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

[Fair!]

With this car coming back to Vorshlag this weekend we figured we'd go ahead and start the "Alpha LS1 E36 Team Car" page here. Should have added this when Teucci got it running earlier this year. This car will continue to be campaigned in XPrepared for SCCA Solo, G class for BMWCCA, and whatever Time Attack/Time Trial class it gets dumped into. Me, Hanchey, and even Teucci on occasion will race it at Texas area events in 2008 and one of us will run it at Nationals in 2008 as well. DIBS! (Amy will continue to run the '97 M3 in STU at most events)


Initial set-up, early 2007, with 17x9 D-Force wheels and 255/40/17 Kumho VictoRacer tires

Teucci is dropping the car off Saturday morning, Sept 15th, and we'll be racing it at the $100-entry-fee (ack!) Oktoberfest autocross on October 1st, out at Mineral Wells. Before that event we need to...

• Add a power steering cooler
• Swap the trunk and rear wing over from the other white E36
• Get a passenger seat in it!

This car hasn't been weighed in a while so we will do that this weekend and post the numbers (should be in the 26XX range). Teucci has been running the car at regional and divisional events this year and has set TTOD in the car more times than not. We want to change little if anything for now, because it works so damn well! Eventually it may get more lightweight body panels, a roll cage, a DASH2 digital display, AST 4300s, and some other goodies.

It has the following parts:

• low mileage bone stock LS1 engine and T56
• Custom full length headers, dual 3" exhaust and cats feeding into and a single 3" MagnaFlow muffler
• C5 Z06 clutch and pp, 12 pound Fidanza flywheel
• 3.91 gearing in a BMW M3 188mm diff housing
• 17x10F, 17x11R CCW 3-piece wheels
• 275/40/17 front, 315/35/17 rear, Kumho V710 DOT race tires
• Carbon Fiber rivet-on flares
• Stock 325 radiator and pusher fan
• Mostly gutted interior
• CF sunroof panel and aluminum LTW doors
• Sparco EVO driver's seat
• Registration and inspection stickers
• Lots of work by Teucci!

Mid-2007 set-up with 17x10/275mm front, 17x11/315mm Rear CCW wheels and Kumho V710 R compounds

We have been gathering R compounds for our now-aborted XP3 build-up and have amassed 18 race tires for use with this car including eight 17" and ten 18" Kumhos and Hoosiers, including a mix of 275s, 285s, 305s and 315s. We will probably migrate to two different sets of wheels and tires unless one set shows to work well and still provide acceptable wear rates for both types of events.

• For track events and Mineral Wells autocrosses, the existing 17" CCWs and Kumho Victoracers in 275F/315R sizes will be used, for better wear and cost effectiveness.
• For Solo use a set of D-Force 18x10" wheels and softer compound V710s or Hoosiers will be used in 285/30/18 and 305/30/18 sizes (we have 2 sets of Hoosier S05s in these staggered sizes already).

We are so psyched to get this car! Its even street legal, so we'll drive it to some local meet-and-greets. Thanks again to Teucci for selling the car back to us after doing all of the hard work getting it up and running. It saves us countless weeks/months getting our white 325is converted to a V8 and then into a competitive race car and lets us focus on much more pressing matters within the business while showing off a fast LS1 E36 sooner. With the E36 LS1 kit finally going into production this is a very important time saver for us.


Late 2007 set-up with 18x10 D-Force wheels and 285mm Front, 305mm Rear Hoosier S05 R compounds

Check back soon for a LOT more pictures, updates, changes, videos, and data logging numbers. Make sure to ask for a ride on the passenger side at local events - it will blow your mind.

Caution: we are not responsible for excessive spending after riding in this car.

[Fair!]

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

Update on the Alpha car! The new owner is having a blast, racing the Alpha at tracks all along the east coast, including:

Its now offically seen most of the north east tracks including Summit Point, VIR, NJMP Thunderbolt and as of this weekend, Lightening. Still to come, Watkins Glen and maybe Lime Rock. If I get lucky, maybe a Canadian track.

In-car video from NJMP Lightning with NASA May 29th, 2010

He's been having problems with the alternator; apparently they are failing at high rpm, so he's keeping the revs below 5500 rpm until he can source an under-drive pulley for it. I'm sure its frustrating, because from 5500 rpm to 7000 that motor is a beast!



He finally added a real wing to the back and its improved braking and cornering, so much so that it eats rear pads quikly, whereas before it didn't wear the rears hardly at all.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1467624 - more details here

Keep up the good work John!

[hancheyb]

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

Yep, that's one cool car. I wish them the best!

[McCall]

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

Sad day indeed. We need to lift up a few cold ones on Friday @ happy hour to memorialize and reminisce.

but....on to the next project(s)!

[Fair!]

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

As most of you know, the Alpha car sold on eBay about a week ago, for a fair price, and went to a good buyer (corner carver's member JohnK). The owner lives in PA and is based in NY, so the car will see road courses on the east coast soon. His brother Jerry lives nearby in north Texas, so he was the one who arranged to pick up the car on Saturday Nov 7th. I had the car ready to go and he picked up a rental trailer and came to get it.



