96 BMW 328is LS1 to LS2 Conversion Bimerok

[Maynor]

Nice setup with the tire trailer. How do you transport the wing to the track?

[bimerok]

I actually put the wing on before I go to the track and drive with it in place. The splitter on the other hand, with my new set up will be riding in the trunk and put on at the track within 5 minutes. Before I couldn't do this, because I had trunk full of wheels and I had to mount my splitter on to the high position, drive like that to the track. Then unmount it at the track, get my complicated-to-install lowering construction in place, etc... My new "lowering spools" that I machined are breeze to install now.

[Maynor]

Details on the spools? You might have another customer here..

[bimerok]

Last year I made my splitter out of Dibond and it was held to the car by using metal stand offs that are bolted to the bumper support and going down to the under-tray, similar to LTW. The splitter build starts here: http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...9#post26524819

Initially after getting to the track with the splitter in the high position (bolted straight to the under panel of the bumper), I had to undo 10 mounting bolts to remove the splitter and then add spacers to lower it by 2.25 or 2.5 inches using pre-cut aluminum tubing that I had to put between under-tray and the splitter with some washers in the mix. Multiply it by 10 mounting points and it was fairly annoying and painful to get everything bolted and set up.

Here is what it looked like:












Then to avoid dealing with the lowering spacers made out of aluminum tubing and bunch of smaller parts, washers and bolts, I decided to make it as a unit which is easier for me to deal with. I bought an aluminum round bar, which is about 2.5" in diameter if I remember correctly, then I cut 10 equal length pieces out of bar to make my lowering parts, which I call lowering spools due to the way they look.

Then over the winter I started machining aluminum bar to cut out the middle and making the "spools". I was using my small HarborFreight lathe and it took me close to 20 hours just to cut all 10 shapes. After everything was cut, each spool had a hole drilled through the middle, then tapped and a bolt was crewed in and placed on red Loctite. Now the assembly can be easily bolted to the under-tray at the track and then splitter is placed over the bolts and secured with nuts at the bottom. This simplifies the process and the amount of parts significantly.

Now on to the pictures.

This is how the aluminum bar looked like when I started, except it was a lot longer.




Then it was cut on 10 sections that looked like that prior to machining




This is after the "spool" shape was machined.




Then the hole was drilled through the middle of the spool and threads cut




Bolts were threaded on and placed on red Loctite




So the final unit looked like this




Then when I arrive at the track, I would bolt all 10 mounting units to the under panel and then place splitter to the lower bolts. I bolted 2 of the units for picture purposes to show how they look mounted to the bumper.




Hopefully this gives better idea on how my splitter contraption work

[ckpitt55]

great mounting solution. nice work

[MikeJTR]

Then over the winter I started machining aluminum bar to cut out the middle and making the "spools". I was using my small HarborFreight lathe and it took me close to 20 hours just to cut all 10 shapes.

This is after the "spool" shape was machined.

20 hours? You work slower than me. I could have done it in 19 hours.

How long to drill and tap? (It is surprising to most people, the amount of time to make custom parts.)

[bimerok]

lol, you must have the bigger/more powerful version of the HF lathe. Mine can only take little increments at a pass

I think the drill, tap, cut and install the bolts process took about 1 more hour per unit... One of the bigger pain in the ass parts was to getting the work piece actually aligned perfectly straight in the chuck before drilling.

[bimerok]

Some of the info was discussed already in our 95M3 LS2 build thread so this is just to update my thread and some additional info as well.

To finish off with splitter. Below are couple of pictures of it getting mounted at the track.

All "spools" are bolted on and splitter is bolted to the bottom.




Just to show how splitter looks on the bottom side once mounted




All on the car with air dam/cover in place





So my biggest thing to check during this past weekend track day was to make sure my new double row, dual pass radiator is sufficient for the track use. And as discussed in the other thread it performed perfectly. On 86F day the water temperatures were staying at 194F with rarely getting to 196F and then quickly going down to 194. So for now I call it a success!!!

The car felt amazing at the track. The added power from LS2 is felt for sure and very enjoyable. I can clearly see the difference from the gear ratio of LS2 GTO T56 vs F-Body T56. I now need to upshift into the 4th gear where I used to be able to stretch my 3rd gear before. But again, not a big deal. Just something different.

