Laminar's M3 5.0 swap: Fünf-Null

[Laminar]

Busy week last week getting ready for a busy weekend.

Saturday was a Solo School, where several of our nationals-level drivers spent time instructing us on everything from course walks to back-siding cones to keeping our eyes in the right places.



Did I mention it was rainy and 38 degrees the whole day?

I spent time with four different instructors over 16 runs through the sample course they had set up. I got several comments about the unbelievable grip the car had, which made it a lot of fun to reveal that I was still running my snow tires! Lots of compliments on the car's setup and how it handled - one instructor called it the fastest ride of the day, another called it the most fun ride of the day.

I was just happy to see the new radiator and fan working as I kept the car running for about a couple hours at a time - gotta stay warm when it's cold outside and my wet jeans (soaked from the course walk) weren't helping. Note to self - if you're going to keep that stupid heavy stock seat, at least fix the seat heater.

Sunday was the first autocross of the season, and I managed 12th out of 99 raw, pulling ahead of several people that consistently beat me last year. I attribute most of this to all of the time I spent playing Forza over the winter.



The new 245s up front provide loads of front end grip, the difference truly is noticeable. It was only about 45 degrees outside and the course was still damp (and muddy in places), so I'm looking forward to warmer temps and drier conditions to see what these things can really do.

The new wheels are a 35mm offset vs. the stock 41mm offset, and those 6mm really make a difference in the back, especially with a lowered car. Even with camber maxed out at -2.5 degrees and the fenders "massaged" via a baseball bat, the tire sidewalls rub under hard corners or bumps (like every bridge expansion joint on the interstate). I'm going to try a real fender-rolling tool and if that doesn't work, it's time for the angle grinder.

The Z3 steering rack is less effective than I'd hoped - you can see I still have to crank the wheel quite a bit. Keeping my hands at 9 and 3 isn't possible, and the increased effort actually makes it a bit worse in fast, tight transitions. When I first bought the car, it had the original, leaky M3 rack. After swapping that rack for a freshly rebuilt M3 rack, the steering effort lightened up quite a bit, so I'm thinking about having this Z3 rack rebuilt in hopes of decreased effort while maintaining a quicker ratio.

[Laminar]

I'm also fighting bad wheel hop, and have since the car was built. I have Konis on the rear and a UUC swaybar, but on old Potenzas, new Potenzas, and snow tires it will wheelhop pretty badly on wet or dry pavement. I think that may be what killed the diff bolt the first time. Most of the threads I've found have said "it's an IRS, it will wheelhop," which isn't true. The rest suggest getting a stiffer sway bar, which I have, so that's no help. I may try jacking up the rebound dampening in the rear and see if that makes any difference.

[tptrsn]

I've been wondering if some "monoball" style RTABs might make a significant improvement in wheel hop? I have the purple (not the stiffest) poly ones from Revshift because I was afraid of killing too much articulation, but I still have quite a bit of wheel hop at times, and I'm not all that excited about allowing errant movement at the RTAB location... Ugh, I think I am talking myself into monoball RTABs more and more. Those won't be cheap..

[95maxrider]

I've been wondering if some "monoball" style RTABs might make a significant improvement in wheel hop? I have the purple (not the stiffest) poly ones from Revshift because I was afraid of killing too much articulation, but I still have quite a bit of wheel hop at times, and I'm not all that excited about allowing errant movement at the RTAB location... Ugh, I think I am talking myself into monoball RTABs more and more. Those won't be cheap..

From what I've read, poly in the RTABs is a no-no:

"In the Rear Trailing Arm Bushing (RTAB) location on the rear suspension of an E36 or E46 BMW the bushing has to pivot on two axis. Unlike other suspension bushing locations that only have one axis of rotation, swapping in excessively stiff replacement bushings using materials such as Polyurethane can and will cause suspension bind."

https://vorshlag-store.com/products/rear-trailing-arm-bushing-limiters-full-set

I put these in my car instead:
http://www.bimmerworld.com/Suspension-Steering/Trailing-Arm-Bushings/E46-E36-3-Series-and-Z4-Rear-Trailing-Arm-Bearing-Kit.html

[tptrsn]

Yep, there you go, Vorshlag's sales rhetoric agrees with me haha.. I do think it's [loss of articulation] probably a bigger issue for you rallycross guys that have a lot of suspension travel than it is for me when I'm just throwing the car on 800# rear springs, but I would still like to further reduce deflection and axle hop potential in the bushing. Those Bimmerworld ones are what I was thinking about I guess... Crap, 200 bucks...

