New street wheels looking niccceeeee
New street wheels looking niccceeeee
irish44j said:oil pan behind the subframe must be nice...................
Yes. Yes it is.
Even whe you completely mangle the skid plate with a gravel berm with the Miata you are borrowing, for instance, the oil pan itself is very well guarded and not subject to injury. At least not until you ram the skidplate into the oil pan so hard you break the drainplug off, at which point you find yourself driving a mostly stock Miata except for the complete lack of oil in the dampers thanks to the absolute gentleman who you had been beating as of that point.
It's funny seeing that car without the ubiquitous roof rack....
In reply to irish44j :
The car looks surprisingly good in that form from a distance
But I just want it looking like THIS
One day... PS click through that gallery for more sweet Volvo sauce.
First Rallycross in this car is complete! Moral of the story is that the car was wayyyy faster than it should have been considering stock springs and shot struts. Also broke some stuff:
The car practically catching air knocked the exhaust off and subsequently the bumper cover.
Also the top mounts seperated and started pushing through.
The more significant problem (that caused me to retire one run into the afternoon) was some coolant leaks. One out of the drain cock by the headers, and the other somewhere under the intake manifold near the firewall). I'll have to work on fixing that because it lost the capacity of the resivoir in two runs.
Handling wise the car actually had a tonnn of front end grip. Like it turned in better than our e30 (with HD's and 200 lb/in springs). The softish surface coupled with soft suspension definitely helped. Rear was eh. Too floppy (sitting on the outer bumpstop when doing sustained cornering). Stiffer springs and more aggressive shock (maybe mine are blown, idk) + less rear pressure (I was running the federals at a conservative 28 psi to avoid debeads) would make it adequate. But overall the car exceeded all expectations, and I even put down the 3rd fastest first run in a stacked MR class w/ 17 drivers.
Never would have picked a Volvo for rallyx but damn, I'm telling yall, get em while there still around.
Nesegleh said:(I was running the federals at a conservative 28 psi to avoid debeads)
Probably way too much pressure there. you want to be ~25 at most on a real gravel tire. I've run as low as 20 at rallycross and never debeaded. There is really zero reason to debead a rally tire with a RWD car in rallycross. I still don't know how your dad and stephen do it occaionally lol.
Plus, no need to worry about debeads - just means you get a free run with no penalty :)
irish44j said:Nesegleh said:(I was running the federals at a conservative 28 psi to avoid debeads)
Probably way too much pressure there. you want to be ~25 at most on a real gravel tire. I've run as low as 20 at rallycross and never debeaded. There is really zero reason to debead a rally tire with a RWD car in rallycross. I still don't know how your dad and stephen do it occaionally lol.
Plus, no need to worry about debeads - just means you get a free run with no penalty :)
Yea we (mostly me and Stephen) debeaded often on the old setup because it wouldn't turn in for E36 M3. Basically just plowing straight through ruts with the front wheels turned. New car with new setup led to me being scared this would happen again lol. Should've atleast lowered the rear down.
brand-new tires don't hurt. A bit more turn-in bite I'd guess, compared to the worn-out maxsports the e30 has.
Anyhow, nice first run. I think you were faster than everyone (except maybe me?) before we both screwed it up lol.
Now onto part two of the day, where Corey McKenzie let me drive his Volvo 240 TURBO! Not sure about suspension details, just know it's a pretty mild setup. All I know is that he has adjustable torque rods with *gasp* heims, a welded 4.10 rear out of an explorer, new shifter bushings (the shifter felt sooo good), and rally tires. Engine is a stock NA engine that he put a stock turbo on, running 12 psi.
Let me just say that this thing was a berkeleying rocketship. Something is wonky with the steering (which he suspected before I confirmed it), probably the rack. The wheel was very floaty and the steering didn't self steer off of lock like it should. Also the welded made turn in a struggle, but once turned in it felt good (powersldies for days). This all made it quite a handful, and I hit 6 cones my first run in it.
Anyways all my runs were slow in it, and I almost spun a few times, but damn it was quick! Never had trouble keeping the ass end in line in 3rd gear until driving this thing, lol.
In conclusion my car is going to stay NA for a while for the sake of staying out of the trees. Also welded diff is no bueno.
irish44j said:brand-new tires don't hurt. A bit more turn-in bite I'd guess, compared to the worn-out maxsports the e30 has.
Anyhow, nice first run. I think you were faster than everyone (except maybe me?) before we both screwed it up lol.
Yea beside you and Stephen. I was just screwing around tbh didn't even know my first run was fast till after my second.
Eric hit a supppeeer nice flick off that little straight into the sharp right, car was pointed in the right direction to get on power like 30ft before the apex and he didn't hit any cones. I then spent the rest of my runs trying to do that and nailing the inside cone most of the time.
