There's like 1000 Josh Hickeys I am Jim Mcewen in Montgomery Alabama
Well, it hardly seems documenting some of this stuff, but did some work this evening cleaning up and protecting all my wiring going back from the dash. Anyhow, re-ran both looms (driver's side is all the lighting and stuff and splits off to the fuel pump, fuel sender, etc - and passenger side is main power wires, starter wire, etc). All the wiring got re-wrapped and then ran plastic loom on all of it for protection, zip tied everything where I wanted it, etc.
Also re-routed the cable at the battery to put it in a location less likely to get bounced/shaken/jarred loose, and mounted the slow-blow fusible link up next to it.
Also cut out some new "guards" for next to the seats. The backstory on this is that we got gigged at tech at NEFR because Don (the inspector) said my harness latch could get caught on the seat mounts and I had to fix it before passing. So we went back to the paddock and found some scrap HDPE sheet and cut it out and ziptied it in place to pass. That stayed on the car for like 2 years. I had planned to actually make some sheet metal plates and tack weld them in place, but changed my mind and just cut out new ones out of coroplast, since it weighs next to nothing and should hold up sufficiently.
I really enjoyed picking your brain about suspension set ups and learning how car choice being more important than anything else. Thanks fofor the advice and I owe you one
Justjim75 said:I really enjoyed picking your brain about suspension set ups and learning how car choice being more important than anything else. Thanks fofor the advice and I owe you one
yessir, it was nice talking to you!
So, let's put some stuff back together now.
Seats and harnesses back in. Gave me the chance to make a few minor length adjustments on my own harness that have been annoying me, as well. Still funny to have the old red Sparco in there, but the plan is to have Jim go "try on" some halo seats to see what fits him best, and then probably order some up from Murray Motorsport during the black friday sale or whenever I can find the best deal. So for the time being my love of symmetry will have to take a back seat to the mismatch lol.
Also put in the rest of the front cage padding once I "refurbished" it.
With the seats in, I installed a couple little things to help with in-car organization. For years we've basically used a 99 cent walmart plastic box to hold little stuff, car registration, etc. It's cracked and the lid falls off sometimes and was time for a bit of a change, so I installed two things:
First, in its place I put in a Dakine ski goggle soft-case that I had sitting around from years of working at a ski shop. It weighs almost nothing and will be a good place to stash sunglasses and stuff like that, whereas usually I'm asking Jim to stuff my not-cheap sunglasses into the codriver bag or whatever. Probably also a good place to toss some snacks for between stages. In any case, it's out of the way on the tunnel kind of behind the seats, but can still be reached when driving.
I also picked up this little waterproof fishing tackle holder. It's similar to the inserts on our gearbox in the trunk (same brand). I like the idea of something very waterproof to keep the registration, insurance, and my wallet in when on stage (rather than a sandwich bag). Bolted it into the tacos on the main hoop crossbars. NOT really accessible while driving, but its not something I will need to access very often.
And last little project was to redo the "Battocchi Net." You may recall this setup from the trunk, which I copied from Brian's subaru. It's a window net with a steel rod on one end and a cable on the other with a ratchet strap. Basically it's a single-release method to hold down the spare tire and the jack securely. Worked great in the trunk, so figured I'd do it in the back seat area where the spare is now. I did need to get a larger new (24x24" instead of 18x24") but seems to fit fine. I'll need to make some tiedows for the ratchet end, still deciding where I want to put them.
used the factory backseat lockdown loops. They seem to be plenty strong.
So just test-fit the whole setup, with the helmet net back in place. The idea will be to put helmets in there on transits, and then undo the back two hooks when we put our helmets back on and clip it to hang vertically so it won't be in the way of getting the tire out quickly. I thought it out pretty well so I think it will work fine :)
Heads up murray motorsports only does dhl express shipping ( ~$300 a seat) last time I checked due to the pandemic :(
Yeah I will play it by ear. I don't actually need a new seat or new harnesses until next season, so no huge rush. I also have friends in the UK who could probably just pick it up and ship it separately if that is the only thing they offer.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Yea I'm in the same boat, hopefully stuff goes back to normal soon because I've been looking to pick up seats for a while now.
