E36 M3 RallyCross build!

I got an email out of the blue from the local BMW club about a skid pad event at Summit Point, and since I didn't have anything else planned I decided to sign up and check it out.  $50 for the afternoon session, which ended up giving me about an hour's worth of seat time!  I've never done a skid pad before, and this was apparently the first time the club had hosted one, but I had a blast sliding and spinning around.  You got about 6-8 minutes on course with one or two other cars, and then they would wet the pad down again and let another group run.  A few Miatas showed up, but they had trouble maintaining much of a drift without spinning.  Some other cars that did well were an E39 M5, E92 M3 vert, and an M2.  I was talking with the driver of the E92 and he mentioned he was drifting in 4th, but he has the DCT and 414 HP to play with.  Up until that point I had just stayed in 2nd, but I tried 3rd after that.  It was a little more difficult to break the rear out, but once it got going sliding in 3rd was nice since the revs were much lower and you could go faster sideways.  My water temps stayed around 210* while on course due to reduced air flow (normally they're around 200*) and oil temps got up to about 230*.  I don't love seeing oil temps that high, but after looking into what it takes to install a proper oil cooler on this engine, I think I'll just keep it as-is and hope for the best.  I edited down one of my runs into a video, check it out if you're interested.

While working on the wife's FX35 a while back I was doing a lot of stuff around and in front of the rear wheels under the vehicle.  This put me precariously close to the corners of my lift, which I inevitably bumped into multiple times with my head.  One time I hit a corner so hard with the top of my head that I heard a nice crack (was it my skull?  My neck?) and did some good bleeding.  I vowed I would fix those damn edges before I got started on either of my two future projects that will put me in that area again, and this weekend I finally got around to doing them.  Here's what those bastards looked like, there are eight in total:





I started with a cutoff wheel, then a grinding disc, and finished up with a flap wheel.  Now when I hit them it will simply hurt instead of causing potential brain damage.





Hooray

95maxrider said:

potential brain damage.

Is this why you suddenly started hitting cones this year?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

95maxrider said:

potential brain damage.

Is this why you suddenly started hitting cones this year?

Most likely.

95maxrider said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

95maxrider said:

potential brain damage.

Is this why you suddenly started hitting cones this year?

Most likely.

IDK, probably residual damage from the frisbee incident :D

--

Serious note: it's interesting you run around 210* "hot"......After rallycross runs i'm a good bit over 220 usually (with oil temps around 215 or so). Granted it's a VDO gauge going directly to the sensor in the middle of the head, but somewhat interesting. 

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

IDK, probably residual damage from the frisbee incident :D

--

Serious note: it's interesting you run around 210* "hot"......After rallycross runs i'm a good bit over 220 usually (with oil temps around 215 or so). Granted it's a VDO gauge going directly to the sensor in the middle of the head, but somewhat interesting. 

It all adds up

I'm pulling coolant temp from OBD2 and oil from a VDO gauge.  Coolant rarely goes above 205 at rallycross, but I think oil does get up to 220.  I run stock temp thermostat.

There has been trouble brewing with the M3 since the day I bought it, but I was too timid to do anything about it before.  The percolation has continued unabated for almost five years now.  It was always easier to just not look at it and ignore its presence than to take action.  But things reached a boil, and I knew I had to do something.  I gathered my troops, hatched a plan, and decided to fight back.  It was time to finally get rid of the rust.

Actually, what really happened is that my other car needs some rust repaired on a rear fender, but I really care about how it's going to turn out, since I've spent 17 years detailing that car, and the paint is just about perfect on it.  The M3 however, was T-boned at some point before I bought it, so the paint on the passenger's side isn't the greatest.  Something that also isn't the greatest is the repair job the shop did on the car after the accident.  The paint on the doors is pretty crummy, and they clearly didn't do the best job in terms of rust prevention or mitigation.  So before I repair my other car, I figured the M3 would be great practice, since I can't really make it look any worse than it current is.  Or can I?



















Yeah, this is going to get ugly.  Time to bring out the angle grinder with some wire wheels.  I started on the lip of the fender, and was greeted by a good, thick layer of bondo.  Oh boy!