I didn't sleep much the night before, and got up super early. I was buying two E46s and selling another E36 that same day, so I was going nuts waiting, but spent part of the morning waiting for him to show up copying receipts and putting together all of the Alpha car paperwork for the new owner. Man, that brought back memories! The original receipt for the purchase of the running '93 318is automatic, back in June 2003. I didn't leave it stock for a month before I had the motor out and the mock-up LS1 in place. All sorts of receipts for various iterations of the car. Wow, what a crazy 6 years its been. "Sad" doesn't describe how I felt to see this car go. I was downright depressed!



When Jerry arrived he wanted to drive the car, and I live out in the country so it wasn't out of the question, but he let me drive since I knew the roads and the car a lot better, and this isn't a car that we just let anyone drive when it was Vorshlag's. I think no more than 6 people have ever driven it in the past 6 years, and they were all very experienced, trusted friends and talented racers.

Jerry is himself a drag racer, and was just doing his brother a favor, but after that ~5 minute ride-along with me, he was coming out of his skin and yelling "I'm sending my brother his check back and buying it myself!!!" He loved the car. I'm glad he allowed me that one brief, final joy ride - sometimes sideways, others with the tires spinning in 3rd or 4th gear - along the back country roads around my place.


Matteucci drifting the Alpha car, pre-flares, during when he owned it for ~2 years

Big thanks to everyone who has worked on this car over the years that I was associated with it: Taylor at Dallas Performance for the beautiful cage work, fuel system upgrades, custom race exhaust, hundreds of hours spent doing production LS1 kit development/refinement, and the dyno tuning; Brian Matteucci for the incredible wiring/plumbing work, wheels/tires/first set of CF flares, and the first running LS1 iteration!; Brian Hanchey of AST-USA for the countless hours prepping/tweaking the suspension, brakes, and various drivetrain work we both did over the years we owned it together, and racing the snot out of it; and to all our friends and other shops that painted/tuned/aligned/worked on this thing over the past 6 years, notably: Vorshlag friends Jason McCall, Paul Magyar, & Dave Bubeck; Don Paney (paint); Eurosport (alignments), Louis @ LG Motorsports (last dyno tune), and others I am sure I forgot to mention.

I know John is going to have a blast tracking in this car. We wish him and the car well.

[GotCone?]

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

dowant.

any guesses on what target range on price you guys will go for?

[Fair!]

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

Update: I worked on the new driveshaft install and shifter mods the week of September 21st and wrapped up the work from the transmission swap minutes before heading to the Sept 26th Dallas Cars & Coffee car show event.

Big thanks to Matt and Dave for helping me clean up the car and pump fluid into the trans (why is this always such a messy job?!) on Friday. The car now has the new TR6060 transmission and shortened driveshaft as well as a new shifter arrangement.





The "Joe's Racing Products" fire proof shifter boot has this aluminum frame that the boot snaps onto. Screwed a piece of sheet aluminum to cover the old opening that was 2" further rearward then screwed the shifter frame to the floor. The new shifter location with the TR-6060 actually fits the stock console better. The tran's 700 ft-lbs of torque capacity means it won't be breaking behind this 490 whp motor anytime soon. Overkill at its finest.



Red tubing is from the SPA fire system, recently added to the car. The shifter actually feels great in the new location. I took the old Hurst shifter arm and ball from the old T56 and bolted it right to the new TR6060, which came with the lower portion of the shifter. I worried that the shifter would be too far forward but it feels great and shifts beautifully. Love the taller first gear in the 6060, too. The motor still has enough torque in 1st to destroy 315mm Hoosiers, but its still a better ratio.

Everything worked perfectly after ~6 weeks of being apart - hooked up the battery, it fired right up and drove onto the trailer. We trailered it a few blocks from the car show (right next to a police station!) and then drove it in.

Dallas Cars & Coffee pics:

Me and my nephew Chandler took the car to show it off - to try to help sell it, with fliers on the windshield. The car ran, looked and sounded better than ever before! Really hate to see this car go.


Lots of exotics and classics cars show at the C&C event every 4th Saturday at Classic BMW in Plano

People gawked as we we drove up... its a little loud.


In preparation of the upcoming sale of this car we removed about half of the decals, and of course the car was spotless inside and out


Fake euro license plate worked well enough - I drove by a a few cops and that police station on the way there.

Stay tuned for the online auction sale for this car in the coming week! Sell a kidney on the black market, cash out the 401K, do what you have to do - because you could own this legendary BMW soon.

[Ethan]

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

So, why are you guys selling this?

[Fair!]

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

Some updates from our T56 to T56 Magnum (TR-6060 based) swap in the BMW E36/LS2:

The Tremec TR-6060 (aka: T56 Magnum) arrived from D&D 2 days after we ordered it. This is the same trans used in the 600+ hp ZR1, and is rated at 700 ft-lbs of torque - probably overkill for this car, but the closer ratio gearing will make all of the gears more usable. D&D shipped a replacement 4th gen Camaro T56 bell housing as well as the heavier-duty 31-spline front driveshaft yoke. Another new C6 Z06 clutch+pressure plate arrived from Scoggins Dickey in a day (they are close by) - the slightly used Z06 pressure plate looked ugly from hundreds of hits from the errant piece of the input shaft, and they don't sell it separately from the clutch disc. Good thing we had a nearly new disc, as the new one got hammered in shipping.

