Vorshlag BMW E46: Track Car Project

[McCall]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Regarding muffler options, you might want to consider Hushpower (made by Flowmaster)

http://www.hushpower.com/products/19/PRO+Series.html - their Pro Series available in 3-5" diameter and can even be purchased with a turn-down.



http://www.hushpower.com/technology.php - how it works utilizing a series of sound deflecting cones and some outward packing material. I'm leaning towards a HP2 for the E30 so I can keep it in relatively the same place as my current too-loud straight through Magnaflow.



The only thing I don't see on their website is the weight of the muffler. Thoughts?

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Autocross # 2 in the E46: After a hectic track day on Saturday, where Amy ran her M3, we motored back and swapped the cars inside the trailer to get ready for an autocross on Sunday in the E46. This was just a regional SCCA autocross at a smaller lot, but it was a concrete surface, so we had to go for the seat time. The location is called Pennington Field, and its the smallest lot we race on here in Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Picture Gallery



The course was pretty quick, with straights exceeding 60 mph in 3 places (I topped out 2nd gear all 3 times), but was only about 33 seconds long. I didn't have any competition in DSP, as usual, but Amy ran the car in the local "W" class, where the ladies can run together in a PAX format. She won her class handily, and was .5 sec off of my best time.



The car felt great, other than still having the stock seats/belts/sunroof, so my seating position sucked. The new roof & headliner are in transit from Germany, so that's coming soon. The 4-point Kirk Racing roll bar is waiting for me to pick it up at the powder coaters, and the seats are sitting here ready to have brackets fabbed up. All of this goes in at once. I found out the fuel level limit - with about 1/8th of a tank it fuel starved badly my first 2 runs. I had a noobie passenger with me and rode through with her after my 1st run, barely making it back for my 2nd run. After that run I made a mad dash down the street for fuel. But my 3rd and 4th runs went fine, so I can't blame that for my slow-ish times.


Left: Madderash uses a tiny steering wheel - like 11" dia! Right: Foley was stinkin fast in his C6

The gearing we picked for the new OS Giken diff (3.38:1) may be a bit short, as this is only letting the car get to 61 mph at 7000 rpm. Once we get a chip for this car I'll raise that to 7500 revs, and that will net us 66 mph (8000 rpm = 70 mph). Might have been better off with a taller SP legal ratio. Oh well, it works for the tighter courses, and it will get better once we unleash the revs.

Results/Excuses: My times were still off of what we need to be running. Multi-time Nationals winning Mark Madderash was on hand in his ESP Firebird, and we need to be a lot closer to him than we were. He's my gauge for competitiveness, and he PAXed #1, like he does often. I was disappointed when I looked at the PAX results, stuck all the way back in 8th, which isn't a good showing for the car. I've got my excuses ready! First, well... I ran first (about the 4th car out in the morning) in the first heat, so the course cleaned up a bit in the afternoon. Still, I had Foley and Wagner in the SS C6 Z06 in Heat 1 to gauge by, and J-Fo put a solid 1.3 seconds on me, raw. Next: seating position is killing me. I'm hanging onto the wheel for dear life, but sitting leaned way back to clear my helmet to the roof. And I sat on the rev limiter for a lot of tenths of seconds, especially at the finish. I think the rev limiter bump would have been good for at least .5 sec. Still, we have lots to work on...



As you can see in these pictures there's just way to much pitch/roll/lean, and stiffer spring rates will go in this week. Then we'll finally corner balance the car and see how it does at the next event - which is Texas World Speedway April 24-25 with NASA. The R6s I won at the Tour arrived today (they are going on another set of D-Force 18x10s for TWS) and I bought another set of A6s on Saturday while I was out at MSR (PST is the trackside Hoosier supplier for our area). The first set of A6s that we beat up at the Mineral Wells Tour made it through the Pennington event in pretty good shape, so I'll save the new A6s for when these get to cord. The wear is perfectly flat front and rear so far, so I've got the tire pressures and alignment pretty close.

I got to play with a MaxQ (about $600 new, for mounts, iPaq PDA, GPS sensor, etc) data system on Saturday, thanks to KenO. I really like the system overall - super easy to use, and with a real time and predictive lap display its comparable to much more expensive data logging systems. We'll be rounding up the pieces needed for one of these systems in the next 2 weeks and I'll post up about it here.

Cheers,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for April 16, 2010: We got the lightweight battery in last week, just didn't have time to update the thread. The bracket was a simple one I built for Redwood's E46 sedan years ago, also to hold a PC680 Odyssey. Sean bolted it to the E46 battery tray, took it apart and re-primed and painted the old stock tray, put it all in the car, and the install was a breeze. This bracket can be made with parts sourced from Home Depot and Autozone for under $20 - no welding needed.


Left: Stock battery is huge. Right: Stock E46 battery next to PC680.


