1985 BMW 318 Stage Rally Build - 1988 Porsche 924S Street Build - Sequoia Build

With regards to the last pic, It looks like you're ok, but does the actual end of the T/O bearing matter or the tangs the fork rides/pushes on?

yeah, it's the little "ears" that matter. I forgot to compare them when I was doing this and 7 other things at once last night. Will get an additional comparison pic up tonight of the ears relative heights.

EDIT: Here are shots with the level of the "ears" on the TOB. As you can see, the 323i TOB on the right sits "higher" by exactly 3mm. According to those who use it, it still works either with or without the spacer.

vid from the event:

http://youtu.be/k3W51BXOLO0

irish44j wrote: Also this one, a nice diagram of the two different C101 plugs that someone posted on photobucket and these are my conversion notes for the three different connectors. Need to clean it up a bit, but getting there...

Thanks so much for posting those pics, saved me a ton of research time!

-Josh

I made a quick excel chart for myself, and I have a few questions for you. First, can you take a quick look and make sure this is accurate?

Second, the m10 c101...do you have the wire colors for pin #2 "Oil Level Static" and pin #15 "Oil Level Dynamic."

Thanks!

I'll take a look later tonight. Neither the M10 nor the M42 have the oil level sensor setup, so I just cut those wires off, but should still have the stubs there.

Plus, mine's all mashed up since the M20 and M42 wires are not all the same color either

That, and I am FAR from a wiring expert. Actually it gives me fits and I hate dealing with it except when absolutely necessary!

irish44j wrote: I'll take a look later tonight. Neither the M10 nor the M42 have the oil level sensor setup, so I just cut those wires off, but should still have the stubs there. Plus, mine's all mashed up since the M20 and M42 wires are not all the same color either That, and I am FAR from a wiring expert. Actually it gives me fits and I hate dealing with it except when absolutely necessary!

Ahh, that clears it up! I hate wiring, its my least favorite part of any build...but the info you provided with help tremendously! Thanks again

This thread is amazing!

I'm also building an E30 and you have definitely given me some great ideas!

Keep up the great work!

^^ will try to :)

In the meantime, I'm counting down to the Susquehanna region event this weekend (a 3-hour drive....). Will be heading up there with some of the guys from the ETA team. Looks like a full event with quite a different group of cars than we usually have at Summit. The usual subies will be there in force, of course, but other interesting cars on the sign-up list include a 2012 maxima, a Cooper S, a Buick Regal, an old Celica Supra, a Grand Marquis, Honda Element (??), several Neons and Civics, and an NX2000. In my class it's just me and Shawn's RX-7 with him and Katie (who usually drives an Impreza). Gorka and Roberto aren't going to make it due to some exhaust manifold issue, so that kind of sucks.

In the meantime, working on a few little things as I wait for some parts to come in from Blunttech so I can put the flywheel/clutch swap in and install the tranny.

Drilled out one hole in the "spacer" off the M42 flywheel to fit behind the M20 flywheel and put it at the right depth. The hole needed to be enlarged since one lug has a locating collar on it.

Also built a little rolling stand for the refurbished M42, so I can move it around once the tranny is on it, and free up my engine stand for other things.

And pressed out a torn OEM diff bushing for Pat and pressed in a poly one that he got.

Also started to put a list together of off-season priorities. Since the car is doing pretty well right now, the list is pretty short aside from completing the engine swap - and hopefully that won't entail much more in terms of monetary cost (fingers crossed).

Other than that, the plan is for:

1. New tires. I'm leaning toward DMACK tires, since they seem to get good reviews from rally guys and are siginificantly cheaper than the similar tires from Yoko, BFG, etc. Worth a shot, I think. Plus they spell tires "tyres" which always puts a smile on my face :)

2. Aluminum Mishimoto e36 radiator. I have a decent M42 radiator here, but really don't like the integrated expansion tank design in terms of "holding up" to being beat up, failing seals, etc. So might just spring for the aluminum e36 one, which can be fitted with some different hoses.

3. Some color. The car is too boring. I'm playing with photoshop to see what I can do to make it look better with a few rattle cans. Possible themes include - German Flag colors (since I already have the black), Irish colors (green and white, in this case) for obvious reasons, or BMW blue and white like the roundel. Or something totally different. We'll see :)

so here's my first template of what it's gonna look like. i cribbed much of the design off some european tarmac rally e30 that i saw a pic of. but i'll make enough changes to make it my own

and will try the white wheels again, i think...

White wheels on a rally car is a must.

