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Thread: MidWest E36 Sedan Track Toy Build

  1. #51
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
    Posts
    1,018
    My Cars
    e36 332i
    Had a great year with the car. Only had one mechanical hiccup.... Second to last event of the year my headgasket let go between cyl 5 and 6. Thankfully it was 4 laps into the last run of the 2 day event and I had several weeks before the BMWCCA event to get car back in to shape.

    Here is the culprit:


    While I was in there..... I took some of the metal off of the spacer that holds the bearings inside the vanos. This tightens up the bearing clearence and gets rid of the axial play in the vanos helical gear. Excessive bearing clearance is normally the "marbles in the valve cover" noise heard from the vanos, this noise is always amplified with the use of larger cams and stiffer valve springs. The other cause is excessive helical gear to cam clearance. This requires new parts and will eventually wear and still have some rattle.... no sence in wasting money there.


    Fall PCA event at Gateway Motorsports Park
    This event always brings out some nice sheetmetal.....


    Beautiful McLaren MC1. It was refreshing to see the owner drive this like it was built to be instead of just cruising around the track, hats off to you sir!




    Winter projects planned...

    full roll cage
    install fire supression system
    change rear gears
    fab up custom center switch panel
    remove heater box
    install wrap on car, probably shoulda painted it but allready bought the wrap.
    rebuild dampers, new springs
    aero?
    Last edited by eye145; 12-01-2012 at 01:22 PM.

  2. #52
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    St. Louis
    Posts
    994
    My Cars
    '88 e30 M3 (GTS2)
    Jon,

    Nice to see the steady progression!

    Damon in STL
    Damon in STL
    '88 e30 M3/M42t - GTS3 #72 - Motorcraft Ign., Volvo Injectors, Thrush Turbo Muffler, Open Source ECU, Aerospace Connectors, Lowes Polycarbonate, Alumacore Front Splitter and Rear Diffuser, Honda Radiator(s), Racer's Tape (white), Tornado, Various Stickers, Farm Implement Paint (gloss white), Nationwide Series Windshield (Fontana version), GMC Boost Solenoid
    My current car: e30 M342t Evolution

  3. #53
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
    Posts
    1,018
    My Cars
    e36 332i
    This year I decided to do some Time trials with NASA. Since my car is an engine swap I needed to have it reclassed. I was put in TTB (Time Trial Class B) with a minimum race weight of 2900 lbs and max Horsepower set at 260. What is kinda sucky is that a e36 M3 prepped the same as me in Time trials still has enough points left over to run a splitter and rear wing and still be in the same class. I am maxed out on points and had to install the base model 325i front bumper cover back on the car to stay in TTB. Oh well, this is just a stepping stone at this point and not a purpose built TT car. How ever the competitive nature in me wants to prep the car as far as I can with in the rule set.
    So first off was to make some restrictor plates since I know I am at or over the horsepower limit and also get the car scaled to check the weight.
    Armed with a hanful of homemade Lexan restrictor plates I took a trip on over to ET tuning in Union Missouri. They are an official NASA inspection shop with a dyno.

    On the Dyno

    After getting my Horsepower numbers under the max I then focused on the weight. Since I had the bumper off to change the cover I figured I should lighten it up a little.



    I decided to sign up with NASA Mid South region to run down at Memphis International for a few reasons. 1. The Taylors are the folks that run that region and are super nice people. (Hi to all the flaggers and volunteers, It was great meeting everyone!!!) 2. My sister lives half an hour from the track, makes for a good chance to visit and the room and board is free. 3. Use this as a test run to prep the car and myself for the Central Region race here in St Louis later this month.
    It turned out to be a great trip despite the freezing temps, wind, sleet and snow flurrys.
    Yup, thats ice in the first pic and snow flurrys in the second.



    Sunday was much nicer, clear skys and in the low 40's. Seemed like a heat wave considering it was in the upper 20's and windy with over cast the day earlier. A big Thanks to Larry Bailey in the TTU Corvette for going slow enough to let me follow him for a few laps to see the "quick " line and for taking the time to talk with me off the track. I managed to get First Place in my class for the weekend! Not to hard considering I was the only one in my class all I had to do was not wreck! I found out a few days later that I also broke the record for fastest lap in TTB by over half a second. Prior record being held by a S2000.