[Laminar]

Borrowed a rolling tool from an autocross friend and got the fenders rolled, no more rubbing! The paint was already flaked off from when I took a baseball bat/hammer to the fenders last year, I need to clean up that rust and repaint. But I could say that about the whole car. The rear quarters, passenger doors, and under the sideskirts are all showing some bubbling. Ugh.



Last night I had a bout of motivation and mounted the tablet. I grabbed a cheap mount designed to connect to a headrest for rear seat viewing and chopped it up a little.



Turned out pretty good.



I was stuck for a long time in analysis paralysis trying to figure out what to do with the OBC or HVAC controls but this ends up being a nice solution where everything is still relatively accessible. I'll throw a big SD card of music on the tablet and run ShadowDash or RealDash for gauges.

[95maxrider]

I was stuck for a long time in analysis paralysis trying to figure out what to do with the OBC or HVAC controls but this ends up being a nice solution where everything is still relatively accessible. I'll throw a big SD card of music on the tablet and run ShadowDash or RealDash for gauges.

Looking good! What gauge is that in place of the OEM water temp? Also, what's up with your tweeters? Did your car come with the HK stereo and you replaced it?

[tptrsn]

Those fender rollers are pretty awesome, aren't they? I got one last year from eBay for about $58 shipped (brand new).

[Laminar]

Looking good! What gauge is that in place of the OEM water temp? Also, what's up with your tweeters? Did your car come with the HK stereo and you replaced it?

I pulled the water temp gauge and installed my MTX-L wideband. I had the kick speakers with mids and tweeters in the doors. I disconnected the mids and installed Polk components for the kick and tweeter.

Full stereo writeup here, including many many Taylor Swift references.

- - - Updated - - -

Those fender rollers are pretty awesome, aren't they? I got one last year from eBay for about $58 shipped (brand new).

Sooo much better than the hammer/baseball bat method. I'm glad I finally found one to borrow, it was much less effort with much better results.

[Tim Mc]

An observation on your video from the inside...seems you seating position is too far the the rear. It is odd to see the steering wheel 'freewheel' at times too. I realize the size of folks and the seat/roof of each car tends to impact optimum seating position, but if one can do Bill Elliot style-it can really help precision.

Agree seem like you have to turn the wheel quite a bit...

Thanks for posting!

[Laminar]

An observation on your video from the inside...seems you seating position is too far the the rear. It is odd to see the steering wheel 'freewheel' at times too. I realize the size of folks and the seat/roof of each car tends to impact optimum seating position, but if one can do Bill Elliot style-it can really help precision.

Agree seem like you have to turn the wheel quite a bit...

Thanks for the feedback! It would be reeeally nice if the wheel telescoped out a bit. I can move forward, but that puts my legs in an awkward position, a side effect of being 6'5". I have tried leaning the seat forward a bit to get my upper body closer to the wheel while keeping my legs in a good place, but that puts my helmet against the roof.

One of the instructors at the solo school commented on my letting the wheel freewheel - obviously I can't shuffle-steer it as fast as it winds itself, and he said I seemed to be able to catch it at the right point each time. I'm doing the Starting Line school next month, so I'm looking forward to more feedback there.

edit: Watched the video again, you're totally right, my arms were way too extended. I must have leaned the seat way back for comfort driving to the event but I didn't put it forward. Good catch.

[ponchiz318]

You're an engineer though.....I'm sure you can make that wheel telescope....even be motorized. Dew it!

[Laminar]

I just need one of these.

[Tim Mc]

Glad you take it as constructive comments. When I instruct autocross, seating position is the #1 issue for folks. I also stress using the dead pedal (if equipped) as much as possible (my left leg is sore after a day event!). I can't tell what seat you have, but a fixed back 'race' seat can do wonders for room and position. So much easier to drive the car with that one improvement.

Neat project-threads like yours continue to encourage me to seek an E36...but I don't need another project!

[ponchiz318]

Neat project-threads like yours continue to encourage me to seek an E36...but I don't need another project!

Yes you do...

[Laminar]

Glad you take it as constructive comments. When I instruct autocross, seating position is the #1 issue for folks. I also stress using the dead pedal (if equipped) as much as possible (my left leg is sore after a day event!). I can't tell what seat you have, but a fixed back 'race' seat can do wonders for room and position. So much easier to drive the car with that one improvement.

I have the stock 80lb luxury package seats in there right now, though I did build brackets and mount up a cheap racing seat at the end of last season.





Great tip on the dead pedal, I'll focus on that at the test and tune coming up in a week.