Left: The old bracket I made for Redwood. Right: PC680 in my 330

To make the Tech guys happier I will install a rubber cover over both terminals. The stock plastic battery tray covers all of this anyway.

After talking to JeffD of Sachs last night, who was at the shop lending a hand on the GRM $2010 E30, he thinks he has a solution for a clutch and pressure plate to work with the Fidanza 12 pound aluminum flywheel I have already purchased (below, left) for the 330. 240mm clutch disc, sintered organic material face, and a lightweight E36 M3 Sachs pressure plate. We've recently purchased a replacement rear trunk lid "handle lip" that always breaks away from the body. It was only about $76 for everything shown (below, right) and we'll just re-use the painted part that's on the car. The 4 plastic screw holds in the black piece fractured and fell out of the old part.



Sean pulled the stock manual seat out of the driver's side (57 pounds) and popped in the Suzuka for a quick test fit. Wow... even with 1.24" of spacer under the seat (about the thickness of my custom brackets/slider I made for the E36) I have 2-3" more head room than before... we're still going to swap the roof and headliner of course. We'll run the driver's seat for TWS if we get it all in by next weekend, and the 4-point roll bar is back from the powder coater. Its going in when the sunroof delete roof panel stuff gets here.



Just ordered some new springs for the rear (2.25" dia x 5" x 900#/in) and we'll put the 750s currently out back in the front. Need to control the roll a bit better. MaxQ data system inbound soon as well. A third set of 18x10" D-Force wheels and some 285 Hoosier R6s are on hand for TWS... in a week!

More soon,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for May 1, 2010: Not much to show in the way of mods since the last update. We did swap the springs to stiffer rates after looking at pictures of the car loaded up with large amounts of bodyroll.

This was the 3rd autocross for me and Amy in the E46 330Ci. We ran again with the SCCA at the Texas Motor speedway's bus lot (asphalt) against the same crowd we always do, so we can compare to previous PAX listings and see if we're improving the car. The course was a normal ~60 second length and the grip levels were good for a sealed asphalt site. Speeds were topping 62 mph (that's the limit in 2nd gear @ 7000rpms) for me in 4-5 spots, but the improved (lower) gearing was helpful for corner exits.

Amy won the PAXed 6-car Women's class and I won the 2-car DSP class, with my co-driver Paul M getting a close second (.47 sec back). I PAXed 4th out of 111 drivers this time, which is getting better, so I think the new spring rates are helping. Paul PAXed 7th and we're still awaiting updated results to see where Amy PAXed (they seemed to have lost 3 of her 5 runs - they had a newbie on the timing computer in the 3rd heat, which never works out well). Great event, great weather, and our last autocross before going to Spain in 2 days.

Results: http://www.autocross.com/tr/modules/...ndex.php?id=99
PAX: http://www.autocross.com/tr/modules/...dex.php?id=100


The car on the 600F/750R springs had more roll than I like

The 60mm x 6" x 600 #/in fronts and 60x5.5x750 rear Hyperco springs were removed. We put the rear springs up front, which allowed us to lower the ride height another 1/4" on that end (it finally "looks" right) and then we went with 2.25" x 5" x 900#/in Hypercos in the rear. I re-machined the AST ride height adjusters to be able to fit the smaller diameter 2.25" onto them, which is something we do with the AST adjusters that are made for 60mm springs. We lowered the rear 1/4" as well.


The sits lower at rest (left) and car corners flatter (right) on the new 750F/900R springs. Amy still loves to hit cones.

These rates are getting close to what we settled on when we raced the Alpha car before on big R compounds (800F/900R with 17x11 wheels and 315mm Hoosiers). It feels great and is easy to drive. Paul had never driven this car and hasn't raced in a BMW or on R comps in nearly a decade and hopped right in and got 7th in PAX. He normally races in Subarus and was blown away at the faster steering, the effortless brakes and incredible turn-in of the car.

Cheers,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for June 28, 2010: We have had about a two month lapse since the last update, and since the last autocross in the E46, but a lot has happened since then!



First, we tackled the dreaded E46 non-sunroof roof panel swap. We cut off the stock roof, welded in the new roof bow and then the new BMW supplied roof panel. Then we put in the new headliner, A-, B-, and C-pillar interior panels (changed colors and replaced raggedy worn out parts) and the assorted bits that differed between the sunroof and sunroof-less E46 Coupes:







Then we installed the roll bar. We had the Kirk Racing 4-point competition roll bar powder coated locally, and then did the install. It fits so damn tight, and its great place to hang harnesses from. I am worried about tracking a car with just a "harness bar" or stock 3-point belts. This 4-point was a bit trickier to install than the Kirk bar we did in McCall's E30, but it finally went in with some added muscle. Its touching the headliner and we had to notch the rear interior panels a tick, but it couldn't fit much better if was made one-off.



