Pitchblack Motorsports Rally e30 318i (now with M50) - and some Porsche 924S stuff.

[ccsdo5]

Wow that's awesome congrats to them! I met them back in November when they went to the empire state performance rally. Very cool people, glad to see they are still killing it!

[irish44j]

WDCR Rallycross #3 June 2016

So for rallycross #3 we were back at the Rally Farm



Having won the first two events barely, I knew it would be a tough day. Not only were all the usual suspects there (the dirty industries guys, Corey, etc), but also Eric Helgesen was now in their newly-built 325i replacing the beat-out worn-down ETA. And to boot, because his little brother started this event as well, PR runner-up Stephen Nichols bumped up to MR for the rest of the season in that car as well.

Corey had his hair in full effect



All in all, I think we had like 12-14 total drivers in MR, including me and Amanda Pemberton co-driving with me since her new e30 isn't quite ready yet. She got to use the day as a test/learning day on how to drive RWD in the dirt, having come out of FWD cars exclusively. My fixed race seats probably didn't help as she's about 6" shorter than me lol.

Also, there were subarus there. Shocker



Anyhow, the usual suspects were there in grid and we got ready to go







As the points leader having won the first two events, I was first off in MR group. Now usually the AWD cars go first to sweep the course, but this day they decided to let MR run first. Yay. The course was fresh grass, and mowed earlier that morning so all the cuttings were still on the course as well. This would prove to be pretty slidey - actually moreso than I expected.

So off I went as the first car off. And yes, it was indeed slidey and the morning course really had no rhythm to it. To boot, it had three tight, slow turns that put me just out of 1st gear and low in 2nd where the M42 has little grunt. Knowing this I tried to push harder than I usually do on a first run and of course, picked up two cones. The rest of the class went a little lighter and were mostly clean. Other than Corey, who promptly broke an axle on his turbo Volvo and had to switch to a PR e36 for the rest of the day (as did Josh S., whose Volvo wagon wasn't cooperating again, so he drove the e36 as well). THe lesson: Volvos break.



Second run now 4 seconds back I knew I had to push hard again, and got another cone. Very unlike me. And then picked up another a run or two later. Meanwhile most of the class was running clean and similar times to me...I coudln't get the car to feel right for some reason. IDK.

So into the mid-day break I was sitting 5th or 6th, about 10 seconds off the leader (yeah, a really tight class for sure). At lunch I put the rally spare back in the trunk and some other gear trying to settle the rear end down (which worked, actually).

But as we were waiting for 20 minutes in grid for last-second course adjustments, steam starts pouring from under the hood. I shut it down quick. Keep in mind I have an electric Spal fan with theromostatic switch AND my override switch was on. The car is pretty loud at idle and I had no reason to think the fan wasn't working. Didn't bother looking at the temp gauge for some reason :/

Anyhow, after trying to jump the fan to power, it still woudlnt' work. So we let the car cool while the rest of the field did a scout lap for the afternoon course, and filled up the water again. Decided to take a chance and run anyhow, just shutting down between my runs and Amanda's runs, and that worked out well, watchign the temp gauge (VDO, actual temp, not the stock one) closely. Car ran fine.

First run was tough since I didn't get a scout lap so went out blind. Even so I managed the fastest time in the group (IIRC), and for the next few runs continued to claw back fractions of seconds while others screwed up, coned, etc.

In the end, simply not enough runs to make much of a comeback and I ended up 4th behind Eisele/Drew (their first event win against me) in the 1-2 and Stephen in 3rd. So, not the best day. My driving was mediocre (my videos show sloppy hands like crazy) and the other top guys in the class drove really well, so credit to them.

Also, it was hot. Shade was at a premium

With the dirty industries guys who beat me...


Yesterday messed with the fan and still coudln't get it to activate in the car. Guessed the motor was dead, so ordered a new one (16" high-capacity Spal vs. my 14" slimline Spal before). Double CFM of the old one, why not.

Then today messing with the old one I stripped back the wiring and cut off the plugs. Just for interest I jumped it to the battery......and it worked. Dammit. Messed around with it some more and figured out the relay was bad. It was clicking but not sending a charge to the fan. I coudln't check it at the race because I had dumbly located it under the overflow reservoir where it is VERY hard to access.

