irish44j wrote: thanks, I'll definitely keep those in mind for over the winter! But for the moment..... 12 hours old is our Elyse. Old enough to start reading GRM and learning about cars, I think...
Congrats on the new team member, great name too. My youngest (now 11) is Alese and her best friend is Elise
Congratulations, it is alot of work but it is the most rewarding work you will ever do in my experience.
irish44j wrote: eventually....once finances allow. I have a 5-point harness, but it won't work very well with the porsche seats. that said, I absolutely love the feel (both in comfort and support) of the Porsche seats, so it will be hard to switch....
I have a Corbeau FX1 Pro if you are interested. I bought it on a gamble I could get it to fit in the S2K... but no such luck. I'd like to get rid of it before I move in the next month.
Thanks....it's empting, but I'm leaning toward getting an adjustable-back seat at least...I like to just cruise in this car on the weekends sometimes and don't really want to be in "race position" the whole time.
Moot point anyhow since I have no money to spend on the car for a month or two....
There is a Mid-Atlantic e30s page on facebook that is very active - post it up there and someone will probably snatch it up.
didn't do much on the car today, kind of got caught up with doing new baby stuff, and then spent a few hours changing up my "left wall storage system" in the garage, lol. This included relocating some cabinets, installing a new loft brace leg (2x4), and doing some good planning and placing of things to make my engine hoist and press slot into place without being in the way when not in use. I still need to build a "low shelf" under the black cabinets there to better hold my 8 jack stands, 3 jacks, oil pans, and other crap I'd just as well have hidden down low, lol....
Yeah, not all that exciting. But it makes more room to park and work in the garage, so it's important to me :)
"the left wall"
Congrats on the new addition!
You wouldn't happen to have two extra m10 injectors you wanna let go cheap would you?
-Josh
Spent about three days reading through this whole thing. Epic.
M42 should be nice.
I need some of your anal retentiveness and mechanical skill.
lol....it's called "habit" and working for military for a decade :)
so today walked outside to get something out of my car, and there was a little package waiting for me. Delivered in less than 2 weeks, pretty damn good.
Also noticed that Kirk now curves the backstay pieces to match the wheel wells, which they apparantly didn't used to do.
I actually got it in without taking out the front seats (yay 4-door!) so that was good, though did scrape up my rocker panel on one side manhandling it in (like I care).
Even with the curved plates, though, they don't really sit very flush. I have almost a finger gap at the bottom of the right side one (left side is much closer)
Also, what did you do on the floor since it overhangs the floor "contour" there? I'm thinking I'll just get some 3/8" aluminum sheet pieces and use them to "fill the gap" on the lower side.....or did you just bolt them up and crank em down until it flattened the floor ridge?
The other issue, of course, is that I'm going to have to change my cargo carrying methods. The only way to get the wheels into the backseat now is to mahandle them past the driver's seat tilted forward, which will suck when they're all muddy... :P I can still get them in as you can see in the pic, but may not be worth the effort.
I can put the tires in the trunk, but then my two "field boxes" of stuff that are usually there can't fit in the backseat either. In the end, I may just get some smaller field boxes, lol.....nothing I can't work around, but I was kind of hoping the wheels/tires could fit through the side opening on the bar....oh well :)
Before running out this afternoon/evening for a wedding, went ahead and installed the bar. Pretty straightforward, nothing real exciting other than getting it where I wanted it. I drilled and loose-bolted the main hoop feet first, then did the backstays.
though the foot plates on the backstay are curved to contour to the wheel wells, the backing plates are not, so I did some pre-bending with a propane torch and a vise..
Did a pretty good job at getting the contour I think. The bolt threads sticking out so far make me a bit nervous with the soft springs on this car, though don't think that the tire could possibly contact them. But I may flip them and put the nut on the inside of the car. Not like I care about the cosmetic aspect there...
Once tightened down it did deform the wheel well curvature a bit, but not too much, and not that I care
I used a few washers to level the floor plates, but didn't really need to. Once tightened down, as expected, it just flattened out the little ridge in the floor pan.
Unlike the autopower bar, which sits on the raised section of the floorpan and causes interference with the fuel/brake lines underneath, the Kirk bar mounts a bit farther inboard so no issues at all - just clean (well, muddy actually) floor pan to deal with
will hit everything up with undercoating once I do a final torquing tomorrow. The "inside" face of the backing plates I already painted with POR-15 to keep any rusting away.
