setup/jackstands


Trying to bring a little love to the scene


Another upgrade was a cosmetic one involving the front bumper.
We had been taping the gap for a long time between the splitter and the front edge as it wasn't made long enough/damaged in the 2013 crash. The gap got quite big after we made a new splitter that was actually straight and not curved upward.

Stuck out like a sore thumb to me.




So we decided to fix it







Bar added to hold down a ripple


Turned out pretty well




Little bit of sanding/smoothing later.



Random Upgrade to the turbo support. The aluminum bar id had been using was slowly dying from the heat so I bought some titanium and make the same part.


Next issue we faced was rotor glazing. I think my rotors and pads were actually okay prior to me messing with them, but on a test day I decided to go sorta crazy on the brakes to see if I could pull any of the minor deposits off the rotors/pads.... well I made it like 20x worse.




Decided to buy another set of rotors/pads and break them in as properly as I could this time to get a good transfer layer going


brake dust galore


better looking bumper covered in hoppers


I feel we succeeded


Skylar couldn't join us in 2018 so we put a picture of him in one of the tool boxes haha

[Zodow]

2018 Recap - Sub 10 Min run!

Im going to start the recap of the years starting with 2018 then going back as I remember a lot about 2018 still and it was a fantastic year!


Here we go!

So a huge concern coming into 2018 was the status of our engine - I had built this particular engine in 2014 for an updated power level using a very similar setup from the first year but with forged internals.

The main reason we were concerned was every single time I had changed oil (which is very very often since we run e98) we noticed what looked like very fine aluminum shavings. I should have saved the oil to have it sent out to get a better idea but never did.

I had recently been logging oil pressure and noticed we had been somewhat starving on extreme cornering that seems to be quite prevalent on pikes peak. Putting two and two together it seemed like the engine was starting to self destruct.

For 2018 we decided to investigate the issue.


I didn't want to break the seal on the head so I decided to pull the engine and start from the bottom.


















Certainly found some wear - Most of these pics were the worst offenders - but nothing really screamed massive oil shavings. Checked the oil pump, timing chain stuff and nothing really looked out of place.

Then after the engine had been siting around I noticed something strange trailing off of one of the main studs.



The "shavings" we were seeing was actually just arp grease that was breaking down in the oil/alcohol residue.

Tested with some brand new oil and arp grease mixed up for a min.



This might be well know, but to me/crew/ anyone I mentioned it too it was never mentioned as a possibility. I don't think it helped I more than likely over applied the grease in the process.

Happy it wasn't worse, I got new bearings, re-mic'd everything and threw it back together - this time with a proper amount of arp grease haha.


Next step was to try fix the major issue we had race day 2017 - blown intercooler hose - by eliminating them all together.





Getting rid of silicone in place of these



With a bunch of measurements, and some luck I tack welded in the first side. Going this route there isn't much wiggle room in there claps so you have to get it pretty damn close.



Other side mostly done - I'm still a noob at big welding do don't judge too hard ha


New vice helped with the next phase of final welding








Some of the welds are okay. Tigging is difficult for sure...









Getting the clamps on and off is quite a process. Best if figured out it to use the clamp its self to move the inner ring on and off after giving the ring some heat with a short blast with a torch.

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates.........

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates........

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates.......

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates......

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates.....

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates....

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates...

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates..

[Zodow]

Reserved for 2013-2018 updates.