"Our" LeMons e30

[irish44j]

Funny, I drive an eta and race the m42. As far as e30 motors go they couldn't be further apart in characteristics and I agree the m42 does feel faster (but revving up to 7k would do that). Hopefully we were well behaved. The 2 fastest of our 4 Saturday drivers were to go on to the 2 slots on Sunday so it may have gotten a little heated as we really were racing the clock vs other cars on Saturday.

it was tight but nothing bad-behaved. Though they did make a sneaky move when I gave a point-by to that v8 volvo who got stuck behind me in the tight areas, and your guy ducked in behind him and took the pass too, lol. THat's what I get for being nice to the front-runners.

Other than that, a lot of back and forth though mostly me just tailing your guy, since without the LSD I couldn't get enough of a jump coming into the bridge straight to get by him, and he kept shutting the door near the carousel :)

[skitz]

Other than that, a lot of back and forth though mostly me just tailing your guy, since without the LSD I couldn't get enough of a jump coming into the bridge straight to get by him, and he kept shutting the door near the carousel :)

I second the LSD frustration coming into the bridge straight. Especially with the m42 powered #30! I had a couple stints where we couldn't shake each other through there. After racing Josh and I talked about how we didn't want to shift because they'd pull about a half car ahead.

[rwh11385]

Now that we're trying to get ours to handle better: How much and where did you cut your rear springs?

spoth - we're at the same spot now as what you described three years ago: wanting to run it at SCCA racecar track days to test it out (not just during race weekends) and trying to get the car not to starve after 5 gallons spent (in-tank pump is shot so that would be a starting point, but considering converting to a high pressure in-tank since our external is on the way out). We're still doing hour stints and will keep that until it is reliable and we have lap times that are good enough so that driver changes are meaningful for overall competitiveness.

So you or irish44j have any advice looking back now? We need to put back on the aux fan to replace the mechanical fan with a dead clutch and looking to make it Chump legal (window net, move kill switch, etc.) to give it a go.

[Beej '86 325es]

When I was a broke college student with a non-working AC, I used the factory AC fan as a cooling fan.
You could rig up the AC fan with some zip-ties, then just use the AC button as an On/Off when the car isn't moving.


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[e30_302]

You shouldn't need a fan for anything but sitting still, and that shouldn't take much.

[rwh11385]

When I was a broke college student with a non-working AC, I used the factory AC fan as a cooling fan.
You could rig up the AC fan with some zip-ties, then just use the AC button as an On/Off when the car isn't moving.

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Yeah, Skafrog did that on his track car. But we'd more likely fab euro mount-style bracket from stock for more security.





Plus the temp switch should be a safety too, not just relying on remembering to watch temps and hit the button (see quote from Irish below). So could go with the E36 M42 80/88 temp switch as an accommodating mod. We should find the A/C button too to be able to use it just in case though - you know how much the old HVAC panel is just a mess of wires...

You shouldn't need a fan for anything but sitting still, and that shouldn't take much.

Running this past weekend in 90F+ weather and no mechanical fan, we needed to be very quick to get back out on track to draw air through the radiator at speed since the temp crept up while still. As mentioned earlier, not preparing for cooling while still can end badly:

The 1:47 I think was the team next to us in the red one (blew head gasket during the race because forgot to turn on their fan during a penalty stop, IIRC). That's an "i" car and is quick.