Vorshlag BMW E46: Track Car Project

[rp1]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Epic story, Terry! Good luck preparing the car for Nationals!

[Redwood]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

How was the new shifter?

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Lincoln weather does not equal Texas summer though.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

How was the new shifter?

Totally different. And awesome.

Lincoln weather does not equal Texas summer though.

True... but I hate to build the car to only do well at one event. If we autocross 15-20 times in the summer months leading up to Nationals, and they're all in Texas... Its hard to get them cool enough right now. Several other DSP BMWs have stepped up to 315/30/18s. I thought they were nuts - these cars don't have ANY power! - well, until the last few super hot events.

My first run on Day 1 at the Tex Reg Div was fastest, and it wasn't totally because I suck (although that was a majority of the reason). The grip levels are falling off fast in Texas heat, but we're going to try ice water in the sprayer and make sure we get them as cool as possible before the next run.

The problem with anything wider than the 285 in the rear means - all new flares will be needed out back. YEEESH.... I don't know if I have that in me, or will anytime soon.

[John in Houston]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Did Stett get the car back / running? Updates?

[Hunter]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

True... but I hate to build the car to only do well at one event.

But Nationals is the only event that really matters.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Aug 12, 2010: I went by Stett's yesterday and surveyed the damaged - its not that bad, which is good news.



The rod bearings have some light scoring but nothing you can hang a fingernail in, so Stett is going to roll in some new bearings and an oil pump and weld on the nut, and we'll run it again this weekend. Yea, I'll be more gentle with the RPMs, and we just ordered a programmable shift light.



OK, so I'm pretty disgusted with this car and BMW in general after this incident, for all the good it does me now. I'm just sick of the fact that BMW motors are both fragile and underwhelming - apparently this is nothing new. One more quirk to put on the M54's problem list is "bad harmonics"... even with the oil pump nut secured with Loctite/safety wire/tack weld, they still have high RPM issues that break the oil pump drive and other things, apparently. I've learned a bit reading about some other M54 horror stories on E46 Fanatics, and some guys there (PEI330Ci then F1004fun) have had ATI make a better balancer for the M54. This ATI aftermarket harmonic damper/balancer (shown above/right) is only $650 and takes an elaborate and custom tool to install. Apparently since there's such a tiny demand for these they cost a fortune (I've got Koenig trying to find a better price for me). That's disappointing, but none too surprising.



While I was there with the car up on the lift I finally snapped some pics of the new exhaust. We've ordered some snap-in harness ends for the 3" lap belts (for this car and the E30), and the shift light should be here for the E46 soon. Other than the repairs and the new anchors for the lap belts, I think this is all we're going to do before Nationals. We'll do a sound test after we get the car back from Stett, hopefully on Friday...

More soon,

[turbotoddie]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Make sure you bring a backup plan for sound for Natls! It is a long way to go to have to deal with that crap but you can't fight city hall!

turbo

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for August 17, 2010: Well the repairs done by the guys at Stett Performance in Plano worked flawlessly at the autocross last Sunday. Thanks guys! They did a helluva repair job, especially considering the tight time line and minimal money they charged. So glad I took them the car! The new oil pump, rod bearings, and MOTUL oil never made a tick all weekend once it was fired up. Great work!!! :buttrock

• Pictures: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...us-Lot-081510/
• In-Car video: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...058_5szUB-A-LB
• Class Results: http://www.autocross.com/tr/modules/...dex.php?id=107
• PAX results: http://www.autocross.com/tr/modules/...dex.php?id=106

So they finished the car Friday and we took the E46 on Sunday to a Texas Region SCCA autocross at Texas World Speedway (Bus Lot), with another excellent course set-up by JJ and a very well run event by the Texas Region. Hot as Hell but worth the hard work and effort to get to this event to test the repairs and final Nationals suspension set-up. The car ran stupendously well, handled nearly perfectly (considering it had very worn rear tires), and Amy and I posted two class wins (Womens & DSP) and placed 4th and 3rd in overall PAX results (that's where they multiply your time by a class handicapping factor). Amy was fast right out of the box, but it took me a few runs to find my groove. You can see me frighting the rear grip in my video run, but it was Full Driftoro Terry in my other runs. I finally calmed down, cooled down (it was 105°F) and let the rear tires give all they had and didn't push further. With fresh rears it could have been considerably faster.


