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Thread: '95 E36 325is Track Build

  1. #1
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    Sterk's '95 E36 325is Track/AutoX Build

    So my Father used to race Alfa Romeos back in South Africa. He had to give up his dream when we moved to the states but he's been wanting to start another project for a while now. He's been pushing me into motorsports ever since I was a kid, but I've never really had the interest until I moved out to University.

    Last week we picked up an E21 320i that was in rough shape. We were eager to build it but we knew that it would take about a year and a lot of money to get it to where we wanted it. A family friend heard about our endeavors and asked us if we were interested in an E36 that the bank dropped off at his shop. It was repo'd from a college student and had no key, but we knew it ran and it was in relatively good condition. We picked it up for 250 and stripped it out the same day.

    I weighed everything that we stripped out and it all, including the seats and the spare tire, weighed about 350 pounds! Now we just need a key and we can start the engine work. We've also located a salvage M3 to pull parts off of.

    Plan is to compete in SCCA and NASA events.

    As for the build the plan is:
    Roll cage
    Beef up the engine
    Suspension
    plexi windows
    Wheels/tires
    exhaust
    Sunroof delete
    and more!











    Bonus points to the one who can find the brilliant college student engineering in the engine bay!
    Last edited by Sterk; 01-04-2017 at 02:02 AM.

  2. #2
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    Spec3 & MCoupe
    Alternator cooling duct made from ... sour cream container?

    Are you building toward any particular class?

  3. #3
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    1983 BMW E21 320i
    Quote Originally Posted by OCRentAPopo View Post
    Alternator cooling duct made from ... sour cream container?

    Are you building toward any particular class?
    Bingo! Except it's a McDonalds cup. The previous owner definitely knew what he was doing.

    As for class, I'm not really sure yet. We still have to do a ton of reading and unfortunately the SCCA guidelines are a bit confusing. I know the car is going to be in production class, but aside from that I can't find any specifics anywhere aside from the 900 page handbook that tells me the max wheel width is 7 inches?? If someone could point me in the right direction for details on each subclass in production, that would be much appreciated!

  4. #4
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    1983 BMW E21 320i
    Finally got a key and the car is running beautifully! Ordered some control arms, an intake, and a new shifter. For 300 bucks this car couldn't be better!

  5. #5
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    1983 BMW E21 320i
    Update! I finally found the time to come down home for the week.

    Priority as always was to make the car sound good, we we chopped off the muffler and ran some tubes back. It sounds pretty mean, I like it a lot.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9x31iUC1yM

    Next we went to pick up our new wheels. We went with Konig Rennforms because of their weight and the fact that they're the only lightweight wheel we could find in a 17x8 at discount tire that would fit the BMW. As for tires, we have a local shop providing tires for us and for the first set we didn't want to overstep our boundaries so we just asked for Federal 595 RSRs. Even though they're cheap, I like them a lot. Probably the best bang for the buck.

    szgOszxl.jpg
    0Nd0qHIl.jpg

    New spark plugs and rear adjustable lower control arms went in. We found oil on spark plug 6 (or 1, the cylinder furthest back) so we might have to keep an eye on that.

    Things we ordered:
    - Tubing for a custom intake. We are going to run a filter down into the bottom bumper's vents.
    - Corbeau forza sport seat and 5 point harness.
    - NRG quick release hub for my dad's old Momo Indy steering wheel.
    - Hawk HP Plus brake pads. They seemed to be the most recommended and they weren't the most expensive.

    Tomorrow the car is going in for an alignment and then we'll change the oil. Once that's done we'll run her through the gears a bit and make sure the oil pressure and the fuel pump is good. Apart from that everything on the car seems solid. Suspension is on the top of the want list for sure. As of right now it sits so high. We've just spent so much in such a short amount of time I can't really afford to drop a grand right now. So I think I'll try and run a few autocrosses on this setup and see how it does.

    I wish I could have taken more pictures but between working remotely and running around getting parts, it's kind of difficult.

  6. #6
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    It's been a while. Mainly because I'm really bad at taking pictures of what I do. There's a ton I've done to the car...where to start...

    We put the Corbeau Forza Sport seat in along with their 5 point harness. As always, things don't fit quite like you want them to so we had to make a custom bracket for the side mounts. It wasn't too difficult and now I've got a perfect seating position with a great seat! At first I didn't really like the position or how I felt in the seat, but on the track I'm super snug and quite comfortable. Oh! And we made a custom harness bar. We made brackets that bolt into the chassis rather than welding it because we'll eventually cage the car and I don't really want to deal with cutting welds.

