Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Upper or lower gasket? BMW phuked me 2 times with those... both times gave me the wrong one (not sure how that could be so difficult).

Upper (main) one.

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Well, it started back up about 2AM last night. Seems to be working fine. New clutch, new oil pan gaskets.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Call me a liar, eh?

Someone was claiming that the -4.3° front camber we have measured time and again on our E30 was "mathmetically impossible", so I went outside and snapped these pictures:





No trickery, no photoshopping, no special parts, just off-the-shelf Vorshlag plates, "unbent" OEM strut housings shortened 1", and that's it. When people see the camber on the car at events that always say "it just looks broken", and you can see in the pictures we have posted many times that's not some girly man camber setting. 'Nuff said.



Here's the actual dyno chart taken at Dallas Performance on August 19, 2008 for the Vorshlag 1991 E30 318is before any power mods were performed. Looks like it rounds up to 119 whp with the OEM paper filter element in place and 122 whp was without (but still though the stock airbox). Woo. Still, not much to brag about, but not bad for a 1.8L motor from ~1990, rated at 136 crank hp from the factory, 18 years later. The new programming, cold air, and exhaust parts are inbound. Look out Honda Civics! :stickoutt

We dyno'd the car during a local BMWCCA chapter meeting that was hosted by Dallas Performance and Vorshlag where we had a free dyno test as a door prize. Luckily the coolest BMW there won the test - this brand new 2008 E92 M3 6-spd...


(click on either thumbnail for video of the 2008 M3 dyno pulls. First is stock, second is with the airbox removed - it added 18 whp and a lot of intake noise!)

The sound of the M3 at 8000 rpm with the air cleaner bypassed was deafening... but oh so good!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

More mods underway...



OK, so the car has dyno'd at 122 whp with the stock airbox in place and using a hideous exhaust, complete with the original 200K mile cat. I just lopped off the entire exhaust after the factory header last night (the cat alone weighed 18 pounds!) and am in the process of building the mandrel bent 2.25" diameter system with a new cat + muffler today. The car already had a non-stock muffler and aft section of tubing, but it should still drop another 40 pounds (based on what we weighed coming off and going back on) and hopefully pick up some performance. And it couldn't possibly sound worse.


Old cat = 18.0 pounds. New emissions legal replacement = 4.7 pounds (2" ID)


New muffler is 5.3 pounds and everything we might dream of using going back on is only totaling 14.2 pounds



The tubing coming off the car is insanely thick! The original exhaust is made to last an eternity, and it has the heft to prove it.



We also added "tuning" (a reprogrammed Turner chip with +500 RPM and supposedly more power) last night; that plus the cold air and exhaust warrants another dyno pull, probably next week. We'll pull the a/c compressor too (it doesn't work) to drop some more pounds for the SCCA Solo Nationals, only about a week away....

I'm not running this car at Nationals this year (my wife Amy is), but running our LS1 powered E36 instead (XPrepared). That car weighs almost the same as the E30, but has triple the power. Good times....

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

New Exhaust, Cold Air, Programming

The factory exhaust was 2" stuff, and the new 2.25" mandrel bends I got from SPD (excellent bends) slipped tightly over the OD of the OEM tubing, so that worked out nicely. The replacement cat was only 2" ID inlet and outlet, but that's all I could find that was an approved OE replacement, required for this class.



We got everything wrapped up last night around midnight. Probably have 4 hours in the new exhaust, most of which was fighting with doing the work on freagin' jackstands. We're getting a new lift very soon - this is ridiculous.



Getting that old junk off of there was such a good feeling. It was literally garbage from another shops junk pile that was on the car the last 6 months or so. I'm gonna take it back to that same scrap pile!

The whole system aft of the factory header now weighs a hair over 16 pounds (around 35-40 pounds less), and sounds a LOT better. No longer raspy like a Honda with a fart tip, now it makes noises more like a V4 sport bike at higher revs. At mid-rpm revs where the old muffler used to drone loudly (highway speeds) its now drone free, and actually much quieter - something we hadn't bargained for, either. Shocking, considering there's only a turn down behind the passenger compartment. With the new chip it now revs freely to 7000, and pulls considerably harder from 5-7K. We have got to get this thing on the dyno ASAP! :cool



Welding the new mild steel bends to the old OEM low grade stainless with a MIG wasn't pretty, so I ground most of the welds smooth. If Hanchey wouldn't have been there to stop me every joint would be seemless... thankfully he talked me out of wasting more hours than I did. He worked on his new EVO X "MR" for most of the evening, removing the suspension to take measurements for new AST struts and shocks. The flappy-paddle dual clutch semi-automatic transmission in that thing is the coolest transmission ever, bar none. ITs even super smooth in "auto" mode, and in S-Sport mode it grabs a lower gear without you even thinking about it. The torque sensing hydro-electric rear diff is also a huge beast of a thing! Looks a lot more complicated than the little E30 set-up. :lol



There's the underhood shot with the new cold air. I have some aluminum sheet, and if I get time I'll whip up a quick heat shield for the filter. We still want to spend an hour or so and pull the a/c compressor, but other than that its ready for Nationals. :buttrock

[BrianGT]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

new exhaust looks nice! As for all of that front camber, does it effect your braking ability?

