Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 24, 2010: We're progressing along nicely on the bodywork, and ironing out some other details. Matt has been working on the budget and build book we're putting together to show the build, and Chris finished the ABS wiring harness last night (just have to wire the sensors up tonight).



Earlier this week we hit a snag and lost fuel pressure when doing that dyno test, dropping from 65 psi to 35 psi almost at once. Hmm... no visible leaks. We chased the problem for a few days, but we think we have found the root cause - a ruptured 2" piece of fuel line inside the fuel tank that attached the fuel pump to the E30 pick-up tube. We also imploded the fuel filter, which we found out later was made for carbureted cars (and much lower fuel pressures). Everything was fine at 40 psi, but when we cranked up to 65 it only worked for about 2 dyno pulls.

We've built a new fuel filter (a cheap replacement unit for an EFI Ford truck) to fit the very tight confines of the old outboard fuel pump (we re-used that bracket) and its working fine - and actually cost us less by $4 whole dollars than the old set-up. We wasted hours custom making it, of course, and would have gladly spent $100-150 for a real fuel filter with AN fittings... but that's the nature of this bizarre build - "time is free". There's plenty of time to sleep when we're dead.



Costas spent part of Wednesday night working on the fuel pump/pressure issues and then the rest of the evening buried under the dash, extracting our custom brake master cylinder pedal pushrod/clevis. We tried to re-use the E30 clevis pin that finally showed up, but it was too short, so I drilled a bolt for a cotter pin and Costas put it all back in. We also shortened our pushrod by .040", as it was a tick too long and was leaving some residual pressure in the rear brakes when the pedal wasn't pushed. It rolls easily now with the brakes off. We'll test it for real Sunday at the BMWCCA autocross.





The past two nights I've been working on the first front fender flare, with some fits and starts. Paul M worked on it Wednesday night and finished the cardboard top layout, built the buck, hammer formed the top piece, and we got it tacked on. Last night I cut it off and fixed a bunch of things, then tacked it back in place, at the correct angle this time.



Sometime yesterday I made a pair of brackets to hold the E36 front bumper cover to our E30. I got tired of looking at the zip ties...



We had spent several hours carving up the bumper cover to fit onto the E30 a few months ago - I can't actually remember when that was. McCall's cousin gave us the idea to use E36 bumper covers on an E30, since they looked so good on his when he tried it. He was right! The brackets I made were carved from some 14 gauge sheet, some 20 gauge scraps from the fenders, two 2" pieces of 3/4" electrical conduit, and 4 M8 bolts. We gotta be cheap here.





Yes, those two side supports are made from some lengths of PVC pipe and a 4" long bolt. Nothing but class here, folks. The front bumper looks better in person than in this series of close up pics, and will make more sense once we have the front flares finished and blended into the wider bodyline. The rear bumper cover is a better looking fit, however, as it is already mated up to the flares.



Costas scored this non-M E36 rear bumper cover for us off of CraigsList Wednesday night and it was a steal. McCall spent a good 3 hours last night fitting it to the E30 body. He whittled away about an inch of plastic to get the rear fascia to line up to the trunk section tight, and the wheel arches lined up almost perfectly with the rear fenders we built. A little more trimming at the arches, and some more brackets I'll build today, and that is completed.



About to put the final touches on the fuel pressure fix, then get after the rear bumper brackets and then attack the front flares. Tonight is going to be another LATE work night, and Saturday we will slap on some mud and black primer. Sunday we race. Sounds like an easy plan, right?



More after the autocross...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Project Update for Sept 27, 2010: What a difference a week makes...

One week ago we had one flare finished, and the car didn't run or stop, and it looked like total crap. Now we've got all 4 flares completed and the bodywork "done" and the car "painted". Now its less craplike. We took huge shortcuts, as you will likely notice. Some of the bodywork is visible under the flat black primer, and the roof likes like a mess. The bottlecaps were just for painting, so ignore those, too.



Friday night was an all-nighter, and Saturday and Sunday were also insanely work days. I lost count of how many people were there. We've worked until midnight or later for so many days in a row I didn't even know what day it was - I had to look it up. We had planned to and paid for an autocross on Sunday in the E30, to test all sorts of things, but missed the paint and bodywork plan by a mile. Let's see what I can remember...