Nesegleh said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Yea I'm in the same boat, hopefully stuff goes back to normal soon because I've been looking to pick up seats for a while now.
For me it's not that urgent since I already have the driver's seat and if we really want to we can just steal the halo seat out jims track E30
ok, just wrapping up some details.
First, thanks to any of you following us on IG. We're up to 500 there, which means absolutely nothing at all, but it's a nice round number so why not...
ok, so first order of business was to get our water bottle cages installed again. These have some thin aluminum mounts that go around the bars to hold it in place, with tiny M4 bolts holding it all together. They're probably fine for road racing, where the car isn't really getting jarred around, but we've found them to be woefully underbuilt for rally, and for the last year or two they've been secured mostly by a series of tactically-placed zipties. So I got rid of the original bar mounts and cut some large slots in the bottle holder and passed a hose clamp through it, and secured it that way. Now it doesn't move at all, so that's good.
Then finished up the tire/jack tiedown setup with a couple of new eyebolts installed down at the bottom of where the trunk/rear seat firewall used to be and through to the wheel well insides with a large backing washer. So this should be sufficiently strong to hold the tire and stuff in place
I'd like to find a jack that actually fits INSIDE the wheel, but haven't yet found one so for the moment sticking with this arrangement.
And here's the back seat area pretty much all finished up and all the gear in place
Also washed it and took it for a quick drive. IDK if it's just my imagination, but the exhaust actually sounds a lot better now under load for some reason. Maybe just different resonance without the big spare tire well back there. IDK
Took care of the last few little patches in the trunk sidewells and then buttoned that all up as well. So here's the trunk arrangement more or less. I'd still like to find a better place for the two triangles, but this will do until I figure out a better option.
Right side with battery, first aid kit, triangles, and our little gear box (a tool roll will strap on top of that when on stage)
Left side are the boxes for our tow strap, impact gun, and the bag with the spill kit. So, that's all the standard rally gear. And still room in the middle to throw a couple wheels/tires if we need to for some reason.
Ok, this morning got to work making the jack setup better. For years we've used a light floor jack and/or scissor jack and carried a piece of wood along with us for soft surfaces. After some thought about how to easily secure the jack, baseplate, etc I decided to just cut out a steel baseplate that will fit right inside the rim of the spare tire (upside down) and weld the jack to it. This is a bigger baseplate than it really needs, but the last time we've done tire changes were in snow and in deep sand, so bigger is better in our experience. Sure it probably addes an extra pound over the smaller baseplates some guys use, but whatever (more on weight later)
So, more cutting from the remaining 6-7 feet of 12ga plate I have in my shed.
Then cleaned it up and welded the jack to it. And my welding actually doesn't look like total garbage for once, yay.
Modified the upper lug to fit right over our reinforced jack points
Painted
Fitted into car and strapped down
After that I ran out to Brian Battocchi's place to check the car's weight on his scales. I knew this thing was kind of porky since I've never much been concerned about weight. Some things to keep in mind:
It's an M50 (so, about 30lbs heavier than an M20 and over 100 heavier than an M42)
It still has a G240 rans (so, lighter than a G260 or ZF that many M50 guys use)
The exhaust is HEAVY. Some guys consider their rally exhaust to be expendable and replace-after-rally. I built this one to survive, so it's double-plated in some areas and very strong, but of course that makes it heavy too.
The skidplates and underbody stuff is heavier than it probably needs to be. I'll sacrifice some lightweight for more protection.
Weight was taken with full tank of gas, all skids on, all auxiliary lights on, spare rally wheel/tire in the back, jack in the car, impact gun in the car, toolkit and spares case in the car, and all the other crap we carry on stage. So this is truly "max compeition weight" + ~350lbs for me and Jim on-board..
Side note: I did weigh it on my street tires/Euroweaves. The weaves are heavy, but the combo still weighs 5.5lbs less per wheel than the Federal rally tires on the mini wheels. So, add 5.5 lbs per corner or 22lbs overall to the weights below.