As of the dyno plot, here is a dynojet plot from my 89si:
http://www.briangt.com/gallery/sts/sts_dyno?full=1 (I have the dynojet file if you want it)
It is a little tired, and a rebuilt motor in my region put out 4 more hp and 2 more tq.

-Brian

[Thinkkker]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Are you guys still just about Daily Driving it?

As dumb as that may sound, Im curious about the mpg this thing will be getting now with the mods. I may be looking for a little better DD mpg wise than the Mustang if/when the move goes through with the company.

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

It has the typical E30 broken odometer so we don't know fuel mileage. Most people say they get 30+ in them. Scheier daily drove one for a while.

[Thinkkker]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Forgot about the Odometer issue. Now to wait for a offer letter.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Update from 2008 Nationals: Amy had a good showing at Nationals, but cone problems kept her from having another great showing like the last two years/wins in STU-L; she trophied 4th in STS-L out of 11. She had raw times that would have exceeded the 2nd place finisher considerably, but she had to slow down for a "safety run" on both days to get one clean one on the books. Most of her runs looked like this...



We made only a slight change at the practice event on Sunday before the competition started, and the car was hooked up and fast. She was ~1 second off "the fast boys" on Sunday, but was "riding dirty" on her Thursday-Friday runs. Sucks, we really wanted to put the fear in the Hondas with the lone BMW entry, but thems the breaks. The E30 didn't quite have enough to match the top placing Honda in her class, driven by a 6+ time National Champion. With some more development and seat time we think the E30 could keep up (we just got the final set-up semi-sorted a week before Nationals).



One thing that would need improvement is tires. Both STS and STS-L were won by newer models of Street Touring eligible tires: STS was won by a Honda on Toyos and STS-L was won by a Honda on Dunlops. The STS-L winner in particular had the one thing we struggled to make work all year - wider tires. That car had 215mm x 17" fronts and the otherwise standard Honda 195mm 15" rears (the rears don't do much on a FWD car except "follow the fronts"). The E30 was carrying an extra 300 pounds yet ran only a 205mm tire at both ends - so it was at a grip disadvantage.

In retrospect, the smart move would have been to run a 7.5" custom wheel with 16" or 17" 225mm tires with the right overall height to keep the gearing short. The only 225mm tires we could use had a very tall diameter (and didn't test well for us), and we were reluctant to build a 7.5" wide 3-piece custom wheel for this tire that we new was too tall.

Anyway, we have a few things we are going to tweak on the E30, and of course we still need to dyno it after all of the recent power mods. After that we aren't sure what we are going to do with the car. Amy might run the car at a couple of track events and she will run it this weekend at the annual Texas region TMS Road Course autocross, but we don't have a lot of plans for the car after that. We have a lot to do on Brian's new EVO X and Amy will likely compete in that car next year.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is



The E30 has been pressed into service as a track rat lately and its doing great. Amy ran it a week ago with NASA and I ran it this past weekend with BMW, both at Eagles Canyon Raceway. We're either going to turn it into a TTE classed Time Trial car or.... sell it to help pay for another shop project car or better trailer. We've run out of suspension projects for this car so it needs a new home, or a "new purpose".

Some pics of the suspension:




R: picture of the custom motor mounts


Better pics of the exhaust:



New camcorder mount:



I'll post some in-car videos from ECR when I get time to edit and upload them.

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

I looked up the rules. The ol' E30 in NASA would make a great GTS1 car, PTE, or TTE car. It could run BMW Prepared or SCCA STS naturally!

It's an all around great car for autox or roadracing.

[rp1]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

So has there been any further discussion as to keeping or selling the car? Should would be nice to take this car a bit further against the STS boys down here in Atlanta. Keep 'em honest.

[GoDog]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Would it fit into Spec E30?

[Hunter]

Re: Vorshlag 1991 BMW 318is

Would it fit into Spec E30?

yes but the 325is is kinda the car to have for Spec E30... from what I have read anyway