What crazy about the tires (especially when I'm used to maxsports) is how fresh they still look. I think they've got like 10 total runs on em and and edges look brand new. Centers are a tiny bit worn, partially cuz the pressures were too high. Super impressed.
I've driven the e30 with fresh maxsports plenty of times, this felt better. Of course many factors that played more than tires, namely soft surface + suspension (and no hills).
yeah, I didn't notice any appreciable wear on my Federals (though i had my pre-used set on, not my new ones).
Some pics I forgot to post after last event:
Made some new struts this week.
General info: project goal was to adapt 40mm escort inserts (300/100 valving, 8.4" travel) to the Volvo. Strut length is the same as stock Volvo, and finished ride height will be as well. Will be finished up with spherical top mount and 12" 225 lb/in eibach XT springs. Some may remember an alternate method of attaching the strut to the knuckle that is removable that I posted a couple pages back, but I decided against this because it puts more stress of the welds, and I'm not a great welder.
Started with:
- stock knuckles, chopped 2" up the tube.
- 2.25" OD, 1/8" wall chromoly tubing
- Rix engineering escort strut tubes (which accept 40mm bilstein inserts)
Welded the new strut tube to the stock knuckle. Here's the jig we used for tacking:
Both tubes clamped into the corner of a piece of angle. The new tube is slightly small OD than the old one, hence the shims. (also that pic was taken after welding and grinding cuz I forgot to earlier)
Both tubes were around 1/8" wall thickness so they welded up nicely. After grinding:
Next up was the out sleeves to reinforce the weld between the 2 tubes. Drilled some holes for plug welds to the inner tubes.
The 2.00" ID tube needed to fit over the 2.07" tube sticking out of the knuckle. So I had to slit it down the side and spread it significantly:
Slid it over the strut and did a lot of (careful) welding. Lots of time spent moving around trying to keep it from cooling unevenly.
Next up is paint and redrilling the top mounts for the Volvo pattern.
Almost forgot, also got some Kaplhenke extended wheel studs.
Stock thread engagement was lacking.
In reply to Nesegleh :
Neat! 225 seems low on spring rate, though, unless Volvos are lighter than I think they are.
I expect the 225 came from discussions with me. I was running that rate previously (with the 4cyl), and am currently running 250 up front with the heavier I6. IIRC there was some discussion of the front-end weight of the Volvo vs. an e30 being similar. I suspect the gravel valving will add some amount of rate as well vs. regular HDs - at least that's been my experience using them in the rear.
This is on my list of "things to do" on the e30 this year as well - Thomas, do you have a link to the housings you used?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:In reply to Nesegleh :
Neat! 225 seems low on spring rate, though, unless Volvos are lighter than I think they are.
That rate was based off of some discussion with a few rwd rally people and looking at VOC rallycars over in Sweden. Their springs are around 200 lb/in with but with some more compression damping. Also 225 is what JVL supplied for these cars.
Keep in mind my car is NA and fairly slow. Should be in the 2700-2800lb range when done.
In reply to Nesegleh :
Wow, they are lighter than I thought. I run something in the low-mid 300 range (the numbers have been gravel blasted away) on the front of the Merkur and still smack the bumpstops pretty hard occasionally, but the 2.3T is a heavy blob.
In reply to irish44j :
That site has pretty much everything you need including hardware, spring perches, etc.
In reply to irish44j :
Also send me a text before you order the stuff. We can make sure you've got all the needed hardware and go over how you plan to make this fit in an e30 :)
Nesegleh said:In reply to irish44j :
Also send me a text before you order the stuff. We can make sure you've got all the needed hardware and go over how you plan to make this fit in an e30 :)
will do. thx. it won't be for a while, as my other project is keeping me busy and I still have four front HDs sitting around lol...
In reply to irish44j :
I used the same stuff on the Merkur. Honestly, if I were you I'd be pretty tempted to rip apart those HDs and see what's in them- it might be relatively easy to figure out how to stick the Escort insert in there and save yourself some welding. Did we have this discussion already? Something something measure the inverted slidey diameter?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:In reply to irish44j :
I used the same stuff on the Merkur. Honestly, if I were you I'd be pretty tempted to rip apart those HDs and see what's in them- it might be relatively easy to figure out how to stick the Escort insert in there and save yourself some welding. Did we have this discussion already? Something something measure the inverted slidey diameter?
yep, we've had this discussion. I actually asked Thomas for measurements of the insert back when he got it. Then got sidetracked by something else so I don't even remember what I determined at the time....will have to go back and look. My recollection is that the HD tube may have been slightly narrower than the insert, but will have to refresh my memory.
In reply to irish44j :
Just seems wacky for Bilstein to make so many different sizes of inverted damper, but... Germans.
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