    I would like to point out that Bud Scott also holds the record in TTF that was set with his e30. I was lucky enough to have him as my instructor that weekend back in 2011
    Time Trials class lap record list for MIR:
    Last edited by eye145; 03-11-2013 at 12:19 AM.

  4. #54
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Burr Ridge, IL
    Posts
    595
    My Cars
    1989 325is Spec E30 #109
    Impressive build. But I've been told to steer clear of UUC (perhaps due to reliability concerns).

  5. #55
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
    Posts
    1,018
    My Cars
    e36 332i
    I think that some of their products ( ie motor mounts) had issues and supposedly the flywheels as well. I had the mount break I believe due to the metal arm breaking loose first. I replaced the mounts with solid aluminium ones. I think that the way the mounts were made was a poor design and beleive they may have addressed that issue. I can say that anytime I called or emailed Rob at UUC he was always curtious and prompt. Anyhow I don't want to make this into a bashing session of any particular company and would and still purchase items from UUC.

  6. #56
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    PR
    Posts
    24
    My Cars
    1996 M3
    build looks great, looks like a lot of fun to drive!

  7. #57
    JulianK8Z's Avatar
    JulianK8Z is offline Custom User Title BMW CCA Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Morrisville, NC
    Posts
    679
    My Cars
    1989 SpecE30
    Congrats on the track record, Jon! Nice work!

  8. #58
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    PR
    Posts
    24
    My Cars
    1996 M3
    build is nice, congrats on the track record

  9. #59
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
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    1,018
    My Cars
    e36 332i
    Thanks for the congrats!

    I decided to up my spring rate a little. I had 450/f 500/r TC Kline vvs springs and will be swapping in some Hyper Coil 550/f 650/r springs. These are close to maxing out the dampers (Tc Kline Koni's) that are on the car and I am not sure what changes if any need to be made to bump and rebound settings. I guess I will drive some laps on them then stiffen them up a little and see what it feels like.
    The other thing I was trying to figure out is the "ideal ride hieght" for the e36 chassi. My main concern is keeping the stock steering control arm / tie rod geometry in the best spot while trying to get the center of gravity as low as possible. I ended up at 5.5 inch front and 6 inch rear height measured from the floor to the bottom of metal where the jack pucks use to be, which is about the same as measuring to the edge of the rocker panels to the floor. The front still looks high to me though. If any body has any useful info here it would be greatly appreciated.


    I also bought some little centering cones to help keep the springs located in one spot. They are suppose to be installed on the top of the spring but I want to keep my adjusters up there for ease of adjustment. To fit on the bottom control arm nub I had to remove the o-ring and grind off a little material.

  10. #60
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Cupertino, CA
    Posts
    5,983
    My Cars
    95 M3, 88 M3, 04 ZHP
    Great build! Any more info or pics on the scoop that you built to force air into the radiator?

    1988 E30 M3-Garage Queen
    1995 E36 M3-Track Car
    2004 330i ZHP- Daily Driver
    ///M3 Cc #1
    "Gotta Pay to Play"
    $In Debt Racing$

  11. #61
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
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    e36 332i
    Quote Originally Posted by NakNak View Post
    Great build! Any more info or pics on the scoop that you built to force air into the radiator?
    Its really pretty simple. Get some home furnace ducting tin and sheet metal screws and screw to the bottom of the radiator and front support of the car. PM me if you want specific pics, I can pull off the bumper and snap a few. I used cardboard to mock it up with the bumper installed to get the depth and shapes right.
    I was thinking of blocking off the lower grill opening so that air only gets in threw the kidney grills. Then flip the angle of the scoop to go from the bottom of the kidney grills to the bottom of the radiator. My thought on this is that it puts less air into the engine bay and under the car allowing for better areo dynamics. These are only thoughts as of now because,
    1: I need to test this on a hot midwest summer day by taping off the bottom and making sure enough air moves threw just the kidney grills to keep temps down.
    2: Car is prepped for Time Trials and not allowed, I would have to take points for modifying the bumper. I look forward to one day doing GTS racing and playing with the aero on the car.
    Last edited by eye145; 03-16-2013 at 04:52 PM.