I kept grinding, and grinding, and grinding...and metal kept disappearing.













Until I had a nice pile of bondo and rust:



So I know that cutting all that out and somehow welding in new metal is the correct way to do that, but there's no way in hell that I would ever be able to cut and form metal well enough to reform the shape of the wheel well, so I'm pretty sure that's not an option for this project.  Fiberglass could potentially work, I can deal with that.  But I'm leaning towards repairing it like I did my old car with some Bondo self adhesive body patches (wire mesh things) and some POR15 Patch Filler and Seam Sealer.  It's basically POR15 paint in body filler form.  As you can see in the pictures, there's some rust between the inner and outer panels that I just can't access, so I need to get something on them to prevent them from rusting from the inside out again, and I think the POR15 stuff would do the trick.  Now, before I go putting any filler in there, I plan on dousing things with my Krud Kutter to dissolve as much rust as possible.  I'll also prep the surfaces with the two step POR15 products to get things as clean as possible.  With that said, I'm looking for suggestions on how to best repair this in a way that minimizes the chances that rust will come back.  Is fiberglass the better option?  Tiger hair?  Give me ideas!

I think the obvious solution for rallykar is 

Looks like the wheel arch repair panels from these guys might cover what you need?  Depends on how much you feel like welding.

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

I think the obvious solution for rallykar is 

 

 That would be kinda cool, not gonna lie.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Looks like the wheel arch repair panels from these guys might cover what you need?  Depends on how much you feel like welding.

Now that is interesting.  I might have to order one of those and see what it looks like in person.  Thanks for the link!

So, despite my best intentions, the real-time updates for the rust project didn't happen.  When I had to choose between updates, and actually finishing the project before a race, working on the car took precedence.  We will return to your regularly scheduled programming after this important update:

We had some races, and they were good.

Our condensed rally-x schedule continues, with back to back events this past weekend, #5 and #6 out of 8 for the season.  Half the races were supposed to be at Panthera Training Center, and half were supposed to be at Summit Point, but due to rain, 6/8 races have been/will be at SP.   This weekend marked our only two races at PTC.  Historically, my car does better at PTC due to its enormous size and large elevation changes, both of which suit my heavy and powerful car.  SP is flatter with shorter courses, and generally favors the more nimble cars in the class.  I came into the weekend in fourth place, so if I was going to get on the podium for the season, I was going to have to do well at PTC.

On Saturday we ran on the "back" part of PTC, which is tighter and a little more technical than the main section.  It's also just about the normal length for a course, averaging about 45 seconds per run.  The course generally has more loose silt than the main course and isn't as hard packed.  I made the decision to run my grass Maxsport tires, which are softer and narrower than my gravel Maxxis tires.  The grass tires should do better in looser conditions than the gravels, and since everyone was running them, it seemed like the way to go.  I guess we weren't at capacity in terms of attendance, as we got 6 runs in the AM and 5 in the PM.  I started off with a good, but not great run, and I think I stayed in 2nd place for most of the day.  Josh jumped out to an early lead and held onto it all morning, loving his new custom front HD rally shocks.  Stephen was running in third.  Eric and Neil were off their normal pace, likely because they had brought only their gravel Maxsport tires instead of their normal grass tires.  Mike Golden was running fast and clean and was hanging around 4th in his 2ZZ MR2.  When the PM session started, I think I was about 3 second back from Josh, but I started clawing back time.  Half a second here, half a second there.  With one run left, I was about 0.5 behind.  Stephen was right behind me, so any mistake would have dropped me back into third.  I'm not sure what I did, but I laid down a scorcher, almost a second faster than my previous best, and only 0.1 off Mike Golden for the fastest time of the PM session.  Josh ran the same time as his previous run, and I emerged victorious by 1.1 seconds.  I pulled a similar feat at SP last year, except that was against Stephen, and I think I got him by 0.2.  It's been over a year since I last won an event, and I must admin it sure feels good.  In a class with 12+ people, and 8 of them capable of winning any event, winning is tough and hard fought.  In seasons past, I often won events by being the only one in my class to not hit cones, which carry a 2 second penalty.  So even though my outright times weren't always the best, I could win or do well just from my clean driving.  That trend is over.  Now the top 3-4 drivers often won't hit any cones, and the winner is solely the fastest driver.  That was true for this event as well, as none of the top four hit any cones over their 11 runs.  Also, my car has remained the same for the last 3 years, while all other cars have received lots of improvements.