    We made a custom intake with parts from Silicon Intakes. Great stuff! We routed the filter into the drivers side fog light hole. It's a tight fit and the wheel just barely clears the piping but hey, it works. I thought I still had my old K&N cone filter lying around, but apparently not. So we're running a shitty spectre filter for now. I'm convinced the car doesn't like it as it hesitates a little bit when you hit the gas, but nothing detrimental. Along with the intake we replaced the worn out valve cover gasket and cleaned up the valve cover that was flaking just about all the paint off.

    I ordered an NRG quick release only to find out that I need a hub with splines! So I ordered the NRG short hub, bolted the two together and we're in business! Like I said in the last post I'm using my Dad's old Momo Indy wheel. It's a tiny bit smaller than most wheels, but I'm liking it alot.

    We had to remove the sunroof mechanism thing because my helmet touched the roof. We ended up making brackets to hold the metal sunroof in and siliconing the seams. I eventually want to weld it in place to stiffen up the roof, but I need to learn how to weld first!

    Brake fluid flush, coolant flush, and new brake pads went in. Hawk HP Plus pads are great! I'm glad I chose them based on the recommendation of a few people on this forum. After our first event we noticed that our rotors were totally done for! So we ordered a set of centric rotors.

    My first Autocross was this past weekend and it was a blast! It wasn't an official event or anything, just something that was tacked on to a Euro meet which meant a ton of seat time. I probably did about 15-20 runs starting with a time of 62 and ending with a 54! The car revved out nicely and the Federals held out better than expected. One thing for sure though is that the 20 year old suspension had to go. I just ordered some ST XTA Coilovers and hopefully they'll get here before this weekend in time for Autocrosses on Saturday and Sunday.

    Conquer Helmet. Great deal, less than 150 bucks and Snell 2010. Fits perfectly and really comfortable. Sorry for blurry picture


    Ye old Momo wheel and NRG quick release


    Forza Sport Seat


    Corbeau 5 Point 3" Harness


    Hawk HP Plus pads and the must have repair manual. Again, sorry for blurry pic, I'm terrible


    Seat, Harness, Harness bar, wheel, short hub, and quick release installed!


    Picture of the boat on the course


    A couple of my runs


    Bonus! I got to ride in one of the local SCCA director's Miata and holy crap was that awesome. Even on all seasons it stuck to the road like duct tape. Now, imagine that x10 and that's what this M3 was. It was a beast of a machine. Every single corner was "there's no way you're going to make that at this speed....nevermind." I would never in a million years imagine yanking the car 90 degrees going 40 miles an hour, it was crazy. Definitely a new inspiration for my build.
    Last edited by Sterk; 06-20-2016 at 10:15 PM.

  7. #7
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    Nice progress so far. Get the suspension up to date and you'll get the "there's no way you're going to make that at this speed" feeling

  8. #8
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    Neat build and nice work. You will eventually have to get rid of the steering wheel, as nice as it is. No sanctioning bodies will allow wood steering wheels. Plus they are slipperier than owl poop. Figure out what class you are going to run before you go too far in your build and wind up having to backdate or worse yet, spend more money. Good luck.
    Chris Leone
    chrisleonemotorsports.com
    roll cages, repairs and racecar fabrication
    1984 318i now 325is
    1994 325is STU racecar
    1988 325is donor

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by XXLBIMMER View Post
    Neat build and nice work. You will eventually have to get rid of the steering wheel, as nice as it is. No sanctioning bodies will allow wood steering wheels. Plus they are slipperier than owl poop. Figure out what class you are going to run before you go too far in your build and wind up having to backdate or worse yet, spend more money. Good luck.
    Dang, I totally didn't know about the wooden wheel rule. Thanks for the heads up! As of right now, I'm kind of stuck in FP so I guess I'll stay there.

  10. #10
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    2 Autocrosses in one weekend! I had an absolute blast. Before the events, thanks to XXLBIMMER I ordered a new NRG steering wheel. It was pretty cheap, and the fake leather feels cheap, but hey, it works and I actually like it a lot. Unfortunately my new suspension didn't get here in time, but I had fun nonetheless. Both events I ended up improving by more than 6 seconds and finishing 3rd in time in novice out of 13 and 8th in PAX (because I'm FP )

    Ended up receiving the new coilovers this past Monday and after some confusion between KW and the third party seller, it was the correct part. Long story short, THMotorsport (whom I no longer recommend) gave me the runaround about what part is what as well as lying about shipping information. Unfortunately, I won't be able to install the coils until the weekend after the 4th of July.

    Anyways, here's a dope pic of me on the course, a video of some of my worst passes (I was so into it in the later stages, I forgot to turn my camera on!).

