Any E30 rallyists here?

[Paukert11]

Neil motherfuckin Daly
www.bigfishmotorsports.com

that is fucking sick!!

[BimmerScreamer]

Here are a Few From Germany

YES!! Im putting fogs and flaps on my iX

[M42Love]

For more Visit http://www.rally3.de/ and eat your heart out

[deutschman]

some nice e30 m3 rally vids

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6baAqJkyubQ&feature=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQBD3eYADA&feature=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH8U3SYKT_g&feature=channel_page

[SlapDash]

Pics and videos are sweet! Time for a European World Tour...

[JiXer]

Lots of ill information in this post.
I don't mean to sound preachy, but rally is dangerous for both you and your car and without proper tires first off, suspension and safety gear and most of all skill and training. RWD cars in particular are very dangerous in loose traction. In fact, at the O'Neil School in New Hampshire where I trained, they don't even let you drive the RWD cars unless thats what you are specifically racing and there to specifically train for.

Some important notes:
1. RWD and Left Foot Braking do not go together
2. Raising an iX for rally is a horrible and dangerous idea. No droop equals no brakes over bumps.
3. Team D's Alcan car is a TSD car and NOT a rally car. Suitable for rally cross, but not rally. And a stock iX suspension won't get you far in rally cross and not a mile down a rally road.
4. Learn! Take the time to learn or your rally days will be numbered.
5. You can race an AWD car as a rookie if you can prove you can handle it and get signed off by an official. Usually at a rally cross or something prior to (obviously) the rally you first want to run. Usually if you and your car survive the rally, they will let you come back in that car.

Happy to answer other questions, but a lot of the info is out there to be researched.
Ask others that know more than you.
Sorry to be preachy, but rally is greatly understood as is the iX and I hate to see people put their bodies, money, and cars in danger.

J.

[learningcurve86]

the O'Neil school that you went to... could i have some details about that? duration, cost, training exercises, ect?

[Fendego]

the O'Neil school that you went to... could i have some details about that? duration, cost, training exercises, ect?

http://www.team-oneil.com/

I planned on using my old 318i for g2. It was all stripped and I played with it all winter but decided that I'd rather go fwd for g2.

[Ferdinand]

Lots of ill information in this post.
I don't mean to sound preachy, but rally is dangerous...

Life is dangerous. It eventually kills all of us.

Have some fun, enjoy life, live your dreams while you're still alive, rather than waking up some day and realizing you're too old to start rallying.

RWD cars in particular are very dangerous in loose traction.

Nonsense.

In fact, at the O'Neil School in New Hampshire where I trained, they don't even let you drive the RWD cars unless thats what you are specifically racing and there to specifically train for.

That's only because the vast majority of rally cars nowadays are either AWD or FWD. The O'Neil school is geared to accommodate the majority of students. It's getting harder to find a suitable, affordable, RWD car. They'll be more than happy to teach you RWD techniques if you ask. And they use E30s for that!

1. RWD and Left Foot Braking do not go together

Again, nonsense.

One of the benefits of left foot braking is the time saved, compared to the time taken to move your right foot from the throttle to the brake pedal. You've got two feet, why not use them both? Like in a gokart. Even if you still prefer to apply throttle and brake independently, always lifting your right foot completely off the throttle before pressing your left foot on the brake, you've still saved the time it takes to move your right foot from one pedal to the other.

The other benefits come from being able to apply throttle and brake together at the same time, not individually alternating from one pedal to the other. When applying power and brakes at the same time, there is a wide range of results available depending on exactly how much power versus how much brake pressure is being applied.

One of the possible benefits is in pre-loading the suspension in anticipation of hitting a pothole or dip in the road, or before a jump. Try it when just idling in your driveway. With your right foot firmly on the brake pedal to prevent the car from moving away, and your left foot on the clutch pedal, car in gear, ease up slowly on the clutch pedal. As the drive train begins to bind up, does your car tend to squat down in the back, or in the front?

The other major benefit is using the brakes to transfer weight forward or back as needed while at speed. Weight-transfer from one end of the vehicle to the other occurs when the vehicle is either accelerating --weight transfers rearward, or decelerating -- weight transfers forward.

If you're applying more throttle than brakes and the car is accelerating, then weight will transfer to the rear of the car. If you're applying more brakes than throttle and the car is decelerating, that transfers weight to the front of the car.

You could keep the throttle planted to the floor all the time, but if the brakes are strong enough to slow the car even with the throttle planted, that means the car is decelerating and weight transfers forward. Release the brakes enough to allow the car to accelerate and weight transfers to the rear. With the throttle wide open the whole time, the turbo (if you have one) stays spooled up the whole time to produce max power with no throttle lag. You're just using the brake pedal to make the car slow down or allow it to speed up, thereby transferring weight forward or back as required to balance the car through corners.

The extreme is when it's either low traction conditions or you've applied enough pedal pressure to actually lock the brakes, either at the rear or front end of the car, or both.