Before we knew it, it was time to race again on Sunday.  This time we were on the main part of the course, and we got to run ALL of it.  It's been a while since we were able to use large sections of it due to rutting, but the course had been smoothed out and made usable, so we could really stretch our legs.  And by that, I mean we had a course with average times around 120 seconds.  Yes, it was about three times as long as the course the day before, and the average speed was surely much higher as well.  This was a FAST course with tons of elevation changes.  Needless to say, the course was a match made in heaven for my car, and my competitors let me know it.  And yet, on the first run, I was 5-6 seconds back from Josh and Stephen.  Woah, what?  That's an absolutely enormous gap for this, or any, class.  Granted, the long course exaggerates that, but damn, what happened?  By the last run in the AM I had closed that gap to 3-4 seconds per run, and I was sitting in 5th place.  Ouch.  I think Josh was ahead of me by 20 seconds or something, with Stephen not too far back from him.  I couldn't blame the car, it seemed to be doing great.  But I did get the impression that I wasn't able to put down all of my power, which is a huge detriment on a big course like this.  So at lunch I removed all four of my grass tires and installed the gravel tires.  They're a harder compound, and wider, but also significantly heavier.  One thing was for sure, I was destroying the rear grass tires.  They only have like 4 events on them, but damn are they chewed up.  They're just not able to cope with my weight and power.  So we start the PM session, and all of a sudden I'm running 0.4 behind Josh.  Then I'm 0.5 faster, then 2.2 faster, and finally 0.5 slower.  That third run was the fastest of the class in the PM session by over a second.  Naturally, I wasn't able to catch up with Josh or Stephen, but I did jump up to third to finish the day.  Josh took home his first victory of the season, with Stephen a little bit back after hitting his only two cones of the weekend on his final run (trying to beat Josh).  So it looks like my decision to run grass tires in the morning was a fatal mistake that I couldn't recover from.  Aside from running in actual loose dirt on a farm, I'm just not sure there are any conditions in which these grass tires make my car faster than the gravel tires.  Considering their 8 pound weight advantage, that's saying something.  I guess my car just needs these harder and wider gravel tires.  Lesson learned, for sure.

So with Eric and Neil having another off day on Sunday, I weaseled my way into third place for the season.  Stephen is still in first, and Josh jumped up to second.  I'll be lucky to hold onto third since the last two events are at SP in November.  Tire choice will be very important, and I have to say I'm not sure what I'm going to do if the temperatures are cold.  My gravel tires are not meant to run in cold temps.  Oh well.  Until then, enjoy some video!  As usual, it's boring and I look like I'm going slow.
 

So watching your vid of the big course, I don't know what run that was that you posted, but I can clearly see where you are losing time to me and gaining time on me. It's almost funny how different our driving styles are and yet we always seem to end up with similar times.  What I noticed: You're much more tentative in the earlier S-curve section on the backside; You lift/brake MUCH earlier than I do coming to the bottom of all of the downhill sections (and having driven your car, I didn't feel like your brakes were that great, and of course your car is heavier, so that may be why), Most notably, in the Right-Left S-turn entering the huge downhill straight (starting around 2:26), I was taking that entire section almost full-throttle while it sounds like you were basically off throttle or light throttle for almost a full two seconds until you cleared the left-hand apex and got on it hard. 

Obviously you were making up time elsewhere since in the PM you were running similar times to me, and it's VERY obvious you took that last big loop at the bottom of the hill way faster and cleaner than I did and exited going much faster up the hill (plus more power you were accelerating faster there as well). I mean, you look WAY faster in that last section than I think I was. That's almost certainly the section you beat me badly in. 

One thing I notice in your vids is that you take blind crests/blind turns much more carefully than I do - possibly because with a heavier car it's harder for you to make quick corrections if you're off the line when you can finally see the next cone. 