Click for in-car video of my fastest run

The previous 4 runs I was in the 56.0 to 56.1 second range, making huge mistakes each time. I missed 2nd gear twice (something is wacky on shifting this car while cornering!), and I let the car slide ass first around most of the turn-arounds, plus got way behind on the rhythm sections. OK, about that 55.2 run - there's still plenty of driving mistakes, for sure. Amy was already in the 55.3's on her 2nd run. I ran over a cone in the first slalom and it threw my concentration - but the cone flipped up and fell back down in the box, I sh!t you not! In my 20+ years of autocrossing I've only seen that happen a few times, and never to me. Guess I was due for some luck. I was still way behind on the last slalom and had to back off a lot in transitions, due to the rears being worn to hell. The gearing was perfect to keep it in 2nd gear for the whole course, but it pushed past 7000 rpm on one spot. I was dousing the tires after each run, as well as the radiator, but it was barely enough. It was Africa hot.

The motor and oil pump stayed together for all 10 runs by both drivers, with nary a tick or grumble from the engine, so I am not backing off the revs. I didn't touch a shock knob, kept tire pressures where we had them at the Divisional, and its going to Nats just like this (on a set of fresh A6 Hoosiers, with this worn set mounted and ready for emergency spares/practice runs, as well as some Yokohama A032 on standby as wets - 3 sets of 18x10s should about do it!)



This week we did finally drill and install proper clip-in floor anchors for the lap belts, so now they are in there correctly. I re-did some of the exhaust fab work and repairs to the heat shielding and front undertray I wasn't happy with last night, too. The shoulder harnesses are re-routed and tight to the harness cross bar, too. I do have a shift light I am going to try to sneak in before Nats, but we'll deal with it if time isn't there (the E30 GRM Project deadline is looming!).



The coolest part of this event was the placement of AST equipped drivers and Vorshlag Testers:

• 1st-4th in overall PAX results (all Vorshlag testers)
• 1st and 2nd in SS (both Vorshlag testers, AST 5200 equipped)
• 1st and 2nd in STX (both Vorshlag testers, AST 4200 equipped)
• 1st in STU (Vorshlag tester, AST 4200 equipped)
• 1st and 2nd in SM (both Vorshlag testers, AST 4200 equipped)
• 1st in DSP (Vorshlag testers, AST 4200 equipped)
• 1st in W (Vorshlag tester, AST 4200 equipped)
• 1st in FP (Vorshlag tester, AST 5200 equipped)
• 1st and 2nd in CSP (Vorshlag testers, soon to be AST 4210 equipped)

We're starting to see this pattern in areas that have woken up to potential of AST shocks. Nice job, guys and gals! If we run our DSP car one more time before Nats, it might just be Amy driving, as I need to be testing the E30 set-up for GRM event. There's 3 more events we could hit locally, so we'll see how close the GRM car gets - I need to get at least one event in with that thing before Nats.

Cheers,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for August 18, 2010: We finally got time to do some sound testing today. First we did the "After" sound tests on Hanchey's unmuffled turbo Subaru Legacy race car. Then we finally tested the DSP prepped E46 330Ci with the new custom 3" exhaust, Stett headers, and 3" Hushpower muffler.



We never sound tested it with the stock manifolds and after-cat exhaust (no "before"), but it was as quiet as a sewing machine, but as choked up as if it had the proverbial banana in the tailpipe. Even with the Stett headers added it was still hard to hear the engine note to know when to shift - super quiet, because it still had a choked up, poor flowing after-header exhaust. The factory after-cat system, which itself weighed 62 pounds, was the reason. Once we removed this monstrosity, made up of two factory catalysts, a secondary catalyst, a resonator and a huge rear-mounted muffler with a bypass valve on one of the exhaust tips, it of course got a LOT louder. But that was to be expected, and with more exhaust flow comes more potential for added horsepower.



Completely "uncorked" 6 cylinder BMWs are usually ear-splitting loud, so we wanted to use a fairly quiet muffler for this car, as it would see sound testing regulations at SCCA events, including at the 2010 SCCA Solo Nationals. But we didn't want to choke off the flow, either.



This time Flowmaster came to us and offered up one of their latest and greatest mufflers - the 3" Hushpower part number 13016100 - for us to test and use on the DSP car, and we were glad to give it a go! This muffler is popping up on all sorts of street and race cars, and we love the unit. It is fairly lightweight, free flowing, and it knocks the hell out of exhaust noise - yet makes for a pleasant sound on everything we've used them on so far. The was the same unit that worked so well to knock down drone and Wide Open Throttle exhaust noises on our STU prepped E36 M3 we sound tested before, as well as their HP2 Hushpower we sound tested on McCall's E30 318is ST car. Its available in many case lengths, materials, diameters, and with or without an integral turn-down tip.


