lol......I think my car has managed to complete about 40 straight events so far (a handful of them with dual-drivers). I like to do it the way the non-cool kids do it apparently ;)
(knock on wood)
lol......I think my car has managed to complete about 40 straight events so far (a handful of them with dual-drivers). I like to do it the way the non-cool kids do it apparently ;)
(knock on wood)
So as mentioned the LSD is toast. While I wait for the rebuild stuff to get here, went ahead and disassembled - mostly because I wanted to see if there was an internal spacer that could be replaced by a third clutch pack for more lockup (which can be done on the medium-case diff). No dice though. The small case has no such spacer so it's limited to just the two clutch packs (supposedly good for 25% lockup). I suppose I could track down some Porsche clutches, which are 0.1mm thicker, but that's something I don't have time for so we'll just stick with the stock setup since it's worked fine for 30 years and over 40 rallycrosses...the plan will be to find a good medium-case over the winter and build it with 3 clutch packs (60% lockup).
So here's the diff when it came out. 4 years of clay, dirt, and mud caked on...
coming apart
All the parts (in order). Note that the small case has a few less washers (and no big spacer) than the medium case does.
So while I wait for the new clutches and seals and bolts to come in, on to another project while the car is "up high" (lol)
With the aforementioned heat shields removed, I remembered that the fuel tank crossover line is pretty vulnerable. So I cut the rear part off the heat shields to put back on along with the fuel line guard. Peace of mind
Today I went over to help Jason put the roll bar and door bars in his rallycross Miata. Turned out to be a lot more work than the e30 rollbar, but got it done....
parked the subie with the rest of his fleet, lol (the Mustang is his roommate's)
Ok, so the internals for rebuilding the 3.91 LSD are on the way from Thayer Motorsport and should be here in a day or two. In the meantime, I also managed to pick up a low-miles 3.73 medium-case LSD (30k miles since full rebuild), both to use in the meantime while I rebuild the 3.91, and then to later add a third clutch pack to when this car finally is ready to stage rally.
In any case, I loaded it up with some fresh Mobil1 (mix of 90 and 140 weight) and installed. Only kicker is that one of the upper bolts had been stripped by the P/O and retapped to a 1/2" (vice M12) thread. No biggie, still bolts up fine. At some point I may tap out to a larger M14 just to make sure the threads are strong, but that's TBD.
So that's in the car. It seems a little more "grumbly" than my 3.91, but it could just be my imagination - especially since I put a thousand miles on the WRX in the last few days and its drivetrain is very smooth (seriously...).
Being on my back doing diff install turned Summit Point's Shennandoah Circuit into a rallycross course, clearly...
While killing some time today I saw some paint, and some tape. So of course I had to take 15 minutes and do this:
Hi there! I just wanted to let you know that you car has inspired me to get off my ass and finally start working on my 1990 325i that I've had parked in a barn for a couple of years.
Good stuff :) Are you planning to rallycross it, or some other kind of build? Start a build thread and that will keep you motivated to work on it somewhat, lol. Like, you know a few people are actually following your build so you feel bad if you don't do anything to the car in a while, and have to work on it, haha......
Sent you a PM. Let me know if you did not get it
Hopefully gonna rallycross it, looks like a load of fun! Check out the build thread I started.
In reply to Sine_Qua_Non:
nope, didn't get anything. email to my screen name @yahoo.com
Well, with a long weekend and the wife and kids down at the lake, I had nothing much to do. So I worked on Jason's new rallycross Miata - because....well, it's something to do between going out at night.
So he brought it over
And we put on some new stuff
and I drilled some stuff
yup
and it's a rally miata, so ...
then Jason rolled out on a date and left the car there. And I had some paint around and stuff. And the crappy old paint on the Miata is boring.
so I got a beer and a 4" roller and a couple gallons of rustoleum professional in black and safety red and started rolling...
then I painted his swaybar safety blue for no reason at all...
Then on Sunday I took a break to meet a few of the local guys for some private test&tune and beers and burgers at a fellow rally driver's country house...
The 40% lock on the 3.73 LSD is nice. The car really puts down the whopping 140hp a lot better now :)
Then today I did some more painting..
and it was done.
with his street Miata, which is a little lower and a lot nicer
So now my driveway has a Miata, a BMW, and a WRX in it. And ironically, the WRX is the only one that never sees dirt...