Today I rewired it all to get the relay to a better protected/accessible spot. Will install the new fan when it gets here and keep the old one as a spare.

Next up is the SCCA Eastern States Championship (a new event this year, one of three national regional events in East, West, and Central run by the national office). That's back at Frostburg where I typically do pretty well, so we'll see how I do against both our strong MR local field and some hotshoes coming from New England, Ohio, and other regions.

Also orderd up some fresh new DMack gravel tires from the UK for use at Black River Stages later this year :)

[silence]

Great update. You can't win them all.

[irish44j]

Some video of my sloppy driving if anyone cares to watch....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvDdQy1Xv1s

[TeXJ]

Sub'd to the youtubes

[irish44j]

So some random stuff while I plan and save for some bigger things coming soon.

First, I've been working with Josh S. to get his M52 swap done so he can get his car back in action at rallycross after missing half the season driving slow Volvos that never finish events and stuff. So down into the bowels of old Washington DC to help him out...





Also brought his e28 LSD home to swap out a rear cover from an e30 diff. Lots of diffs here. My 3.91 small case (the red one on the left) will go back in my car soon before the next rallycross for better gearing.



The next day, my tires from demon-tweeks came in. One set is for Jason's Miata, the other for my car for Black River Stages. All in all cost about $250 less than ordering from DMack USA, even factoring in trans-Atlantic shpping and customs duties.





Today a bit bored. At the last event a broke a caster off my Harbor Freight jack so that was some impetus to mess around with something I've been meaning to try out. An "integrated skid" for the jack. Jack can't roll on dirt and grass and gravel, so usually carry a big piece of plywood as a jacking base. I'd seen 4x4 guys with nice custom "integrated" skids on jacks for off-roading so figured I'd get out the big fucking hammer and some old scrap aluminum (used to be a gas tank in my boat), and went at it. It's not pretty, but it actually seems to work well. Rear of jack is held on with two flush lag bolts and front is just held there by "massaging" the aluminum lip over the front roller...

[irish44j]

Things things things...

So we went to the pick and pull. Primarily me, Ozgur, and Brian Batocchi. So we got them to lift up a car and stuff...



Then we did some sawzalling



And then an engine came out





And then we stuffed it in the back of Ozgur's already-full 4Runner lol



So anyhow, that's an M50 and it's going in his rally e30, which you may recall as the white one I bought with him last year and took the M42 drivetrain out for my own spares....

Meanwhile, I did some stuff on my car. Been meaning to bend up a lightbar so I can add more lighting for future night rallies. So I did...(sorry, forgot to get in-progress photos)





Had to angle it forward to clear the hood open, of course. The red and white tape is just so nobody bangs a knee on it before I get some lights up there. Haven't decided exactly what I'm going to get though...





Also while at the junkyard picked up a fuse base from an M20 car. After last event's debacle with fuses, I decided to rewire them all and make them more accessible and better-protected from the elements.





And then did some bike tuning work....

[irish44j]

So full writeup later once I'm unpacked, showered, and unloaded and I've cleaned out the wife's truck (aka my tow rig), but this happened:

[irish44j]

2016 SCCA East Coast National Challenge

This year SCCA added a new tier of compeition heralding back to the old "Eastern States Championship" meant to slot in just below the National Championships. So there are three events this year (West Coast, Central, and East Coast).



The East Coast Challenge brough most of the best drivers east of the Mississippi (with a few notable absences). Among the competitors was 5-time national champion Warren Elliot in an AWD class, but of course we only care about RWD cars here :)

Several local e30s and others were in the Stock and Prepared classes (with local Shawn Roberts taking PR in his Miata), but Mod RWD was the largest class in the event with 14 cars entered, including 2014 national champion Evan Arthur (in his turbo Miata, co-driven by national runner-up Pete Renmer) and 2016 Great Lakes champion and upcoming hotshoe John England, also in a Miata. Some other entrants came from New England, Tennessee, Ohio, and elsewhere in things ranging from Volvos to Porsches. Locally the usual suspects were there - myself, Stephen Nichols (last year's DC PR runner-up) in the 325i, Eric Eisele (who won the last local event) in his 325i and Nick Drymalski (2014 WDCR season champ) co-driving. Corey McKenzie finally got the turbo Volvo 244 together to run, and Josh Sennett finally finished his M52 swap in his e30 as well. Plus a handful of others.
As expected, the event was close throughout. On Day 1 everyone was runnign fast on two courses, and though I only picked up one cone I still managed to fall back to 5th place by the end of the day, after a fast first run. I was about 4-5 seconds out of first by that point with 4 cars ahead of me and several right behind me as well. Low hopes for a comeback if everyone kept doing what they were doing.

