Laminar's M3 5.0 swap: Fünf-Null

[Laminar]

Front strut brace.













Raced this last weekend, huuuuge difference. The car WILL NOT PUSH. It turns and turns and turns until the rear comes out. Time for new rear tires.

[95maxrider]

Nice job! I wish I could fab

[squashman702]

Air over hydraulic bender? My buddy has one he built from some plans online- built the whole exo cage on his Jeep with it- and they're super handy.

I'd add a piece of tube between the small tubes on the top of the struts, but I like to overbuild everything. Good to hear there was a big difference with the bars though.

[Laminar]

Air over hydraulic bender? My buddy has one he built from some plans online- built the whole exo cage on his Jeep with it- and they're super handy.

I bought it as a manual bender and built the air over hydraulic jig in a couple iterations. It's not ideal and I'll probably redo it one of these days, but it works for simple stuff!

I'd add a piece of tube between the small tubes on the top of the struts, but I like to overbuild everything.

Good call. I finished up at 10:45pm and wanted to get to bed so I could be up before 6 to go race, but thought of doing just that was I lying in bed, especially considering that the two bars shrank a little from welding. I have enough 1" left over that it wouldn't be a big deal to pop in a couple more little tubes, I should do that before I paint it.

[Laminar]

Here's the video from Saturday - the rear end was extremely lively due to damp pavement, 7 year old tires, and not enough camber. Saturday night I dialed in a bunch more rear camber and it made a huge difference on Sunday.



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One other thing I did was to pull the passenger side headlight to get air right into the filter. I was used to seeing intake temps around 150 degrees as the car would sit in the pits and heatsoak and on the highway temps would typically be 5-10 degrees hotter than ambient. On Sunday, the temps stayed around 110 in the pits and once I was moving, they pegged right to ambient. Who knows how much power that was worth but it's free, right?



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[Tim Mc]

Cool!

[Laminar]

[Laminar]

Here's Adventureland!



I ended up 15/69 raw. Great end to the season!

[Laminar]

RallyCross on Sunday, so I swapped the stock springs back in.



Gained a full inch in the front, half an inch in the back. Hopefully I don't rip out any suspension mounts this time!

[95maxrider]

Nice! I'll be taking mine out to rally-x on Sunday as well, and I hope nothing breaks this time.

[tptrsn]

Are you saying that you could really feel the difference in the strut tower brace reducing the understeer?

BTW, got any more video of that CP mustang? Man I love me some CP car action.

[Laminar]

Are you saying that you could really feel the difference in the strut tower brace reducing the understeer?

BTW, got any more video of that CP mustang? Man I love me some CP car action.

Totally. Between the two front braces, the character of the car changed completely. It no longer pushes mid corner, it just keeps turning until the rear end comes out. Once I get new rear tires next season we'll see how it balances out.

That CP Mustang is insane, and the driver is pretty insane as well.

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Saving this for later:

p/n 07129908011

Hexagon screw with flange
14X1,5X100-10.9

https://www.ecstuning.com/Search/Sit...495/ES2919495/

$6.62

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And this.

http://images.activeautowerke.com/pd...Tuning-DSB.pdf

[tptrsn]

Oh, ok, I hadn't seen your bottom brace. So if I understand correctly, you didn't test it with just one of them on the car, right? Cool projects, I may have to whip up a set of those sometime this winter.

[Laminar]

At the RallyCross



And if you couldn't tell from the links I posted previously, this happened (again).



Poly bushings, grade 10.9 bolt and everything.

Time for an upgrade.

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Oh, ok, I hadn't seen your bottom brace. So if I understand correctly, you didn't test it with just one of them on the car, right?

Right, I did them both the same week. I actually painted the upper brace this week.

[LSxDreamer]

Apologies if you covered this earlier (it's been a while since I read through the early phases of build) but what motivates using the LS coils over the distributor? Any special considerations (ecu, mounting, etc) to worry about? I sold my E36 but I'm still tempted to attempt a budget V8 build...

[ponchiz318]

Busted your diff bolt again? This is concerning to me...

[Laminar]

Apologies if you covered this earlier (it's been a while since I read through the early phases of build) but what motivates using the LS coils over the distributor? Any special considerations (ecu, mounting, etc) to worry about? I sold my E36 but I'm still tempted to attempt a budget V8 build...

The stock Explorer engine actually comes with a cam sensor and Ford's EDIS waste spark setup. The EDIS accepts a spark advance signal but allows no other futzing with ignition.

I could have swapped in a distributor and gained sequential ignition/injection through communication with the TFI, but again I'm limited with the control I have over individual sparks.

The LS coils cost me about $100 for all 8 and are driven directly by the Megasquirt with no intermediary devices. I can directly control individual sparks on individual cylinders for traction control, rev limit, launch control, flat shift, and more. Basically it gives the most control over spark and it was probably cheaper than buying a good distributor.

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Busted your diff bolt again? This is concerning to me...

The first one was probably due to a lot of wheel hop launching on pavement. The second time was clearly due to abuse on the RallyCross circuit.

People claim that if you have a good bushing the bolt won't break, but I don't really believe that. I should have just upgraded to 14mm when I had the diff out last time, now I have to pull it again.

[squashman702]

The first one was probably due to a lot of wheel hop launching on pavement. The second time was clearly due to abuse on the RallyCross circuit.

People claim that if you have a good bushing the bolt won't break, but I don't really believe that. I should have just upgraded to 14mm when I had the diff out last time, now I have to pull it again.

I assume you have poly bushings for the diff cover side? Are the bushings new in your subframe as well? I could see the subframe moving and loading up the front bolt in a weird way if they were older bushings. Pretty crazy you snapped it on dirt. Is there play in your trans and engine mounts perhaps?

[Laminar]

I have the full ECS rear diff bushing kit. Subframe bushings are stock, but shouldn't matter because the diff mounting points shouldn't move in relation to one another. Engine mounts are poly E30 mounts, trans mount is soft rubber.

[ponchiz318]

http://store.activeautowerke.com/pro...racket-dsb-e36

I'm thinking of making my own

[Laminar]

Totally, I have enough 3/16" plate to easily put something like that together. My only concern is solid mounting the diff to the subframe. I may add some kind of bushing.

[squashman702]

Totally, I have enough 3/16" plate to easily put something like that together. My only concern is solid mounting the diff to the subframe. I may add some kind of bushing.

The braces should just create a double shear setup for the bolt instead of single shear, not a solid mounting point.

[Laminar]

There's a column on the driver's side that meets with an ear on the diff.

[squashman702]

There's a column on the driver's side that meets with an ear on the diff.

I was thinking about it on the way home today- these braces aren't technically putting the bolt in double shear anyway because the bushing is pressed into the subframe instead of the diff, and the braces connect to the subframe. If it was truly double shear, the brace would need to be mounted to the diff housing and place the bolt in double shear on the front side of the bushing. Bolting to both the subframe and the diff is creating a solid front mount like you said, in which case there's no need for a fancy poly bushing.

[Laminar]

With a soft rubber bushing, as the diff moves, the head of the bolt in the bushing is allowed to move quite a bit. I don't know if this bracket is technically "double shear" but it would certainly reduce movement of the bolt.

This one is technically double shear, but apparently makes it very very difficult to pull the diff. I'd also be worried about haphazardly welding mild steel to cast iron - you need to use an arc welder and nickel rod to do it right.

I'm thinking of doing something like the AAW bracket but instead using poly sway bar bushings so that I don't have a solid connection from the diff to the subframe. That just seems like a recipe for snapping the brittle ear off of the diff under wheelhop.