Finished up the rollbar stuff today. Well, except I still need to go pick up some SFI-rated padding next weekend out at OG Racing, which thankfully is local and a great place to get race gear.
Fully installed:
one reason I went with the Kirk over the Autopower (among others) is that I wanted to make sure there was clearance for my hand-crank rear windows. I don't think they autopower would clear, since its legs mount farther outward and they don't kink in like the Kirk.
wheel well backing plates undercoated and all the gaps filled to keep rust out. I also flipped the bolts so as not to have 1" of thread sticking down into the wheel well to hold mud (and possibly contact the tire on a hard impact?).
and mocked up a mount for the GoPro, using regular GoPro components. This is a work in progress :)
Why the bar? Does rallycross have a danger of rollover? I'm honestly wondering. I probably missed the post where you said why. Probably for harnesses?
Looks like a nice fit. Did you do any comparing of brands? Seems like VSL has a good reputation on the E30 forums: http://www.vsr1.com/index.php?page=e30-roll-bar
Harvey wrote: Why the bar? Does rallycross have a danger of rollover? I'm honestly wondering. I probably missed the post where you said why. Probably for harnesses?
a few factors: 1. not that there is a big rollover danger, but I've seen some close calls and I want to drive harder (e.g. first place fast, not second-place fast as I am now) so it's some peace of mind.
I do have a 5-point harness and want to be able to use it once I get a race seat in the car (prbably this winter); and I will NOT use a harness unless I have a rollbar, period. I also plan to do some trackdays in this car once I get the engine swap done, adn would like a rollbar for those too.
In theory it should provide some structural rigidity, and most of the weight is at the back of the car, which could help me with traction to some extent, since the rear end of the is car is still pretty light. remains to be seen. That wasn't a major factor though.
In the end, rollbars don't much depreciate in value (unless the car has rolled, lol), so if I decide it's not worth having I can easily sell it locally for minimal loss anyhow.....
Tom_Spangler wrote: Looks like a nice fit. Did you do any comparing of brands? Seems like VSL has a good reputation on the E30 forums: http://www.vsr1.com/index.php?page=e30-roll-bar
Yeah, I looked into all of them. I think I read every single roll bar thread on RevLimited and e30tech... VSR bars are nice and have great fitament from what I hear, but didn't feel like an extra $120-150 would really get me much in terms of better build or safety in the end, so why spend more.... There's another manufacturer of nice bolt-in bars more local to me, but he wouldn't ship and I don't have time to drive 5-6 hours to pick up a bar that would still cost more in the end (between cost and gas money) than the Kirk did shipped to my door. Plus the Kirk has more clearance on the harness bar for non-race seats, it seems, so I can tilt the seat back farther when just cruising on the street (gangsta' style, ya know? lol). And the other bars seemed to be closer to the skin of the car, which would have interfered with my rear window cranks (since on coupes they run against the b-piller, so that's not an issue).
In the end, the Kirk was just the best deal for the money, and I don't think any one of them is necessarily "safer" than the others as far as bolt-ins go.
Absolutely buy the padding for that thing. You saw the pictures from my accident in the Miata, I hit my head on my roll bar wicked hard and have had a headache ever since. Mine will def be padded on the next Miata.
^^ good timing....
today I ran out to OG Racing this morning to pick up some SFI-spec padding. Jason R. also had a couple feet of low-profile SFI as well, so swung by and picked that up as well. I don't know how much this would protect a bare head in an accident. This SFI padding is practically as hard as the bar itself, haha....
so, I know this is really exciting stuff, so here it is!!! lol...
I only got two sticks of it (used for the main bar, driver's leg, and crossbar), and then I just used the lo-pro stuff on the passenger leg. Because hey, who cares about passengers in a mad tyte racekar, right? haha....
Also had to pull a door panel to check some noise out, and there's about 2 lbs of dirt in there :)
then helped out a buddy with some suspension replacement on his STi
so I have almost a whole can of this stuff sitting in my cabinet. I used a bit of it to do the rear turn signals on the e30, and have no other use for it.
hmmmm......what shall I do with it?
easy choice. Because the gunmetal wheels are just boring, and this car could use a bit of color :)
I really dig that color on the rims! On car shots?
probably not until the next event. I don't need to put the wheels on here, and doing it just to see what it looks like sounds like a lot of hassle, lol.