Another event this coming weekend, so we'll see how that goes.
Hmm...I have a rallycross RX7 at my house and some spare paint...
How did you make that car look that good? Details please....
wvumtnbkr wrote: How did you make that car look that good? Details please....
lol....well it looks good from 10 feet. I just did a quick scuff-sand of the whole car (which had terrible paint), masked some stuff off, took some lights and mirrors off, used safety red and gloss black rattle-can around the taped sections and tough areas, and then took a "smooth" 4" roller (the cheap ones you buy at Home Depot) and rolled the car (2 coast of each color). I also used a small detail brush (like a hobby brush) to do a few sections that were hard to mask or remove (like the Mazda badge on the front).
The surface texture is kinda like the stock miata rocker panels and lower door panels, with the "dimpled" feel. It's NOT a smooth surface up close at all. But the roller texture hides all the surface imprefections in the car and I think it looks pretty neat. And if you use gloss paint stickers and vinyl will stick to it. Plus, this being a rallycross car it's going to be dirty going forward.
I like the way it turned out, and it'll look good going fast. But car-show guys would probably have me lynched :)
As would the Miata guys when they found out I did it to a "R-spec" model (or whatever they're called) 
Well, was all packed this morning and ready to go for tomorrow, and drove the car to get some gas and noticed my voltmeter only showing 11v. Hmm.
After some tests, not getting any juice from the alternator and the dash light isn't coming on during start. Did the usual tests as outlined in Bentley and elsewhere (ground the exciter line to chassis to test if the bulb comes on - it did), cleaned grounds, checked all wiring. Coudln't figure it out. Then swapped in my other alternator (which came out of a running car but has been sitting for a few months). Still no dice. Checked the brushes in the regulators on both, and both were in decent shape (the 2nd alternator looks almost new). Battery is at full charge (it had gotten down to 50%) and accepted juice from my charger fine, and is holding it. It's a 3-year old red top....so battery is fine. Just no alternator voltage anywhere, including from the post on the alternator.
So I'm at a total loss now, other than some internal issue with the alternator. Will have to find a new/reman'd one (noplace locally has one so that'll have to wait).
So for tomorrow's rallycross I'm bumming a co-drive from Eric Eisele, whose usual codriver Neil Cox can't make the event in their 325i.
As (bad) luck would have it, Nick and Bobby replaced their gas tank (rusted) this week and have a major leak problem now, so they can't run either. Nick is likely going to run with Eric/Chris Helgesen in their PR-prepped car. Jason isn't going to make it with the Miata, else I'd probably ask him. In any case, I'm briging my gravels to put on the other e30 if they want to use them in place of the BFG all-terrains they usually use.
We'll see how it goes. The one plus is that I get to cruise up and back 2 1/2 hours to the site in the WRX with my A/C, comfortable seats, and good stereo :)
So... I know we went through some stuff earlier tonight and it's too late for tomorrow, but I just had another thought. I can't remember if you mentioned it earlier, but was the car actually acting like it was low on juice? Is it possible it's a problem w/ the gauge?
I'm pretty tired so just a quick recap from today:
With my car down Eric Eisele (currently 4th in MR points, I think) graciously lent me his co-driver seat with his usual partner Neil Cox absent. We used my gravel tires rather than the BFG all-terrains they usually run.
Took me the morning to get used to the car and Eric jumped out to a nice lead of about 10 seconds by that point (with me in 3rd overall at the break). In the afternoon I ran a bit faster than him but wasn't able to catch up, since he drove fast, consistent, and clean all afternoon.
So, Eric took his first WDCR class win (in the e30, though he won in his WRX last year), and I took 2nd c0-driving his car. Also by taking 2nd I think i locked up at least a tie for the season points title, regardless of what I do in the next two events. So that's good :)
So, on to the event #6 full wrap-up. This was kind of an odd one. After I knew my car woudln't make it Eric Eisele (who is 4th in class points) offered up a co-drive. Quite an offer since he and co-owner Neil Cox had run the rallycross at VIR on Saturday and driven the 300+ miles that night to Frostburg! Then come to find out that Nick and Bobby, after replacing their gas tank, had a major fuel leak issue and no time to solve it.