And finally, this past weekend we got the Cobra fixed back racing seats and G-Force 6-point harnesses installed. This meant: making custom seat brackets. Costas helped me for a couple of hours on the driver's side bracket, which uses a Sparco dual-locking slider and Cobra side mounts. I spent way too many hours making these seat brackets - this is a job always put off until the last minute, somehow.





Amy and I raced it with the SCCA last Sunday at TMS Bus Lot, and the car felt great. Its the first time I'm raced this car where my head didn't hit the damn roof and I wasn't sliding around on the stock leather seats in lousy 3-point belts. What a relief!



The car felt really hooked up at this autocross - it had tons of grip, it went wherever you pointed it, gearing was perfect on 90% of the course, brakes felt great, the diff worked like magic, and it was super easy to drive fast. Only complaint was the shifter (Amy and I both missed 3rd gear more than once and had to compromise our shifting to drive around this) and the slipping clutch (100K stocker in there...still!), but those are both getting replaced soon. We each did well in our classes, but I only PAXed 11th, so I need to work on the set-up and my driving, for sure.



Next up: new shifter, clutch, pressure plate, and lightweight flywheel. Two SCCA SW Divisional 3-day events in July, so we've got some work to do before then.

More soon.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for July 28, 2010: The E46 has been largely ignored the last several weeks while we thrashed on our $2010 GRM E30, but this week we finally peeled off some time to install the new Sashs race clutch/PP, Fidanza aluminum flywheel, UUC shifter, and cheap fleaBay headers. There's an SCCA Solo Divisional this weekend so we're pressed for time to get the work done - as usual!





Oh yea, here's a little work we had knocked out last week. Did I show the armrest delete console? Got this from KenO's M3 and it replaced the stock armrest. Lighter and more roomy (my elbow would hit the old one on track). The entire sound system has been removed - it was heavy! The Harmon Kardon speakers and amplifier and the BMW CD head unit will be for sale soon (I'll link it here). The stock airbag steering wheel is gone and replaced with a 330mm MOMO suede wheel and Sparco hub adapter. Fits well, feels good - but I haven't driven it yet.



And the shoulder harnesses are now secured to the roll bar, so they can't slide around the curve of the horizontal bar. These 2-piece shaft collar clamps worked great.



Getting the old trans (ZF 5-spd) out proved to be much more difficult than any of us imagined. It took one of my techs (Sean) 2 working days to get the damn thing out, on a lift, with air tools. Those E-torx head bolts SUUUUUCK. Never seen anything like it (well, except for on other BMWs!). Anyway, the old flywheel and clutch were indeed shot at 100K miles (mostly from 4 autocrosses worth of launching at 4500 rpm on 285 Hoosiers). Glazed clutch, flywheel and pp faces. If there's a Clutch Delay Valve on this car we damn sure can't find one.



Sean insisted it would be easier to install the headers now, so he pulled the old manifolds off. Bad idea... all the stock manifold studs were rusted and the nuts are fused to 21 of 24 of them. And nobody has them in town - air freight! These atrocious piece of crap stock exhaust manifolds are the WORST factory manifolds I've ever seen. But alas - the cheap-ass fleaBay headers don't fit. They aren't even close! They don't even fit the exhaust ports, much less the chassis or around the motor mount. And I know better than to buy Chinese built headers - shame on me! The "real" header options seem to include Super Sprint and Active Autowerke (both of which these Chinese headers are copying - and are not all that impressive to me; too short) and the Kromer Kraft 6-2-1 header. I really like the KK's ($$$), from the handful of pictures I've managed to find (not a one shown on their damn website! That thing is circa 1995!!), but I've rear horror stories about shipping delays. Hmrph. I might try to build them myself, but I know better than to even try that craziness before this year's Nationals. Looks like the 330 is going to stay quiet and slow for the time being. Flowmaster liked our exhaust test videos so much they just sent us another Hushpower 3" for this car, so I'll at least build an after-header 3" mandrel bent exhaust before Nationals.



The shifter fought us a bit but I managed to fit it together after about an hour or tweaking. The overall quality seems nice, but the arm doesn't look like a much shorter than stock. I guess they've changed the ratio - it looks different. The OEM shifter was worn out - it can be wiggled a lot and the rubber bushing in the shift handle is gone. This will be an improvement, for sure.



The new Fidanza aluminum E46 flywheel has a 20mm thinner flange thickness so the stock flywheel bolts (made to work with the dual-mass OEM lump) are 20 too long. I needed 8 qty M12-1.5x30mm 12.9 grade head headed bolts... none in all of Dallas. So I shortened, squared, chamfered and cleaned the stock bolts and put them in with blue Loctite. Oh well, so much for doing it right! :mad



So right now the new Fidanza flywheel (11.9 pounds) and Sach racing clutch and PP (sintered iron + organic disc) are in. Trans and crossmember are cleaned up to perfection and ready to go back in tomorrow (dreading this!). The UUC EVO3 shifter is fitted and installed. We didn't think to order a new knob so we'll re-use the stock knob for now, and maybe machine one here out of Nylon if we get time. There's all sorts of options out there, both long and SUPER long, but I want to try the new shifter with the normal small stock knob first to see how I like the placement before we go and buy or make one.