All in all the track day was very fun for me and my cousin in his 97 M3. My car got a little "scar" from the day, but nothing major. In turn 5 or 6 of Lightning, e46 M3 went for some farming and brought ton of agriculture and vegetation back on the pavement. He even de-beaded one of his tires doing that. So some of that agriculture reached my car and made a little boo-boo



So now I need to check our supply of fog lights to see if I have a spare. If not, then probably will just do a fog light delete. No biggie...

For some of the other drivers unfortunately the day did not turn out to be as good. We are tracking with this club already for the 4th year and in all that time we only saw one car crash. This time around there were 3 totaled cars in one day! Not only that, but one of the crashes was car on car type of crash. Very, very disturbing.

First session out, maybe 3/4 into the session a Camaro ZL1 claims that he all of the sudden lost all of the brakes so he gets the car sideways and smashes into the back of Honda S2000 near turn 7, sending both of the cars all the way through the grass into the tire wall. Both cars appeared to be totaled in the incident. ZL1 was almost bent in half and the whole rear of S2000 was smashed up!

It happened about 20 seconds or so before I got to that turn, so there is not much to see in the video. Just driving by the turn and you can see how far the cars went off the track and spread apart from that accident. More importantly that both drivers were OK physically after the accident.




Then 3rd session in the day, my cousin was driving behind a Nissan 350z that was doing pretty decent so far, when all of the sudden the 350 loses traction after turn 2 and just snaps. The car flies off the track and into the guard rail at about 80-85mph and goes airborne from the impact. This was pretty violent impact and it took a while before they brought the car and the driver to pits. Again, luckily the driver appeared to be alright physically, but I'm sure he was going to feel it in the evening. That brought the track down for an hour while they were repairing the guard rail with a tire wall and cleaning up the track. The lunch came in early that day.

Here is the video of the crash from my cousin's car. Courtesy of ITNT4U:



Any way... That was one of the not so good representation of the track event.


In the mean time I was getting used to my new set up and taking some "rust off" as it is our first track day this season. Since the last time I switched to an LS2, upgraded my suspension to KWs v3, new tires - Maxxis RC1 and some alignment updates. We enjoyed the new Maxxis RC1 that we are running. Very nice tire. Compared to NT01, so far it seems to be a bit more sticker and definitely takes a lot more to overheat them. Very nice and happy with them after one day!

The best time I could do in the day was 1:17:2. There is a lot of room for improving that. I wasn't running it 100%. Here is one lap video with my cousin driving in front of me in his 97 M3 for some time.




The new and annoying issue that I discovered during this track day is that I now start experiencing a pretty bad oil pressure drop under left hand turns and hard braking. Especially in turn 4. That bummed me out the whole day. Now I need to try few things to see what I can do about it...

That oil starvation conversation took off in my other build thread and it has some good info in there. So I will link to it from here. http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...6#post27872046

Very disappointing and confusing with that oil pressure issue that I need to solve now. We have another track day coming up this Sunday at Pocono so for now I will try to use different brand of oil and may be going to slightly thicker viscosity to see if it helps any. Otherwise I'll be taking it easy, which is hard to do...

[bimerok]

So before going to the Pocono Raceway event this past Sunday, I decided to change the oil to a heavier grade (10/40 instead of 5/30) to see if it would help with my oil pressure issues. It is hard to do a compare when at different tracks, but it did improve the straight line pressure and I did not have issues with pressure dropping in the left hand turns. But I think it is just due to different track.

Anyway, when I was draining the oil and opened my drain plug, this is what I found on the magnet.



That piece of wire, I'm 95% certain is from the Improved Racing oil pan baffle that I installed. This is the wire that the trap doors are hinged on. I will be double checking it sometimes in near future when I will be dropping the oil pan to take out that baffle and putting the OEM one back. I will confirm this once I get 100% certain after taking it out. This could also explain pressure drops starting at only 1G and not 1.4Gs as advertised by Improved racing...

Over all the track day at Pocono was great. This is the same set up that we ran last year, which is 3.5 mile long! Last year we were the first group to run this configuration right after it was opened. I even have this track certified with Harry's Lap Timer under my name The only issue with the track last year was one transition from NASCAR circle to the infield. This year that transition was fixed and made it perfect!

Here are couple of pictures of us at the gas station, hitting the road the night before.





