1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

[Fair!]

audible improvement!

oh snap! The car with the new 4" Flowmaster Series 10 muffler sounds gooood.

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"



Videos: (lots more here)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r82qX2VjqZc - Fair driving the Alpha at a BMWCCA TMS autocross 10/13/07. G class winning/FTD run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-PX65YaK9M - Hanchey driving the Alpha at a BMWCCA TMS autocross 10/13/07. Z class winning run.

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Weighed the Alpha LS1 car this weekend:




2550# w/o driver


50.1% cross weight and 46% rear bias, w/ driver and helmet (200#);

Still have lots left to pull out - there's an easy 200# we can get to, and another 100-150# that would be "difficult" but doable. We still have: OEM steel hood and trunk, OEM passenger seat + adjuster (60#), heavy wheels/tires, rear glass and windshield, 60# battery, heavy exhaust+cats, etc.


edit: the 10# Flowmaster 10 series muffler added a week ago helped a little.

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

After 4 events in the car now, the airbag-less stock steering wheel is both ugly and too large. A smaller wheel would have been nice at the last few events that had some tight slaloms and pivot cone turn-arounds. I was palming the wheel one-handed in this video at the finish, rally style.

Updates for the Alpha car:


Sparco steering wheel (suede) - purchased (need quick release hub)

http://www.longacreracing.com/catalo...d=503&catid=15



quick disconnect $30

Yeppers, I found cheap quick connects in 3-bolt (stock car) and 5-bolt (grant) patterns all over, but nothing affordable in the 6-bolt momo/sparco pattern (6 x 70mm Bolt Cirtcle).

What we need is the Sparco hub adapter for a BMW steering shaft ($65) plus the quick release assembly ($329), but we can just use the hub adapter and bolt the wheel onto it for now.

If anyone knows of a good source on a Sparco style quick connect, please share. The type of disconnect we want is the not the "ring style" release (like the $329 Sparco made unit), not the pin-release style (the $30 one above).



Here's the Sparco unit for $329. Ouch!



This is how they go together. Complete assembly at left, shown "released" at right.

edit: just seems crazy... there are $30 quick releases for other patterns but for a 6-bolt you have to pony up +$300 more!?!

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Found TCDesigns quick release for $225...



might do that instead of the sparco

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Measured the rear track with the 315s on the 17x11s = 70.5". There's about 1" we could narrow overall with new wheels (ugh) or new rim halves on these same 17" CCWS (also ugh). Hopefully the D-Force wheels can knock out even more track width.



The 18x10 D-Force wheels are mounted with the Hoosiers and ready to go onto the Alpha next week, for the SCCA event at LaGrave on Nov 18th. 285/30/18F, 305/30/18 rear.

Also spruced up our YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/vorshlag1

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

The Alpha car ran at two Solo events this past weekend. Matteucci, Hanchey and I all drove it on Saturday at a BMWCCA event at MW. Super tight course, it was a beatin' and the car was a' plowin'. We cut the day short after our morning runs exposed steel belts on the front tires. Set-up couldn't have been more wrong for that surface. I'd rather forget that whole event.



New 18 pound Deka AGM battery is in and worked great all weekend, and knocked another 20 pounds out of the car, so it should be sitting at 2530 lbs. Sunday was a lot more enjoyable, perfect weather and the car handled 100% better. Amy and I both drove the Alpha on a radically different suspension tune and wheel & tire set-up. This was at the SCCA's last Solo event for 2007, at LaGrave Field. Wheels are now the familiar 18x10 D-Force LTW5s that we ran on our STU M3 last year. Tires are some old Hoosier S05 scrubs we picked up used, for testing - not the freshest of tires, but at least they are "round" and "hold air".



Took some fiddling with spacers in the pits, but the 285/30/18 front and 305/30/18 rear tires now fit with these wheels and the oversized flares (could use a lot less flare). Lots narrower track out back than the 17x11 and 315/35/17 tires we normally run. The set-up was good enough to beat the EMod crowd of 6 cars (no one else to run against in XP), where we placed 1 & 2, but still a little off the pace of where we should be running with the car (didn't PAX as well as I'd like, and I tied Jim Harris' SMOD EVO's best run, down to the .001 sec). At least we have it handling a LOT better now, and with fresh rubber (this would help immensely), a set of AST4300s just shipped in from Holland (sitting in customs), and some other winter tweaks, we should be posting better times at events in January and throughout 2008.

