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Thread: 404: Racecar Not Found - My 1997 M3/4/5

  1. #51
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Arlington, VA
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    3,455
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    1997 BMW M3 NASA GTS2
    Quote Originally Posted by TXBDan View Post
    I got a real rush reading that living vicariously. I'm just a cage budget away, unless i decide to do SCCA SRFs.
    Thanks!

    Burn Visa burn
    2011 F-150 FX4 | 1997 BMW M3 #404 GTS2 | 2006 BMW M3 Convertible
    Out Motorsports

  2. #52
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Arlington, VA
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    3,455
    My Cars
    1997 BMW M3 NASA GTS2
    My friend Taylor was in town Friday for an interview, so he crashed at my place and got a taste of NoVA between going out in Clarendon Friday night and Katie's Cars & Coffee on Saturday morning. He stuck around to help spin some wrenches, and another friend Tom came over as well.

    The highlight of going out with Taylor was meeting these four women who were all married, slightly older than they first appeared, and on their way to being heavily intoxicated. Our favorite kept trying to dance/twerk with the DJ.



    Tom basically single-handedly pulled my old diff while Taylor and I removed the busted VANOS unit. A few of the axle bolts' heads look pretty crappy so I will likely order some new ones as replacement. Otherwise, the old diff came out easily. My buddy Chris came by to grab the set of M-Parallel wheels I had sold him a while back, and we talked through the bushing removal. I don't have the new bushings yet but should get them early this week.

    The old 3.23 diff is already sold to a friend from Maryland, who texted me asking if it was available after seeing the photo on Facebook. Easiest sale ever and at full asking price, even.



    The VANOS replacement was pretty easy. I threw a new valve cover gasket on the engine while we had it all apart. The shaft of the VANOS gear(?) thing had quite a bit of play, whereas the rebuilt unit had none. I'm excited to see how much better this makes the car drive.



    Chris is coming back over next Saturday to help with the diff bushings and the reinstall. We also talked about the merits of installing my front splitter without installing a wing, since I have one but not the other, for Dominion. I've already sold the Motion Motorsport undertray so I would like to get it off the car and stop kicking this giant piece of plywood around my garage. I have been working to reduce some front-end push, so the splitter alone may be useful there.

    2011 F-150 FX4 | 1997 BMW M3 #404 GTS2 | 2006 BMW M3 Convertible
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  3. #53
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Posts
    3,455
    My Cars
    1997 BMW M3 NASA GTS2
    April 2017 - "Spring Showdown" at Dominion Raceway
    Second race weekend of the year and my second provisional weekend! I kicked it off on Friday afternoon with a little jaunt down I-95 (only two hours to go 50 miles, wow!), unpacked and headed to the Holiday Inn where Jeff was giving the Instructor Clinic. I passed and now have my red hat, and can hop in the right seat to coach whoever comes out for Hyperdrives/HPDE 1/2.

    We learned the microphone didn't work past the edge of the main building, so I got to paddock inside the garage all weekend:



    Saturday
    This was the first event with my new diff. Zack was there and we chatted after I got through Practice and Qualifying. I felt like the car was super oversteer-y and didn't know if it was a combination of the diff, the splitter-sans-wing, tire pressures, or a combo of the three. He recommended changing my driving style through corners, as the diff locks up faster/harder and much of the oversteer was simply the diff doing as it was asked, when I didn't have the wheel straightened out yet.

    So, I changed the model to "aggressively trail brake, open the wheel a bit and then get on the throttle harder than is comfortable" which got the diff doing its thing. I wasn't super comfortable doing that in the Saturday race, but still managed to keep ahead of Randall in his Boxster and finished 5th of 6.

    I did have a black Mustang divebomb me into T1 about halfway through the race and earned my first door donut!



    I couldn't catch 4th place in that race, so I chilled out and just kept ahead of the P-car with the goal of "finish." I saw the same orange Mustang coming up on my left in the esses, so I made sure to keep on-line but give him space to get by. As I was doing that, *brrraaappp* and the old FlimFlamSpeed Mustang goes blasting past me on the right - two wheels in the dirt, in a braking zone, as we pass a flag station that's waving yellow.

    The orange Mustang got by safely but didn't realize the white Mustang was now on his right, so as he tracked out, they came together side-to-side and went off in the dirt, and tango'ed all the way down the hill under the bridge. Yet another Mustang had already gone off and hit the wall next to the bridge (he hit gravel that someone else kicked up at T11), hence the waving yellow. Got the whole thing on video but won't be posting that at the event director's request.