There will be pics, don't worry.
Today wanted to examine my logistical issue caused by the rollbar install - specifically the fact that it is VERY hard to get wheels/tires in the backseat now, and will be even messier when they're all muddy. So gave a test-fit to see if I could get all four (plus a full-size spare) in the trunk. Whadya know....perfect fit
That now leaves me the whole backseat area to put gear in. Unfortunately my two big gearboxes can't get in there because of the rollbar backstay. So off to Wal-mart to find some smaller boxes that can fit in there. These are pretty light-duty, but they're the perfect size so I'll be looking for some that are a bit more stout over the winter. Having the three smaller containers will be good anyhow, so I can divide them up for fluids/emergency gear, tools, and personal stuff (change of clothes, etc).
Last night was doing some work aiming the headlights and didn't realize I had the fog light on (with the covers). They look pretty cool on, just glow red. In this pic though they don't look that way. Whatever....
Rained hard today so took the car out for a self-car-wash. Then finished up my inside camera mount, using some 14ga steel cut out of the framing from an old gas fireplace. And since I only have curved GoPro click mounts left, I just curved the platform a bit so I could just use those and don't have to buy more... :)
2 weeks until the season resumes with a saturday test and tune and then sunday competition. After almost 3 months off, I really can't wait to get back in the dirt. Next year when there is no new baby-having going on, I may try to make a run out to Ohio or another not-too-distant event during the summer break at Summit....I hate waiting. Also would like to give a try at some other surfaces. We'll see.
downpour!
camera mount
Nice job shoehorning the 4 wheels into the trunk.
irish44j wrote: ^^ good timing.... today I ran out to OG Racing this morning to pick up some SFI-spec padding. Jason R. also had a couple feet of low-profile SFI as well, so swung by and picked that up as well. I don't know how much this would protect a bare head in an accident. This SFI padding is practically as hard as the bar itself, haha....
I thought the same thing when I installed the padding for the bar in my Miata, but you figure any give is better than no give and it's a fine line between too much and not enough.
A week to go before the season resumes, and I think the car is generally ready to roll for the time being. Unfortunately, Pat and Jason are a bit behind on their prep and were having an issue with a cylinder missing. So I shot out to West Virginia this morning to do a couple hours of work with Pat in figuring out the problem and checking out some other things on their eta.
First we checked compression on the cylinder, which was consistent with the other cylinders, so that was good. Then replaced the distributor and rotor (which had pretty corroded contacts) and plugs (which were pretty grimy). Still had the misfire. Since we didn't have any new wires we swapped a couple of the wires to test that cylinder and it still misfired. So after eliminating the cylinder and ignition, the problem was narrowed down to fuel, obviously.
Pat had gotten some reconditioned/cleaned/tested injectors and replaced the leaky/grimy ones that came with the car. We first checked the injector connector/wiring on that cylinder by plugging it into one of the old injectors. It had the usual audible ticking/tapping and seemed to be working. So that really just left the new injector. After spilling much fuel we got it out and plugged it in....and no tapping. Damn. So put in one of the old ones, reassembled...and no more misfire.
Goes back to the old "if it ain't broke don't fix it" thing, I guess, haha.....
After doing that and a few other things I headed back home on some nice winding roads through the mountains (in the WRX, not the e30).
Once home, looking for something to do. Pat had traded me a red sport spoiler that I thought might look good on my car for my old black one (since his car is blue). But the red one looked bad, lol.
This was a good opportunity to do some painting. My trunk is all scratched up and has several rusty chips in it. Been meaning to hit it with some paint and this was a good excuse. Instead of black, decided to try to match it to the hood color, Delphin Metallic. Of course there is no cross-reference for duplicolor or other rattle-cans.....Did a bit of discreet testing at the store and found that Duplicolor Metallic Gray (formerly 183) is a close match so did up the trunk in a coat of that.
the lighting is off, but here's how they compare. Closer in person, and my hood is really dirty.
also did the spoiler, though I may do the backside/bottom of it in black. Why two-tone spoiler? Because racekar. :D
Since the hood and trunk don't abut each other, when viewed as a whole car the colors look to be more or less the same, so that's a mission accomplished right there, lol
So yeah, pretty much ready for Saturday's test&tune and the main event. Will see what needs to be done after that!
You'll need to log in to post.