Sound Test 1: 102 db at WOT in 3rd gear

We were hoping for a ~100-102 dB number at WOT and that guess was right on the money. The near 100 dB number we got on our test set-up (which admittedly has a much closer placement of the sound meter to the car than than proper SAE sound testing) means we're in the clear for SCCA sound regs, and we'll update this thread with any test data we get from SCCA at Nationals in a few weeks. The 86 dB note at cruising speed was exceptionally quiet, given the otherwise unrestricted (and not emissions legal!) exhaust on this race car.


Sound Test 2: 86 db at 40 mph cruising speed

Now folks building a BMW like this and using it for street use would have to use some sort of catalytic converter(s), which themselves reduce sound levels significantly. And remember - our sound testing method is way different from SAE tests, or even SCCA Sound Regulation testing - they place the sound meter 50-75 feet from the car, and our meter is only 10 feet from the tip as the car goes by. So the ultimate numbers we tested are always going to be higher than "proper" sound tests. Look at some of our other tests with the Hushpower muffler to see the before/after numbers we've generated, and the HP series muffler is proven to be a good bet for lower noise emissions.

Big thanks to the folks at Flowmaster for the Hushpower muffler they sent us for this test. After the results we've seen, its a keeper!

Cheers,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Oct 18, 2010: I've been slow to update this project thread because I had very little good news to talk about. I never even looked at the final DSP results, because thinking about the fiasco after Nationals that was the "E46 330Ci Project" makes me sick to my stomach. Looking at the budget spreadsheet on what we spent on this car... staggering. I don't know how it got so far out of hand, or how it turned out so underwhelming. Prepare for... Excuse-a-palooza!

OK, so we got killed in this DSP class in this 330 at Nats, and nobody likes to recount in gory detail about how badly they had their ass handed to them, but here goes. To add "injury" to the "insult", the oil pump drive issue we had weeks before Nationals (and fixed with a new oil pump, welded on nut, and rod bearings - none of it cheap) has apparently cropped up again this past weekend, and the motor really is "injured" this time. Don't know how badly its damaged yet, but it doesn't sound good and barely cranks anymore. I'll explain more on that at the end. Let's touch on the 2010 SCCA Solo Nationals debacle, first, then briefly on the 3 other events the car has done since, including its Final Event.

Picture gallery of 773 pics from Nationals: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ationals-2010/ (I hadn't even looked at them until today)

I'll try to remember what I can about Nationals - a lot of alcohol was consumed that week, especially after the bleeding started. So we got the new 285/30/18 Hoosiers mounted at the event, and Amy, John and I each ran some practice laps in the car. It felt fine but our times were a bit slower (1/2 second) than what we saw the more seasoned DSP drivers running in practice ... but I don't put much stock in that tiny practice course compared to the full sized Nationals courses. Some of the other DSP cars also made 40+ practice laps, so we thought that might have been the difference? I was hoping we would still be close to the top cars at the actual event.

I was wrong.



We were a solid 3 seconds off the pace of the class leaders in the dry each day, and closer to 4 seconds off in the wet on Day 2. I don't remember precisely because I can't make myself look at the results again. :stickoutt

I can't put my finger on one obvious thing that we screwed up that made the car so slow, other than "everyone else was a lot faster". The car turned in well, cornered flat, put down power well, but it just didn't have much power to put down. We had 3 drivers that don't suck running the car and we were all well off the pace in both Open and Ladies.


Amy gave it her best, but was nowhere near the fastest car in class

Between my own runs, I watched the rest of the class drive as my co-driver John was on course, and the top cars all looked quite a bit more powerful than our stock motored E46. It was pretty obvious - they had a lot more power, and they had a lot more grip. I talked to some other DSP racers and some tuners who had worked on other cars in the class and we were way off the power number we needed for the weight of this car, to be on equal ground. The top ~10 cars were flying down the slalom sections and launching from corner to corner, and we were not. Our car had the right suspension bits, and had a feeble header and a cold air, but we probably left a good 50-60 hp on the table by keeping the stock motor and stock EFI, not building a purpose-built motor for SP. And my suspension set-up was obviously way off - the spring rates were too stiff, the tire pressures too high, etc. I've learned one thing from all this - DSP is a serious class, and if you want to do well there you'll need to invest several years and some serious coin into the prep of the car.