The old E36 K-brand struts we bought for $15 were partially revived (one needed fluid) and turned into coilovers. Costas had fun with the plasma cutter chopping off the old lower perches, and Paul M cleaned up the used coilover adapters these came with on the lathe, for a better fit. They are on the car but we have yet to test them on the road or set ride height. There's some old crusty Eibach springs on the front that came with my '97 M3 when it had TCK struts. They've been on the car for years and sitting on the shelf for longer. 750 #/in and I hope that works. No time to test!





Chris, our wiring fiend, finished the custom E36 ABS wiring harness over Friday and Saturday and ran some old CAT5 for the sensor wiring. Chris and Costas did some testing Friday night in the rain on my wife's E36 M3 and figured out how the pedal position sensor works, and we're adapting it to be a "tunable" ABS. Its pretty complex, and involves expensive items like some painters tape. I'll explain further, if it works. Heh.



Chris was dodging sparks from my welding on the bottoms of the flares the whole time. I think I only barely caught him on fire. I was adding reinforcement plates to the bottom sections to make the box flares more rigid and "cone hit capable".



Chris and Costas got the new harness routed through the dash and car and mounted the ABS computer as well as the truck ECU in the glove box. It looks cleaner than the pics here show.



I started out Friday by cutting the top left flare off and fixing a lot of bends and angle problems. After taking some time checking angles I found the problem, made a little patch panel to bridge the gap from the flare top to the fender, and got it all welded back together and the underside brackets built and welded in place. The right front fender had similar problems, as the hammer formed top was made from the same (incorrectly cut) pattern, so that was some extra fun there, too. Somewhere in there McCall and I made rear bumper brackets (very light, also made from electrical conduit and scrap sheet). So the rear bumper was mounted and attached to the flares at the leading edges. Lined up pretty well (better than the front) but with so many pics in this update I didn't show it.



Paul M and Jason helped me cut and hold and hammer these front flares into shape. I don't know how many hours I spent welding on these but it was a lot. Probably 20 hours just from this weekend alone was spent on the front flares. We did a lot of spot welding and hammer/dolly work fixes to the rears before bodywork began, too. Making custom steel box flares is a LOT of freagin work. Trust me on that one. We have probably 60-80 hours in the layout, cutting, fab work, grinding, and bodywork on these flares. And they are far from perfect - we were pretty rushed on the front pair. 4 people worked on them over the course of the last 2 weeks. That 60-80 hour number might be low, too. It didn't help that we'd never made anything like these, of course.



We had a volunteer that knows paint and body pretty well help us this weekend on the bodywork and some of the spraying. He didn't want to be named so we'll call him The Underpants Gnome. TUG did the mud work on the rear flares, hood and trunk for about 8 hours on Saturday and told us we were insane to think we'd be autocrossing the next day. He got the rears shot with primer after that full day of bodywork, and said he needed another week to get the bodywork right. The roof, doors, and front fenders were not touched yet. We had another full day. Hmm...



So Saturday night we decided to punt and pound out what we could on Sunday. "Right" was far from our goal. We needed "good enough at 50 mph". Jason, Matt, Amy and I poured another 12 hours on Sunday and mudded/shaped/sanded the front fenders and roof "quick and dirty", and just ran the D.A. over the doors quick and got to taping and cleaning. We poured in an entire day of bodywork, sanding and prep - done by people that had little to no skills in this area. We're racers, not bodymen!





We got it looking good enough from 50 feet, so we degreased the body and trunk and rolled it outside. Even with heavy winds gusting to 25 mph Jason sprayed a coat of sandable primer (mostly) on the car and all of the panels by 5 pm Sunday, while Matt, Amy and I held up a 20' x 10' tarp to block the wind. We don't have a paint booth, you know?? The winds were knocking us over holding this huge sail, but it deflected some of the wind away from the spray gun.



We ran to grab food at 6 pm and were back sanding this now dried primer coat by 7:30. We had it sanded, cleaned and ready to shoot by 8 pm, when TUG shot some black primer on the whole car and we were done by 9 pm. We were all ready to collapse but we got it sprayed. Always bet on black!