Notice, I actually found spare fog light in our stock to replace the broken one from the last event. So no foglight delete yet


There were bunch of cool cars this time around. Ferrari, New Viper, and McLaren, which is first time I saw McLaren outside the car show. That car sounds pretty cool on the track! Here is a quick pic I snapped of him unloading the "trunk"




There were also lots of new C7 Stingray Corvettes at the track, which was a pleasure to see. Speaking of new C7's, the club we ran with (Hooked on Driving) partnered with Chevy and were letting you test the new C7 at the track, which I obviously took advantage of!

Being an ex-owner of C6 Corvette, I did find C7 being a huge improvement over the C6. The interior is much nicer, the sound of the car amazing with different exhaust modes and more importantly the handling is amazing. Way more responsive and precise than C6. One cool feature that I like was the automatic Rev-Matching system. Pretty cool. When activated you do perfect downshifts all the time without the need for heel-n-toe.

Here is a quick pic that my cousin snapped when I was pulling in after my drive



While staying on the Corvette subject, there was one that you don't see very often - a previous ZR1 model. They are pretty rare and it was the first time I saw one in person. From outside it looks pretty much like regular C4, but under the hood there is that rare 4 Cam, 32 valve engine. You don't see that every day!




There were also bunch of BMW's including newer v8 E90/92 M3's and F10 M5's. Two of the E90/92 M3's did not make it home on their own that day. One of them came from the track with smoking oil from all over the hood and chunks of metal shavings under the oil cap. The other one get towed to the pits with its engine completely ceased up...

Now on to few videos below. BTW, same as last year, we could not get any traction at Pocono. The car was understeering badly and tires scream, which was not the case at NJMP just a week prior...


Here is me and my cousin trying to pass the "drifter" Nissan 240 with an LS6 swap that was really slow in the turns and not letting us pass. It was fun though...




Here is the Video of my fastest lap of the day. I was able to get it 3.1 seconds faster than my last year's time




And another video of us just playing around at the track

[TipsyMcStagger]

Anyway, when I was draining the oil and opened my drain plug, this is what I found on the magnet...

...That piece of wire, I'm 95% certain is from the Improved Racing oil pan baffle that I installed. This is the wire that the trap doors are hinged on. I will be double checking it sometimes in near future when I will be dropping the oil pan to take out that baffle and putting the OEM one back. I will confirm this once I get 100% certain after taking it out. This could also explain pressure drops starting at only 1G and not 1.4Gs as advertised by Improved racing...

Nice, I debated whether to get one of these and decided it's never going to be easier to install than it is prior to installing the engine, so I bought one.

Hope this is an isolated incident.

Tipsy

[douglee25]

That LS6 really pulls in the straights!

Nice driving.

Doug

[Kristov]

Have you had any oil control issues at the track?

[bimerok]

I did the first time I went to NJMP Lightning track, after that I changed my oil and found piece of metal wire that I'm pretty sure is from improved racing oilpan baffle. I then went to Pocono raceway and there I did not have issue, but it is very different track.

I am going to be taking the oilpan down and removing the improved racing baffle and putting the stock one in. Also I will be installing a HP meliing oil pump "while I'm in there". For now, I sent my oil to Blackstone Lab for analysis, just in case... After results come in, I will get to replacing work.

[Kristov]

I did the first time I went to NJMP Lightning track, after that I changed my oil and found piece of metal wire that I'm pretty sure is from improved racing oilpan baffle. I then went to Pocono raceway and there I did not have issue, but it is very different track.

I am going to be taking the oilpan down and removing the improved racing baffle and putting the stock one in. Also I will be installing a HP meliing oil pump "while I'm in there". For now, I sent my oil to Blackstone Lab for analysis, just in case... After results come in, I will get to replacing work.

Thanks!

I am looking at upgrading to an LS3 but it seems like they are even more prone to problems at the road course than earlier LS-engines.

[bimerok]

Interesting thing is I never seen my LS1 oil pressure to even move 1 PSI... Same Aero set up, similar tires, same turning Gs

[Kristov]

Interesting thing is I never seen my LS1 oil pressure to even move 1 PSI... Same Aero set up, similar tires, same turning Gs

Very strange - I would rather blow up a $3000 LS1 than a $6000 LS3 if they are destined to cave in because of oiling issues

[bimerok]

Went to our first track day of the season this past Sunday. Had lots of fun as always. Car performed great. My new fuel surge tank worked extremely well and let me use the fuel past the warning light!!!