With all of the massive work (1500+ hours) we poured into our $2010 GRM Challenge BMW E30 V8 entry through the second half of 2009 and into 2010 (which was barely finished in time and also didn't do extremely well at that event), we didn't have much time left over to properly develop this E46 for Solo use, and it showed. With only 6 autocross events in the car before taking it to Nationals, and never with any other DSP class competition, we were judging the car's performance based solely on PAX results at the handful of events we ran it in (Regionals, one Divisional & one National Tour). At track events it felt great, and we set numerous TTD records in the car, but none of that matters for autocross. Even PAX'ing top 3 in our Regional events didn't mean the car was competitive - we were fooling ourselves - because everyone knows you have GOT to take your car on the road and race against the top drivers first hand before going to Nationals, if you want to know the truth.


John put in good drives for someone who had never driven it - like he does every year we prep a slow car for him to co-drive (sorry, John!)

The brakes worked fine, the limited slip felt great, the clutch was flawless, the launches seemed good, the shifting was... about normal, the car pretty much felt great. It was just dog ass slow. It eeked under the 100 dB sound limit, so we at least got that right.

I'm not saying we drove perfectly, and it would be easier to just blame the driving for our poor showings, but with 3 drivers' that had won or trophied top 3 at several previous National Championships, we had to have had one driver among us that put down a good time for the car. And we were all pretty close to each other (as usual), none of us felt like we totally botched each run, and we were all well off the pace. I have to blame lack of testing and poor set-up, and lack of power, which was all my fault.


The car would almost get some bite, then you'd totally hydroplane and have to hang on for the ride

One other prep item we totally missed was not having real Hoosier Wets for the rain. And in late September in Lincoln, NE, guess what? It is going to rain. A lot. We're 2 for 2 at this site for rain, so far. So on day 2, the DSP Open class had a deluge to deal with, so we put our "rain" tires on, like everyone else (who, all but one other car, had Hoosier Wets). Our wet tires were an old set of 265/35/18 Yokohama A032 medium hard road race tires, with lots of tread left, that we got in early 2009 for track use on the EVO X. We were promptly 7 seconds off the pace for both John and I on these old, "compounded-out" Yokes. We quickly swapped back to the Hoosier A6 "Drys" and settled for a 4 second determent, splashing around like fools. We were sprinting from dry patch to patch, trying to go straight over the puddles, and it was all we could do to keep it on course. There were large patches of inches deep water to contend with. It was not fun. I felt like I put in the drive of my life to get the times I did in the wet, on these A6s - but who cares when you're this slow?

I'll post up videos of our wet runs for a laugh sometime. Here's some of the faster DSP competitors that cleaned our clocks:


Above: This car, and others in the DSP class, had 315mm tires at all 4 corners


Left: This E30's two drivers beat us. Right: So did this car's drivers, even carrying the inside tires 6" in the air.


Left: Brian Peters and his car put the hurt on the class. Right: Tom Bleh was quick in his E30, too

more below...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Update for Oct 18, 2010 (cont.): I won't discuss the DSP Ladies class in much detail, such as the last second class/car jumping shenanigans, but suffice it to say Amy got a distant 2nd place in class. She drove damn well to get that, but she was also well off the pace of the fastest car in DSP Ladies. The same car that won open won Ladies, unsurprisingly. It looked damn quick, no matter who drove it. No disrespect meant - kudos to Brian for building such a fine car.

And congratulations to everyone else that did well in DSP - my hats off to you guys. You folks have some serious hardware and drove your butts off. We weren't even in the same ballpark, and since we have a lot of other race cars to develop and play with around here, I am happy to say we won't be back to stink up the bottom half of the class again next year. I dunno... I just don't have the time, energy or capital that it would take to develop the E46 for the this class - especially when we have multiple V8 powered cars with a lot more power, and lots more reliability, to race with. Fixing broken motors always sucks. Fixing broken motors on cars with 200 hp is not something I ever want to get stuck doing again. :stickoutt

One good piece of news - Amy and Costas took the 330 to a NASA event at Eagles Canyon a couple of weeks ago (while we drove back from Florida, after the GRM Challenge event) and they had a blast. They put those same old Yokohamas on the car (which, when given enough laps can get some heat in them, and some stick) and had a blast running in HPDE (Amy) and Time Trial (Costas). Costas set a TTD track record in it, instructed for Amy, and she got signed off for her TT Comp license driving the 330, which was cool. This E46 seems to shine on a road course, but it still sucks on the autocross course. We've got a lot more road course time in the car than we do autocrossing it, and it shows. I know better than to go to Nationals without a single test day and no data-logging on a given car, but I guess sometimes I need to re-learn the same lessons many times. Idiot...