If in a FWD car you've locked the rear wheels, but still have enough throttle applied and engine power to keep the front wheels turning, then the effect is exactly like pulling the handbrake. The key though to determining whether the back end will swing out of line or not, is whether the car is decelerating or accelerating at the time. Let's say the throttle is still planted, if you applied enough brake pressure to lock the rear wheels and slow the FWD car, then the tail will swing out. If you haven't applied enough brake pressure to slow the car though and the engine is still pulling the car forward at the same speed or accelerating, then the locked rear wheels will simply drag along straight behind you like a trailer.

All the same principles apply to RWD, except for one crucial difference. If you apply too much brake pressure while staying on the throttle, it's the front wheels that will always lock first. And that just creates understeer, which sucks, unless you actually like understeer.

Several years ago Jacques Villeneuve demonstrated one situation where left foot braking to lock the front wheels in order to induce understeer, against right foot throttle to keep the rear wheels turning, actually was useful. I'm pretty sure it was at Silverstone in the B.A.R. F1 car. Villeneuve gave it a bit too much power exiting a turn and the rear end of his F1 car stepped way out and it looked like he would spin for sure. But Jacques applied just enough brakes to lock the front wheels, while staying on enough power to keep the rear wheels rolling. If the car were accelerating it still would have spun. But with just enough brake applied to lock the front wheels, and just the right amount of throttle applied to keep the rear wheels turning, while still slowing the car in deceleration, that caused the front end to weather-vane back into line to straighten the car out again. Murray Walker was jabbering away about something totally unrelated when Martin Brundle cut in to remark how that was a "particularly nifty bit of driving by Jacques" to save the car from spinning like that.

[Ferdinand]

3. Team D's Alcan car is a TSD car and NOT a rally car. Suitable for rally cross, but not rally. And a stock iX suspension won't get you far in rally cross and not a mile down a rally road.

Agreed. The E30's suspension is its Achilles heel for serious stage rallying. It's fine for TSD and okay for rallycross. But, with stock suspension, you'd have to crawl through the rough stage roads to avoid blowing shocks and bashing oil pans.

Everybody and their brother, sister, and uncle, rallies Subarus these days. There are all sorts of go-fast parts available for them, and everybody has spares. You bust something, it's easy to swap out parts and everybody will be ready to lend you whatever you need to fix it.

Hardly anybody rallies an E30 in North America. You bust something, you're on your own to fix it.

On Subarus, the struts bolt to the hub assembly. It's easy to unbolt the strut to make quick repairs, without needing to touch tie rods or ball joints. On the E30, the front strut is integral with the hub and spindle. To swap springs or shocks, the entire strut has to come out of the car.

The E30 is an awesome tarmac car, but a bit delicate for severe rough road use. You really need to do a complete suspension swap, using expensive struts like those available from Hotbits.

4. Learn! Take the time to learn or your rally days will be numbered.

Absolutely!

Do lots of TSD rallies first to learn the timing and teamwork required. Then do lots of rallycross, autocross, lapping, whatever, to learn to drive your car in a safe environment. In real rallies, there are lots of trees and rocks that can hurt you and your car.

I co-drive for Martin Walter in his RWD Nissan 240SX. He's the Canadian National Group5 Champion the last two years running. Here's an in-car video from a couple of weeks ago, showing how rough some of the stage roads can get. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uQyK-aMVWo

More video and stories here: http://bmwe30network.net/forums/read...,2931#msg-2931

RWD Rocks!

[SlapDash]

Thank you Ferdinand!

[Ferdinand]

I don't know if these guys from Boston are still trying to sell their 318is rally car, but it's still listed on rallyclassifieds.com. They have run it Rally New York.

Three weeks from now, July 17-18, we'll be making our first foray into the US rallying scene with the Nissan 240SX at the New England Forest Rally in Maine.

Come look us up!

[supernaughtIX]

did I see that car at the tall pines the last couple years? I missed the black bear rally but I know all those roads!! been down there with my IX many many times.

[Ferdinand]

did I see that car at the tall pines the last couple years?.

Yes, the Nissan has run at Tall Pines the last three years. The 2006 Tall Pines was Martin's debut event with this car, with Ken co-driving. It ended rather spectacularly when Ken got behind in his notes and called a corner as a fast R6 over small crest, when in fact it was a much tighter R3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6fDpmo8494 The sound is bad and out of sync, but the video image is scary enough. They landed on top of Wallbank's Isuzu, which had crashed in the same spot just ahead of them.

The following year, 2007, was my first event co-driving for Martin. We weren't all that quick, and had a flat tire on stage that took forever to change. But we finished.

Last year, 2008, we again had a flat that cost us 10 minutes to change. That was too bad, as we were doing really well up until then. Also, I had a bad reaction to a Wendy's chicken burger that I foolishly ate the night before, so I spent a lot of the weekend puking my guts out.
See stories, photos, in-car video here: http://bmwe30network.net/forums/read...62,462#msg-462

I missed the black bear rally but I know all those roads!! been down there with my IX many many times.

The Black Bear Rally was previously run out of Dorset, Ontario. This year it moved to McArthur's Mills, just east of Bancroft and ran on several of the Tall Pines stages, but in the opposite direction, like The Peanut and Egan Creek.

[DEV0 E30]

Next E30 I own will be a baja/rally monster.

A go anywhere vehicle to embarrass the lifted trucks here that never get dirty.