    NRG Steering Wheel


    ST XTA Coilovers


    Hooo Boy


    Last edited by Sterk; 06-28-2016 at 11:02 PM.

  11. #11
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    Nov 2014
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    95 325i Sedan
    Without a roll bar, you really shouldn't be using a 5 point harness. Again, a lot sanctioning bodies won't allow it, or at least shouldn't. Most AutoX events probably won't care though. In the case of a roll over and the roof collapsing, YOU WILL GET CRUSHED. With the normal belts, your body is free to be pushed sideways, now your harness is just going to hold you in place.

  12. #12
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    I agree. 5 point harness should only be used with a roll cage. Some will use a harness bar but unless its krey brause, its a death trap. If you don't have a cage, its best to go 4 point DOT approved Scroth belts that use the factory rear seatbelt mounts.

  13. #13
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    Roll cage is in the plan. I'm not going to track the car until it's on. But for now, just doing autocross, I think it's fine. Out of 112 cars this past weekend only one had a roll cage, and many had 5 pts.

  14. #14
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    Rollbar + Harness bar are definitely a huge need. Or just use the OEM 3 pt belt routed correctly through the bucket seat in the mean time.

  15. #15
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    Finally got the coilovers (ST XTAs) on. I scheduled the whole day because I thought they'd be more of a pain than they were. Luckily we had no rusted or broken bolts and it probably took about 2-3 hours for the complete install and height adjustments. Car's looking pretty good but we do need 5mm spacers to clear the coils.

    I took the car for a bit of a drive (the car isn't street legal obviously so I couldn't go far) and the coils feel awesome. The car is firm and planted, but it doesn't feel like it's going to lose itself when it hits a bump. Next step is to get the spacers on and get an alignment.

    For those interested, the coilovers are ST XTA. I got them from a website which I will not name because of how awful they're service was for $1275. They're actually KW V2s but instead of a stainless steel body it's a galvanized steel body. The coils are for an E36 M3 (I couldn't find any XTAs for non M3s) and the only difference between the M3 and the non M3 coilovers is the sway bar end link is on the strut, allowing you to link the bar to the strut rather than the control arm. Supposedly if you link the sway bar to the strut, it stiffens the front, so I decided to leave it linked to the control arm for now and if I need a stiffere front end, I'll just throw the new endlinks on.

    Now for pictures!
















    Can someone tell me how to reliably upload photos? Almost every time I get an error
    Last edited by Sterk; 07-10-2016 at 03:42 PM.

  16. #16
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    open a flickr account and share pics using BB code.
    Last edited by bmw328m52; 07-14-2016 at 12:48 PM.

  17. #17
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    It's been an eventful week! First off, we ordered 5mm spacers for the tires to clear the coilovers. The JUST fit, thank goodness. Next was aero. Regardless if it works or not, it looks cool as shit and after seeing a bunch of threads on customs splitters and wings I wanted to make my own. We got this stuff called polymetal which is this stiff foam stuff sandwiched in between pieces of aluminum. It's not as lite as aluminite, but I believe it's stronger.

    The front splitter is bolted to the front bumper and we extended the steering rack to subframe bolts to use as mounting points. I need to get some good pics of the bottom, but the splitter goes all the way up to the beginning of the oil pan.

    The spoiler was made from the leftover material. Nothing super special, it's adjustable and pretty solid. It sustained 80 MPH on the trailer on the highway with barely any flex.

    My 4th Autox event was this past Sunday at Circuit of the Americas and the car felt great with the new suspension. I ended up second in time in novice and 7th in PAX. The car was understeering pretty hard...which brings me to the next issue...

    Tires...funny story about them. Let me preface with I go to uni about 2 hours from my folks place where the car resides and I can only head down on the weekends because of work. Because of this, I don't have much oversight on what goes on during the week. I'm super grateful that my dad is helping me out with everything, but some times he gets a little too excited and doesn't quite check over everything. We asked our tire sponsor to get us some Federal 595 RSRs. We got the tires, or at least we thought, and we never bothered to make sure they were the right ones. It's a little bit my fault too, but in my defense all Federal tread patterns look similar so I didn't think much of it. So, come this Sunday with all the stuff we've done to the car it just isn't performing like I wanted it to. I'm asking around, making adjustments when one of the fastest guys comes up and talks to me. I tell him about the issues I'm having and he goes, "of course your car isn't responsive, you're running all seasons." At this moment I knew we effed up. Turns out, yup, we are running Federal SS 595s and not 595 RSRs. Whoops. Anyways, to come second out of 13 people running all season, color me impressed. SO to remedy this, I've just put an order in for Hankook Ventus Z214 soft compounds. I absolutely cannot wait to get these on the car and run the next event.

