[Laminar]

This past weekend I attended an SCCA Starting Line school held in Lincoln. It's designed for people new to autocross (and motorsports in general), the class was a birthday gift from my wife. I packed up on Friday and headed out for Lincoln, about a 3 hour drive for me. Instead of putting a few hundred highway miles on the new (used) RE-71Rs, I decided to just run my snow tires on the interstate and swap to the summers for racing. Which led me to the realization that I can fit a single tire in my trunk. Why didn't I just get a Touring?



So I piled three more tires in the back seat and ran with it.

We showed up bright and early Saturday morning, there were 13 students in the class. Notable cars were a Charger Hellcat, a new Cayman, an Audi SQ5, a Focus ST, an FRS, and more.





We had two instructors for the day, John Hunter, an SCCA national champion, and Tamra Hunt, who has managed two national championships in four years of racing. We spent time on an oval working on weight management and finding our exit. We spent time on a slalom course working on slalom entry, maintaining a rhythm, and backsiding cones. The instructors also took turns driving our cars to give us an idea of what the car can do, and to figure out the car's setup to better give us advice. Both instructors were highly complementary of my car, both said it was an incredibly fun car to drive.

After a lunch break, they instructors set up a simple autocross course with a slalom, a couple sweepers, and a nice offset complete with timing to measure progress. We had two runs driving, two runs riding with the instructor, five runs driving with the instructor, then three runs driving on our own. I started around a 28.8. John got into the driver's seat and laid down a 27.7 on his second run. I got back in and worked my way down to a 28.3, only to watch the coolant temperature climb north of 240 degrees.

Remember that new radiator and fan I installed? The radiator is fantastic - 180 degrees all day long as long as the car is moving. The fan is garbage. It's very slow to cool the car down and with so many back-to-back runs in 85 degree weather, the fan was struggling and the temperature kept climbing. John hopped out to give me my final three runs, fairly confident that I would be able to match or beat his time. I did some laps to the side to let the car get down under 230 degrees, but began to notice that even when I pushed in the clutch, the car was still slowing down.

Did I mention the brass caliper slide bushings I installed a few weeks back? One side dragged right away, so I pulled it and put the stock rubber back. But now it became very obvious that the other side was dragging. The caliper got hot and warped enough to bind the slides and clamp the right front brake on at all times. I did my last three runs but wasn't able to get below a 28.8. I took the car for a drive up and down the road to cool it down, but the front end was shuddering and I could smell the burning brakes. I parked the car and smoke was whisping off of the front brake. I could put my hand four inches from the wheel and I felt the heat coming off of the rotor. The silver-painted caliper had yellowed and the rotor was discolored on the surface. Youch.

I figured I was going to be in trouble and I might not be able to autocross the next day. I check O'Reilly's and found that they actually had the caliper rebuild kit in stock for $11 all of 12 minutes away. After the day ended I ran over there and picked up the parts, stopped by Home Depot to grab the necessary 7mm hex driver, and did the job in the hotel parking lot.





That's not just romantic golden sunset lighting, that's yellowed silver high temp caliper paint. I'm glad I splurged on the RBF600 brake fluid.

The next day was a Nebraska Region event, and my Starting Line school entry fee included entry into the event. I'd never been to the Lincoln Airpark before and was blown away by how huge the space was. I did a quick side-by-side comparison in Google Maps, and I'm pretty sure you could fit all four of DMVR's typical venues inside of the Lincoln space...at the same time. And still have room to grid.

I met a lot of great people, and every was interested in checking out the V8 swap. Several people had been at the test and tune on Saturday while the school was going on and noticed from far away that my M3 didn't sound right.

One of my favorite cars was this C-Prepared 1969 Mustang coupe.







I ended up corner working with the guy and had a blast chatting with him. The car has a "detuned" 302 from a '90s Mustang Trans Am series car. Those cars were pushing 700hp at 8000rpm. I'm not sure how detuned it is, but it sounded INCREDIBLE.

Despite having 134 people there, we were still able to do 5 runs. I made solid progress on each run, still learning the car's limits on the new tire setup. Several times I was blown away by the car's ability to hang on at speeds I previously never could have held. Here's my fastest run:



I was able to cut time off at each run as I got better at hitting my marks and adding speed where I knew I could. I shut the car down between each run and managed to keep temps below 205 with the use of a borrowed water sprayer to the radiator. Pardon the fist pump at the end, I'd just cut a full second off of my previous best time. There was another E36 M3 there, a silver coupe with Corbeau seats, coilovers, and 245 RE71Rs all around running in STR. His best time ended up being a 62.332, just 0.050 faster than my 62.382.

My tires got...warm.



After my 5th run, I swapped tires, packed up and headed out for home. Overall I had a fantastic weekend and the sunburn to prove that I did it. The next local event is in two weeks so I need to get the cooling fan situation figured out by then.