So, those are just video observations of course, and may be worth nothing to you ;)

With drops, the points standings are:

Stephen - 47 points, 36 w/drops (dropping a 3rd and a 4th)  - has two wins

Josh - 44 points, 32 w/drops (dropping two 3rd places) - have one win

You - 36 points, 29 w/drops (dropping a 4th and a 7th) - have one win

Eisele - 34 points, 30 w/drops (dropping a 6th and an 8th) - has two wins

Gonna be tough to catch Stevie with his ridiculous consistency, for either of us! Will probably require a weekend sweep in November for me, you, or Eric to take the class (and that's assuming Steve doesn't finish 2nd at both). 

And of course Nonack or Golden could win one or both events and throw a real wrench into the points....

I fully agree....tires may be the big deciding factor. And weather. 

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

 

So watching your vid of the big course, I don't know what run that was that you posted, but I can clearly see where you are losing time to me and gaining time on me. It's almost funny how different our driving styles are and yet we always seem to end up with similar times.  What I noticed: You're much more tentative in the earlier S-curve section on the backside; You lift/brake MUCH earlier than I do coming to the bottom of all of the downhill sections (and having driven your car, I didn't feel like your brakes were that great, and of course your car is heavier, so that may be why), Most notably, in the Right-Left S-turn entering the huge downhill straight (starting around 2:26), I was taking that entire section almost full-throttle while it sounds like you were basically off throttle or light throttle for almost a full two seconds until you cleared the left-hand apex and got on it hard. 

Obviously you were making up time elsewhere since in the PM you were running similar times to me, and it's VERY obvious you took that last big loop at the bottom of the hill way faster and cleaner than I did and exited going much faster up the hill (plus more power you were accelerating faster there as well). I mean, you look WAY faster in that last section than I think I was. That's almost certainly the section you beat me badly in. 

One thing I notice in your vids is that you take blind crests/blind turns much more carefully than I do - possibly because with a heavier car it's harder for you to make quick corrections if you're off the line when you can finally see the next cone. 

So, those are just video observations of course, and may be worth nothing to you ;)

The video from Saturday was my final run with a 42.3.  The Sunday one was my 3rd in the PM of 116.8, which was the fastest of the group by over a second. 

I agree, my videos never look very impressive, and I come across as tentative in many sections.  I watched the video Golden put up and it is so much wilder than mine, it makes me look like I'm out for a casual Sunday drive.  I remember watching a video of yours a year or two ago from the interior and was blown away by how little steering you had to do to make it through a slalom section.  Your car just seemed to dance around cones, whereas I felt like I could see the weight of my car in my corresponding video.  I can't help but wonder how my car would react to stiffer springs, maybe +50 front and rear.

I really wish you would start making videos again, especially from the interior.  When I had my camera attached to that weird seat bracket thing it just shook way too much to be watchable and useful. 

We had two photographers at the last races, here are some shots taken by Tyler Powers:







And some from Sara Nonack:





I'm not currently running a FSB, can you tell??



And lastly, some pictures from the great Steven Phillips from earlier this year:

95maxrider said:

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

 

So watching your vid of the big course, I don't know what run that was that you posted, but I can clearly see where you are losing time to me and gaining time on me. It's almost funny how different our driving styles are and yet we always seem to end up with similar times.  What I noticed: You're much more tentative in the earlier S-curve section on the backside; You lift/brake MUCH earlier than I do coming to the bottom of all of the downhill sections (and having driven your car, I didn't feel like your brakes were that great, and of course your car is heavier, so that may be why), Most notably, in the Right-Left S-turn entering the huge downhill straight (starting around 2:26), I was taking that entire section almost full-throttle while it sounds like you were basically off throttle or light throttle for almost a full two seconds until you cleared the left-hand apex and got on it hard. 

Obviously you were making up time elsewhere since in the PM you were running similar times to me, and it's VERY obvious you took that last big loop at the bottom of the hill way faster and cleaner than I did and exited going much faster up the hill (plus more power you were accelerating faster there as well). I mean, you look WAY faster in that last section than I think I was. That's almost certainly the section you beat me badly in. 

One thing I notice in your vids is that you take blind crests/blind turns much more carefully than I do - possibly because with a heavier car it's harder for you to make quick corrections if you're off the line when you can finally see the next cone. 