We ran the car again at two autocrosses this past weekend, which was an expensive mistake. I had already decided to sell the car, but figured "well it hasn' broken in a whole month, why not give it two more events before we put it up for sale!" Dumb. On Saturday we ran at a new site in Paris, Texas, and trashed a front tire down to cords doing the 3 tight turn-arounds at the ends of the narrow 120' runway site. Its just not wide enough to do an autox on. And its in Paris, Texas. So the next day (Sunday) we were both supposed to run it one last time at the best autox of the year in Texas - the annual TMS Road Course SCCA autocross.

Long story short: Amy popped the motor in our 330 on Sunday before I got to turn a wheel in anger. I guess we'll get a replacement (junkyard) engine and put it into the car before we sell it. I think something happened to the oil pump drive (again - the nut was WELDED on this time) but she didn't hear it/notice the massive bad noises it was making, and made a full high speed run on the Texas Motor Speedway infield road course w/o any oil pressure. I was working in the timing trailer and didn't hear anything amiss until her 4th run... when it was making LOUD ticking noises from the top end (meaning: no oil pressure) at the starting line (just like it did last time the oil pump nut came off - which I luckily stopped in time to save the motor that time). It was so loud I heard it from 50' away, inside the timing trailer. So I got on the P.A. and yelled for them to hold her at the start, but the starter had headphones on another radio band and didn't hear me... she left the line, made a full 60 second run without oil pressure, and when she stuck it in neutral at the finish line, the motor stalled and sounds like it seized. Its toast.

Then we pushed it into the trailer and I promptly locked the truck keys inside. That was just about perfect!

So, I'm done. This aluminum 3 liter, double Vanos, hot sh!t whiz-bang M54 motor made pathetic power numbers, has been nothing but unreliable, and it is expensive to repair and upgrade. The EFI tuning choices (CAN-BUS) for this motor suck and a Motec to properly control the double Vanos was going to be another $5000 + tuning. I was looking at $8,000-10,000 to build a full-tilt-SP legal motor. All that to make, what? 250 whp? Uhh... no thanks. I'm gonna fold on this one before I kept dumping more money into this bottomless pit. I'm prepping our E36 M3 to sell as well, just because I'm so pissed off at all BMWs at the moment.

I'll post up with more pics and videos soon, and will show the steps it takes to salvage some of your investment in a poorly planned, poorly executed autocross build. If someone wants to end the suffering early, please drop me a note on our website (linked below), and I'll gladly cut you a deal on the car as-is. Otherwise we'll find a solid M54 long block to put in the car, remove some of the expensive bits we can use on the 2011 Mustang or maybe on the E30 (Cobra seats, Sparco steering wheel, 18x10s), rip off the decals, and get it painted one color again. Then I'll let it go at a huge loss.

Thanks for reading, and sorry this project was such a dud.

[rp1]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Sorry to hear about all the bad luck, Terry. Better luck next year. I'm anxiously awaiting to hear more and see more about the Mustang. I've had my eye on one of these for a while and in the next year or two I want to pickup a 5.0 for my wife.

With that all said, two questions:

1. What sort of springs WERE you running on the DSP car? Been talking with my co-driver at Nationals (Mark Uhlmann) who drives a DSP 328is and we've had some spring talk and some more information would be beneficial to our theories.

2. Your comment about the E36 M3 intrigued me and as such, I'm planning a budget already :-D, but I had a quick question. In the thread about the car on the vorshlag forum, you had quoted something like 29xx lbs for the car. When talking with a few other people about STU M3s (Mike Simanyi, for example), there was talk that it should be able to get down to STX E36 numbers (mid-to-high 2700s). Where is that extra weight coming from?

Thanks, and again, good luck in the "off season" getting your next set of cars together for 2011.

[turbotoddie]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Sounds like you need a hug! Can't help you there


Anyways, if Vorshlag is going to be successful in the eyes of your competitors/customers, narrow your focus and put a frontrunner in one place instead of also rans in a few places.(Take it from me, I wrote the book on how to do it wrong!)

turbo

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag BMW E46: DSP Auto-x Project

Sounds like you need a hug! Can't help you there


Anyways, if Vorshlag is going to be successful in the eyes of your competitors/customers, narrow your focus and put a frontrunner in one place instead of also rans in a few places.(Take it from me, I wrote the book on how to do it wrong!)

turbo

+1. But Todd, does "also ran" mean the car or the driver in your case?