  18. #18
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    Your understeer MAY be coming from the spoiler. That spoiler is creating allot of drag and could be lightening the front end a bit. That splitter is not close enough to the ground to be functioning as intended (not insulting your work, been down this road a few times).

    Here is my past autox car



    Allot of research and testing went into the spoiler and splitter design. I would recommend putting a small air damn on the front of the car to get that splitter lower to the ground. Hope this helps.

  19. #19
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    Yeah thanks for the input, I'll take any info I can get. I haven't heard about the air dam thing before so I'll look into it! I'll have to make adjustments to the aero and suspension once the new tires are on. There's not much I can feel out from running all seasons other than my lack of grip.

  20. #20
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    Last edited by darbyfam; 07-20-2016 at 11:31 AM.

  21. #21
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    Really liking this! E36s are one of the best track cars to start out on. BMWs overall are very rewarding vehicles when they are set up properly. Good to see you getting straight to business with coilovers, good wheels and tires, a seat and wheel. Get some seat time and keep having fun!

  22. #22
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    So I've been playing around with a program called flow design and am starting to learn a lot about air flow, drag, etc. I couldn't get my hands on a 3d model of a 325 coupe, so I have to use a sedan in the simulation. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the coupe is a little bit better aerodynamically with a sleeker top? Anyways, here's a video. The program records itself in this weird aspect ratio so everything seems a little fat.


  23. #23
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    Looking great! But like Darby said, gotta reduce the angle of attack (AOA) on the spoiler, and get that splitter bigger and lower.

    The more air you can trap on top of a splitter, and prevent from going under that car, the better. Most sanctioning bodies will let you extend the splitter out 5 inches from the bumper.

    I had the same style spoiler on my AE86 track car way back in the day, I was super impressed with how much it helped. To quote one of my aerodynamics books... "In general, steeper angles and longer lengths lead to more drag." A crazy big spoiler like the Miata above, is going to be great for autox where you don't have to worry about drag as much.
    -Run the same length spoiler you already have.
    -Dropping it down to 20-30 degree AOA you're still going to get rid of the natural lift properties of a sedan while creating some downforce that isn't causing a lot of drag.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheKolton View Post
    Looking great! But like Darby said, gotta reduce the angle of attack (AOA) on the spoiler, and get that splitter bigger and lower.

    The more air you can trap on top of a splitter, and prevent from going under that car, the better. Most sanctioning bodies will let you extend the splitter out 5 inches from the bumper.

    I had the same style spoiler on my AE86 track car way back in the day, I was super impressed with how much it helped. To quote one of my aerodynamics books... "In general, steeper angles and longer lengths lead to more drag." A crazy big spoiler like the Miata above, is going to be great for autox where you don't have to worry about drag as much.
    -Run the same length spoiler you already have.
    -Dropping it down to 20-30 degree AOA you're still going to get rid of the natural lift properties of a sedan while creating some downforce that isn't causing a lot of drag.
    Thanks, appreciate the info! As of right now, my splitter is the biggest my class allows. 4 inches from the front and 3 from the sides.

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheKolton View Post
    Looking great! But like Darby said, gotta reduce the angle of attack (AOA) on the spoiler, and get that splitter bigger and lower.

    The more air you can trap on top of a splitter, and prevent from going under that car, the better. Most sanctioning bodies will let you extend the splitter out 5 inches from the bumper.

    I had the same style spoiler on my AE86 track car way back in the day, I was super impressed with how much it helped. To quote one of my aerodynamics books... "In general, steeper angles and longer lengths lead to more drag." A crazy big spoiler like the Miata above, is going to be great for autox where you don't have to worry about drag as much.
    -Run the same length spoiler you already have.
    -Dropping it down to 20-30 degree AOA you're still going to get rid of the natural lift properties of a sedan while creating some downforce that isn't causing a lot of drag.
    Great advice. The Miata was an autox only car (finished as high as 3rd at the National Championships). I ran a similar type spoiler on my ChumpCar 240sx and it KILLED our front straight times at Daytona and Texas World Speedway. If I remember correctly, our top speeds dropped by almost 15MPH. Depending on the tracks you are driving, I think you may be better off overall without a spoiler at all. Again, track dependent.

    If you can't go bigger on the splitter, definitely go lower. For it to work, it has to create a high pressure point in front the car. Right now, too much air is just passing under the car and no pressure is being built.

    My E36:


    I need to get my splitter a little lower as well.

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