So Nick and I rolled up there together in my WRX without our rally cars...
Upon arrival, saw Eric's car covered with mud, lol. They had used their usual BFG all-terrains for the mud event, but I brough my Dmack gravels to use there, as tradeoff for using his car.
Meanwhile, Nick scored a co-drive in the e36 318i that has been challenging Shawn for the PR lead all season and is surprisingly quick – since MR ran in the separate run session.
So we started off...
Eric E., the car owner, of course ran consistent and fast all morning with no major mistakes. He also seemed to be enjoying having smaller gravels on the car rather than the tall BFGs.
I had a bit of learning curve on my morning runs. The car is obviously a 6cyl B25 car, but with the stock e30 rack, power steering delete, stock comfort seats and seatbelt. On the curvy morning course I found that the car would really snap-back hard on heavy throttle corrections, which I'm not used to in my car. And this car liked to step out a lot more in the back than mind does, for sure. There was a point that I repeatedly nailed my helmet on the side of the door frame with little seat or seatbelt support, and once had both hands ripped off the stylin' wooden steering wheel when I got crossed up and couldn't slide my hands sufficiently.
Meanwhile, Nick was having to learn about the e36, with its welded diff, and not liking it initially.
Corey finally got out with his 740 Turbo-engine-swapped Volvo 240 and was running pretty quick on snow tires, a second or so per run behind me IIRC. Eric Helgesen picked up where he left off and was running fast and clean all morning. The rest of the class was a bit farther back but not too far.
At the lunchbreak, Eric E. (my codriver) was leading by 5 seconds over Eric H. in the ETA. I was 4 seconds back of him with Nick and Corey right with me.
Then it got interesting in the afternoon. Preface to say we did 4 morning runs but 10 afternoon runs.
I got the hang of the car in the afternoon and actually ran slightly faster than Eric E. for most of the afternoon, but also picked up some cones and couldn't gain much ground since he was so damn clean. There was a good amount of water on course as well, which was fun getting a face-full of it and some gravel when I drilled a deep puddle and it come through the passenger floor plug drain, lol.
Nick picked it up a bit in the e36 and was right with me for most of the afternoon until falling off over the last few runs.
Eric H. managed to BREAK the shift selector rod before his first afternoon run. So he jumped into Shawn Roberts' class-leading PR Miata. Eric has never rallycrossed any car except his own and never driven a Miata (he's 17). So he had some trouble in his first couple runs and gave back 8 or 9 seconds before he got the hang of the car and started puttting down some good times. For his PR co-drivers, they managed to mend the shifter using some wire and cut-up flathead screwdrivers in time to run it in the second session of the afternoon (making their runs entirely in 3rd gear!).
After Eric E. pushed the car to the paddock area, lol..
Corey somehow blew up something in the Volvo on one of his first runs, coolant from either a burst hose or head gasket – not sure. In any case, he also jumped into the e36 and started putting down some wicked fast times, but not all that clean.
And he did some damage (right before we let him know that the helmet can't be used for rallycross....)
The two Jeffs stayed reasonably close in the other e30 but were a bit off the pace. They're getting better.
In the end, it was hard-fought with some great driving throughout the class and no major mistakes from anyone (at least judging by times), other thank Eric H. having a couple cone-heavy runs (he's usually very clean)
Final results had Eric E. winning his first MR event with WDCR (after winning the class at THSCC rallycross the day before at VIR). So great weekend for him.
I ended up about 7 seconds behind him....was catching him half a second at a time all afternoon but not nearly enough runs to make up the defecit from the morning. Either way, pretty pleased since his car is like night and day compared to mine in all ways other than both being e30s.
Also might mention that Eric E. and I both beat ALL of the stock and prepared AWD class cars that were in our run group :)
At the time, I thought Nick finished behind me in 3rd a ways back, but as it turns out Corey actually put down some monster times and almost caught me after being back 10+ seconds, and passed Nick knocking him to 4th.
Eric H. put up a good fight in the Miata but finished 5th in the end. And a few others. Here's the class laydown for the day:
All in all a fun event with interesting courses, awesome weather, and the joy of driving my DD WRX home rather than having to hate life in the e30 for 3 hours after a day of racing, lol.
Also here are the season points standing with two events to go. Keep in mind that we get two drop events for the season, so you can do the math.....