  12. #62
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
    Posts
    1,018
    My Cars
    e36 332i
    Had a great time at Gateway Motorsports Park season opener! Only crappy thing was that Sunday was cancelled due to a snow storm rolling in Saturday night. I managed to get the NASA central region lap record for TTB on Saturday afternoon. It is not as quick as the Midwest region lap record time of 1:08 but that just gives me a goal to shoot for.


    Time to get the car prepped for Heartland Park. I will use the BMWCCA Flat Out Classic to practice and learn the track then come back one month later and race with NASA. So now to get the car fixed up a little. One of my issues is the vent hole of the differential spilling fluid on high g left hand turns (Gateways nascar turn 3-4) hard to tell in the pic but the entire diff is soaked in oil as well as the trunk of the car. To fix this I ran a little vent hose to give the fluid some place to go, then it can drain back down into the diff. wet diff:

    I let the back of the diff hang down a little and cut an access panel in the trunk to get to the vent hole located at the top right corner on the rear of the diff.

    Here is the vent hole drilled out with a small piece of steel tube installed and jb welded into place.
    I then zip tied the vent hose up along the gas filler neck along with a small piece of rag to cover the end of the hose. If you leave the hose open it could get clogged with dirt and debris or have a bug crawl up in it and plug it up.

    Next up was to try to wrap the hood in vinyl. I screwed up the first try and had to rip it all off. No pics of that one because I was pissed off, tired and frustrated and ended up just going to bed. The clear coat on my car is uber shitty and pealing off on all the horizontal surfaces. This makes it super tough to install the vinyl. Every time you try to reposition the vinyl it pulls the clear coat off the car and then wont restick to the surface. My solution was to sand the hood down to the primer...

    Then use a liquid to help float on the vinyl ta-da!

    I am still trying to figure out if I want to do the whole car light blue or make a design on the sides using white, light blue and the back ground color of dark blue.
    When I do the aero on my car I am going to have this guy hook me up....



    Yup, I think thats bed rail being used for the wing stanchions. Is that even a wing element?
    Last edited by eye145; 04-16-2013 at 01:29 AM.

  13. #63
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Orlando, FL, USA
    Posts
    212
    My Cars
    1993 BMW 325i
    Quote Originally Posted by eye145 View Post

    That leads me to the next two upgrades:
    Cooling the engine, get air to the radiator. My under tray that sits in front of the radiator has been long gone. While driving on the street this doesnt seem to matter but while pushing it on the track the temps would get to high.
    After a trip to the Home Depot hvac isle I built a scoop to force the air into the radiator thus not giving it a easy escape route underneath.


    How has this worked for you? Next time you have the camera out could you snap a few pics of the mounting and general shape?

    Edit: whoops somehow missed post #62. Would still love some pics if possible
    Last edited by Zxc4; 08-29-2013 at 11:46 AM.

  14. #64
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
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    My Cars
    e36 332i
    Well, I had a great 2013 season running Time Trials with NASA. I managed to set several TTB lap records and won almost all of the events I entered.
    I was thinking about trying to take the next step and do some German Touring Series racing for the 2014 season.
    To do this I will need to get lots of new safety equipment such as nomex underwear, new helmet, HANS device to protect my neck / spine, fire safety suit, race shoes... and the list just seems to keep going. On the car I will need to install a full roll cage, window and center safety nets, fire suppression system. Being as competitive as I am I will need to up the cars performance with some aerodynamic aids such as a splitter, rear wing as well.
    All that stuff can deplete a bank account in a hurry so we shall see how this plays out over the winter, I may just stick with time trails for another year since that's relatively cheap.
    Now on to more pressing issues such as the crazy drivetrain vibration I got when racing around Heartland Park in Topeaka Kansas last month. I got back to the shop and pulled the tranny to find the dampner springs in the friction plate of my clutch had broke loose and was bouncing around on the inside of the pressure plate causing it to be imbalanced. Car would shake like crazy at 4500 rpm and up. On a side note the differential vent tube that I installed is working awesome! Not a drop of 90w oil to be found anywhere under the car.


