Hi Bimmerforums!
So I just bought a very well built and maintained E36 race car (NASA GTS1, now GTS2 trim). It's my first true caged track/race car, and my first BMW as well. My previous fun vehicles include 02 WRX, 06 STI, 06 Lotus Elise. I started autocrossing over a decade ago and over the last couple years basically completely transitioned to HPDE in the Lotus. As I progressed and found myself wanting to aim toward competition in the near future I realized the Lotus, though amazing and fun to drive, was not the right tool for the job for numerous reasons (safety, expense, classing structure). I originally was looking at replacing it with an S2000 or BRZ targeting NASA's TT5/ST5 classes for future competition, but somehow changed course and became obsessed with getting an E36 for TT4/ST4 (a little silly, since this class isnt as well populated here in the midatlantic region, but whatever).
That's when I found an awesome race car locally and decided to take the plunge on a car that is overkill for me, with the intention of 'growing into the car'. My plan is to complete my DE ladder climb this coming 2019 season, and be ready for a full TT season in 2020.
The car started life as a 1995 325is but several years ago was converted all-at-once to a full race car by Bimmerworld, and over the last few years it has been stored and maintained at Bimmer Performance Center in Raleigh, NC. The car was built and maintained to a very high standard ("open checkbook" for maintenance work approach), with a lot of top shelf parts. The PO campaigned it in NASA GTS1 with the original M50 powerplant, and it held the VIR lap record in that class; 21 races entered, 14 class wins. Prior to the sale, the M50 was replaced with refreshed S52 with ARP hardware and a mild Schrick stage 1 cam. The rest of the details are listed below:
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Chassis/Safety
Bimmerworld custom-built 6-point cage (original cage)
Full E36 chassis reinforcements welded in, solid mounts throughout
Racetech 4119 TW driver seat with built-in forced air, Racetech RT1000 passenger seat
Safecraft 6-point driver harness, Scroth Profi II 6-point passenger harness
Teamtech right-side net, Pyrotect window net
4L AFFF fire system, mechanical activation
Interior
AIM MXL Pista race dash/logger with oil pressure, oil temp, fuel level sensors added
AIM SmartyCam HD
Sparco 353 suede steering wheel with Krontec adapter
Driver air intake and custom radiator plenum for integration with cool suit and attachments to driver's seat and helmet
Modified and reinforced gas pedal
Cool Suit hardware and plumbing
Longacre convex mirror
Engine
Fresh rebuilt S52 engine with ARP hardware and Schrick Stage 1 cam
Full Active Autowerks 3" race exhaust
Euro coolant reservoir
Stewart water pump and full aluminum radiator
Bimmerworld Stage II Fuel Starvation kit
Body
Full Bimmerworld E36 carbon aero (splitter/undertray, canards, pitch adjustable rear wing)
Carbon fiber hood
Custom-lightened and reinforced trunk
Brakes
PFC Z45 Big Brake Kit front and rear; PFC01 pads (plus some spares)
Tilton clutch and brake pedal set/master cylinder with adjustable bias control knob (ABS is functional)
Suspension
MCS 3-way remote reservoir dampers
Ground Control adjustable camber/caster plates
Hotchkis swaybars
Ground Control adjustable rear control arms
Driveline
Tilton clutch and lightweight flywheel
Tilton Brake and clutch pedal set, with adjustable brake bias system
Bimmerworld race shifter
ZF transmission
Diffsonline 3.64 rear diff, 4-clutch pack (freshly rebuilt at time of purchase)
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Pretty awesome, right?
Unfortunately, by the time the transaction was complete, and the diff got rebuilt (part of the deal), I had missed the track weekend I had targeted as a shake down, and now winter is very much here. So, I took delivery of the car and [after driving it a couple laps in the neighborhood ] put it up on jack stands and winterized it.
Aesthetically, the car shows its age and W2W use a bit, which is expected and "its a race car" - I know. But I'm OCD, so I'm planning on just cleaning it up a little bit. Not sure if a full respray vs full wrap is really in the budget but I'm considering it. We'll see how the first half of next season goes.
Anyway, consider this my introduction thread. I'm going to have many many many questions (some starting below) as I learn a new platform and learn about proper race car ownership. In the meantime...Pictures!
_DSC7464.jpg_DSC7463.jpg_DSC7509.jpg_DSC7472.jpg
Holy hell. That is a serious piece of machinery. Everything I have ever dreamed up buying is already installed. Can you please pose more pictures of the interior/truck/engine bay? Want some motivation to clean mine up a bit. Congrats and if you have ANY setup questions please post. We need more frequent posters around these parts, it seems sometimes its Aeronaut, Dan and myself talking to eachother.....