We've got a whole day and a half to wrap this trans work up and get the stock exhaust back on as well as a new flex disc for the driveshaft. Practice starts mid-day Friday.



More soon.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Mini-update July 29, 2010: Today is looking better - the ZF went back into the car, aligned into the clutch, in under 30 minutes. I'm confident we can get this car done today now. Running to BMW to get the overnighted exhaust studs shortly, then to Stett's for some of their E46 headers.

Terry, have you looked at the headers that Chad Stett is selling? Don't know anything about them except that they can't possibly be any worse than the ebay offerings (I've been told they're better).

Yea, Matt here at Vorshlag saw those last night. I called them this morning and they've got some in stock, so I'll swing by there (and compare them to these Chinese headers I have that don't fit) and pick up a set. At this point I'd almost use anything to avoid reinstalling that godawful factory crap.

For the love of god, please tell me you weighed the stock manifolds! I have been trying to get this piece of info (you know, without doing the work myself ) for a while, but no one ever seems to weigh the things.

I forgot to... thanks for the reminder. I just went out in the shop and weighed the manifolds, eBay headers and even the stock after-header exhaust.





If we had time I'd get that stock exhaust replaced with a ~25 pound custom system. I'll tackle this before Nats, though.

Unreal Terry - Sounds like a whole lot of hiccups during your ordeal. But as long as the car is in running condition for National's, right? "Run what you brung, haha."

Hey, I'm digging the new Enkeis!

Yea, since I'm always in a hurry and doing things like this the week before a race, Murphy's Law dictates that problems like these are bound to bite me in the ass, every time.

It'll be "done" enough to run at Nationals, but its not nearly as far along as I'd have liked for 2010. If I keep racing the car in 2011 (and I might - I like driving it) its going to need a properly SP-prepped ZHP motor and a serious revamp of the intake and EFI system. It can get a little boring (power-wise) compared to some of our other past (E36 LS2/490 whp) and "soon to be" current autocross cars (412hp Mustang, ???hp V8 E30).

Terry, love the build and the updates. Where did you get the 2piece collar clamps from? The UUC shifter will feel shorter once you get everything bolted back up. 3rd to 4th felt the biggest change on the cars I've installed them on. Probably one of the best products that UUC have made.

The clamps can be purchased from any big hardware chain like McMaster Carr, Fastenal, etc. I suspect the shifter will indeed make a major improvement, and its at least removing all the worn rubber bits.



When we get time soon (probably after this weekend's Divisional event, where former FStock National Champion Casey Weiss is co-driving with me in the 330 in DSP) I'll do a couple Exhaust Sound Test videos for this car with the headers installed and the stock after-header exhaust. Then when we get time to make the new exhaust I'll do yet another sound test. Somewhere in there I'll get the car to Dallas Performance and get a dyno on the damn thing, too.

Cheers,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Almost done... midnight update for July 29, 2010: Sean worked on the E46 until 6, and then I picked up and finished the header install until about 8:45. We've been working on the GRM E30 and McCall's E30 the rest of the evening.



Stett Performance indeed had stainless headers that fit - thanks guys! They are on the car, and all we have left to do in the morning is to bolt up the heat shield and the stock after-cat exhaust. The 3" Hushpower got here late today, so we'll get crackin' on a new single 3" exhaust next week.



Tomorrow morning, on my way to the Divisional event, I'm dropping by Stett for a reflash of the stock ECM - to raise the redline to 7500 rpm, have the rear O2s turned off, and some other power adding tweaks. Then hopefully I'll be at the test-n-tune around 12 noon. I'll pack the on-board video camera and roll bar mount.



More soon!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Aug 3, 2010: OK, I was up late Thursday night finishing the header install, and Friday was quite hectic getting the exhaust back on and the car loaded into the trailer, so we got to Stett's rather late. We were rushing to try to make the Divisional Test-N-Tune at LoneStarPark from 12-3 pm Friday. The retune was supposed to take an hour but the ECM was fighting them and it took close to 3 hours. I was rushing them at Stett's and we got zero test time... after the last program loaded we drove it onto the trailer and double timed it across town. We missed the TnT by about 15 minutes. That sucked, because we could have figured out some things then and there, instead of on race day.



