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Our Race Car in Disguise Oct 31, 2006

The interior is pretty craptacular, with the original leather sport seats well past their prime. Our car is missing its lower chin spoiler. The 325is is lowered with H&R sport springs (not race...) and pretty well-done Bilsteins The 325is came with 15x7-inc BBS RS wheels. You can see the paint is pretty well toasted.

We picked up the basis for our Spec E30 project this weekend. It's a 1989 325is that we purchased for a mere $1500. The good news is that it came with a set of 15x7 BBS wheels, the bad news is that the original 3.73:1 differential with a limited slip has been replaced with a 4.10:1 open diff.

For more info on this great NASA road racing series, you can visit SpecE30.com 

No More Junk in Our Trunk Nov 2, 2006

Check out that massive amplifier...talk about great trade-bait! The interior on an E30 cleans up real well. We used degreaser on the door panels.

We spent the evening yesterday cleaning out our E30. While most of the interior and trunk will be stripped bare soon, we were getting tired of driving around in a visibly neglected car. After we sucked out the carpets, the door panels and jams were cleaned with Purple Power degreaser.

The engine was also degreased, although it was surprisingly clean. The trunk was also emptied of all of the accumulated garbage. All told, we found 90 cents in change in the car and about half a carton of french fries.

This Saturday we are going to weigh the car to get its baseline. We've already taken it to the dragstrip, posting a 16.2 second quarter-mile with a lot of wheelspin from the open diff. 

Old BMWs Nov 6, 2006

We spent the weekend tracking down and fixing the typical stuff that goes wrong on an older BMW.

1) Oil level light on. Some digging revealed that the connector for the oil level sensor in the pan had crumbled apart. Solution, ignore stupid light and just use the dipstick, dipstick.

2) Coolant leaking from heater hose, fixed by cutting damaged 1" off the end of the hose and reattached. Resulting low coolant light fixed by topping off coolant.

3) Intermittent parking brake light on in dash cluster. Solved by removing crappy rubber boot over e-brake handle and gently placing it in the garbage.

4) Windows extremely hard to see out of. Fixed by removing "South Florida Tint #80" from all of the windows, side benefit: caught buzz from lacquer thinner used to remove final layer of adhesive.

5) Intermittent oil pressure light in dash traced to damaged wire leading from sensor on block. Wire repaired.

From here, we've got a few things to fix before we start making this car into a racer. Alternator bushings and a pair of motor mounts are two of the next things we need to deal with. We also need to track down a 3.73:1 LSD. 

Starting our Diet Nov 13, 2006

The trunk is covered in a 1" thick sheet of asphalt. We took out 53 pounds out of the trunk alone!

One of the first steps, and arguably one of the most fun, is removing all of that crap that makes a street car a street car. Race cars are lightweight without creature comforts and gadgets and insulation. They're loud and quite often, they're uncomfortable. What fun!

Saturday, we spent about five hours with the car on a scale. We started out with a completely full tank (full to the point of seeing the gas in the filler neck. ) and drove approximately 1 mile to where our scales where (this will make the weighing reproduceable later.)

  • Base weight: 2767
  • Remove the spare tire and tools: 2718
  • Remove stereo, speakers, amplifier, antenna: 2678 (it was a big amplifier...)
  • Remove trunk panels, trim: 2673
  • Remove thick asphalt sound deadening from trunk: 2620
  • Remove foglights: 2618
  • Remove A/C compressor and lines (still have condensor/evaporator in car): 2595

Amazingly, we've already removed 172 pounds from the car, and we still have a full interior. We may need to add ballast, as minimum weight with the cage is 2750. But that is with driver... We'll see! 

 Stripper Dec 4, 2006

Our car hits 2401 on the scales, thanks to some junk removal.

Our BMW hit the scales again to get ready for the roll cage installation. Here's the breakdown:

  • 12/3/06 with full tank of gas: 2596
  • rear seat: 2563
  • rear seat belts: 2557
  • rear 1/4 panels: 2549
  • passenger seat: 2505
  • passsenger seat belt: 2501
  • center console: 2500
  • drivers seat: 2458
  • carpet: 2420
  • Misc Trim: 2411
  • headliner, oh shit handles: 2401
  • Reinstall driver's seat: 2443

After this was all done, we stuffed all of the crap back in the car and headed for the dumpster. As Margie puts it, "It's like when a someone gets whacked and dismembered by the Mafia, they stuff the body parts back in the body as a warning to others."  

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