FOUR aerolatches on the hood, it must be fast!
Nice purchase. That thing has lots of potential.
More Pics as requested - lots of detail. I've also asked a few questions interspersed with the photos if ya'll can chime in on a few of them I'd appreciate it.
I'll make another post with the little bit of work/progress I've made since taking possession a couple weeks ago.
Blower for seat and helmet, and coolshirt exchange manifold:
Center stack switches. I'll probably clean these up a bit, and I have a CF blank panel that came with the car too
AIM dash logger
view through the trunk
NACA intake for the cool air blower; I'm planning to move this to the rear window with a set of plexiglass rear window replacements for channukah/christmas
The roll bar padding needs replacing, and the top hoop of the cage needs a coat of paint where the mirror mounts; easy detail stuff
Battery location - discovered the other day that this isnt actually secured down :O So i need a new mounting solution....(recommendations?)
whole trunk view
Trunk reinforcement for that monster wing - it still weighs a ton (hahaha) and the trailing edge of the trunk behind the wing uprights have been dented down with chipped paint, presumably from the force of the wing (?). maybe the damage was pre trunk reinforcement - hard to know.
A little W2W battle scarring here, but it's not too bad with the vinyl off (those pics coming soon)
Under the rear. The big bolts are ballast (pics coming), which I've now removed and would like a more 'elegant' mounting solution for. As a result there are many big holes through the trunk floor AND through the passenger foot well metal from ballast mounting. Not sure what (if anything) to do with all those big holes through the car. I dont love having them there, especially in the passenger footwell.
Is this an oil catch can? looks like it is, but seems to drain back to the pan. Also: euro coolant reservoir - How do I bleed this system??
'
Big brakes are awesome....but the discs are SUPER F"ing expensive and these could already use replacement. I have a used set of spares that looks a little better, but sometime soon I'm going to have to drop $800+ on front rotor rings :O . I hate to do it, but may downgrade the brakes for cost savings.
Bimmerworld full carbon spillter - hard to see here, but it is cut out for the big front sway bar and steering rack lines (?). Wondering if I can drop this down with spacers and avoid the airflow disruption from those things protruding below the splitter's plane...
Mishimoto Radiator is completely boxed in with sheet metal, which can be kind of seen here (white sheet metal with BPC logo), which is a nice touch. I'm going to block off the fog light holes with something solid since thats just aero interuption as is. Also planning to just clean up the look with black mesh, black paint the brake duct intakes, black kidney grills and probably need to repaint the peeling nose panel here. Headlights will get replaced with CF blanks and maybe an air intake on the drivers side, since I don't really need lights for TT or sprint races, though may be nice to have a 'flash to pass' ability (thoughts)
solid mounts, safety-wired drain plugs
More ballast bolts on the passenger floor on the left lower of this photo
Well used, but everything appears maintained and solid. Theres a little surface corrosion on everything from the GC links here to the lower portion of the MCS shock bodies (just the white flaky stuff), but nothing of any concern.
Fresh diff
AA race exhaust though the header appears Stock S52; there is a sizeable dent on the rear portion of the exhaust, but doubtful its effecting performance at all (right?)
Any of this surface corrosion worry anyone, or is this par for the course on a 25yr old race car?
Last edited by ConeEater; 11-28-2018 at 11:39 AM.
On the big brake kit. Find out the rotor size and see if a factory replacement (Centric) rotor can be procured with the same dimensions. Otherwise, best to sell it/put it to the side until you start racing IMO. Centric blanks are only $25 buck ea on rockauto. If they are 325mm or 318mm, then good chance they are e46m3 or e36m3 front rotors.
No pictures yet that I can see, once they are uploaded will help to weigh in on the other items.
Are the pictures not showing up for you? I can see them. The brakes are the PFC Z45 2-piece BBK. I'd have to replace the whole kit and kaboodle. we'll see. They are supposed to last a good long time, just these have already seen a lot of track time.
OK - pics are working in Chrome, but not firefox. what the hell is going on and how do i reliably post pictures here? I was using Imgur links.
I'm in firefox, and can see the pics.
Well used car, but quality components for sure.
A few quick random comments:
- I wouldn't bother dropping the carbon underpanel. Returns not worth the work needed.
- For surface rust, I'd hit everything I could reach with one of the aviation (or similar) rust preventative sprays, like CorrosionX, BoeShield T-9, etc. Then as I worked on parts, clean and paint as needed.