So the parts all got here by Wednesday so after we closed a local racer (DaveB) stopped by for a couple of hours to help Brian and me stab the trans and get the drivetrain all back into place. As with the T56, the TR-6060 is a tight fit inside the BMW's trans tunnel, but we managed to get it stabbed with the motor hanging from our motor mounts and the K-member lowered slightly. Quicker than pulling out the whole drivetrain.


The TR-6060 has an extra boss and is missing one compared to the T56. 5 instead of 6 bolts secure the bell housing, oh well


The T56 reverse lockout swapped over from the T56


Some additional openings between the trans and bell housing are there, presumably for use in other cars


The crossmember bolted right up, but the trans is a good 2.5" longer overall (all in the tailshaft housing)


The supplied shifter puts the stub almost 2" forward of the T56 location. Going to need a custom handle

We buttoned up the rest of the trans install and the drivetrain is all back in place. Now we just need to reinstall the pass. side header, starter, and some other bits. Then we'll measure the driveshaft that needs to be shortened - "about an inch shorter" is what we've been told, with the supplied 31-spline yoke installed on the front. More soon.

[Fair!]

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

Here's the carnage:





Flywheel, throw out bearing, clutch and crank are fine, but the bell housing and pressure plate took a beating and of course the input shaft is a goner. Pilot bearing is going to be replaced just in case, too.

So we're looking at rebuild trans options and its almost cheaper to buy a new TR-6060 transmission outright than getting the cheapest T56 rebuilt unit. The motor isn't super ungodly powerful, making around 500 ft-lbs, so we're thinking of going with D&D Performance's T-56 Magnum 6 Speed Transmission:

http://www.ddperformance.com/magnum.html

"The T-56 Magnum is the next generation aftermarket T-56 6 Speed transmission and is based on the TR-6060 transmission, original equipment in the Mustang GT500, Corvette, Camaro, Viper & Challenger."

Features:
- 700lb-ft Torque Capacity with 2.97 or 2.66 1st Gear
- Mechanical or Electric Speedometer
- 26 T Input Shaft
- 31 T Output Shaft (Camaro is 27 spline; new rear 31-spline yoke is $89)
- Ratios: 2.66, 1.78, 1.30, 1.00, .80, .63
- Uses Hydraulic Throw out Bearing
- Price $2795

Adding a new Camaro style bell housings adds another $200 and I'm adding some steel plate to the tunnel for foot protection (a scattershield will be too bulky for this already tight BMW tunnel). So for a little over $3000 we get a brand new TR-6060 with custom, closer gear ratios for less than a good "race" prepped rebuilt T56. This gearing will work MUCH better for both autocrossing (right now 1st is completely useless) and track events, with a more usable 1st, 5th and 6th. We figure if this trans is good enough for the Viper and ZR1 it should work for our little 500 whp mill...?

I've bought from D&D in the past and had good experiences. We thought briefly about a lighter race transmission (Jerico, etc), but we don't want to have to re-do everything... trans crossmember, driveshaft, tunnel, clutch actuation, external shifters, starter, flywheel, etc. And those are $5500+ to start. This TR-6060 unit is only a tick longer than the T56, so the driveshaft will have to be shortened, and the shifter moves forward 2-3/4" (which should fit this chassis better), but otherwise its a bolt-in.

The cheapest rebuilt T56 we've seen was ~$2000 for a stock style unit (which is what we had) and upwards of $4000-6000 for a "good" race rebuilt units. Rockland Standard's website is complete garbage but from looking on forums and other websites I can gather that their "Tranzilla" prepped T56 costs around $6000-7000 and the "Son of Tranzilla" is $4000+, which is more than we wanted to spend on a rebuilt T56 transmission. I have heard great things about their products, they are just a bit too pricey.

I really like the closer gear spacing of the TR-6060 but that adds even more cost to a custom built T56. Only 6060's I've seen break in stock form are on turbo Vipers and the like. There are also certain drivers that can break anything, of course, so I always take those internet stories of "so-and-so broke one!" with a grain of salt. We're not drag racers...

So... right now it looks like the TR-6060 is what we'll go with.

[hancheyb]

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

The input shaft was in two pieces when we pulled it apart last night. Looking for a new transmission now. So far the TR6060 (ZR-1) transmission is looking like a winner. If we could convert to a straight cut box for that I would, but I think it would require flywheel, clutch, starter, driveshaft, etc. Not interested in that. Thoughts?

[John in Houston]

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

Inspection hole. No hole, no inspection needed. Hole, inspection needed.

[Redwood]

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

If you had the missing piece, you'd just use some tried and tested JB Weld + duct tape and you'd be good to go. What, it disintegrated at 155mph?

[hancheyb]

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

Hey, is this bad?

[hancheyb]

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

OK, update. I checked the data. NASA gave me a 1:57.1 for my first lap. The DL-1 confirms that. My second lap was a 1:54.79! Not bad!