I think hot pink wheels would look good on your car.

irish44j wrote: 1. New tires. I'm leaning toward DMACK tires, since they seem to get good reviews from rally guys and are siginificantly cheaper than the similar tires from Yoko, BFG, etc. Worth a shot, I think. Plus they spell tires "tyres" which always puts a smile on my face :)

EEeekkkk, that doesn't seem too budget to me. $175 each. What are budget options? Is there a favorite snow tire for rally cross?

When compared to other new options DMACKS are budget. I was looking at the possibly for next year to see the difference between used rally tires and new.

Real budget is buy used rally tires. I paid about $200 for a set of used rally tires this year. I killed one set running pressures to high but had another set that I got for about the same price. But 14" sizes can be hard to find since more people seem to be running 15" now. Of course when buying used it helps to have a tire mounting machine in your basement.

A lot of people like the winterforce snow tires since they are cheap. I used those on the impreza this year (About $300 new for a set of 4).

Thanks, I'm looking to get the SAAB 900Turbo which has 15" stock. There are lots of ralliest (is that a word?) In Mi so I hope I can find some.

The reason most people eventually migrate to rally ties instead of snows is because of the sidewalls.

Rally tire sidewalls are tough as hell to protect from rocks. As a result they almost never de-bead.

One of the rally-X's I was at I think at least 10 different cars de-beaded snows. One car did it 5 times.

moxnix wrote: When compared to other new options DMACKS are budget. I was looking at the possibly for next year to see the difference between used rally tires and new. Real budget is buy used rally tires. I paid about $200 for a set of used rally tires this year. I killed one set running pressures to high but had another set that I got for about the same price. But 14" sizes can be hard to find since more people seem to be running 15" now. Of course when buying used it helps to have a tire mounting machine in your basement. A lot of people like the winterforce snow tires since they are cheap. I used those on the impreza this year (About $300 new for a set of 4).

As Shawn noted, a very-used set runs about $200 (the 2nd set he used was from the same rally team my current set was from), and those were pretty worn - maybe 50% left and tread block sides were already very chewed up.

I figure if I get a new set it will last a couple of seasons, so that seems like a worthwhile deal. And I'll keep the old ones to run when it's just hardpack conditions.

I'm definitely not made of money, and try to keep things budget-minded, but $150is per tire is less than most performance tires that people use in autocross or track days cost. I try to be budget-conscious, but I'm not building a LeMons or Chump car here, so I don't really feel like I need to buy only used/worn stuff all the time....

NGTD wrote: The reason most people eventually migrate to rally ties instead of snows is because of the sidewalls. Rally tire sidewalls are tough as hell to protect from rocks. As a result they almost never de-bead. One of the rally-X's I was at I think at least 10 different cars de-beaded snows. One car did it 5 times.

This. Now that I've run rally tires and snows, I really coudln't go back. The rally tires allow diving into corners hard and really "using" hard ruts and other features to help direct the car (especially when muddy, I just slam the car into ruts to keep it in line sometimes). Not a lot of de-beads this year for people at Summit, but I like the peace of mind that rally tires give.

good example:

read this post:

http://www.dirtyimpreza.com/forums/showpost.php?p=277307&postcount=67

pretty amazing.

In other things....today I did some receipt-adding to see how much I've blow the budget.

Total costs for this build so far is below. And keep in mid that this INCLUDES: - The car itself - Used rally tires - New star specs (for getting there and future autocross/track days) - New Bilstein HDs - Replaced ALL bushings and balljoints - Brake pads all four - Hella fog lights (for poser rally looks) - Used porsche seats - New Kirk rollbar - [B]TWO[/B] M42 engines and transmissions with all accessories - M20 clutch/flywheel components (new, but bought at used prices) - and minus a couple hundred bucks of stuff I've sold off

Total: $4700. So, the price of a beat-up old WRX with everything worn out. Or the price that real rally teams spend on just their brake kits, lol. Take out the stuff I didn't really NEED (rollbar, star specs, second M42 for parts), and then it's just over $3000 total.

So, it's not Grassroots Motorsports Challenge or LeMons budget, but the car is great to drive on the street and on the course, and i'm fully confident that it will hold together fine on a trackday or two as well, and be safe and reliable.

And it's way more fun than a beat-up/worn-down old WRX on the course :)

I probably could have done less if I had a trailer, but I need this car to be safe and good for the drives to and from events too, so did some things that I'm sure some of the trailer guys don't bother with (like good street tires and legal(ish) exhaust, and such).