This morning I went out early and pulled the paper and tape off the car and panels. We'll put it together tonight and try to get some sort of testing done tomorrow. Probably something illegal and insanely dangerous. We pack up the trailer Wednesday to go 17 hours to Gainesville, Florida for the $2010 GRM Challenge. We might be wrenching in the trailer on the way. Its OK - it has lights inside... Costas, McCall, Matt and I will be there with the E30, one way or another. It will likely have zero testing, and might explode into a huge fireball, but we're going to be there and make loud noises.

Bleary eyed. I'm going to crawl under my desk and take a much needed nap. More soon...

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

TUG! That is hilarious.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 28, 2010: Normally I'd wait more than a day to post another update, but the differences from the last 24 hours are dramatic:


KA-POW!

We spent all night putting the car body panels and interior back together and it looks good. We've also started on the graphic layout, with the decals being cut today on one of the team's plotters. Hopefully we're putting decals on tonight or tomorrow before we load up... otherwise Costas will be laying them down at 70 mph inside the trailer. "It won't be the first time, nor the last".

We had Amy, me, Paul Costas and Paul M (aka: The Two Pauls) working from about 6 pm until well after midnight but the results were worth the additional late night push. I painted the bumpers flat black; I started by cleaning the E36 front and rear bumper covers, then hitting them with Scotchbrite pads to scuff the surfaces (they were both used pieces that were gloss black, but pretty beat up). Cleaned the CCWs while I was at it, plus a bunch of other pieces we painted last night: rear window trim, wiper motor cover plate, and some other bits and pieces.



Amy and Paul M cleaned up the various OEM weatherstrip seals (Armor All) and installed them for the hood, trunk, both door openings and rear window surrounds. We also started laying out where decals would go, and I took a ton of measurements for our upcoming graphics (pretty simple - mostly just big Vorshlag decals). The Two Pauls then installed the front and rear window glass - which neither had done before. They did a good job - no cracks!



The engine bay is a mess. Its nowhere NEAR my normal engine cleanliness standards of even the lamest cars I've ever owned. I usually get them crazy clean, detailed to perfection, and am proud to open the hood on any vehicle I own and show it off. Except this E30. We just flat ran out of time and cannot do the proper "pull the engine, bodywork the panels, repaint and reassemble" that we had planned. I had it pretty damn clean right after I bought the car last year, but we cut away several brackets we didn't need and then sanded/primed the areas... and now there's ugly gray primer in an otherwise shiny blue engine bay. Oiy.



Amy looked at it and decided that the worst part was the wiper cover. Its normally covered in ugly studs and sound insulation mat, which we cut off and ground smooth months ago. It was now rusty bare metal and looked terrible, so she yanked it out, Paul M prepped the surface with the Crud Buster, I blasted it with flat black, Amy laid on a small Vorshlag decal (over some crazy surface shapes) and then she reinstalled it. Huge difference. I'll clean the engine bay tonight and we'll go with the "look at the V8 and ignore the rest" for the underhood area. She also helped with the interior trim pieces - door sill, etc. - and cleaned and polished all of the glass. The Two Pauls reinstalled the carpet and cut around the 4-point bar. It looks pretty good in there now. We got the rear deck lid, dash panel, and center console cleaned up but still need to detail the door panels and maybe find a piece of carpet to cover the area for the missing backseat.



Costas has decal experience and had a strip of black vinyl he wanted to use for the windshield. He and Amy laid that on at a 6" height and we'll slap a yellow decal over that when they are cut today. We can all see underneath this windshield top strip well enough and it will provide good shade for racing under bright skies. Paul M also got the rear Dzus fasteners riveted to the trunk panel again.



The Two Pauls hung the doors, and that took a while. Blue tape on the leading edges to avoid scratches, the limit strap fell inside the door so the door panel had to come off one side, etc. Fun fun fun! Paul M laid on some black electrical tape for the X's over the headlight bulbs, for that period correct look.



I rolled the car out this morning and snapped some pictures as the sun was coming up...



We are all quite surprised how good it looks, even in black primer, for as rushed as the bodywork has been. Its far from perfect, but its mean and looks like it can get the job done. I found some stick-on chrome letters at an auto parts store and put those on for a little description of the model (325e became VM-353) and to sport our $2010 roots. Represent!



