E36 M3 Track Car - S50 to LS1

[Inflame]

Ok, I gathered some info on the ride height last night. I don't know exactly where to get it from so I poked around an found a place that seems to stay consistent and straight with the rake of the vehicle.

Here is the setup I used, I know, very very accurate :P It was a precision machine block and the ruler is a precision metric unit.



I measured to the bottom of this rubber strip at the top of the side skirt. I chose not to do the wheel arch due to be hammer, twisting, and cutting them up to be non-factory.


LEFT REAR - 220mm


LEFT FRONT - 177mm


RIGHT FRONT - 182mm


RIGHT REAR - 228mm


Here's an excel of all the data, corner weights - ride height - SPRING RATES ARE 650/750

[fifth]

Your corner balance will change with you in the car.... I would scale it again with you in there.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, lower your right front a 1/2 inch

[Inflame]

Your corner balance will change with you in the car.... I would scale it again with you in there.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, lower your right front a 1/2 inch

I agree, I should've asked for them to snap a picture with me in the car. I figure if I can get the car itself to be a bit more balanced on it's own, I can fiddle with balancing it with me in the car at a later date. I don't have much to do other than my job so this keeps me busy :P

1/2"? That seems quite a bit! I'll see if I even have enough adjustment to go that much. These will be over the weekend after I install the fender flares.

[fifth]

When you sit on the left side of your car, it will drop about 1/4~ in ride height, and you are also heavy on the right side...

[kangsoleh1]

Decently large update from this past weekend! First, finished up the rear end... Installed the stop-tech SS brake lines and the suspension. Then, moved onto to small stuff, like button up the front end a little bit, installed my battery tray (no pic ) then... she went down on the ground!! Here are some pictures. Also, finished the floor pan with integrated dead pedal.


Rear suspension w/ Rouge Engineering RSM's



SS brake lines



And boom!! There she sits! Don't mind the dirtiness of the shop, been a hectic 5-6 months with 8 cars being built for the race season. Some things I noticed are... I NEED SPACERS! Good thing my friend Jan has a pair for the fronts, have 10mm spacers for the rear. Yes extended bolts will be used.






So, now in the mean time while I wait for a driveshaft... I decided to move my gauges up into the center vent area. Panel is a quick fix, painted piece (looks much worse in person). Need to wire in the switch for the auto trans jumper mod, kinda my own little kill switch.



Quick cool welding shot, friend Mike had to weld the floor pan for me since I don't have much experience with Arc welding. I burned a hole I'll get better though



Shot of the floor pan w/ welded in mounting tabs and dead pedal to rest my foot and cover the wiring in that area. I have tons of grip tape to apply in the foot well.




Next update should have the following done...
-Tie rods inners and outters
-Alignment
-Ride height adjustment
-Hopefully sunroof panel welded in
-Drive shaft? Yeah right
-Floor pan installed
-Maybe oil pressure gauge to fill the void? We'll see
-Hopefully the right front SS lines will come in along with my sway bar!
-Make front under tray out of di-bond.

Wow so much progress! Cars coming along nice!

[JL01]

Looks great!

[Inflame]

When you sit on the left side of your car, it will drop about 1/4~ in ride height, and you are also heavy on the right side...

Right on, thanks!

Won't be going to the next waterford event where the scales are, so I may be a bit until I get another corner weight.

[Inflame]

Mandatory youtube video :P

[tptrsn]

WOW! That sounds fantastic!!

[Inflame]

Yeah it came out sounding awesome! No drone in the car but the drivetrain whine is pretty intense, T56 is no joke.

- - - Updated - - -

Over the weekend I installed the hardmotorsports fender flares. 4-5 hours to install, total pain in the ass! So many god damn rivets! Anyway, with some trimming, no more rubbing

Prepping to install


First layer cut


Cut the second layer a bit lower than the first, then hammered it up against the first layer. This actually created a pretty dang tight seal against it, with some tack welding at points then sealing it, I doubt it'll rust.



Not bad! Body work isn't my forte, cut the side molding piece a bit too low, but whatever!



Drivers side rear


Fronts cut


Paint on these is zinc anti-corrosive, rust preventing spray paint, very heavy duty stuff with huge zinc flakes in it (looks like it atleast)


Finished product!







Next up was to finish my headlight intake I started a year ago... I used a piece of leave blower elbow due to the funnel type fitting it had.

Test fit.


Elbow pokes out back straight to the filter


Amount I needed to cut off



Cut, trimmed and siliconed in. I'll be painting it black, maybe put a yellow spiral in it lol


How she sits now, lowered my front right 4 turns, didn't want to go too drastic just yet. I believe it's ~ a 1/4 inch.

[FastFabM3]

Looking good man!

[TXBDan]

A yellow spiral in the intake would be pretty awesome.

[Inflame]

Haha yeah I agree, I may do it in the future for shits and giggles.

Car is getting tuned this friday, weather permitting. First auto-x Sunday with video!

[Inflame]

Video from my fastest run this weekends autocross.