So, I guessed the car was at about 2700. Jim actually said 2850. So he was closer. 2836 overall. But I am very happy with the cross-weights, and also that it's only 54% front to 46% rear. Most e30s I see seem to be slightly heavier on the nose than that. Probably because my heavy Optima Yellowtop is in the trunk (and I just added 15lbs of rear cage bars, too). Also this shoudl make it easier to corner-weigh when i build the new suspension, since it's already pretty even.
Overall, seems about right. I could certainly lose 100lbs from this car with some effort and money, fairly easily. Maybe I'll do a bit of that, but maybe not.
For comparison, here's Kelsey Stephens and Cooper's e30 - also an M50 car, coupe, with a ZF. I used to crew for this car when Jesse Yuvali owned it and he always said it had a heavy cage, too. So, slightly lighter than them - the difference is probably about what the ZF's extra weight is vs. the G240
And here's Shanti Witt's e30, also an early car like mine and also M50 (not sure what trans). But I know he's put a lot of time into weight reduction. So it's definitely lighter, loaded competition weight as well (2734 if you can't read it).
Though there have been some rumors of perhaps some late-season rally possibilities, at this point I'm pretty much decided to call it a year waiting for that kind of thing. Rallycross will continue, but as for stage, it's time to throw in the towel and wait for 2021 in hopes it'll be a less stupid year.
So, time to spend some of the entry money I had stashed away, on something to improve 2021 rallying. For a number of years now I've been running a pretty basic front suspension - stock e30 setup, Bilstein HDs, faux-coilover setup up top. Basically, the cheap and easy way. The HDs have held up pretty well and I've always thought the front of the car has felt reasonably good. Last year I switched the rear setup from the (wimpy) stock-style HDs to the much beefier Mk1/2 Ford Escort Group4 gravel shocks, which made a big difference in making the rear end feel better. So, let's do that to the front as well.
If you've followed along Nonack's BRZ build and Thomas's Volvo build, you'll already be familiar with this setup. All of our cars require different tweaks and measurements for this conversion, but all are using more or less the same stuff. For all the e30s rallying in Europe, there still isn't (to my knowledge) an e30 gravel-valved rally damper setup that bolts right up (other than $$$$ Ohlins and Samsonas stuff that's way out of my budget). Many UK/Irish e30 guys use the readily-available Escort stuff with some modifications. That's what I'm doing as well.
So here are the Escort Gp4 dampers. These are valved to 300/70, which is advertised as the "gravel" rate for the Escort. There is also a 260/60 and a 300/100 rate (which is for tarmac rally). Thomas and Chris are both using the 300/100 rate, but on the advice of e30 rally guys I went with the 300/70 and will have a slightly stiffer spring rate. The UK rally guys know what they're talking about and have been doing it for a long time, so not going to second-guess them for the most part.
So, here's the Gp4 next to an e30 Bilstein insert. As you can see the e30 instert is longer overall. i could pretty easily fit the Gp4 insterts into the e30 housing with a bit of cutting and welding, but that would leave me with the shorter springs and "fake coilover" setup, whic is half the reason to do this.
One thing to note is that even though the Gp4 body is shorter (by about 4"), the actual damper travel is about 1" longer than the e30 setup. I haven't specifically decided, but most likely I'll set it up to have about 3" of droop travel from static height (vs. 2.5" currently) and about 5" of compression travel (vs 4.5" currently). we'll see, that may move a bit once I get things measured out and see what the new top hat setup will be like. I also intend to bring the front of the car up about 3/4" or so from where it currently sits, i think. With the heavier engine and heavy skidplates, it's a bit lower than i like.
Here's the guts of both, after cutting open a blown e30 bilstein since I couldn't get it to release the lower shaft thread.
Bumpstops are similar in length, but the Gp4 ones are definitely stiffer. Thomas noted that his Gp4 setup has black rubber bump stops, but I reminded him he got the tarmac-valved ones, so they probably have a stiffer stop.