So, those are just video observations of course, and may be worth nothing to you ;)

The video from Saturday was my final run with a 42.3.  The Sunday one was my 3rd in the PM of 116.8, which was the fastest of the group by over a second. 

I agree, my videos never look very impressive, and I come across as tentative in many sections.  I watched the video Golden put up and it is so much wilder than mine, it makes me look like I'm out for a casual Sunday drive.  I remember watching a video of yours a year or two ago from the interior and was blown away by how little steering you had to do to make it through a slalom section.  Your car just seemed to dance around cones, whereas I felt like I could see the weight of my car in my corresponding video.  I can't help but wonder how my car would react to stiffer springs, maybe +50 front and rear.

I really wish you would start making videos again, especially from the interior.  When I had my camera attached to that weird seat bracket thing it just shook way too much to be watchable and useful. 

honestly, I just keep forgetting my GoPro for one reason or another. I meant to bring it to the last even and am annoyed I didn't, especially on Sunday!

So, back to that rust repair project.  I knew that welding on a replacement was the "right" thing to do, but I can't weld yet, and I wasn't about to ask someone to do it for me, so I did the best I could with what I had.  Knowing what I know now, even if I had a new section welded in, it probably still would have required a ton of Bondo, as that's just how this car was repaired it seems.  I knew that if I wanted to keep the rust from coming back I would have to get as much of it out as I could, so I went to town with every attachment I had for my angle grinder and Dremel.  Wire wheels, grinding bits, flap wheels, etc.  I must have spent at least two days doing this, I was relentless.  Once I couldn't physically remove any more rust, I attacked it chemically.  I used a combination of "Krud Kutter The Must for Rust" and the line of POR15 prep products, specifically the Metal Prep solution.  Here's how it went.

I stuffed paper towels in all of the gaping holes so they would absorb the chemicals and hopefully clean out the insides of the fender a bit where my tools couldn't reach.  Yes, I have that long flexible attachment for my Dremel that allowed me to get tools way up inside the holes and in tight areas.



I then kept the whole area wet for about an hour with each product, reapplying frequently so they wouldn't dry out.  After wiping the area down with water and a paper towel to clean up, a lot of rust came up, and the metal looked very clean.  All of the dark areas that didn't even look like rust cleared right up.  These products work, but you have to give them time.  The POR15 Metal Prep leaves behind a zinc coating that supposedly helps the POR15 paint adhere, which you can see in these pictures.







Then it was time for the POR15 Patch Filler and Seam Sealer.  It supposedly has the rust-prevention properties of POR15 paint, but it's thicker and can be used to fill patches and cracks.  I decided to coat the insides of the holes/fender in an effort to keep them from rusting further.  I don't have pics of everything, but I smeared this stuff everywhere I could fit my fingers.





Once the insides were coated, it was time to rebuild the structure of the fender.  I wanted to use as much of the POR15 seam sealer as possible, so that's what I used instead of Bondo.  It took a LOT longer to dry, and it didn't sand nearly as easily, but I feel good knowing the fender is stuffed full of this POR15 stuff.  I used Bondo wire mesh sheets to fill in the gaps, then smeared POR15 all over it.





Then more POR15 until all the gaps were closed and the fender was water tight.







The POR15 does turn rock hard after a few days and the repaired areas felt very solid.  Is this how a body shop would do this?  No way.  But is it a better long-term solution than a bunch of Bondo?  I sure hope so.  After it had all dried (I had heaters blasting the areas to speed it up), it was finally time to bring the Bondo into the equation.  I'm not a body man, and I've only really used Bondo once before, so I was very cautious and probably wasted a ton of time.  I probably had to do 10+ applications of it, as the area had to be built up so much for it to be flush with the door.  It didn't help that I probably applied it too thin, and didn't start shaping it properly until late in the process.  The most difficult part was getting the compound curves correct, where it not only comes out to meet the lip of the fender (another headache in itself) but also slopes down towards the bottom of the car.  I also had to make sure the gap with the door was even when it was closed, and that the height of the Bondo matched the door when it was closed.  I'm guessing I spent about two whole days just building it back up into roughly the right shape.  It's also extremely difficult to gauge the shape and curvature of Bondo next to a painted surface since there's no gloss.  Turns out I didn't get it quite right.  I think this was the hardest part of the project.  But, it was also incredibly rewarding to see the shape come back after what it looked like when it was all stripped down to the bare metal.  Enough talk, let's see some pics.