[jakermac]

Looks great. Still getting a bit of rubbing on left turns? Oh, and... DYNO Results?

[Inflame]

Yeah it's rubbing the very front of the front left/right flares, minor trimming still. No dyno yet! My tuner put a pretty conservative tune on the car due to me not having a wideband. Only running 21* timing right now and the injectors are maxed at 5500rpm (stock ls6). Once I get a wideband in he'll be able to tell for sure what's going on. I hope to have that done within 3-4 weeks. But overall, the car is driving extremely well. The very first flash woke the car up, smoothed out any idle vibrations and made it much more tolerable to drive.

Also, added power steering on saturday. I bit the bullet and ordered Vorshlags P/S kit in April, came in saturday and installed it quickly. Very high quality kit, pretty happy with it just not the price!! It is what it is though. I smashed my p/s loop and getting another one was only ~$120-$140 cheaper than an entire swap kit from vorshlag.

[Inflame]

Well, first track event was fairly eventful.... Start things off, car was driving OKAY at best, for some reason I just don't have any confidence with it, probably because it was my first ever event and was expecting things to go wrong.

I know the struts need to be rebuilt, bought them with 35k miles and now they're on their 5-6th event with me + all of the driving to/from the track.
My ride height is fairly high in the rear which made the car also feel a bit lofty. I'm not sure if my rear toe is out, but at speed the car was not stable at all so I only reached top speeds of ~130mph.

My belt tensioner seems to be a bit worn out which is causing my belt to jump forwards... The first time it jumped it rubbed a hole into my radiator hose, we repaired that then the belt jumped backwards, which at the same time broke the plastic power steering pulley and caused the belt to rub a whole into my reservoir. Lost power steering after the 2nd session which made the car even harder to drive.

I was getting a bit of understeer, I'm sure it was a combination of my ride height, dampener settings and tire pressures.

I was only able to spin the car to 6200, so I ran out of RPM at crucial parts of the track, shifting into 4th would've been a waste.

Plans for the next 2 months until next event (vacations and school are hindering my track time this year).
-Brian Tooley Double Valve Spring kit
-Brian Tooley trunion upgrade
-SLP Crank Pulley
-Turn One power steering pulley, new OEM reservoir.
-Pull .5* camber out from rear, get aligned
-Sell stock LS1 injectors for GTP 39# injectors
-Buy and install catch can - quite a bit of smoke on hard engine braking
-Possibly do compression test.
-Corner balancing
-Drop trans and check clutch
-Check shim stack height (ran into a few shifting issues

That's all I can think off of the top of my head for now.

[Gheorghe]

Do you think you're going to cars and coffee at Kart 2 Kart this Sat?

[Inflame]

No I won't be there, car is back on jackstands getting fixed and upgraded! Big post coming within the next 2-3 weeks

[King Hax]

Can't wait!

[bighead75]

Any new updates?

[bighead75]

What year, make and model did your LS1 come out of? Do you happen to know the casting number from the block?

Thanks and looking forward to your updates.

[Inflame]

My year is a 1999 out of a Camaro. I don't know the casting number.

Sorry for no updates guys, haven't nearly had a single minute to work on the car these past months. Since May 26th, the car has been on jackstands and nothing has changed other than me upgrading the injectors to 40#ers. Hope to finally have an update within 2 week.s

[Inflame]

Quickie update of what's going on.

1) During my May event at Grattan race way, I was running into a few issues.
a) High oil temps, well, unknown oil temps past 250*. When I did back off a bit, they'd come down to 240ish, so I don't believe they're much higher than 250.
b) Accessory belt flying off... First it took out my radiator hoses then the second time it broke my plastic power steering pulley and cut a hole into my reservoir.

2) During my tuning session before Grattan, my tuner was using the narrow bands and suspected I was maxing out the injectors around 5500rpm so I limited myself to 6000rpm. This caused me to get butt hurt at grattan since I specifically chose my rear end ratio for a 7000rpm motor. To remedy this I purchased some Grand Prix GTP 39/40# injectors and am borrowing my friends AEM UEGO for tuning purposes.

3) Purchased a turn one p/s pulley setup and new reservoir. That should fix that. Also a new belt tensioner.

4) Lowering the rear all the way as I have some extreme rake and I am also pulling out .5* of camber going to -2.0 as I was not getting full contact in the rear.

5) Switching from 5-40 to 15-50 M1 oil, should bring oil pressure up.

6) Fixed my fan shroud.

7) Underdrive pulley is getting installed after next weekend, just don't have time to do it right now.

8) Had bracket made for my Wilwood 7/8" Clutch Master Cylinder - I was having very hard shifting issues, hopefully this will remedy that.

That's about all for now. I'm sure after next weekends event at gingerman I'll have even more to do -_-

[klodkrawler05]

What are you targeting for final oil temps on the track?

My c5z with stock ls6 is hitting around 275 degrees for oil temps after a hard session, I've got a vented hood which helped as previously I'd have to carefully watch oil temps or I'd see 300 in a hurry, next step for me is installing a oil cooler which will hopefully get me into the 250 ish range.