- Your MCS remotes are likely more expensive than my whole car. lol.
- As I understand it, the value of the Euro coolant tank is that no bleeding is necessary.
Here's some more photos with some recent minor progress in making her my own:
The big wing makes a decent drink table while working in the garage:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bQmR18]
Some before and after shots of vinyl removal:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bQmQCz]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bQmQ5v]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2asr8o5]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bQmPyk]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2c7WMaN]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2c7WLZC]
The 225lbs of lead ballast I removed from the passenger footwell and spare wheel well in the trunk. I dont need it for the lawless DE events, and would like to come up with a more 'elegant' ballast mounting solution when I start competing - I shouldn't need this much either. Meanwhile, not sure what, if anything, to do with the huge holes in the floor from these being mounted.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2asr8x3]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bQmQkk]
I don't like open holes in my floor pan. I'd just buy some short rounded head-screws/nuts and put them in there. Or some rubber plugs from home depot or mcmaster carr or such.
My next big question/problem:
Since the car was kept with only water and water wetter in the cooling system, I drained it for the winter (I'm keeping it in my home garage, which might get below freezing if we get a string of cold days/nights, though unlikely). The pictures below show what came out. Initially I thought it was sand/dirt, but after some reading I assume its rust. I'm going to flush the whole system with DI water and Liquimoly Radiator Cleaner a few times and see if that gets it clean. ANything else I should be worried about or consider doing?
I'm fairly certain it doesn't have the heater core anymore, and has the euro coolant reservoir, so whats the procedure to bleed it? or is there one? Just fill it, let the car run for 15min and I'm good?
The Euro coolant reservoir, assuming it's in the right location and properly plumbed, is self bleeding.
Neil
You might want to mix a little antifreeze in there even if you've drained the cooling system. There are pockets where the water-only mix might sit, freeze, and break something. You will want to replace the mix with H2O and WW when you get on-track. A/F is slippery...
Just put bolts with body washers in the holes.
Since you've not driven the car, I'd hold off on big investments until you get through a shake-down in the spring. You don't know what works and what doesn't right now, so you're very likely to spend $$ on things you *perceive* as needing replacement or upgrade as opposed to things you *need* to fix (which you WILL find once you start driving the car, so why not save budget for the things you have to fix or change...)
Braille lightweight AGM battery. Cheap, light and easy. Watch the prices on the Li batteries. They might be in your budget and they're tiny.
If you need an instructor or driver's coach to get the best out of this sled, if I'm at a track near you I'd be happy to help out.
Oh, and when this gets too expensive for you to run and maintain, or you get bored with it, LMK. I can take it off your hands, no problem
Thanks emoore. I'm going to flush several times and refill with coolant. Then in the spring I may flush again and run water and water wetter for the season - thats just such a PITA to do every year, and dispose of all the coolant and coolant-contaminated flushes, etc. oh well.
I'm not planning on making any big changes until I drive it, as you said. And anyway, I'm fairly certain that mechanically it's tip top. I'm mostly just making aesthetic changes to feed my OCD and give me something to do in the off season. Literally cleaning, brushing off surface rust underneath, replacing broken trim and falling apart rubber. I am seriously considering re-painting a good portion, if not all, of the interior; it'll probably be a PITA also, but it could really use a clean up.
The full size battery will probably stay for now. If I have to add ballast back later whats the point of taking out that weight; then I have to worry about keeping it on a tender and worrying about it starting on Sunday mornings at the track. nah.
I really appreciate your offer of coaching. I'm always up for having a new set of experienced eyes in the passenger seat. The prior owner offered up a weekend of coaching and data analysis as part of the deal too(which is awesome), so I'll have that at least. I'll be mostly at VIR, and a couple Summit Point events, maybe some of the reasonable-distance tracks.
LOL, I'll keep your offer in mind.
I instruct at Summit about every other weekend during the season, so feel free to look me up too. Silver E36 M3.
Keep the old coolant to put back in each winter.
As my point of reference, I have an older, finished in 2010, BMW 325 built to the NASA GT2 spec. I have spent the last year getting the car freshened and have driven it at a number of auto crosses and one time trial event. I would get as much seat time as you can in events that let you find the edge and limit the opportunity to bend things. That and I am getting to know my car, the noises it makes and I am learning the feel of the transmission. Avoiding the BMW "money shift", led me to what was next on my list.