I then decided to make the project even more difficult.  You see, the paint at the top of the panel where it meets the roof was all sorts of crappy, and the clear coat had basically dissolved.  There were some tiny spots of rust along the side of the rear glass, and I was tired of looking at it.  I knew blending in my repair would be a job in and of itself, so I decided to just paint the whole damn panel to at least make blending not as much of an issue.  Except the paint on the whole fender was crap, and there were tons of little spots where the paint had started to come up and I think I could see the original paint under it.  I wasn't about to paint over all these little divots, so I got to sanding.



Yeah, there were a lot of divots in there.  Here's what the upper part of the panel looked like:



I then went to town with some "3M Scuff-It Paint Prep Gel" on a Scotch Brite pad to scuff up the existing "good" paint so the primer would have something to grab onto.





That's all for tonight folks.  Come back next time for more "A stupid man tries to do bodywork"!

This is why I just skip the bodywork and put stickers over things ;)

I mean, I guess it came out pretty good - I certainly didn't even notice that there was a repair area on your car at the last rallycross, and I was parked right next to you the whole time. I mean, not that I'm looking hard at body detailing on other rallycross cars lol. 

Tonight, on "This idiot really did all this?" we get to the main event, painting!

But first, priming.  Specifically, with some nice 2 part epoxy primer from the local autobody paint shop.  I used the Spray Max 2K Epoxy Primer in beige, since it's apparently the nicest stuff you can get in a spray can.  I cleaned the area with PrepAll, then tacked it, and then it was time to spray.



I think I ended up doing three coats.  Unfortunately, I think I should have used my high build primer first, as I was left with a ton of low spots from the sanding to build up.



I used a trick I learned from watching some videos on YouTube (Refinish Network) where I sprayed the high build primer through a hole in a piece of cardboard to reduce overspray and keep things neat.  I think it worked as intended:



There was some spraying



And then sanding.  And then more of each, until I thought all the low spots were built up and level.  This took a while.  I used 400 and 600 grit paper to get it ready for paint.

Finally, FINALLY, it was ready for paint.  When I went to the autobody paint store, they used this fancy scanning machine to determine the closest match to my existing paint color.  First, I gave them my paint code, then he scanned the car in a few locations to get readings.  A match score of 1 is absolutely perfect.  I think the scale goes as high as 50.  The factory code was a match of 15, while an Isuzu silver was a match of 5, so that's what I went with.  Unfortunately, I had all sorts of problems with the nice wide-angle nozzle on the can.  At first it was just dripping paint out onto my floor, then it worked for a while, but by the second or third coat it just started splattering paint out, so I took it off and had to use a generic narrow-angle nozzle, which made application even more difficult.  There were a few spots where it just didn't seem to go down right, and I wasn't able to fix them with more layers.  In the end I used the whole can, which gave me 5 coats, which is more than what's recommended.  Applying them heavier might have helped, but that was made difficult by the narrow-angle tip.  At least there were no runs.





Here you can see the transition from the old bondo to my repair bondo:



But there was nothing I could do at this point except put the clear on and say berkeley it.  I tacked the surface again before putting the clear down.  I tried to apply the clear a little heavier than the base, and put down four good coats.  Again, no runs.  I again used Spray Max 2K Clear.





Here's an area where the base didn't go down right:




 

It still needs to be wet sanded and polished, but I'll do that once the season is over.  I'm also going to polish the door a bit to smooth the transition from shiny clear to worn clear.  Maybe it will work.

So, all done, right?  Well, no, not even close.  Once the clear was on I had to finish up inside the fender.  First the regular POR15 went on everything.



Then the 3M Rubberized Undercoating went on top of that after I sanded it down with 320 grit so it could adhere.







I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out.  I think the inside should be well protected and will keep any water from getting back inside the fender.  I made sure to spray a lot down in the valley of the lip so anything that gets trapped in there can't do any damage.