And some other pics of the day that I took
The guys that did VIR the day before for epic rallycross weekend....muddy
The ETA boys
The non-turbo Volvo in PR
The “backup” Justy (the other one broke the previous event)
crew..
Shawn's Miata
Celica that ran an autocross the day before
And this thing..
^^ event recap above, in case you skipped it.
Now back to the reason my car was not working for this weekend, which is why I drove Eric Eisele's car. No charge from the alternator. Changed it out for one I took out of a running car. Still no dice.
Did all the Bentley diagnostics (dash battery light working, circuits all seem good, battery good, ground good, etc). Still nothing.
So today I pulled the alternator out and had both on the bench. I had narrowed it down to the fact that the small post (for the exciter wire) on the alternator were not giving a negative ground for the 12v on ignition as it should. This was the case on both, or so I thought.
To test, measured continuity of ground with a multimeter between the post and the alternator frame. On the “new” one, nothing. No continuity, no matter what I did. Then I took out the old one and tried it. Nothing at first, but the thing was really dusty and dirty from 4 seasons of rallycross, and the fine dust from the testing weekend last week. So I hit it with some electronics cleaner and compressed air.
And I got continuity.
Did a quick test and it got the light on the dash to work. Hell yes.
In the meantime I swapped out the brush assembly from the old one (which was well below the BMW-recommended replace level) with those from the newer one (which were almost new). Put it all back together, and got....
So....back in action for the next event. And a few other projects coming up before that, so stay tuned.
Back in the days of my V6 MR2, I had the same type of alternator failure (full of dust) at 4 AM on the way to an event- the fix was the same, except I took mine apart and thwacked it against the ground a bunch to knock the caked on poo loose. 
So another little update. One that the e30 purist car-show types won't like but whatever. With the OEM sealed-beams night driving has always sucked in this car (can't use the Hellas or LED bar on public roads). I was just going to try to find some used ellipsoids/smilies but didn't really find any good deals on ones in reasonable shape. So I went to ebay and got the E-code ellipsoids from Depo. Yup, the fakes. And four Philips H1 bulbs off Amazon. All told under $200.
Anyhow, we all know these aren't as good as the real thing quality-wise. The biggest complaints I've read about are the adjustors breaking (they worked fine for me, but I lubed them with some silicone spray to make them turn easier since that makes sense....)....and the wiring. IDK what this wiring is for, but it certainly isn't for an early e30 lol. In any case, I rewired the lights directly from the bulbs into my stock harness. Took a few hours but in the end I'm confident that all the wiring is good to go and will hold up to the pounding this car takes.
What else.....also have heard about some people getting leaks so I put some clear silicone around the lens edges and anyplace else that could leak (also sealed all my wiring pass-throughs with silicone).
Installed. They bolt up directly, though I had to cut out some of the splash-shield behind the lights since they're deeper than the sealed beams.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/irish44j/BMW%20318i%20Rallycross%202015/IMG_20150918_192803806.jpg
WIll also put some Lamin-x on the glass to try to reduce breakage...
I also wired up the "city lights" (tapping into my parking light wiring)
I haven't had them out in the dark yet since the car is blocked into the garage at the moment (maybe will do it tomorrow), but it's pretty obvious that the light output is far better than the sealed beams. The lows also have a nice cutoff. I'd say it's damn near as good as the not-cheap bixenon retrofit I have on the WRX.
Another nice thing is that the Depos use H1 bulbs in both highs and lows, which are simply better (IMO) than the 9006/9005 bulbs used in the "real" ones.
Will take some output pics when I get a chance.
irish44j wrote: words words words words and it's a rally miata, so ...
nicely done, sir! \m/
Some minor things....
First, with a Hurricane scheduled to hit us this weekend and several days of rain, put the car in the garage so I have something to do all weekend....
Also got a pair of almost-new DMacks in the other day. Trying to make sure I have a fairly fresh set for New York later this month, since it may end up being muddy and my worn-down tires that do ok on gravel will not do well in anything slippery.
While doing some stuff under the car (checking out my subframe and RTAB bushings) I noticed that the little rusty "wing" piece on the front of the passenger wheel well had started to rust through. Not that I really care about minor rust, but this piece does triangulate the mount area for the rear subframe, so it may have some structural benefit.