[tptrsn]

That was a great run! Did you feel like you got just a tiny bit behind through the slalom on that run (not backsiding the cones quite enough toward the end), or not?

[Laminar]

That was a great run! Did you feel like you got just a tiny bit behind through the slalom on that run (not backsiding the cones quite enough toward the end), or not?

YES.

I struggled with the slalom a lot during the class. If I was hitting my marks well, I'd instinctively try and speed up because I knew I could carry more speed and then I'd get behind and lose my line through the last cone or two. I knew that'd be an issue on the actual course and this run was one of my better runs as far as the slalom went. Backsiding the last cone was crucial to entering that next turn well.

One of the areas where I struggle most is remembering the course; in the moment I can never remember what's coming up next. This region only usually gets 4-5 runs in a day, and I'm used to 6-8. I walked the course as many times as I could before the driver's meeting, I made it through about 4 or 5 times. But of course that was 9:30am and I didn't start running until 3pm, so there was plenty of time to forget the course.

I spent a great deal of time focusing on looking ahead, forcing my head and eyes up to look for the exit before entering each corner, and I feel like that made a huge difference in picking up the course in fewer runs than I'm used to. I'm amazed that the Nationals guys put down the kind of runs that they do with only three tries. My five runs were 64.6, 63.3, DNF (okay, so I still got lost once), 63.0, 62.3. I cut big chunks of time off on each run as I got more comfortable with the course and anticipating what was coming up next.

[95maxrider]

Congrats on making it through the weekend, that must have been a blast! I really need to do some more schools myself, I'm rusty.

As for carrying wheels/tires, I put all four vertically in the back seat. But I have the cushions removed, not sure how they would fit with them still in.

So I could easily look back through your thread, but I might as well ask here- got any tips on removing the S52? Pull from the top or bottom?

[Laminar]

Congrats on making it through the weekend, that must have been a blast! I really need to do some more schools myself, I'm rusty.

As for carrying wheels/tires, I put all four vertically in the back seat. But I have the cushions removed, not sure how they would fit with them still in.

I ended up with one in the trunk and three in the rear seat, my harness gets in the way of fitting four tires in there. I've pulled the rear seats before for some weight savings, and I think I'll do that again, it only take a couple of minutes.

So I could easily look back through your thread, but I might as well ask here- got any tips on removing the S52? Pull from the top or bottom?

Through the front! The whole front clip comes off with just a few screws and nuts, and the thing slides right out the front with tons of room to work around.

[95maxrider]

Through the front! The whole front clip comes off with just a few screws and nuts, and the thing slides right out the front with tons of room to work around.

Hmm, but I have a nicely charged AC system, and I really don't want to remove the condenser. I'm now thinking about dropping it from the bottom, but I need to find something super strong to put it onto...

[Laminar]

I didn't have that problem!

All of that attaches on the passenger side, would it be possible to swing it out of the way? I don't remember how much rubber was there to allow for movement.

[Laminar]

Oh yeah, in all of this weekend's fun, I forgot last week's fiasco. With the big trip coming up and not much time on the car this year, I threw the car seat in back and decided to DD it to work out any bugs. Good thing I did, because on Wednesday I walked into work and saw a couple of weird drips on one of my shoes. After lunch I realized my heels were slipping on the floor mat and when I looked down, it was wet.



I took it home and switched cars, then got to work that evening tearing it apart. If you remember way back to April of last year, I had to install a 7/8" Wilwood master cylinder to get enough throw for the new Centerforce clutch. Well, it turns out I was side-loading the plunger pretty badly and over time it wore the aluminum plunger down far enough to pinch the seal and let fluid leak through.



For a second I didn't think I was going to get the car back together in time for the weekend, but then I remembered that I initially bought the master cylinder recommended by these forums, but found it didn't work well for me, so I bought a better one. But I still had the old MC on a shelf, complete with nearly-new plunger.



I cleaned up the MC bore with some 1000 and 2000 grit sandpaper to take down any ridges and reassembled with the new plunger. I knocked the firewall a bit with a hammer and added some spacers to better align the travel of the clutch pushrod. No more sideload, hopefully no more wear. I had to bleed the clutch but my wife is out of town, so I used PVC and the power seat to hold the pedal down while I cracked the bleeder.



All better, and I think pedal effort is a tad lighter now that the alignment is better and nothing is rubbing.

[seriniboy]

Laminar,
Any chance you can post a photo of the way you have you MC mounted? did you run the provided reservoir that came with the mc. I noticed that kit came with the remote reservoir fittings and such.

thanks for such a detailed build log, its very helpfull.


20170511_082426.jpg

long block is finally assembled, working on aligning my serpentine setup now.