Need to make some adjustments to the Alpha to get it road course ready (NASA Time Attack and/or HPDEs?), as well: some additional cooling (fan + fabbed aluminum radiator), some brake ducting, a fabricated front splitter, a fabricated cage, an all new exhaust, some "Vorshlag" vinyl, maybe a little paint work, a second race seat, install the Sparco steering wheel, a new array of Stage 0 kit parts applied to this car - lots to do in our short winter break! We could find some places to race in December, but after another year with 25+ competition events, we need a few weekends of down time to catch up on the Alpha, the Beta, the E30 STS car, and to finish fabricating the Stage 0 parts.

Beta should be driving around a road course very soon...

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Measured the front and rear tracks with the D-Force wheels and the wheel swap made a huge reduction in width at both ends. We will be experimenting with some more changes over the winter break to reduce the track further. Narrow track = great for autocrossing, slaloms, etc.

For road course events (HPDE + Time Attacks?) we'll stick with the less costly 17" race tires and the CCW wheels. A wider track isn't as detrimental on a road course, and in some ways actually increases lateral grip.

[hancheyb]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Finally got our AST 4300s on Alpha. Part of this swap out was to try out some Hypercoil springs. Hypercoil came out with a new spring that has a slight beehive shape that gives you more usuable travel, lighter weight, more consistent rate, blah blah blah.

I did weigh the springs.

Eibach 6", 2.5", 500 pound spring = 2.2 pounds
Hypercoil 6", 60mm, 500 pound spring = 2.0 pounds

Eibach 6", 2.5", 700 pound spring = 2.9 pounds
Hypercoil 5", 2.25", 650 pound spring = 2.0 pounds

Neither is an exact comparison, but at least the car lost 2.2 pounds.

Fairs are taking it out Sunday for a practice day. We'll see how it performs!

We are looking at getting a distribution agreement with Hyperco and make a few custom length springs while we're at it. I think 11 Grand Am teams switched this year from Eibach to Hyperco and haven't looked back. I'm sending one of them to get spring rated. We'll see what the graphs look like.

Brian

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Oh yea, forgot to post this work done a couple of weeks back:





With help from DaveB and McCall we got steel E46 flares welded to the Alpha car!

Tons of pics starting here: http://www.vorshlag.smugmug.com/gall...xt2Q#248985614

Gonna get some bodywork done and paint this beast sometime, too. Its so ugly now it has to get some paint!

[GotCone?]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

I've used hypercoil springs in the last couple years in autocross as a friend did some testing on them and they held their rates longer after use compared to eibach.

would love to see you guys carry them, and even offer them as an option for AST's w/ your plastic adapters for 2.5" springs.

I would prefer Hypercoils on my coilovers personally.

[Fair!]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Long time no post... lots has happened to the car in the past 5 months. Finished the flares. A full roll cage was added, AST 4300s, new seats, ran the car on several road courses and even the Ultimate Track Car Challenge. Car dyno'd at 323 whp and 340 wtq. Hood pins added. New harnesses. New video camera mount. Lots of little stuff.





After that event in California the car was looking pretty ratty, so we tore it down to the tub for a repaint. We're going to put it back together with a new front K-member that will allow us to use our Vorshlag LS1 swap kit parts including: motor mounts, transmission crossmember, stainless steel headers, steering shaft, and driveshaft. Can't have the car apart and not slide in a new camshaft, so that should be here any day from HKE Racing Engines (Koenig). The small-ish exhaust is going bye bye and a new dual 3" into 3.5 or 4" exhaust is going in over at Dallas Performance.

Anyway, its back form paint today, so here's the Updates for 7/28/08:







As soon as the new K-member arrives we'll put the 4300s and the race wheels wheels back on (temp suspension and wheels installed for paint), then get the drivetrain in place and head to DP for the new exhaust fab work. Trying to make the August 9th race at TMS...

[Shortcutsleeping]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Looks AWESOME guys!!!


Costas

[GotCone?]

Re: 1992 318is / LS1 aka: "Alpha E36 LS1"

Wow!!!!

[Fair!]

Alpha car gets rebuilt after paint...

Update for 8/29/08: We've been working on the Alpha car late at night, re-assembling it after the "strip to the tub" repaint. Business during the day keeps pushing off more and more work, and this isn't the only race car we've got torn apart for upgrades, but its almost done. It needs fluids, new plugs/wires, and its on the ground for this weekend's race.











Might not look like it, but a lot of rework went into every part existing that went back on the car, and a ton of new parts went in along the way. New: front K-member, headers, motor mounts, steering shaft, trans mount, driveshaft, and tons of wiring and hardware clean-up. Its pretty plain for now, but at least no longer looks like a multi-colored eye sore.

I'll snap some pictures this weekend at the event, where is should get some vinyl. We'll do the after-header exhaust next week, hopefully...