After too much booze Saturday night, I tried to focus harder on Sunday and open it up. With a more wide-open course I figured to be at a disadvantage against the higher-power cars in the class but that would turn out not to be the case as I steadly caught up to the leaders half a second at a time as I drove clean and some of them either drove more carefully to avoid killer cones, or drove faster and coned. By the last run of the day I had clawed back up to within 1 second of class leader England, with two other cars within a second of me in 3rd and 4th! Before my final run I saw England's time - fastest in the class (or so I thought at the time) and faster than my previous run by a good margin. At that point it was either "put down a killer run and win" or "put down a killer run and pick up a cone and drop to 4th or 5th.

As luck woudl have it, I went all-out and somehow managed to stay clean, knocking well over a second off my previous run (ironically, 44.4 seconds to match my car number). And it was clean! So that pulled off the win for me, with the top 5 of the class bunched up right behind me. So.....that's pretty cool. Now have a DC season championship, a Northeast Division championship, and an East Coast Championship. No plans to go to nationals, but I fully expect England or Arthur or Remner (all of whom I edged in this event) to win nationals this year in the class, and I'm ok with being "amongst the best" if not the actual national champion.

Besides, while they're at nationals, we'll be up at Black River Stages for our first full stage rally!

So, will post up some pics soon when i upload them! Here's a quick few:

[econti]

That's awesome! Mint that a M42 is showing them who's boss

[irish44j]

So back to doing things on the car now that I have a few weeks....

The other day I started reinforcing the skidplate brace bar with some back braces.





Today with it being 95 degrees of course I decided to do some welding. Makes perfect sense, right?

First I finished up the lightbar to fit the Hella Rallye 3000s I picked up off ebay for cheap. The final setup here I think is going to be the two Hellas (driving beam) with the ebay lightbar (flood beam) and then buy a Hella 350 LED lightbar pencil beam.

In any case, the bar setup will allow me to bolt everything to the bar and then remove it all as one unit by taking out four bolts. Not totally done, but here's some mocking up and finishing.

Also, I thought the auction was for the 3000 Compact lights....but actually for the better full-size 9" Rallyes. These things are big!











In addition, I got some of the OEM front strut tower braces used on the e30 convertible only. Instead of intalling them straight-up, I plated part of the outer towers and wrapped a finger up to the outer bolt for extra support







Then put the OEM brace piece in and welded it all up in my usual unattractive style...





So, that's some stuff.

[irish44j]

Not too much going on as it's too damn hot to do much car work, but I did get a couple new springs in today. Decided that in order to get a bit more compression travel (since the car was not fully compressing the bumpstops in the front before spring bind) that I would switch from the current setup to something possibly better.

Current is 8" 250lb springs along with a low-rate tender spring (to keep springs set under full droop), replacing with 10" 250lb springs and no tender. I figure this gives me about 1/2" more compression travel to get to the bumpstops fully when landing jumps without binding. The extra 2" is compensated for by removing the tenders (1/2" compressed stack height) and dropping the lower perch all the way down (about 1 1/4" below where it was before). That combination yields pretty much the exact same standing height for the car, but again gives me a bit of extra compression travel without changing the ride/handling of the car in any discernable manner.



Also love balljoint control arms that allow you to remove and change springs simply by unbolting the top hat, pushing the shock rod in, and tilting it out of the wheel well.

[95maxrider]

Pfft, puny 10" spring ;)

[Mark 42]

This...

http://www.wired.com/2010/12/baja-racing-with-a-bmw-a-dream-and-not-much-else/

[irish44j]

Pfft, puny 10" spring ;)

My car isn't a big heavy pig that needs big springs ;)