Regardless - the results from the Divisional event are up and the car did great, despite some significant issues stemming from our rushed modifications last week:

• http://autocross.com/tr/2010swdiv2_pax.htm - Weiss PAXed 5th out of 107 at the entire event in our DSP car!
• http://autocross.com/tr/2010swdiv2_fin.htm#DSP - just ignore those cones on Day 2, okay thanks!
• http://autocross.com/tr/2010swdiv2_fin.htm#W - Amy won the PAXed and optional Women's class (instead of having 100% duplicate classing, most of the ladies run in the big "W" class in our region)

Casey Weiss co-drove with me in DSP and we both did well... if you ignore my coned runs from Day 2. Our first day times were .15 apart and day two were hundredths apart (raw), and the overall times compared favorably to other drivers that are Nationally competitive, which was good. My best clean run on Day 2 was done in 5th gear for half the course - kinda tells you the fun I was having.

OK, so let me see if I can remember everything. Day one my first run felt quick, but I had several areas I could have improved on that run. It turned out to be my fastest run that day, which is NEVER good. The handling was spot on, but I fought with both the shifter and the low redline the rest of the day. The reflash didn't take and we were stuck with 6500 rpm redline... not 7500, so this meant we had to make several 2-3 shifts each day on the fast courses laid out (62 mph was the max speed in 2nd - not enough!)


Two of the 4 driver's in Chris Ledbetter's STX E36 328is

Weiss took a couple of runs to get used to the car (he usually runs in FStock, including in his past National Championship and last year when he grabbed 2nd), and he loved the crisp turn-in, easy slalom ability, and MASSIVE grip of the DSP prepped BMW. He said the car lacked power (of course) and upshifting was very difficult - we both missed the 2-3 upshift numerous times both days (it would balk on the shift gate or go straight into 5th). The stock shift knob came off once, and I had to use the "racers tape around the shifter handle" trick to get it to stay in place. I think I adjusted one shock knob one time (was running a lot more compression than before and it felt great, even on this bumpy site's surface) and we did run higher tire pressures than I have been at the previous 4 autcocrosses, thanks to his input from running Hoosiers for the past many years. Car was neutral and had perfect handing - when we were in the correct gear.


Weiss and me, plus Amy in her Vettel/RBR shirt (RBR won the F1 race that day, arg!)

Since I was the Impound Chief I needed to test the scales on site, I weighed the E46 to get a new number - it hasn't been back on the scales since it was bone stock (3164 lbs w/ 1/4 tank). Fuel level was just under 1/4 tank again, and it now sits at 3015 lbs, with 52% of the weight on the rear wheels. Remember: the roll bar weighed over 60 pounds, and its right over the rear tires. We've knocked a net 150 pounds out of the car (really is closer to 210 if you remove the roll bar), and the rear bias looks GREAT, but the total weight is higher than I'd hoped. I've seen E36 DSP cars in the mid 2700 pound range, so we've got our work cut out for us. We've added race seats, performed the roof surgery/swap, added a lightweight battery, light 18x10s and 285 Hoosiers, lighter headers, and removed the radio, amp & speakers. We've still got the stock 62 lb exhaust on there as well as the fully functional air conditioning system, both of which need to come out this week or next. I'd be happy with 2900 even at this point, or even a tick under that. If we spent a few hours making a harness bar and removed the 4-point roll bar it would probably get to 2850, but.... we'll see. I like the security of having the roll bar for track events, but I might have 2 faster and more track worthy cars in the stable soon (Mustang and E30 V, so I need to decide what this 330 is better suited at.



The new Sachs clutch & pressure plate worked GREAT with the lighter Fidanza flywheel. We had 3 driver's pounding on the car for 24 runs with brutal 4000-5000 rpm launches and the clutch never slipped once. Day 2 we were even launching uphill, on the e-brake - that's actually kind of fun. Big thanks to Jeff D of Sachs/ZF for sourcing the unusual Sachs race clutch/pp parts he found for us. Perfection! The new steering wheel felt GREAT but it totally blocks the view of the tach, so we need to add a shift light. Its better enough that I want to keep using this wheel, of course.

OK, so I was pretty upset during the event, but I'm not going to make a big deal further about the shifting. Something wasn't right, I don't know what it was, so I scrambled on Monday morning to try to find something different to test. No blame is being placed on anyone's parts, just need to try to tweak the variables. When three Nationally competitive drivers all have the same issue in the car after new parts were added, something has to be an changed. Please, let's not get into a shifter discussion here, OK? It could still be something else in the equation. Thanks.



So Ben at Rogue Engineering built us a race version of their popular Octane shifter, complete with their CF shift knob. It looks good, just arrived an hour ago, and its being installed as I write this update. I'm going to round up some 3" stainless bends and tubing today so we can build the new lightweight exhaust for the car this week, using the Hushpower. Talked to Stett and we've scheduled a time to re-flash the tune again on Friday, hoping to get that elusive 7500 rpm redline programmed into the ECM.

