Been getting to the track more often and as a result spending a bit more time under the car after events. I picked up a noise coming from the belt at the last event. It was similar to the noise of a bearing going bad. I replace the idlers every year so I check everything including tension on the belt. The noise goes away after the car get run hard and everything is hot but as with any noise should not be ignored. It turned out to be sand. The parking area of the track I frequent is pretty sandy and it appears that somehow I got sand on the groves of the belt. This gave me the noise at start up. The noise going away was from the sand being embedded in the grooves of the belt and upon finding this I removed about 75 particles checking the entire belt. Put the belt back on and fired up the engine, no noise at all. Replaced the belt with a new one and keep the old as a spare. Cleaning the belt has now been added to my post event inspection.

Looking to go to an event at Watkins Glen with BMWCCA and the chapter that was running the event will not allow (at least they said so) an e36 or e46 to run with the stock power steering return line. I did a quick inspection of mine and found it was leaking ever so slightly. For those that do not know the line is fairly short and as your mount get old the engine will stress the fitting until it fails and you will be in a stream of your own power steering fluid on the track. It is a simple and quick upgrade to cut the crimp off the bottom of the hose and you can get new 12mm id hose about an inch longer and put it on and avoid this issue. I used two hose clamps on the bottom. This also allows you to drain the ps fluid fairly easy by removing the clamp and pulling the hose and you get fluid from the hose(reservoir) and the pump (cooler). If anyone is interested in doing this I do have enough hose for two cars so just IM me and I will send you some. Also if you are flushing the PS system you can just turn the wheel back and forth on it will send most of the fluid out through the cooler. You still have to get at your res to fill it but it was much easier than the turkey baster.