    If I decide to do GTS racing we will see some fun pics posted up messing around with the aerodynamics on the car. Either way I think I will go with a full roll cage and tie it into the chassi of the car to stiffen it up a little since that is allowed in Time trials as well.
    Things to come:
    1. Roll Cage tied into suspension / sub-frame pick up points
    2. Rebuild LSD. will be changing ramps to 30/90 and installing 3 clutch disc set up. (Pics and info to come of differential rebuild)
    3. (possibly) install front splitter, rear wing and diffuser, flat panel bottom of car.
    4. weight reduction....

    Pic at Heartland park just before the clutch broke:
    http://john4kc.smugmug.com/NASARacin...gQJ5s&lb=1&s=L

    http://john4kc.smugmug.com/NASARacin...D2MmV&lb=1&s=A
    Last edited by eye145; 11-08-2013 at 12:12 AM.

  15. #65
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    New England
    Posts
    143
    My Cars
    E30/E90/E46&36M3/E71X5D
    Car looks sick!!!!

  16. #66
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
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    My Cars
    e36 332i
    Finally got my Differential built and will be testing it this weekend at Gateway Motorsports Park running NASA Time Trials. I would love to drop about a second and half off my TTB class track record. Hopefully this will help. I completely took apart and rebuilt the differential.....Starting with the bare case it got a thorough cleaning and then a coat of por15 paint.
    I then took to the guts of the differential and changed ramps with 30/90 ramps from Diffs Online. Next up was to replaced all the clutchs and steel dog ear plates with new ones as well as adding a third clutch pack. Finished up the lsd carrier with a set of new allen head bolts and red loc-tite. Moving on to all the bearings and races they were replaced with Timkin bits. Then it was time to fit the new ring and pinion. Swapping from 3.14 to a 3.64 ratio, that should give me a little more punch out of the corners at the track. I think If I were to pay someone to have done all the work I would be out about 2800 bucks.
    While I was in there on the subframe I went ahead and threw a new solid delrin front diff mount bushing inplace of the old cracked rubber one.
    I had taken a bunch more pics of things fully taken apart but can't seem to find them so here is what I got.











    Here is a good look at the ramps. accel is a 30 degree ramp and decel is 90 degrees.

    Last edited by eye145; 09-15-2014 at 10:29 PM.

  17. #67
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    St. Louis, MO.
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    e36 332i
    Doing a little work on my aero dynamics package.
    I bought an old blemish returned wing from the original Brooks Motorsports a while back. It was just the wing blade so I would need to make the cradles, stanchions and mount it to the car.
    After several trips to our local metal supply shop this is what I came up with:


    Then mounted onto plates over the frame rails in the trunk like so...


    Trunk closed and now the stanchions can be mounted up


    Mocking up the stanchions


    Building the cradles


    Wing all mounted up. I used stainless steel rivets and 3m structural adhesive to bond the cradles to the wing. Solid as a rock.




    Side shot with the mandatory strength test. This thing is freakin solid. You can shake the whole car side to side and up and down by the wing with out it flexing. I am very pleased with how it turned out!
    Last edited by eye145; 04-20-2014 at 02:34 PM.

  18. #68
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    St. Louis, MO.
    Posts
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    e36 332i
    @ Heartland Park Topeka Kansas with the new aero package
    Last edited by eye145; 08-25-2014 at 11:15 PM.

  19. #69
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
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    My Cars
    e36 332i
    Sooooo had a bit of an issue at Heartland Park During a NASA race weekend. Hauling ass down the back straight and sudden loss of power followed by a smoke screen behind me.
    Despite only getting one good session in before the engine blew it was good enough for a second place finish in a field of six




    Our friends in the 4 car Garage motorsports team suffered a punt off track during the 2 hour endurance race in their e36. Lucky for them we used my car a s a parts car to get them up and running. It took some work to straighten the front of the car that was pushed about 8 inches to the right.