Since Amy was so far off the pace that Weiss and I ran we're going to try to squeeze in as many autocross events for her in the 330 between now and Nationals (maybe 4, starting this weekend with the BMWCCA at TMS Bus Lot). With a newly added new shifter, new exhaust and (hopefully) a raised redline being added this week we both need more seat time with the set-up, and we've only had 5 autocross events in the car anyway.

I've got in-car video from all 3 drivers that I'll try to get edited and uploaded later today. More soon...

[dakkon]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Aug 3, 2010:

but I fought with the shifter and the low redline the rest of the day.

This does not surprise me about the shifter Terry. I had the Exact same set up in my car, used it for about 4 months, then switched to the autosolutions product... I plan on stopping by either later this week or next week, ill try to call ahead, and see if your there, if you are, you can take my car for a drive if you want? mine is set up almost exactly like your 330, i have a different suspension. And don't have my headers installed at the moment(waiting on a o2 sim that actually works), and I'm only running 255's ...


on a side note, when I was in new england, we did some testing, and on the e46, headers+exhaust, we actually lost power on the dyno... so we went with one or the other, usually headers. a few went with titanium exhaust, for the weight....

[Miatamoto]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Great job at the divisional. The car looks like it's really coming along.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

You need to take the slack out of the harness where it wraps around the bar and also loop the remaining end back through the 3 bar slider so it points towards the rear of the car.

Yes, go back over your harness wrapping. Something definitely looks amiss.

Greg and Jacob = ready to be tech inspectors! Good catch. I didn't install the shoulder harnesses myself, and missed the fact that they were routed with only 2 loops through the brackets instead of three. As you can see in the pic below I fixed this; did it in line at Tech last Friday.

I'd like to add to this comment, in which one of the tweaks I did with my short shift kit, was to JB Weld the aftermarket pivot cylinder to the shift carrier. This reduced a lot of slop, as the "set" screws that hold this pivot cylinder to the shift carrier tends to loosen after normal use.

Thanks - The guys @ Rogue have taken care of that. The ball mount is TIG welded to the lower carrier so its all good.



Update: The shifter is in and we're building the 3" exhaust now. Got some new bi-metal blades built for the new 14" throat bandsaw today and it cuts through the 304 SS 3" dia .049" wall tubing like butter.

Terry, not doubting you, but are you sure you had the scales plugged into the correct locations? It's an easy mistake. With the modifications you have done, and the ones you have not done, I don't understand how you get 52% on the rear, possible that it should read 52% FRONT??

...Maybe my scales were not level, who knows, thanks for sharing!

Good catch... yep, I suspect the scales were not level. It wasn't an issue for this Divisional event (as this doesn't alter total weight, just bias), and the lot was anything but level. We need to weigh the car here in the shop, which has a level floor.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Guys - point taken, the harnesses are still not 100% right. I'll re-wrap the straps and get the buckle closer to the roll bar. Thanks.

Looking good Terry, time to get that thing on a dyno!

Agreed - after its tuned tomorrow at Stett's I'll try to swing by with the car in trailer over to Dallas Performance and see if they can strap it to their DynoJet. It won't go on their "top ten" dyno list (the lowest powered car on there made 1080 whp).... maybe they have a "bottom ten" list?


Update for Aug 5, 2010: OK, Sean and I are knocking out the lightweight 3" exhaust for the E46. The hardest part of this entire system has been merging the two small header flange sections to the 3" main 304 SS, .049" wall tubing.



On the front portion of the main OEM exhaust, the two exhaust pipes that mate to the stock exhaust manifolds are different sizes. One is almost 2.00" and the other is close to 1-7/8" outer diameter. No telling what the BMW Brain Trust had in mind there, but I couldn't find either sizes of tubing or bends in town in 304 stainless, so we hacked off the front portion of the OEM exhaust and used the stock flanges and short sections of tubing. These were then bolted to the headers snugly and a temporary cross brace was welded in place. Then we cut a slight V section out of one pipe and bent it towards the other until the touched, tacked them together there, and filled in the V cut with the MIG.



Then I took a piece short of 3" tubing and smashed it in the vice on one end, making it oval in shape. Then we filled in the "V" sections between the two round pipes that were side by side. 20 gauge sheet was used for that and the custom "merge" section we then built. I cut out squares and spaced the 3" oval section back about 2", then tacked the patches on top and bottom. We hammer formed them around to the edges. Then I made trapezoidal sections of 20 gauge and we tacked and hammer formed around the curved ends.



Everything is tacked up now and Sean is going to TIG everything up with 308L rod, then we can start on the 3" section back to the muffler.



No, this isn't a perfect merge, and yes, there are sections of overlapping sheet in there. But this part isn't made for a beauty contest - it needs to flow exhaust gasses, and from looking inside the merge portion if looks nice and smooth inside where it matters. The rest of the exhaust should be done by end of today, I hope! Tuning and dyno tomorrow if everything goes as planned...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Aug 10, 2010: I've been dreading this update for days. The 330 is on the lift at Stett's with the oil pan and valve cover both off, and the engine damage isn't as catastrophic as we thought... wait, let me back up a bit. Let's rewind to Thursday and the new exhaust we put together last week for the car...