    My splitter was sagging (so much downforce, y0!) so a friend and I grabbed some aluminum stock and made two front supports:



    Sunday
    Mom & Dad came by to check out Dominion and watch me for the day. They got more of a show than they expected that afternoon!

    Qualifying was okay, I qualified last in class buy only by a few tenths. My hope was to get an aggressive start and just push to get past Randall and Jason (our other Rookie, passed Comp School on Saturday!).

    The race start was good and within a few laps, I got past Randall in the Boxster. We had a Mustang (or Camaro?) take T12 a bit hot and go nose-in to the wall on the front straight, so we got a full-course black flag and sat in the pits for a few minutes as they cleaned him up.

    I made sure to keep super alert for the restart and was on Jason's ass when we got the green. A few Mustangs got between/ahead of us and then it was party time. He and Mark were nose to tail and I figured I'd be able to get both of them given enough laps. So, I chased him and was gunning for a pass at T12 (onto the front straight) - but alas, I overcooked T11 and got myself into a tankslapper. As I focused on getting the car straight/slowed, the field passed me and I lost the small lead I had earned. At that point, I just stuck to the back of the field (a few Mustangs and a ST3 E46) and focused on finishing clean, which I did.

    Even with the "ya blew it" moment on Sunday, it was by far the best race I've had to date. I kept up with the pack the whole time, got a pretty ballsy pass in on Randall (watch the video for that) and was about to have more success had I not made that mistake.

    Super pumped for Hyperfest now! I'm going to hold off on the wing and just get some maintenance-y stuff done on the car. Just want to add radiator baffle/ducting to funnel air, and add convex mirrors to my door mirrors (or get the ones that bolt to the cage).

    Onward!

    Greetings from Captain and Crunch:



    And video of Sunday's race, skip to 17 minutes to see the tankslapper:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBHGItUB2UQ
    Last edited by Brake_L8; 05-01-2017 at 11:34 AM.
    2011 F-150 FX4 | 1997 BMW M3 #404 GTS2 | 2006 BMW M3 Convertible
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  4. #54
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    MA
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    2,706
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    Cayman S, Golf GSW, E30
    Nice report. Good save! Bet your Mom loved that.

  5. #55
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
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    Arlington, VA
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    1997 BMW M3 NASA GTS2
    Quote Originally Posted by TXBDan View Post
    Nice report. Good save! Bet your Mom loved that.
    Thanks!

    They were standing on the bridge, so they had a primo spot to watch the whole thing. Dad was snapping photos and to his credit, didn't stop when I got it sideways:

    2011 F-150 FX4 | 1997 BMW M3 #404 GTS2 | 2006 BMW M3 Convertible
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  6. #56
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    NoVA
    Posts
    1,481
    My Cars
    e36
    Great writeup and great save. I only caught a glimpse in my mirrors of your nose heading straight for the inside wall and thought for sure we were gonna see a yellow flag when we came around the next time. I was happy to see that wasn't the case.

    Also I think you've found yourself a new signature pic

  7. #57
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Posts
    3,455
    My Cars
    1997 BMW M3 NASA GTS2
    I wasn't 100% sold on buying a wing quite so soon, but then I was chatting with James at Bimmerworld and he made me a deal that was impossible to pass up. One credit card number later, I came home to a 70" tall box sitting next to my door.


    My friend DJ had some stanchions that he gave me, as the BW wing didn't come with them. He was busy being a new dad and didn't have time to take them off of the E46 330ci trunk lid they were bolted to, so I took the whole thing home to mess with. It fit, barely, in my E46 M3 vert.





    Dad's NC2 Miata needed a full brake job, so I took the opportunity to combine shipping costs and do a brake job on the E36 as well. My leasing office loved receiving eight brake rotors.





    Sooo this year for Mother's Day, my mom was like "I don't really need to do the whole brunch-and-something-nice thing, how about your dad and I come over and we just help knock out some stuff on the racecar?" I bought them lunch at my favorite Mexican spot in town, then we got to work.


    Having multiple people made aligning the wing way, way easy. Would have been an absolute disaster doing it by myself. They also helped align the Bimmerworld windshield banner - gotta rep the ones who help you out.


    A wing on a four-door M3 racecar makes me feel all sorts of ways. I like it.





    Mom is a badass (they both are, really) and helped get everything done. She also pulled a total "mom" and swept my entire garage while I fought with the Miata's exhaust hangers. It's delightfully clean in there now.

    Ready for Hyperfest at VIR this weekend - heading out Thursday!

    2011 F-150 FX4 | 1997 BMW M3 #404 GTS2 | 2006 BMW M3 Convertible
    Out Motorsports

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