Member
Is there anything you haven't done on that BMW?!! I get a cold sweat thinking about fixing the heater core in our M3...you just do it!
Pretty impressive on the brakes...again, I'd never think of adapting a set. I assume you did the math on the piston areas compared to OEM?
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TBD if I regret digging into the heater core. No way in hell I'd attempt this on a car I care about or one that I need to get me to work. Since sealing the exhaust the no-cat stink is now entirely behind the car, but there's still something in the interior. When I pressure checked the coolant system last time, I saw absolutely nothing from anything in the engine bay or in any of the cylinders. When I had the car dyno'd, the dyno operator sniffed and thought it smelled like coolant. Even if I don't see obvious signs of leakage, a replacement with new o-rings is only $50 on RockAuto, and I'd rather not have to do this job once. Our May 17th autocross just got cancelled so there's no rush to get the car ready.Originally Posted by Tim Mc
I wish I had the flexibility to drop $1000+ on a real kit, but operating with certain limitations breeds creative solutions. I looked at ATS/Corvette calipers that a lot of guys use for this kind of swap, but they are all designed for 13+" rotors and I was trying not to add the weight of bigger rotors, plus I want to keep my 17" wheels. And if I hate them I haven't modified anything about the knuckles, hubs, or brake lines so my old calipers and rotors can bolt right back up.Pretty impressive on the brakes...again, I'd never think of adapting a set. I assume you did the math on the piston areas compared to OEM?
The SL500 caliper has a pair of 44mm pistons and a pair of 40mm pistons. The math works out to be extremely close, there's less than a 2% change in f/r bias. Right now with mismatched pads the fronts always lock first. I'll be interested to see what happens when I actually have good, matching pads front and rear.
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I grabbed the cooling system pressure tester from the parts store and pumped everything up to 20psi. Not a single drop in the cabin, the drain was bone dry. Nothing visible anywhere on the heater core. I looked into pulling the evap core but that was going to require pulling the whole box out, which was more than I wanted to do.
Got the dash back in. It wasn't as bad as I anticipated, and I didn't even have any screws left over. The most tedious part was probably either reconnecting the cable from the hot/cold wheel to the heater core box, or getting the steering column bolts threaded into the movable square nuts.
While I was in there, I decided to change where the ECU is mounted. Previously it was in the passenger's footwell - I can't even find any pictures of it because I consciously avoided taking pictures because of how much it bugged me. So I trimmed up the glove box a bit and mounted the ECU on top of the cross brace under the glove box. So now I can pop open the glove box and the ECU is right there. All wires are hidden. I no longer have to warn passengers not to kick the ECU.
So I guess some good came of all of this mess.
I've been commuting in the car all of this week to verify that it's good to go. The idle needed some fairly significant adjustments - the new throttle spring that actually holds the plate all of the way closed made a big difference. I pulled the lasers out and dialed in the alignment last night. There's no more exhaust stink in the car and it drives pretty well, I'm enjoying the commuting. Well, as much as I can in 95 degree weather with no AC. The only issue I currently have is that the steering is pretty heavy. The rack was used and of unknown status, so it might need a rebuild. The power steering pump has 170,000+ miles on it, so it could be a bit weak, too. And the new poly guibo replacing the old rubber guibo could be contributing to the stiffness as well. In any case, I'll keep putting miles on it to make sure all is well.
Member
Awesome work...bit of a let down you didn't find a leak though. E36's are quite rare here on the streets...seems odd.
Member
We're finally racing!
After losing two venues last year (FAA got mad about our airport, and the Events Center got mad about us leaving tire marks on their new parking lot lines), we found a new venue in the form of a drag strip:
The circle at the end is a full banked oval. A bit of a challenge to set up a course with the interesting constraints, but the course designers were able to come up with something fast and fun. We started on the first turnoff road for the drag strip, and went right out onto the strip. Then we turned right onto the oval, did the oval twice, and then back down the drag strip, but backwards. Cooldown lane was the drag strip itself. The only downside to that setup is that we could only have one car on course at a time due to the start and finish in the same location.
The fastest cars were in the high 50 second range, FTD for the first run group was 57.7. My first two runs were DNFs - I knew the turn into the oval was tricky, and I was very focused on keeping my eyes up so I could hit that turn. In doing so, I totally missed the slalom right before the turn off. I saw a 58.3 after I finished and knew I had missed something, that was too fast for a sloppy first run. The second run I was focused on not missing the slalom and hitting it well, and then completely missed the turnoff right after it. Blech. My third run I finally pulled my life together and hit all the elements pretty well. Ran a 59.9 but with a +1 from just some dumb, ham-footed driving. I knew I was over-braking before some of the gates and could carry more speed, and with some smoothness there was easily another second out there. Not to mention my missed 2-3 shift in the final straight.