After the 2-into-1 merge collector was wrapped up and finish TIG welded Sean got to work on the rest of the 3" stainless exhaust, laying it out exactly how I had asked him to. I was out picking up the trailer and other parts and in about 3 hours he had it tacked together, and it fit the car great. We worked on the rear muffler mount a bit and then yanked it off to finish weld all of the mandrel bent joints. We first got a weight on the entire after-header system at 28.1 lbs. Remember - that's with a full sized and quiet muffler, 3" pipe, and a full length exhaust exiting at the rear bumper, with a turn down. Then Sean got to TIG welding the system. Of course he ran out of Argon at 4:45 pm, so I spent the afternoon blasting to the gas supply shop, getting this and that, and he jumped back on it in the morning and had it finished up Friday mid-day.



I test drove it early Friday afternoon. Wow... it was LOUD inside the shop, and still pretty loud on my test drive on our little test route (we didn't stop long enough to do the sound tests), then it went on the trailer and I took it to Stett. The guys at Stett Performance put the 7500 rpm redline in and retuned it for the new exhaust. They got it all wrapped up and the test drive was great - it had plenty of zip and would bury the 7000 rpm tach before getting into the rev limiter. Just what the doctor ordered! The test drives also let me do about a dozen 2-3 shifts and each one was fast, accurate and Terry Proof. Big thanks to Ben @ Rogue for putting together this race-ready shifter and getting it to us overnight last week!

Got the car back from Stett's and was loaded for the Saturday autocross at Texas Motor Speedway with the Lone Star Chapter of the BMWCCA the next morning. Now here's where I screwed up one of many things - loading the trailer I forgot my air gauge (WTF did that go??), the jump box/air compressor, the SD card for my D90 camera, and I didn't bring the extra batteries for the vidcam. So guess how many pictures we have from the autocross? None. And videos? One - but at least its Amy's fastest run (#3).

http://www.lscbmwcca.org/autox_resul...-10%29_all.htm - results from Last Saturday's BMWCCA autocross

Now the BMWCCA club here splits their autocross competitors (60 at this event) into 3 heats, with 4 runs for each driver in their morning heat and 4 more in the afternoon. Lots of seat time, but your 4 runs are back-to-back with zero waiting between runs. Hot lapping, in the hot Texas sun. AST equipped Miata STS driver Jarrett Jan along with help from AST/Vorshlag equipped E46 M3 Ken O set-up a beautiful course... with lots of speed in 3 spots. Walking the course I was pretty sure we'd still need 3rd gear, but I wasn't positive. After Amy's 1st run (on dead cold, under-aired tires and 3 seconds off her best run), we quickly realized she could stay in 2nd gear the entire time, I thought that our new 7500 redline was the smartest money spent on the car so far. (oh, how wrong I was!) She avoided 3 different 2-3-2 shifts per run, and by her 3rd run she was FAST - setting FTD up to that point, and just edging out Ken O (who was running in G class with us, but on his Dunlops on his M3).

But it was hot... Africa hot. 100 degrees and climbing, and the Hoosier equipped cars were getting greasy by their 2nd runs. AST-USA employee Stuart Maxcy and his dad Doug were both driving their SS classed Lotus and spraying their Hoosiers like mad. Ken O was even spraying his Dunlops between runs, quickly, but its always a rush for the guys running at BMWCCA trying to keep their tires cool, especially with 2 drivers. The hot lapping. So after Amy's 4 runs, during which I sprayed her tires like mad and used a TON of water, I had to hop in and make my runs. Remember - we've got no tire gauge, air tank, and I'm frustrated about the lack of video and photos. And I'm sweating like mad - did I mention it is hot in august in Texas?? Zero shade, anywhere.


Amy's 3rd run, where she just edged out Ken O (temporarily) and set FTD for that heat

So by then I'm already drenched in sweat, I hop in and make a run - OMFG the tires are boiling! I'm yelling at Amy and she of course is yelling back at me. The rears were on fire and the car was sideways everywhere on that run. My 2nd run was even worse, with full tilt drift action going on I took out a 3 cone wall. I had to un-belt, yank off my helmet, and get out of the car to spray the damn tires myself, cursing up a blue streak. I realized Amy was only spraying the outer edge of the tires, and they were just unbelievably steaming hot - too hot to touch out back. I spent a good 3-4 minutes getting the tires cooled off to a usable temp and then piled back into the car and belting back in, holding up the line and waving cars frantically around. It was a total clusterf*ck.

