Building a e30 for the 24 hours of Lemons

[1991 318is]

While you can drive a really stiff car at the limit for short periods of time, hours at a time require a little wiggle room. Give yourself a little more feedback as to how close you are to approaching the handling limit. Fatigue, exhaustion, burnt adrenalin, and dehydration can whack you out. You can try to sleep between driving turns but it's almost impossible due to the excitement and noise. Most mechanical failures in 24 hour races have the driver as a contributing if not the causal factor.
51-52% rear weight!

http://www.msrhouston.com/msrhouston/trackmap.asp

[bam2002]

I am thinking HELL YEA> but I want to run it by the team.. I want to make sure every one is OK with it.

Ill keep you posted. We have untill July for the SC event. I still need to make sure we get in.. If this one doesnt work out there always is TX..

But Im hoping for SC.. since its only 9 hours away..
B

[ecniv]

Those brakes are beautiful. While the brakes don't count toward the $500 total, I'm sure something as nice as those would raise some eyebrows with the judges. Having said that, I'd run 'em if I had the chance...

[banndit]

now *that* is teamwork!
B

[Massive Lee]

Hi Barry

If you were to have some 15" race wheels (or if anybody wants to loan Barry a set of Team Dynamic wheels), it would be my pleasure to loan you a complete front Race kit for the event. Once you have finished, you can trash the rotors and pads and send me back (or ship to Grassroots for testing) the hats and calipers. All for the cost of a few strategically placed stickers on your car...

I pretend you can do the whole 24h race on the same set of rotors & pads (they are one notch under HT10 on grip, but last way, way longer...

If UUC wants to equip a competitive car in the same 24hr race, then we can even make a comparative test :up:.

[bam2002]

Massive- Wheels, tires and Brakes are considered Safety equipment and dont count against the $500. We were planning on running the stock 14 inch bottle caps with a set of Power disk rotors and a set or Yellow or Green pads.
Coverage as far as Media is great. This race has been covered in Car and Driver- Road and Track- Grass roots Motorsports ( actually there is an Add in this months Grassroots for the race). Even Jay Lenos web site has had articles on this race.

RWdrift. Sorry Already have the 6 drivers. I needed to find people close that could help work on the car. I got lucky. One guy owns a shop and is a good welder. Another is an electrician, so hes doing the wiring. Then 3 of us are good mechanics. Plus a graphics person..
I DO have the white e30 for $250.. if you want to build your own car. It has a hole in the oilpan thanks to a floor jack. The prev owners kid jacked it up by the oilpan. Its apart. Meaning the ECU and airflow meter arnt hooked up. But everything is there.
IF any one wants to also do a Lemons car. If not it will be our spare parts car..

Porcubimmer. Ill post more on the build as it progresses.

Barry

[ecniv]

I'm doing the Altamont Lemons event, in an 87 325e...

http://www.porcubimmer.com/

We should compare notes :)

[Erick]

Need another driver? :)

[Massive Lee]

...SO will the brakes be good for 24 hours?

They will hold for 24 hours... if you bleed them every hour. Get a few sets of rotors and pads.

Seriously. How much visibility will you have? What wheels do you run? I might be of some help... You could do 24 hours on the same set of front pads and rotors. I can also donate a brand new set of 2.5" x 425lbs/inch Eibach springs. They will require rear 650lbs/inch

[Stu]

For front camber, I'd say slot the towers and set a recess at the desired point to minimize movement. It's free and it's just as useful as camber plates IMO.

I was going to say use a 3.73 or similar, so you'll be alright with the diff since speeds will be low.

Edge Motorworks has run E30's in this series before so you might contact them for info. Then again if you're running against them you might not want to take their advice too seriously. :D

[bam2002]

Ok I did a search and saw a few other posts about this event.

Are there any lessons learned? Things that we sould do to a 86 325 e with a manual.

We are planning on running the SC and Tx event. The 1st one in SC will be on a road course so there will a bit of turns, but speeds not going above 90.

Here is what we have so far.
I bought 2 cars for $500. The running car had been the middle car in a accident. The front is not bad. Ive already pulled out the front end. The rear was mainly between the tail lights.

Here are some photos. the car with the cage is a ex BMW club car. we just needed some photos of a cage.

http://www.keeperofcars.com/bmws/lemons/index.html

We went with the grey one - Hit one Vs the non running white one. Has a hole in oilpan.

So the dash has been removed. Ignition and steering lock gone. Its a toggle and push button to start.
A 10 point cage is 1/2 way installed.

I got a set of Bilstein ( not sure what they are, besides yellow, decals are gone) from the junkyard for $40 for all 4.

We also bought a cheap set of Coil overs from ebay for $40. Mainly for the adjustible perches. We will test the springs, but proabaly use some heavier stock for springs.

Last of all I got a LSD off a auto e30 its a 4:10. I did a test with my e34 that also has a 4:ish rear diff from a Auto. Going no higher than 4800 rpm I was able to get above 90mph. So I think we will be OK.

Put a new timing belt and a slightly used almost new waterpump. Yea Remember we only have $500..

Thats it so far.....

I read some posts on Blogs about the cars needing a good deal of camber.
Also there was mention of understeer.

Im guessing if I was able to get a 2 to 3 deg of camber it also should fix the understeer.

Any Ideas for Camber with no $$ for camber plates. We are thinking about either slotting the top mounts. OR finding a place that has strut benders and bending them to what we need.

Im guessing those of you with track experience will have good data to offer.

Ive done track days in a e30 but they were only 1 hour sessions. SO will the brakes be good for 24 hours? Tire wear like mentioned above.
Fuel consumption?


Thanks for any info..
Photos of the cage after this weekend.

B