I sat down to do timing for the beginning of the second heat when all of a sudden...
A C5 Z06 blew its guts out all over the last 100' of the course and all down the cooldown lane, which happened to be the drag strip. There was no oil dry handy and no way to legally move the course around the spill, as going either direction would put it too close to concrete barriers. Event over.
The best part is that my time - even with the +1 - got me 1st in XP and 4th overall in raw. 2nd and 3rd raw also had +1s on their time - a (different) C5 Z06 (57.1 +1) and a modded Cobalt SS (58.7 +1). First in raw (and pax) was a CP Mustang that ran a 57.4. The course rewarded power in the long acceleration zones, and there were plenty of places to carry good speed.
I ran tire pressures at 28psi. The front control arms are level at ride height and the rear fenders are about 1/2" lower than the front - I'm very happy with this setup vs. my "how low can you go" setup last season. It didn't suffer from the crippling mid-corner understeer I dealt with last season. The car was very tossable and I could easily rotate it with the throttle, while still retaining good control - when the rear end comes around, the car naturally likes to straighten back out so it's just a matter of staying in the throttle and pointing it where I want to go.
My only complaint after DD'ing the car for the past three weeks is that the steering is heavier than it should be, but I didn't notice that weight at all on course. I'm wondering if it's time for a new power steering pump. It's pretty whiny after each autocross run, and when I first ran the new 330 steering rack with the wrong fitting, it whined pretty badly, which was probably cavitation from starving the pump. I may throw a new pump on there and see what it does for me. I'll see if I can get the video exported tonight.
Member
Got the video up!
I'm always impressed with how this car puts down power. You can see where I basically mat it after every turn, and it hooks and goes. Until it doesn't of course - the second time around the circle you can see where I floor it, it temporarily slips out a bit, and I hit my cone. Top speed through the finish was 75mph (including the missed 2-3 shift...oops). On my first run, I totally missed the slow-down slalom before the finish and hit 84 through the lights. That slalom is there for a reason!
You can see there was lot of room to get tighter on cones, and I probably overbraked before most elements to prevent blowing through anything - there was definitely lots of time on the table, it's too bad I didn't get my afternoon runs to tidy everything up.
Looking forward to the next one!
Member
Photographer got a bunch of good pics:
Member
I know you've having some issues with the steering at the moment, but after driving it more, what are your thoughts on the 330 rack vs the old Z3 rack? Did it get rid of the dead spot around center, or quicken things up?
Member
Mathematically the ratio is identical, the 330 just has more total travel. So when they say it's 3 turns LTL for the 330 vs. 2.7 turns for the Z3, it's not because the Z3 is quicker, it's because the Z3 doesn't have as much rack travel. Both racks extend 50mm per turn of the steering wheel. The Z3 has 146mm of linear rack travel, the 330 is 150mm.
I do manage to find myself in the occasional situation where I need all of the steering lock I can get, so in that case having more travel is advantageous.
I eyeballed the alignment with a couple of pen lasers and tried to set it for a little bit of toe out, but the car does pull slightly to the right. I'll need to get it checked on a real machine.
The steering is tight with no dead spot at all, it's borderline darty on the highway, but it felt great on course. I replaced the rubber guibo with urethane which helped reduce slop and tightened everything up. I can definitely feel a bit more NVH in the steering wheel, but again, on-course it was excellent.
Member
What made you go to XP vs. SM or XS (A or B)?
Are you going down to Hallett this weekend? I was considering going up but we have a local event. Plus need to do some more testing.
Last edited by wbrentr; 06-25-2020 at 01:58 PM.
Member
I was XP before SM allowed non-manufacturer engine swaps. At this point we actually have 5 or so drivers that run in XP, where if I went to SM or XS there'd be 1 or 0 other drivers in that class. If I went to nationals I'd probably run XS-A, that seems to be the friendliest PAX I could make it into.
No racing for a while, work is busy for the next couple of weeks then I'll have to give my wife a break for a bit. I'll probably be back at it in August.
Last edited by Laminar; 08-31-2020 at 11:48 AM.
Member
It's....August!
The only pic I got from the day:
It was a day of forgetfulness. I forgot I was even racing until a couple of days before. I'd been so wrapped up getting my '69 Cougar back on the road I forgot about racing. I took it to a Cars and Coffee on Saturday morning and only had about 30 minutes to get the M3 ready later that day in between taking care of kids, making dinner, and getting the house clean so everyone could relax in peace while I was gone all day Sunday.