On that run the car hooked up off the line with a HARD launch at 4500 rpm and by the 3rd slalom cone after the start - where the car was sideways on both previous runs, it had a LOT more stick in the rear, and I just drove over the base of a damned cone. Doh! (too bad, because I later figured out that 59.820 run would have set FTD for the entire event by a few thousandths - instead Stuart pulled out a 59.826 clean in the afternoon). Oh well, I had 1 more morning run after this and 4 more in the afternoon - no rush. The car was stupid fast on run #3, with properly cooled Hoosiers, and pulling out of the corners HARD and flying down the straights, just touching the 7500 rpm redline in 3 places. Finally - the car is freakin fast! Its never felt this good, and everything seemed to be coming together - the new shifter, the new clutch, the new shock settings, the new exhaust/headers added some much needed power (and finally some engine note - I couldn't hear it with the stock exhaust!), and especially the raised redline. Hallelujah!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Aug 10, 2010 - continued: I stayed in the car after run #3 and waited for Amy to spray the tires for my 4th run, but we were being rushed - the entire run group was almost done. So she rushed it and I knew by the 2nd slalom cone that the rear tires were too damned hot. Man, I'm already regretting not going to 315mm, at least tires out back. The tired old arguments of "You can't get them hot enough! They won't ever get up to temp!" I know that's bullsh!t - it takes me or Amy only one 60 second run in August to BOIL a 285mm Hoosier on this car. If we didn't spray the tires it would be a total joke by the 2nd run.

Anyway, so I am fighting the car on my 4th run but I've found a couple of spots from my faster 3rd run where I can let the car corner exit better and I'm going noticeably faster down the three main straights, even riding the 7500 redline a bit more than before on the longest straight. Pushing the braking zones DEEP, letting the car corner hard in the sweepers. Other than it being loose from the overheated rears, its faster in some spots, which will be good for the afternoon runs. I cringe as the engine is bumping the redline for a good 1-2 seconds on one straight, thinking "OK, for the afternoon runs I'm going to short-shift to 3rd there and then take it back to 2nd under trail braking". But alas... that was all it took.

I pulled into the finish with a clean 60.3, which was about 1 second ahead of Amy and then Ken O in G class for the morning runs (Ken later went faster than that in the afternoon, as did 3 other drivers at the event). I pulled up a few feet to load up our gear and heard the loudest engine ticking I've ever heard from Any BMW - and I know the tricks to avoid that (running 20W50 synthetic with 1 extra quart in the pan). Oh no, that's bad. I hopped out and yanked open the hood - maybe that's just a massive exhaust leak? Nope... its FUBAR. I shut it off and shook my head. Oil level is still +1 qt, and the oil light is on solid, meaning - low oil pressure. CRAP! We limped it over by the trailer and we sat inside of the trailer for a good 45 minutes and ate a sandwich and guzzled water, trying to cool off and figure out what to do.

We checked in with the BMWCCA event guys after heat #3 and they let us out early, since we weren't taking our afternoon runs (thanks, Mark W) and had just had the worst luck of the day. Loaded the E46 in the trailer and started making calls, sending a video of it running to some friends. Matteucci could tell from the sound - it lost the oil pump nut. "Time for a new longblock." He gave me some internet sites for leads and I found several 2001-2005 M54B30 motors for $2500 complete on the drive back home. But Nationals is only 4 weeks away, and I've gotta finish the E30 V8 and maybe another car that we might also take to Nationals, so when will we have time to swap the longblock? And my lone tech that works for me is out for most of the week at a funeral. Hmm...

So Monday I called Stett and they agreed to put it on high priority and after we discussed motor replacement options Monday, they tore into it today to have a better look. I had found the best deal on a local longblock but man, I didn't want to spend $2500 just for another weaknut stock M54. GRR... luckily Chad Stett as been keeping me up to date today with hourly updates... here's the prognoses:

• There's not a noticeable rod knock when idling, which is good
• Oil pan came off and yep - no oil pump nut. That figures.
• A few cam journals were removed and they have minimal scoring
• Rod bearings look a little scored but none spun, which is good

So the motor won't have to be pulled, and they're just going to throw some bearings and an oil pump (with a welded on nut!) into it and some new gaskets and we'll take it to Nationals as-is. Hell, I'm not even going to paint the damn car like I had planned - there's so little time, and I might seriously consider going to 315s now that I've seen how easily we can overheat 285s (meaning: might need real rear flares).

Over the winter I'll evaluate the performance of the car and see if its worth building a DSP-legal motor + modifying the Euro E36M3 6 TB intake + the Motec it will need to run + adding rear flares, then paining the whole mess. I am finally enjoying the car now, after being pretty underwhelmed by the weaksauce lump M54 and the high weight of the car. I think this 330 Coupe would be just now finally faster than our 140K mile STU prepped E36 M3 on track - that old S52 is a whole lot more motor than the M54.

When Stett and crew have it running we'll take it to another autocross before Nats to check out everything and I'll make sure we get real video/pics then.

Until next time!