This stuff all arrived in 3 days from Ireland, and these inserts cost just a bit more than regular HDs, so that's pretty good.
Then when I was messing with it, some of the other parts came in (from England). Ther are only a couple places that sell all this Escort rally stuff and will also ship to the US these days....
So this is the threaded body and collars. The threaded body is roughly the same diameter as the e30 stock strut tube (attached to the knuckle permanently). So basically I'll cut that off near the bottom and weld this on (with reinforcement). Or, more accurately I'll have someone who is GOOD at welding and has a TIG do it........Most likely I'll cut it about 1.5" above the knuckle, but I'll make more measurements once I pick up a second set of e30 uprights to chop. I plan to keep what's on the car as a spare and for other purposes.
The top hat situation took some thinking, and I haven't gotten them yet. Nonack is using the standard late Mk1/2 top hats (rubber-style) with the "big" center tower setup, for which he extended and plated his shock towers. Thomas is using a flat plate-style solid metal setup with a rose joint. I'm goign to get the "small opening" top mounts, which were from the early Mk1 cars. It's basically the same thing Chris got, but with a smaller central hole (which hopefully will fit in the current e30 center hold in the tower) and a smaller mount bolt pattern. I know I'll have to re-drill at least 1 (or possibly all three) holes in the tower, but I think these will be closer to where I want them and require less massaging. We'll see.
Also ordered springs, but they're not here yet. Starting off I picked up some 240# 12" springs with 2.25" ID (which is what these collars take). I'm not positive of clearance and dont' think I can get 14" springs in there without larger wheel spacers, which I'd prefer not to do. Again, TBD, but I think the 12" will be good (currently have 10") and I can set them up with minimal preload).
So, once I score up some uprights and the rest of this stuff comes in, I'll start really mocking things up. For the time being, it's just stuff sitting on my workbench.....
Took a little road trip today to pick up these
Took them apart
And mock up. So I think the plan is going to be to make the cut 2" above the knuckle. This won't increase bump travel by much but it'll add an inch of droop travel to the whole setup. And actually that's not bad since I plan to raise the car up about 1/2" or so from where it is now, so that will compensate and keep my bump travel about where it was.
So basically, this will be the orientation
Now, I think the upper mounts are a bit shorter than the OEM e30 ones I'm using, so that may have a minor effect. Right now I use offset upper mounts so by using a straight mount I'd lose some negative camber. However, I have some fixed e30 camber plates (that bolt on the top of the upper mount), so I'm going to see if I can actually attach these to the Escort upper mounts in the same way (perhaps with some drilling). That will do three things: 1) get me back that 1/2" of lost stack height, 2) get my my negative camber back, and 3) use the stock e30 tower hole pattern. At least that's my thought process at the moment. We'll have to see once I have all the parts whether it'll work as intended.
ok, made the cuts. Went about 2" from the bottom as intended (if anyone cares, the strut tubes are about 9 gauge steel (~4mm thick).
Then had to put a hole in the bottom of the OEM tube so I'll have access to the lower shock insert bolt. After a pilot, I drilled it out large enough to accept my 17mm socket so I can tighten the locknut well after it's threaded in.
Also you can see that one of these knuckles is from a non-ABS car and the other was from an ABS car. I'll seal up the ABS opening on the one, since I don't have it.
Decided to tack it up, but the first thing was to rig up a jig of sorts to make sure the tubes were vertical off of the remaining stubs. For this I used some C-channel and some heavy-duty hose clamps, like so...
Once tightened, I checked things with a feeler gauge to make sure all of them were making the same contact on the lower stub and had the same (very small) gap at the bottom of the new tube, because the new tube is just a tiny bit narrower than the stub.
So once I got everything where I wanted it, after re-measuring several times and re-checking the lines several times, I tacked them up. I intend to have the full weld done by someone with more welding skill than I have, so this is as far as I go on this on my own. The plan will also be to use a second (2" ID) tube to slide over the weld joint as a reinforcement.
--
While I was sitting around, I cleaned and painted some dust shields with some bright green engine paint I had around. I have no idea why I have this color, nor any memory of buying it, but now that I see it, I may paint the whole knuckle/lower tube in it since it's kind of fun.