    Turns out I had the head of a valve break off in the #1 cyl. combustion chamber and punch a hole in the piston and threw the top of the head into a coolant passage. It allowed all my coolant to go into the oil pan but not before it filled up my intake and hydro locked the other cylinders. I had coolant and oil along with pieces of metal all over this engine. I decided to pull my cams out and start with another donor engine.












    found a 130k mile S52 from a automatic convertible to be used in the track car, getting prepped to pull out



    Donor engine getting cams, valve springs, weld oil pump nut and baffled pan installed


    - - - Updated - - -

    First start up. burning the crap out of the exhaust and the new header wrap curing.
    Last edited by eye145; 09-11-2014 at 01:25 AM.

  20. #70
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    St. Louis
    Posts
    994
    My Cars
    '88 e30 M3 (GTS2)
    Looking good Jon!
    Damon in STL
    '88 e30 M3/M42t - GTS3 #72 - Motorcraft Ign., Volvo Injectors, Thrush Turbo Muffler, Open Source ECU, Aerospace Connectors, Lowes Polycarbonate, Alumacore Front Splitter and Rear Diffuser, Honda Radiator(s), Racer's Tape (white), Tornado, Various Stickers, Farm Implement Paint (gloss white), Nationwide Series Windshield (Fontana version), GMC Boost Solenoid
    My current car: e30 M342t Evolution

  21. #71
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Long Beach
    Posts
    2,982
    My Cars
    95 LS1 M3
    nice build
    Race/Street Wheel stud conversion kits and spacers --->www.MotorsportHardware.com
    95 M3 7.1L LSX

  22. #72
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    H-Town/Los Angeles USA
    Posts
    1,911
    My Cars
    bmw e36 328i 4dr saloon
    Ouch, Sorry to hear about the engine, Glad you found a replacement engine to bounce back, Good work!
    1996 328i (m52B28US) OBD1 euro ZF 5spd. 3.23LSD conversion / Chem. PnP Head/ DINAN stg.2 CHIP/ VAC race valves/ S52 cams/ A/C delete/ fan delete/ Washer Fluid resv delete/ ARP head studs/ Cometic 140MLS / VAC Solid Engine/trans Mounts/ CAI / 2.5"Borla race exahaust/ NGK R spark plugs, M50 Mani, S50 Oil Res, Riot Racing HFTB, SAMCO Hoses, JBR FW, X-Brace, Mtech Front Bumper, RE RSMs, stoptech SS lines, Bilstein sports, H&R Race Springs, S52 Reinforcement plates, Kosei K1 w/ bridgestone RE960as, Brembo/stoptech slotted rotors, M3 Trailing arms, M3 Calipers, M3 Axles, ACS strut brace, weight reduction.

    http://mbuild.blogspot.com/

  23. #73
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
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    USA
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    79
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    My Grandma's Car
    Awesome thread, really digging it!

  24. #74
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    New England
    Posts
    206
    My Cars
    95 M3
    Nice build!!

    Any ideas if the e38 steering coupler would work instead of an e34?

    From pictures of both parts they look about the same but that's not saying much. Maybe they have different shaft sizes?

  25. #75
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    St. Louis, MO.
    Posts
    1,018
    My Cars
    e36 332i
    0100, no idea about the e38 steering coupler

    Decided to do some upper end engine work while she is tucked away for winter.
    The head is getting CNC ported as I type this. When I get it back I will replace the oem welded valves with one peice stainless steel peices. All in an effort to keep from suffering another catastrophic engine failure. I was going threw and inspecting the springs and found one has a broken inner spring that I did not notice until I measured it on the scale. It was 40 lbs off of all the other springs. I also found several titanium retainers that were worn by the springs and one in particular that looked like it could break at any time.


    broken spring and damaged Ti retainers, I am purchasing a new set of springs and tooled steel retainers for a low maintenance reliable engine set up


    I will update with more pics when I get the head back......
    A few months later and I got the head back, I am not to impressed so far with the $800 port job VAC did. I had my machinist install one piece stainless steel valves with the intake valves being back cut and swirl polished.
    before:



    After:






    - - - Updated - - -

    getting rid of some old tires....
    Last edited by eye145; 04-26-2015 at 10:02 PM.

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