Also was able to get my personal best at the Thunderbolt with chicane set up: 1:37:16. Pretty happy that I could do it on the first track day of the season. It is improvement of 1.19 seconds from 2013 (that's how long ago we drove on Thunderbolt ). Unfortunately Harry's Lap Timer only recorded data and no Video for that session. Oh well...

Here are few pics and a video...

Here is the picture of me getting off the track. This is how far I can take my fuel level without any starvation issues



Video of few laps. HLP decided to freeze some of the data overlay. I think it was due of me running out of space on my iPhone...



Here are few pictures of my cousin's Warsteiner paint scheme e36 M3 next to my car. All packed up at the end of the day ready to head home.

[TipsyMcStagger]

Very cool. I don't know how I missed your surge tank build but it's brilliant! Impressed, as always.

Tipsy

[bimerok]

This past weekend we were out at NJMP again. This time Lighting track. Not that I'm too excited, but I finally had some real issue.

I was out on the first session of the day and about 3/4 of the session through my diff finally said "F-it! I'm tired of all of this abuse!" Then proceeded to curse me what I think was in German language

It actually took a lot over the past 5 years that I had it in my car. First it worked for 4 years with the LS1 that I had and 4 years of track time. Then the last year it cooped with an LS2 and few track days with added LS2 power... Not too bad to be honest.

The good thing is that at the end of the day after being a passenger in my cousin's car, I was still able to load up my tire trailer with 8 tires and make it home on that diff. It was pretty loud, but it got me home, for which I'm very grateful.

Here is a video of my last couple of laps from the first session of the day where you can hear the diff starting to get angry at me about half way through the first lap in the video and then by the second lap you know it's a goner. Maybe someone can translate that from German for me?




If all goes well, I should be picking up another replacement diff later on today...

[bimerok]

Picked up another diff last night. Will try to swap it out this weekend if the gear oil will show up ontime...

[TipsyMcStagger]

Picked up another diff last night. Will try to swap it out this weekend if the gear oil will show up ontime...

That was quick. Same ratio?

Tipsy

[bimerok]

That was quick. Same ratio?

Tipsy

Yes, there were few for sale within 45-60 min of driving, so I picked one up in the same 3.23 ratio...

After thinking for a bit about ordering the same RedLine gear oil for the diff, I decided to give Mobil1 Synthetic a try instead. Never had issues with their oils and most importantly, it is available in most local stores...

[bimerok]

Today I was able to drop my shot diff and replace it with another one that I got. The car is back in business and everything is up and running again.

I was thinking of rebuilding the one that got shot, but after opening it up and draining the fluid, I realized that this is going to be a parts diff .

I didn't take any pictures as I wast pressed on time, but when I drained the fluid, it looked like someone put some glitter in it, it was that shiny with tiny shavings... The speed sensor magnet also held tones of shavings on it too. Then when I opened up the rear cover and looked at the ring gear, I could see the "new" wear patern on the teeth already that was moved to the edge and top of the teeth.

Upon further inspection of the leftover oil at the bottom of the diff, it revealed a little chunk of metal, after looking where it came from, I noticed that the pinion gear had piece of the tooth brake off, then inspecting it more, I found second tooth that had a small piece chopped off. Like if it wasn't obvious by the sound the rear was making, inspecting it showed that it would "self distruct" in very short order had I need to drive it a bit further home from the track.

So that diff was put away for some spare parts if I ever need them. Fun, fun, fun...

Hope the new diff last me that long or even longer...

[Maynor]

..I noticed that the pinion gear had piece of the tooth brake off, then inspecting it more, I found second tooth that had a small piece chopped off. L..

Very similar to my failure mode with two pinion teeth shearing:


My ring gear looking almost perfect but I didn't drive home with it which probably helped.

Glad you got it fixed.

[bimerok]

Oh... I remember your diff. That was total devostation. I wouldn't be able to make home on that

In my case it was very end of the teeth chipped of. And in both yours and my case it is the pinion gear that faild, which I guess shows that it experiencing 3.23 times (3.91 times in your case) more load then the ring gear due to the amount of teeth it has.