I would confirm the condition of the transmission mounts, glibo, drive shaft and half shafts. I have now replaced or rebuilt all of these. Having a base line of fresh parts did cost, but knowing that they have not been raced on gives me the feel of fresh parts when I am completing my pre-race inspection. The transmission mounts did not look as bad they turned out to be, until they were off the car. The glibo, in my case was in good condition, but was replaced anyway. Getting the rebuilt driveshaft off the car is not going to have to happen for a $56 dollar part.
One odd failure did not surface right a way but did effect the handling of the car before I caught the culprit. The rear outboard sub frame bushings had crystallized and were braking off crescent shaped segments that I was finding on my trailer.
Then there's the fresh fluids, looking forward to what you end up running in the car. The options and opinions, are endless.
David
Last edited by jr02518; 12-02-2018 at 02:02 PM.
Welcome to the madness.
I’d like to invite you to consider running GTS2 with NASA Mid-Atlantic when you’re ready. We have a strong group of 6+ cars with some more on the way, and a really friendly helpful group.
Where are you located?
Sounds like we're in very similar boats! I'm going through the car in detail this winter; probably ought to have a pro look it over too before I hit the track. Mechanicals so far look really good - I think that stuff has been maintained well. The fire bottle system turned out to be in rougher shape - looks like it hasnt been serviced in some time, and the driver's pull cable was actually stuck and damaged! Glad I pulled it all apart to look it over. Getting it up to snuff is probably going to be more expensive than I would like, but safety equipment is usually easier to justify the $$ on.
My interior overall is rough (photos coming), and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I'd like to move the drivers seat back a little, but it looks like the current seat mounts wont go any further and were a little...um...modified already.
Fluids wise, I'm just going to use whatever the big race shop that maintained it has been using/recommends. The diff just got rebuilt, so thats fresh. I'm going to get details on the last transmission fluid service, and I'll change the oil myself in the spring. As above, I'm going to flush the cooling system several times and refill with 50/50 - at least for now - and maybe go to water + WW when I start competing in it.
This should be a trip!
- - - Updated - - -
Thanks SCCAEV - It'll be a couple years until I'm W2W ready, but plan to hang around the NASA GTS paddock and get to know people and learn in the meantime. I live in Hillsborough, NC - just 50min south of VIR!
Congrats on your purchase! And good work on the sticker removal, it's tedious work.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but make sure the rear shock tower area is strengthened. Ideally it's all boxed in to the rear subframe mounts and the cage. Otherwise it looks like a lot of the track car prep work is covered.
Ideally ballast is mounted as low and as close to the center of the car as possible but for now you don't need to run any.
I don't know where you are in the driver development path, but it might be best to start out on street tires with that car at the track (Dunlop Direzzas or similar). The springs will be likely a little too stiff for street tires, but shouldn't be that big of a deal. As you progress, you'll be able to pick up used slicks from all the guys in GTS for cheap. Have fun.
Interests include: Any VIN beginning with "WBS", any engine code with a "7" as the second digit, any Individual car, and all things Touring.
http://www.bavarianspecialties.com
Very cool!
I did something similar to you. I got into Porsches. Long story short, one day casually looking through the classifieds, I came across an ad for a amazingly built Spec 996 racecar that came with a wrecked 996 in the deal. It was too good of a deal to pass up.
He listed the car as a "No Excuses" build. I thought it he might be puffing up the build. From the pictures he sent me, it looked good but I figured it would have a lot of battle scars. NOPE! It was in AMAZING shape! I am OCD as well. It is so nice, I don't want it to get damaged. lol
To build this car the way yours and mine are, it would take A LOT of time, money and frustration. SOOOO glad I just bought one already sorted out!
I think you made a good decision. As nice as your build is, you should be able to focus on driving more than worrying about messing with the car.
Good luck!
I race and instruct.
My suggestion to you would be to remove the aero and learn the car with as little variables as possible.
Get Bimmerworld to give you the 'easy' suspension setup. Put it there and leave it.
Do not set a date for your first race. Do HPDE's until you move to the advanced group.
Stay there for a full season.
Then start racing with an objective to finish every race you start. Even if you finish last.
If you burn through steps it will become very expensive fast !
Take it slow. It's a great project so make it last.
Thanks Franky. That's basically the plan. I'm going to call Bimmerworld this offseason and get the basic starting setup (keeping in mind my home track is VIR) and leave it alone. The prior owner is going to do some coaching and data analysis with me which will be super helpful. He's just moving to Spec E46 to run with friends who have mostly moved over to that class locally, so he'll be around a lot to help out.
I'm definitely taking my time this next 1-2 years and when I'm feeling really good in advanced group I'm going to TT first, then plan for comp school.
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