While I wait for the weekend, when Brian B. will do the heavy welding for me on the strut tubes, let's do some other stuff.
So, for the Escort setup there are a number of options out there for upper mounts. Nonack is using the heavy-duty "late" style hats (which are a more traditional reinforced rubber/bearing setup) and Helgesen is using some universal-style aluminum ones with spherical bearings that he had to substantially cut down and drill to make work. Chris sent me his measurements and it was pretty clear the late Escort mounts are way too big for stock e30 towers - I would have to basically chop the tops off and fabricate new upper mounts as he did on the BR-Z. Thomas's setup would work, but I am a fan of using rubber up there to absorb shock impact, so didn't really want to use the plate-style ones he had.
Now, in the catalog there are also the "early" Escort uppers that are alternately described as "small hole" - this refers to both the actual center hole in the early Escort towers AND the bolt pattern being smaller than the later cars. I coudln't find any specific measurements anywhere, so I basically eyeballed it and guessed that they'd be close to what I need. So, fingers crossed ordered a pair from the UK and they arrived today.
Long story short, I'm a good guesser.
The center section is pretty much a perfect fit in the e30 towers. The bolt pattern is semi-close to the e30, but not close enough to use (plus, it's an equilateral triangle pattern, which the e30 is not). Not a problem though. Just drill some new holes in the hats for e30 pattern.
Also you can see I trimmed one corner (I will also mildly trim the other two) to make it fit inside the top of the e30 tower underneath:
So, essentially it now bolts right up to the OEM bolt holes.
Now, a few points:
1. The hats have captive nuts (to use bolts from the top) vice the annoying press-in studs on the e30 hats). This is a good thing! Anyhow, I'll have to weld in some captive nuts on the hats once I finalize bolt positions. Small job.
2. As it sits, I'm going to lose a little bit of negative camber vs. the offset OEM top mounts on the current suspension. Because these upper mounts stick THROUGH the center hole (e30 ones don't), I can't move them any direction more than about 1/8". When I plate the towers, I may oval out the upper hole to allow some camber adjustment via these old e30 fixed camber plates I have sitting around. We'll see what the final numbers are once I have the setup together, and decided if I actually want any additional camber.
The overall stack height from the bottom of the upper spring seat to the top of the mount is 1.5", compared to 2" for the e30 setup currently on the car. That's actually good - it'll give an extra 1/2" of upwards travel that I had planned for by adding the extra 1" of strut travel on these to the BOTTOM. So in the end, I'll add 1/2" of bump, and 1/2" of droop travel to the previous setup. Other option would be to cut some 1/2" aluminum spacers to get me back to that height. I can always do that later if I want to.
ok, so that's where the front is at currently. I'm also templating some tower reinforcements. I'm not going to plate the whole thing, but there will be some strategic reinforcements that I think will be sufficient.
I was a bit bored, so figured I'd mess around in the back as well. The car right now has stock 325i springs on the rear for rallycross, but they aren't an improvement so figured I'd put the e36 M3 springs back on,. After painting them, of course.
While I was at it, decided to do some travel measurements that I never did before with the rear Escort Gp4 shocks. So here's full compression without the spring: STANCED YO. Actually tucks nicely.
So I measured full shock travel (at the wheel center) at 7 1/4" with these shocks. However, there is NO way I am ever getting to full compression on them, I'm quite certain. Now, the e30 trailing arms have about 2-3" of additional droop to them when unhooked from the shock, and most of that is usable without the spring falling out. That said, I dont' want too much droop there because I'm not sure how much the CV joints can handle. But I felt like I should do something, even if it's minor. So cut out about 1/2" of spacers from some leftover HDPE sheeting and put some longer studs on the Ireland Engineering top mounts (which I've been using for 10 years and they still look brand new, I might mention).
So yeah, super-exciting, maybe about 3/8" additional droop in the rear from previous. Well, something is better than nothing.
Nice!
