Chikinhed's Mini Build

[chikinhed]

It with the Speed Syndicatr/Revsceme people.

[chikinhed]

I took my daughter on a road trip up to Alaska and northern BC and back to Vancouver in the M3. I felt a bit of a concerned taking the the beast on such a long road trip but it was flawless except for a tire blowout. We drove over 3400 km (1835 mi) on beautiful twisty roads. I was often trying to find seventh gear, so maybe a 2.93 or even a 2.81 would be a good idea (or not). The car was so much fun. And to think we almost drove the Sienna.....

Here are some pics from the trip and one from today after the M3 had a bath.

[milKt]

Like hotrod selfies

Such gorgeous land.
No offense to the car.

Pacific NW.jpg

What route thru the wild?

[pbonsalb]

Great trip! And I love seeing people drive their fun cars rather than preserve them for their next owner while they drive a SUV or economy car instead.

[someguy2800]

Wow that looks like an awsome trip

[Kevin325i]

That is an awesome trip, how long did it take to do?


To put this in perspective for people that don't realize just how far of a drive that is it's about 1700 miles from Seatle to El Paso.

seatle to el paso.PNG

[chikinhed]

Here is the route we took....



We got the blow out in Stewart BC where only pick up truck tires exist. It was going to take five days to get a tire shipped up so I rented a car and drove to Smithers and back to get a cheap crap tire just to finish the road trip.

I highly recommend this route. We saw lots of whales, dolphins, bald eagles, osprey, marmots, black bear, porcupine, dear, beaver, ground squirrel and a lynx. In Port Hardy we were warned not to let kids out of the car because there was a cougar in the forest at the ferry terminal. It was making a sound like a child screeming and you could smell it. Super fun trip, the M3 made the trip so much more enjoyable.

[wazzu70]

Awesome pics, reminds me of everything I love about our area. You need an “I survived the ALCAN” bumper sticker on the car now

[someguy2800]

I am so jealous, I love road tripping. I've been to both coasts by car and almost every state but I still have two bucket list road trips left. I want to do Newfoundland and alaska. Thanks for the ideas on route, I think this is roughly what I would do.

[3literheater]

That looks like an awesome trip! How many days did it take? Did you just stay in hotels along the way?

Great car!

[chikinhed]

It was about ten days and it was five nights in a hotel and five nights camping.

[milKt]

BTW

What camera are you using?

[chikinhed]

They are all iPhone pictures

[someguy2800]

It’s amazing how good the camera on an iPhone is. Years ago I bought my wife like a $600 Nikon for her birthday before a road trip to the Smokey Mountains. My iPhone took better pictures and she never used it again.

[chikinhed]

I had bought my RE71Rs from Costco so I took the rear that had blown out due to going flat from a nail and they are going to refund the money I spent on a replacement. Gotta love Costco.

I did a quick inspection of the underside of the car today. No damage, everything still looks tight. I have about 5000 km on all the rearreinforcements including some hard launches and a track day. The only issue I’ve had was the two side diff attach bolts came loose but I hadn’t put loctite on them which I know is a must.

[PEI330Ci]

It’s amazing how good the camera on an iPhone is. Years ago I bought my wife like a $600 Nikon for her birthday before a road trip to the Smokey Mountains. My iPhone took better pictures and she never used it again.

I've got over $20k in Canon gear to chose from, but lately 25% of my project photos are being taken on a phone.

Sometimes it's just comes down to convenience, and the fact that the last 10% in quality doesn't matter that much when someone is looking at it on a......phone! Not everyone browses with a 4k monitor!


Inspirational trip! I would love to do something like that on the east coast of Canada with my son.....some day....

[chikinhed]

I had my 94 + e85 mix and 22 psi for the first tank of gas and then it was just 94 for a couple of tanks then the best I could find was 91 so I left it on low boost at 14 psi. With the car loaded with camping gear and 14 psi it felt a bit soft it would still blow past other cars when passing and did not require gearing down out of sixth to pass even on hills in the mountains.