I set out my helmet and Go Pros but forgot to grab them in the morning. I forgot my tire pressure gauge and inflator, so no idea where pressures were. Lots of forgetting.
It was at the same drag strip we were at in June with a slightly different course, though there's not a lot of variation to be had on such a specific venue. I've only had three runs since October of last year so I feel like the racing cobwebs are still there, but I generally made up big time between runs.
Times were:
- 41.057 (dnf- missed the slalom)
- 39.090
- 37.242 (slight course change to miss some busted pavement gave everyone ~1 second)
- 37.332
- 37.174
- 37.034
- 36.741
- 36.809 (ran out of gas)
About that last run - speaking of forgetfulness, I forgot to check the fuel level when I got the event. I drove the car at the beginning of August when I had new tires put on my daily and I put a half tank of gas in it, assuming that would get me the 85 miles to the race. It did, but it left me under 1/4 tank. The fuel light popped on at the beginning of the second heat, and I could physically see the needle lower after each run. Near the end of the last run, the engine stumbled right after turning onto the last straight. It caught and I finished the run, but I knew it was close. I was able to make it 2 miles to the nearest gas station and fill up, but I was babying it the whole way.
Ended up 5th overall in raw, beat by the yellow Cobalt in the picture (36.526) (he makes more power than I do, with less weight and the same tires, so there are my excuses), an Evo in SM (35.776), a Miata (35.584), and a CP Mustang that demolishes everyone all the time (34.495).
It was also good enough for 1st in XP, beating out second place (turbo Miata) by 0.020 seconds. Overall pleased with how the car ran and how I did as a driver. I was a mess and forgetful the rest of the day, but managed to somehow drive well.
Next month's venue was supposed to be at Iowa Speedway, but with the staffing cuts NASCAR made this year, that track is now managed out of KC so the people we were working with are gone, and KC doesn't really care about our dumb little club. So the next race will likely be the last of the year in October.
Member
Last event of the year! Also only my third event of the year. It was two days at Adventureland, a theme park with several interconnected parking lots. Always makes for an interesting course and the lot crossovers are always a good time.
The day before the event I finally had a chance to look into a misfire I'd been fighting with for a while. At around 2000rpm at light loads it would stutter and stumble. I could see my AFR1 gauge spike lean when that happened, so I took a look at bank 1. I found one spark plug that looked a bit sooty compared to the others so I replaced it.
Two of the plug wires had corroded coil end connections so I replaced those coils and made new wires. That didn't solve my problem, so I went ahead and remade the other two plug wires and replaced the other two coils. STILL didn't fix it. By now it's 10PM on Friday night and I still needed to swap onto the race tires. With the car in the air, I did a quick check - exactly which bank's O2 was wired to which input? Oh yeah, AFR1 is actually bank 2. So the misfire wasn't coming from bank 1 at all...oh well, time for bed. The misfire goes away at full throttle so who needs part throttle?
Day 1 was a long course with all sorts of twists turns, offsets, circles, and doohickies. I managed to lay down a 54.8 on my last run of the morning and couldn't beat it in the afternoon. That was good for 8th/63 in raw, which felt good.
On the way home, the misfire seemed to get worse and by the time I pulled into my driveway, it felt like it was only running on 7. I decided to check on bank 2 to see if I could find the problem. Moving front to back, I checked each plug wire, coil, and spark plug. They all looked good. Except one plug didn't want to go back in, it just wanted to crossthread. So I had to fight with that for a while before it finally went back in. When I got to the very last cylinder, I reached down to pull out the plug wire and felt something weird.
I made a new wire, installed it, and didn't even bother test driving.
Day 2 was a vastly simpler course, with just a few elements with some wide-open acceleration zones. Finally...a POWER COURSE. Well, except my car really wanted to push really hard at every sharp turnaround, which just killed me. Trying to give it a little power to turn the car around only made it push harder. I was running a full second behind guys I beat the day before on a 30 second course. On my last run of the morning I put the front rebound damping to full firm just to try SOMETHING different. That dropped me from a 35.7 to a 35.3.