How much air do yall get if any? In the 4x4 world we used limiting straps to control droop, seat belts actually work well for that cheaply, and you can use the buckle if you need to unhook it for a certain track or repairs. Also, for landing a jump I've always wanted to put hydraulic bump stops on a car so you wouldn't need massive Baja 1000 shocks on your car. Never did it though, they arent cheap
Some guys get more air than others. Depends on how fast your car is and what your suspension is.
Example: 2018 STPR at the spectator jump. We had basically stock e30 suspension with Bilstein HDs. So I lifted before the jump to NOT go high (so as not to break anything)
Meanwhile, Downey hit it flat (I think he had nice JVAB front rally suspension at the time), because Dan gives no berkeleys...
And here's Higgins in the Subaru #1 car. His shocks alone cost more than everything in my car's built put together
For gravel rally, there's really no need for super-long-travel stuff like Baja trucks have, so there's not really an issue with springs falling out (since most rally cars are running coilover-style anyhow).
E30 road-race cars with really short springs DO run limiting straps in the rear so the springs won't fall out. My rear springs hold themselves in, so it's not an issue.
Finishing up the upper mounts today, basically I chopped each of the three corners to bring it closer to a round orientation so it fits flush under the stock towers
Then tacked on some nuts to the bottom of the holes as captives. So unlike the e30 top hats that have studs that come up, this will have bolts that go down to hold it.
Test fitted, all is good there.
Notably, these are MUCh thicker metal than the e30 top mounts. I had noticed that the top of the shock towers had over the years kind of bowed upward, as had the e30 top hats:
So I took a big wood block and hit it a few times to flatten them out a bit, and then when I cranked down on the bolts for the new hats, it basically pulled the top of the tower flat again. I plan to double-plate all this stuff in the near future, so shouldn't be an issue after that.
theyseemebrolin said:I was thinking about flipping the rear shock mounts for the same reason.
flipping them? Huh, didn't even think about that...
So, moving along on the suspension. Headed out to Brian Battocchi's place on Saturday so he could weld up the struts with something a bit more powerful (MIG). Some of you may recognize his rallycar in the background from prior posts in this thread (and us chasing him for an entire stage at the Winter Rally a couple years ago)
Brian is also working on a slow build of an STi rally car, which should be really fast. He's been seam welding it forever, it seems, lol
In any case, Brian got to work with the MIG to put the strut tubes togeter for good. He actually used Docol wire (since he's about to build his cage from docol), so in theory his welds should be far stronger than the actual steel pieces....
And welded up
Once I got home I got out the flap wheel and flattened out the welds so I could add some side braces. I initially was going to go with a full tubular sleeve like Thomas did, but I think the welds themselves would be plenty strong on their own, so just did some quick "triangles" for some additional bracing and peace of mind (this stuff just with my own MIG), two on each strut.
After that was done, painted stuff up
For those who follow rally, you may say "well, that looks like the same color scheme JVL uses for his JVAB custom rally suspensions," and I suppose you're probably right, but whatever. It's the color I had and I don't much care. But just for disclaimer:
And assembled with new hubs, etc. That's the current suspension (IE threaded collars, 225# 10" springs, and Bilstein HDs) in the background.
And a quick test-fit, though I'm still waiting for springs to arrive. I'll be using 240# 12" springs initially, which *should* be about right. We'll see. Test fit reveals I've gained roughly 3/4" of droop vs. the previous setup, and should be about 1/4" additional compression/bump travel upward (I'll check that once I have the balljoint fully seated and installed.
Nothing much new to report.....my springs have apparently been sitting at an airport in England for like 5-6 days now according to FedEx tracking, so not sure what's up with that. I continue to despise FedEx. In this day and age of Amazon delivering stuff early, UPS and USPS generally right on time, it seems FedEx shipments, no matter where from, are ALWAYS multiple days late.
I need to remind myself to pay extra for shipping simply to avoid FedEx in the future.
Doubly annoying because I just need the springs to get here so I can finish this up and actually test-drive the car before I head off for a week at the beach with the family (with virtually no fun driving other than perhaps the Sequioa out on the beach).
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