Cleaned up the area and will patch it up tomorrow after I cut out some metal. Gonna be a bit tricky because of the seam with the rocker panel and tons of seam sealant everywhere that will be difficult to totally remove, but it should be ok
On a side note, I've done some driving with the new lights, and I am REALLY impressed with both the range, clarity, and cutoff. They may actually have better visibility with low-beam than my not-cheap full bixenon projector retrofit on my WRX, which is considered to be a nice kit. So pretty happy with how those turned out. Don't really have pics since night light pics are not easy with a camera phone, lol.
everytime you post I curse that there is jack E36 M3 around sc for rallycross.
Especially since we have some nice open areas and former factories that would be perfect for it.
Some updating of minor projects...
First, finished up the rust repair mentioned above....welded up, seam-sealed, and undercoated. Should be good to go..
With the rainy weather, had time to do a little project that I had been thinking about for a while. Using the old chrome trim rings from the OEM headlights, and some galvanized mesh (the stuff you buy a whole roll of for 6 bucks at Home Depot), plus a few rivets, some adhesive, and some paint.
Forgot to take the "construction" pictures, but here are some finished ones. Probably don't need them, but will guard the lights from rocks thrown up on the road and any of the stiff shrubberies we have at the rallycross venue. Got the idea after seeing Eric's e30 headlight shattered at the last event. In any case, it cost almost nothing and can't hurt anything, so why not...
Attached with riveted tabs on the stone guard, which screw into the metal surround ring on the DEPO headlights. Not sure if this would work on OEM lights though.
Also replaced my temporary HVAC/firewall panel - the original was just some cut-up plastic that didn't like to stay up there. So cut out some thin sheet metal, sealed it up, and riveted it in place.
Also the 3.73 LSD has sounded a bit grumbly so I'm thinking it may need some attention. Which is fine since it was just bought for later/spare anyhow. So put the freshly-rebuilt 3.91 LSD back into the car
ok so......with the car back in driving shape and ready for the next event this weekend, it's time to look a bit ahead to the NY event in 2 weeks and the November event in Frostburg.
Because
yep....and neither of those places are particularly warm, especially Frostburg in late November. So it's time to put a heater back into this car after ripping out all the OEM stuff after it exploded all over me a couple events ago.
So I ordered up the two-outlet Summit Racing heater for about $150 or so. I was planning to get the three-outlet one but was a bit worried about where to place it easily. In the end, it turns out it would have fit fine, for anyone else who plans to do this mod.
So here's the heater. It's the usual Chinese stuff, but the quality appears to be very good and the casing is far more stout and rigid than I had been expecting, honestly.
After doing some mock-ups, I decided to mount it angled up, using my recently-installed block-off plate for the original HVAC opening. Unlike the original HVAC, this setup will only pull air from inside the car, which is fine by me since the air outside tends to be dusty as hell for a rallycross car anyhow.
I oriented it also so the coolant lines aligned with the stock firewall holes. Now, let me admit that the first time I mounted it I centered it, with the outlet/inlet a few inches over from the firewall holes. This turned out to not work well and caused the hoses to kink, so I moved it over toward the driver's side to get it lined up. Working under the dash = no fun at all, but at least it's empty back there on mine.
I also spliced the heater wiring directly into the OEM fan control knob, just because I like it better than the one that came with the heater...
Probably the worst part of this was adapting it to the OEM hoses in the engine bay. First, because with the M42 there is almost NO room to work down in there between the IM and the brake booster.
Also, the heater comes with outlets for 5/8" hose, while the stock hose is 3/4"....so I had to ghetto-rig some adaptors to join them, which took a bit of creativity.
But after some bloody knuckles, finally all back together
Went for a test-drive and it warmed up within a minute or two and blew hot as hell. So I'm pretty pleased with the heater. Also a lot quieter than I expected. Still have to run some ducting, but actually with it oriented the way I moutned it, one port blows almost directly into the driver's side defrost and the other port blows toward the center dash vent....so actually I could feel plenty of heat coming out of both, which was the plan :)
Oh also, with some newer gravel tires on the way, decided to have some fun and paint up my (US) weaves in red (with the old dry-rotted tires being my masking). So will get those switched over and hopefully have pretty fresh tread for New York in a couple weeks.
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