I did some soul searching while chasing cones and decided to add some air to the rear tires to see if I could get the car to rotate better. Right out of the gate I ran a 34.7, and I started feeling a lot better. But then they made a slight change to the course due to some pavement breaking up, but it wasn't clear if that change would help or hurt. On the next run, most of us were about a second down on our previous runs, which was disappointing. But the car wasn't pushing as badly as it had in the morning and I worked on putting it in a place where I didn't have to take such sharp turns. I tried to figure out where I could make up time, and the finish area seemed like a possibility - it was a slalom into the finish and I was never looking ahead enough to really accelerate out of the last cone and through the finish. The other thing I noticed is that I was never getting into the ABS. I was hitting the pedal hard but clearly not using all of the brakes that were there. I had to stand on the brakes much harder than I'm used to, but I finally got deep enough that I felt ABS, so I was able to brake much later.
So my afternoon runs were 34.7, 35.8 (course change), 35.1. On the last run I vowed not to lift through the entire slalom through the finish, putting my faith in the grip being there.
A side note - remember how I forgot to fuel up before the last event and almost ran out of gas? You think I'd have learned my lesson. I was below a quarter tank on the beginning of day 2 so I stopped at a gas station on the way to the event to put in a few gallons. The station I stopped at only had premium with ethanol, so I skipped it and went to another. That station didn't have premium at all, so I gave up and just headed in. Well on my very last run, in two separate places my fuel pressure dropped and the car bogged during a long acceleration zone (fuel gauge in video). Even with those two bogs, I put down a 34.5, my best of the day. That was only good for 20th/80, but I felt like with some fuel and another run to clean it up a bit I could have knocked off another couple tenths and been up around 11th or so.
All in all, a great weekend. It's always fun to thrash on the car a bit. People always come up and tell me that it's a lot of fun to watch me run, which I think is probably a bad sign, because runs that look exciting are usually the slow ones.
No big winter plans for the car. I'll get the Blizzaks installed and put the race tires in the basement for the winter. Maybe I'll finally get those Brembos installed and see what I can do about my perpetually mushy brakes.
Last edited by Laminar; 10-12-2020 at 09:41 AM.
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I started autocrossing my S3 this season, and it's really pushed me to get working on my E30 V8 swap again. Sort of wish I started with an E36 instead of E30, but it'll still be a hoot once I get it roadworthy!
Member
You'll be that much lighter! Just be careful with that rear suspension.
Member
That's what I'm currently working on, it's a challenge for sure. Reinforced/modified rear subframe, dual ear rear diff cover, reinforced trailing arms, Delrin bushings. Aiming for the new XS class, so car will be a "street" car in so much that I will register it and drive it to the track
I still need to fabricate the dual ear mounts for the diff, I'm going to try to follow the Vorshlag setup.
Great southern trendkill
What impresses me is how passionate you are about this car. The swap was done about 5 years ago and yet you are still running it through the paces. If I had half the skill you do I would attempt 2 do a V8 swap
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I'm not sure I have even half the skill, and here I am in at least my 5th year of this V8 swap
Great southern trendkill
I'm not sure I have even half the skill, and here I am in at least my 5th year of this V8 swaphowdy from Tx
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Laminar - keeps this board focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. I certainly live vicariously thru his posts...
Member
Well in order to save a couple of bucks I actually turned off insurance for the M3 this winter. And since I sold my Cougar the M3 actually got to sleep in the garage, lucky for it.
I did just go ahead and order EBC Bluestuff pads for the Mercedes Brembo fronts and the stock M3 rears, they were one of the very few performance pads available for both calipers.
I also realized about 6 months too late that Bridgestone discontinued the RE-71R, which is causing me some anxiety. They can't get my 245/40R17 or the 255/40R17 at the local store anymore, none at any stores and none in the warehouse. I have 70ish runs across two seasons and some street miles on the existing set, and I'm not easy on my tires.
I'd wager they're about cycled out and I was really struggling at the last event to try and keep up. I've managed to find one rumor that Bridgestone is bringing out a replacement this spring, so I may wait it out to see what they do.
Last edited by Laminar; 03-01-2021 at 04:08 PM.
Member
Well the upside of selling my Cougar is that the M3 got to spend the winter in the garage. The downside is that whatever is in that stall naturally ends up as another shelf.
I pulled it out, got it into the second stall and lifted it up. Last time I was working on the brakes, I ordered the 1/2" material to make the brackets from and didn't realize until I had drilled and tapped two of them that the seller sent 5/8" material instead of 1/2". By the time I got the correct material I had moved on, so the brakes have spent the last year just sitting around.
It took me a while to find that 1/2" stick, but I finally found it and made up the little adapters. The top hole on the knuckle is reused with the Mercedes caliper, just with a 1/2" spacer. The bottom hole requires a small adapter. I cut the head off of a bolt and slotted the end so I effectively have a short piece of threaded rod. I used that to attach the bracket to the caliper with Loctite. Then the assembly gets bolted up to the knuckle.