Today wrapped up the rallycross season with a one-off event at Susquehanna Region SCCA up at Susquehanna Speedway in York, PA. Before I talk about that one, I'll just make a little note here about the season as a whole, done in a 27-year-old BMW!

• Over 1500 miles transiting to and from events (the car drives great at above-highway speeds, but there is some front end lift over 70mph, especially when I have all my gear in the trunk/back).
• Logged in something like 140 minutes of seat-time on course this season. That is, by far, more than the TOTAL seat time I've had in 10+ seasons of autocross.
• Had a great time at every event, even the ones I drove badly at. Can't say that of other motorsports I've done over the years (drag, autocross, etc).
• The car had ZERO engine, suspension or other mechanical failures this year. Never left me stranded. The only significant issues were a disintegrated cat (now gutted) and various electrical gremlins, and some exhaust banging. Pretty good considering I abused the car all year.

Can't wait until next season!

Now, back to the Susquehanna event. They hadn't had a rallycross program in that region for a number of years, so a good group of the Washington DC crew went up there (3 hour drive for me) to support this one-off event that they would use to determine if there was enough interest. It was us, a good number from Philly SCCA, and a handful of locals in some interesting vehicles (including a SBC-swapped longbet S10 pickup!). Over 40 cars were registered, so pretty good turnout.

Some snafus right from the start with timing issues. They were using laser lights (form their autocross program) rather than the pressure-sensors that we use in WDC. Don't know if that was the issue with dust in the way, or just getting stuff aligned due to uneven surfaces that the lights were sitting on. Anyhow, that took like an hour at least to sort out. In the meantime we took some fun runs, which were not much fun since they transitioned from hardpack/rocky/bumpy surface to a slab of tarmac, to wet grass, back to hard, back to wet grass, and so on. And basically the whole course was a ton of slaloms, since it was at a dirt circle-track oval, using the infield and part of the banked section.....thus limiting layout options.

Overall it was kind of weird, and more like an autocross on a very small lot. No real speed sections, no big sweepers, just a lot of slaloms and big switchbacks. And a couple areas that got a bit too close to the outer wall of the track for my comfort level. I would have liked to see things laid out a bit differently, but then maybe I'm just used to the wide-open spaces that we have at Summit.

Here's a video of one run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfgtBA2Sm7g&list=UUZDzORFSilgFFHMqcT8uyIA&index=1&feature=plcp

In the end the course was a big equalizer, with the fast AWD cars only a second or two faster than the RWD and FWD front-runners. I had times that were similar to several rally-prepped subies, for what it's worth (not much).

Shawn took MR class with fast times I think about 50.2 seconds. Chris Nonack took second in his V6-swapped AW12 MR2, edged me out by a couple seconds. My best run was 51.5 I think, but I had a spinout on one run that ruined my comp time, especially since we only got 5 total runs, and ended up 3rd. Last I saw the guy with the SBC-swapped S10 took 4th ahead of Katie driving Shawn's car, but I think they screwed up Katie's times.

In the end, it was a so-so venue. Any rallycross is better than no rallycross, but 3 hours drive is a hike for not many runs and a not-very-fun course. But I expect if Susquehanna starts up a full program it will get better once they get some more experience, so we'll see next year. There's a lot of countryside up there, so hopefully they can find a venue with more open space.

Or maybe we're just spoiled since Summit Point is one of the best rallycross venues in the country (or so I'm told!).

Pics of the event: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/irish44j/BMW%20318i%20RallyCross%20Project/Susquehanna%20RX%20Nov%202012/

Some highlights:

needs more blue painter's tape to protect wimpy subaru paint (as you know, I have a subaru, so I know....)

this guy had some tiny sprint-car-looking tires with an odd tread pattern. Almost looked like ATV tires.

yeah...

I liked this old celica supra, though it didn't look very fast.

hopefully someone else got some pictures of me driving poorly :)

I took some pictures of the results....

Going based on Katie's times from the video her first run looked like about a 58+1 (and she still lost to a truck because of her spinning)

The infield was pretty tight (But it was good to bring the rear end around nice and easy). I thought it was more fun once I was on the track part. It may have been my method of taking the track portion that made it fun?

http://youtu.be/35eaBdx6_BY

^^nice.

I think the track part was fun except where it got too close to the wall. That really tempered how much I was willing to attack that section, especially since one of my fun runs I got VERY close to that wall and it was only a minor driver error in my opinion. Hindsight is 20-20 though, I suppose :)

That white Civic hatch does autocross in Hershey. There are usually slicks on those wheels.