Then there were all the other parts of the car I had to repair.....

Before I get back to paint adventures, I'm going to review the last two rallycross events of the year.  We had another double header weekend, like we've been doing all year due to covid, and we were back at Summit Point.  Conditions were absolutely perfect, with temps in the 70s and low humidity, and good sun.  Considering this is the DC region in November, we were very lucky.  I came into the weekend in third place, a few points behind Josh, and many points behind Stephen.  I've only ever won one event at SP before on the Tree Course, and I generally don't do very well on the Barn Course for some reason.  Which is strange, since the Barn Course is hard packed, has a few straight sections where I can use my power, and generally has pretty simple courses.  Historically, the Tree Course is tighter and isn't as hard packed.  It can get very loose and dusty.  So I wasn't feeling very good about my chances of doing well.

We tried something new in an effort to get more runs, where one run group ran all morning, and the other run group ran all afternoon.  This would eliminate the switchover between groups halfway through the AM/PM sessions and get us more time to run, since it's getting dark so early now.  I think it worked out pretty well and I didn't hear any complaints.  So on Saturday we were on the Barn Course, and we ran in the PM session.  Josh jumped out to a little lead on the first run, but I was right behind him, with Stephen a little back.  But on the second run Josh hit a cone, and I ran very fast, and I jumped out to a decent lead.  I continued to lay down the fastest times of the group for the next three runs and built a little lead.  As the afternoon wore on the wind died down and the dust started hovering on the course, and with the sun at a low angle it was getting difficult to see where you were going in some spots.  We were supposed to get 8 runs, but by the time our 7th rolled around they called it as our last run.  I didn't need to risk pushing it so I took it a little easy, and finished about 3 seconds ahead of Stephen, who was about 1 second ahead of Josh.  Neither Stephen nor I hit any cones.  Of our 7 runs, I was fastest on four of them.  Josh was complaining that he couldn't put down power as well as he usually did and thought his diff was worn out, but I didn't put much stock in it.  But with his second place finish, Stephen locked up the championship for the season, securing his first in the MR class.  Stephen has been a consistent and tenacious competitor for a long time, but has missed out on the championship the last few years due to missed events.  So this year he finally attended all the events, and lo and behold, he won it all.  Of all the drivers in the class, I would say Stephen does the most with the least (car).  It's got a tired M20 and a full interior, so it's probably got the worst power to weight ratio of all the competitive cars in the class, and yet he is always near the top of the pile.  My hat goes off to him, he really earned this one.
 

So then it was down to Josh and I, fighting for second place.  We get to drop two of our eight events for the season, and I had two stinkers early in the season, while Josh had been consistently on the podium.  I think Josh came into Sunday with a one point lead over me, so I was going to have to beat him if I wanted second.  Josh hasn't finished lower than second for something like the last 7 years, and I'm sure he wasn't eager to start now.  We were on the Tree Course Sunday, and were greeted by the unexpected surprise of the course having been graded and slightly widened in certain areas.  This got rid of all the loose slit on top and got down to a nice hard packed layer, which really helped me put my power down.  There was one tight kink on the course right next to a cone wall, threatening to ruin someone's day. But otherwise, the course was very friendly to my car.  With the championship locked up, Stephen was free to not really GAF and promptly hit four cones on his first run, likely equaling his total for the season.  I laid down the fastest first run and never looked back.  Josh laid down a scorcher on his second run but caught a cone, and I pulled away from there.  Of our 8 runs, I was fastest on four of them.  Eric and Stephen both had some fast runs as well.  After Josh hit another cone on his third run, he pretty much gave up and started to horse around.  In runs 5-8, people who were out of contention started swapping cars and having fun, but Eric wasn't too far behind me, so I had to stay in serious mode and make sure I held onto first.  In the end, Eric hit his only two cones on his last run, and finished about 10 seconds behind me.  Everyone else's runs were sort of jumbled since they were car swapping so it's impossible to know what the rest of the results were.  So with two first place finishes for the weekend, I edged out Josh by a few points and got into second place for the season, only one point behind Stephen.  Considering I was in fifth place after our first two races, this feels pretty awesome.  By the time the season was half way over, it had been over a year since I won a race, and I was starting to wonder if I had what it takes to ever win one again.  But by winning three of the last four, I guess I answered that question.  The competitiveness of our MR class is second to none, and I know I wouldn't be able to drive this well without all the other awesome drivers around me, forcing me to get better and push harder.
 