As before, the race wheels fit up no problem.
Then I remembered that I hadn't bothered trying the winter wheels last year. Uh-oh, the spokes hit...bad. I grabbed a 15mm spacer and tried it. It's...close.
Not sure if I'll be able to run those wheels or if I'll need a little more spacer.
Brake pads showed up Sunday so I threw them in.
Needed to grab some brake grease for the pins so I didn't put them in yet. I did go ahead and disconnect the old calipers so I could hook up the new ones and start bleeding. Except...
These lines were put on by a previous owner probably 20 years ago, so they were not coming off. They're frozen at the other end, too, so I may end up having to cut them off and reflare the lines with new fitting. I ordered some new stainless braided lines, then I ran to Amazon to order some new fittings only to find...
Okay, so somewhere in my garage I likely already have the two fittings I need. I dug through drawers and cabinets and boxes and managed to find my US-spec fittings, but no metric fittings to be found. Oh well, I'll order some more and then I'm sure I'll find the originals by the time I need them.
While I wait for the new line to show up, I can do the rear pads. I have a new brake master cylinder showing up today, between that and the calipers I'm hoping my squishy brake pedal is cured.
I also got the adjustable front swaybar endlinks in, so I can fit those up and get them ready to adjust once I have weight back on the front tires. First local event isn't until late April so I'm in no rush right now. There are a couple of test and tune events in Lincoln before then, I'm considering hitting one of those up for some good seat time and to dial in the car a bit, though my tires are already on their way out and they'd sure be wiped after a full day or two there. So I need to have some kind of tire plan going forward.
Re-membered?
I’ve been fortunate enough to never snap a brake line. Got lucky on my Chicago M5.
If you need to replace a line, I have a friend who swears by the nickel/copper (NiCop) lines. Corrosion resistant and easy to work with.
Nate J.
(oOO\ (|||)º(|||) /OOo)
Titanium Silver/Black Nappa Full 07-18-2001 E39 M5 Heritage (BZ99672). 198,000mi+. Increasing daily. Engine rebuild thread.
(eŌō\ (||||)º(||||) / ōŌe)
Alpineweiss III/Black Merino Full 03-26-2007 E60 M5 Manual (CX08265). 157,000+. Dead starter -_-
RIP, Seabiscuit. Black Sapphire/Schwarz 03-11-2003 530iA Sport (CK39185). T-boned 03-01-2017 at 155,861mi.
Take 2 "Otto" - Toledo Blue/Sandbeige 04-25-2002 530iA Sport (CH98032). Sold 11-10-2017 at 147,743mi.
Take 3 "Manuel" - Toledo Blue/Grau 10-29-2001 530i5 Sport (CE92358). Sold 02-01-2019 at 217,600mi. I regret that. Build Log
Reliable P.O.S. - Green/gray 1995 Camry V6 LE. 270k mi. Sold for space.
Member
Yes! I used those when I made all the lines for the Cougar from scratch. I still have a few feet left over, may need to utilize that.
I originally had the BMW lines in my cart, but it looked to me like they were just a straight line cut to length and flared, and I'd still have to bend it up. And the passenger side was on backorder until April, so since I can flare on my own and I'd have to bend either way, I'd rather just get a spool of the NiCop line and make them up myself vs. spending $40 each for the BMW lines and having the car sit for a month waiting for parts.
Re-membered?
Yeah that’s how BMW sells any long length lines. Shipping would be difficult. I’ve seen small sections come pre-bent but never the long ones.
Nate J.
(oOO\ (|||)º(|||) /OOo)
Titanium Silver/Black Nappa Full 07-18-2001 E39 M5 Heritage (BZ99672). 198,000mi+. Increasing daily. Engine rebuild thread.
(eŌō\ (||||)º(||||) / ōŌe)
Alpineweiss III/Black Merino Full 03-26-2007 E60 M5 Manual (CX08265). 157,000+. Dead starter -_-
RIP, Seabiscuit. Black Sapphire/Schwarz 03-11-2003 530iA Sport (CK39185). T-boned 03-01-2017 at 155,861mi.
Take 2 "Otto" - Toledo Blue/Sandbeige 04-25-2002 530iA Sport (CH98032). Sold 11-10-2017 at 147,743mi.
Take 3 "Manuel" - Toledo Blue/Grau 10-29-2001 530i5 Sport (CE92358). Sold 02-01-2019 at 217,600mi. I regret that. Build Log
Reliable P.O.S. - Green/gray 1995 Camry V6 LE. 270k mi. Sold for space.
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