I was getting about 13 L/100km or about 18 mpg. The current tune revision is rich with the AFRs in the 10’s and peak EGT’s are down to 1400°F or so with black smoke out the back at WOT. I have to get Jordan to lean it back up a bit as I did lose some power from when it was leaner with the peak EGT at 1630°F.

I had a lifter tick just before the trip so I replaced all the lifters. I also retarded the exhaust cam a few degrees to bring back in a bit of overlap but my butt dyno says it made the boost response a bit softer. I’ll try to confirm with data logging but I might end up putting it back where it was.

[vollosso]

I don’t know what your afrs are but leaner spool is a big deal.

We pick up quite a bit of spool out of 13 afr tapering into 12 afr. A point richer is a huge drop in torque and spool. Like 20% difference.

Since you’re saying it’s rich everywhere now I thought I’d mention it.


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[chikinhed]

Ya, it feels soft now. My high boost feels lame now. I didn’t give him the data log file he wanted, it was from the ZT-2 with no load in it. He richened it up to drop the EGT down. I hope to get a data log for him soon as I have a bunch of track and autox events coming up and the car is now ready to go back to the drag strip again with a goal of getting sub 2.0 sec 60 ft times and hopefully a 10 sec pass.

[BadBoostedBmwM3]

I don’t know what your afrs are but leaner spool is a big deal.

We pick up quite a bit of spool out of 13 afr tapering into 12 afr. A point richer is a huge drop in torque and spool. Like 20% difference.

Since you’re saying it’s rich everywhere now I thought I’d mention it.


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I’ve been saying that for while! Seems like everyone says as soon as boost hits to shoot for high 11s.

In my mind, this is doesn’t mean I’m right, with air load (might not be the proper explanation) so low and RPMs low, why not?
Of course, it can still detonate or preignite, but I think that you can control that by timing and monitoring EGTs.

[vollosso]

I’ve been saying that for while! Seems like everyone says as soon as boost hits to shoot for high 11s.

In my mind, this is doesn’t mean I’m right, with air load (might not be the proper explanation) so low and RPMs low, why not?
Of course, it can still detonate or preignite, but I think that you can control that by timing and monitoring EGTs.

Yeah technically everything beyond mean best torque should reduce spool.

Mean best torque described as 0.82 or 12.2 afr.

I generally target near lean best torque on spool up or about 0.87 or 12.8.

In general the richest I like to setup any car is 0.80 or 11.8. Sometimes I’ll drop to 0.79 or 11.6

All of that is on pump gas.

*IMO*Anything beyond 0.87 should only be for reduction of heat, knock, or safety. I run my ethanol cars considerably more lean than above.



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[BadBoostedBmwM3]

Yeah technically everything beyond mean best torque should reduce spool.

Mean best torque described as 0.82 or 12.2 afr.

I generally target near lean best torque on spool up or about 0.87 or 12.8.

In general the richest I like to setup any car is 0.80 or 11.8. Sometimes I’ll drop to 0.79 or 11.6

All of that is on pump gas.

*IMO*Anything beyond 0.87 should only be for reduction of heat, knock, or safety. I run my ethanol cars considerably more lean than above.



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I like talking lambda since everyone is into ethanol nowadays. You never how people have their widebands configured.


So, talking about alcohol, what do you target typically?

[Robocop]

Mean best torque described as 0.82 or 12.2 afr.

I generally target near lean best torque on spool up or about 0.87 or 12.8.


I run my ethanol cars considerably more lean than above.



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how much more?

[midnitesam]

Awesome shots! Stunning scenery as well.

[chikinhed]

I had the M3 out tonight to a little BMW meet. I got to go for a ride in Karies turbo e36 which pulls good for only 14 psi. I took Avee for a ride to try and give him some inspiration to get going on his never ending build. I think it helped, I hope.

I don’t want to jinx it but it’s running awesome aside from a couple of things which always seems to be the case. I didn’t want to stop driving it tonight and ended up taking the extremely long way home. When a turbo M3 is doing what it’s suppose to it makes up for all the bullshit I had to go through to get it to this point.