I ran my Maxxis gravel tires on both days and it was absolutely the correct decision.  I just don't see a use for my grass Maxsports aside from deep silt or mud conditions.  Maybe if I had gotten a wider size (they're a 185/65/15 vs the 205/65/15 Maxxis) they would be more useful, but for my car they're just too narrow and squishy if the course has any grip on it.  After everything was over Josh went home and measured the break away torque of his diff, and damn if it wasn't about half of what it should be.  I'd be surprised if that loss happened all of a sudden this weekend, but I guess his hunch was right.  So he'll be back even stronger next season, as will most of the other cars.  As for me?  I might actually get around to installing those seat heaters in my Recaros and detailing my car ;)
 

lol, I've been running this car for 10 years. Trust me when I say I know when something changes significantly in the way it drives haha.....

The diff felt fine at Panthera at the previous weekend, even though there's probably less traction there (and my 1-2 results that weekend reflect that).  FWIW, that diff had right around 60lb breakaway earlier in the summer (I checked it because I was considering swapping in my 3.73, but since it was surprisingly good I decided to leave it in).  Either way, now I'll have a good excuse to go to a triple-clutch setup ;)

In any case, nice running. Good or bad diff, it would have been tough to catch you last weekend - you mentioned you aren't usually good at Summit, and I usually haven't won there either (muddy events excepted) so you upped your game and I clearly did not!

Next time at Summit i'll have to arrange a bribe to get some water truck action :D

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

 

lol, I've been running this car for 10 years. Trust me when I say I know when something changes significantly in the way it drives haha.....

The diff felt fine at Panthera at the previous weekend, even though there's probably less traction there (and my 1-2 results that weekend reflect that).  FWIW, that diff had right around 60lb breakaway earlier in the summer (I checked it because I was considering swapping in my 3.73, but since it was surprisingly good I decided to leave it in).  Either way, now I'll have a good excuse to go to a triple-clutch setup ;)

In any case, nice running. Good or bad diff, it would have been tough to catch you last weekend - you mentioned you aren't usually good at Summit, and I usually haven't won there either (muddy events excepted) so you upped your game and I clearly did not!

Next time at Summit i'll have to arrange a bribe to get some water truck action :D

Thanks, I'm not sure if I actually drove better, or if the courses were just extra friendly to my car.  Now I want to measure the breakaway of my diff.  What's a 3 plate supposed to be around?  Since you don't have an M44 anymore, I'm not sure the water truck would be to your advantage!

congrats, bud. well earned!  I'm itching to get back out there in my own car in March. Eric/Neil/Chris/Chris and I can get back to seeing who slept on the right/wrong side of the bed to give you, Josh H, and Stephen competition that day.

Alright, let's try to finish up this rust repair nonsense.  Yes, there is more to this.

I knew that my front fenders had some rust at their bottom front corners, so I planned to take care of them while I worked on the rust in the rear fender.  I had to take off the PS side skirt to get proper access to the rear fender, and when I removed it I was greeted by a little surprise.  That led me to remove the DS side skirt as well, and was greeted by another surprise.  So yeah, this project just got a lot bigger.  I did the same process for pretty much everything involved here, so I'll explain it once, and then just do a photo dump to keep things moving along.

Let's start with the passenger side.  With the side skirt off, I saw this:



I then removed the fender, and was greeted by this:





So again I used every grinding tool I had available until I got all the surface rust off things.  Angle grinder, dremel, wire wheels, etc.





Then I used the rust dissolving chemicals like I did on the rear fender:





Then POR15 and 3M Rubberized Undercoating





Then on to the area under the side skirt, which turned into this after some grinding:



My magnet pulled all this out from inside the sill:



I figured I would get rid of the useless bits in the center and smooth things out a bit...



Then I dissolved the rust:



And used the Bondo metal mesh patch and more of that POR15 seam sealer stuff:



And finally a layer of regular POR15 on top of that.