Some last bits still need to go on the car (rear quarter windows, kick panels), some wiring bits need to be finished (ABS light, a ground or two) and some pieces need to be found in the shop and installed (hood pins, one more front bumper trim piece). We have got to mount the 15x10" wheels and do some driving on them, too. Then the decals go on and we load it on the trailer tomorrow. If all goes well.

More soon!

[Jerry]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Great job guys, amazing effort and a great result for the work! Best of luck at GRM Challenge!!

[bpeet]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Holy shit Terry!

Y'all have really pulled it together over a very little amount of time. GRM is at the end of this week? We're getting Savanna moved up this weekend and I know you're burnt out on this thing but let me know when you start fixing it the "right" way and I'll come help out!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Mini-update for October 3, 2010: OK, let me post this up quick to stop the rumors and poor guesswork. I've got three Project Updates coming shortly... one full update later tonight showing the last minute thrash to get the car driveable before we left, then a post about the event itself will happen Wednesday (along with pics and video of our car and others') after we know more about the results, and Friday I'll post up with the Future options for this E30... and its up for a vote. By you guys.

That's right - we're putting the fate of the little E30 in YOUR hands!

So, let me give a quick update here, mostly to address the haters that have posted up with wildly inaccurate rumors... (shakes head)

I heard it didnt go to good. not only was the guys from miami e30 ALOT nicer bodywork wise but it was alot faster in both events also.

"It didn't go to good"? Kind of like your grammar lessons in 3rd grade didn't go to good?

The Condor Speed Shop's white E30 (aka: DirtE30) probably was nicer inside and out than our flat black car, and I think they just eeked past us with a Pro driver on a 5th run at the autocross, (they got a re-run, which was lucky as their driver had lots of cone issues), but I didn't see their drag race times. I think they needed to run an 11.18 to beat the Georgia Tech team's Miata V8 entry, which dominated the autocross and did well enough in the concours and drags. We left the event after we had two driveline failures in the drags early on Saturday, so I'm not sure about anything on who won what.

So we almost beat the white E30 in the autocross (up until their 5th and final re-run, and only the first 4 count), but our drag times were barely more than a DNF (see below). And they crushed us in the car show. Not a surprise, after seeing that car in person.



I think their white E30 won overall best the concours event, but that's only a rumor - GRM is VERY slow to post updates about the event online and we don't know much for fact. We also had two different photo shoots with our black E30 and their white one... good vs. evil. Several GRM photographers took 100's of photos of both. I won't be surprised to see their entry get in the magazine with a full 4-page spread, but our ugly duckling might sneak in there, too. You never know.

Remember that this was their 3rd or even 4th? year at this event in the same car, and they do local autcross events between Challenges to fine tune things. We're total noobies to this event, and foolishly finished so late that we had ZERO testing on ours. We left in almost all of the interior bits, glass, and other "functional street equipment" as stipulated by the Challenge rules. The Condor E30 was gutted like a real race car and tipped the scales at a scant 2160 pounds with a full tank of fuel. As we found out the hard way, nobody took the "street functionality" aspects seriously at all. Well, we learned that lesson the hard way, as our car tipped the scales at a portly 2490 lbs with working power windows, all the stock glass, most of the dash, heater, lights, horn, carpet, etc. We wasted a lot of time with all of that, and it probably didn't help us one bit in the concours judging that we had a beautiful stock dash, interior panels, fully carpeted interior, 4-point roll bar, etc.


Left: Condor Speed Shop E30 = gutted car that was 2160 lbs. Right: Vorshlag E30 had working windows/lights/wipers/interior and was 324 pounds heavier at 2484 lbs

I have a lot of respect for those guys - their E30 looked awesome, and even had the same E36 front and rear bumpers our car had (hey!). But ours... well, for 2 days worth of bodywork and paint it sure was well received (or "received to good" for you 2nd graders) by both the concours judges (at least to our faces) and by the other competitors. We had dozens of groups come by to gawk at the car and most left saying they loved our little E30, and many said they'd be looking for a 5.3L LM7 for their car next year (see why we held back on that piece of info until late in the build?).

... rumor has it they didnt show up for the banquet at the end because they expected to beat everyone easily and was pissed off they didnt win anything. cant imagine that sat very good with the grm community.

Wait... what??? Hold on there, hater, your rumors suck. Don't speak for us, please, even based on second hand rumors from someone who might have been there.

I am going to post a better update about the event later this week when I have time to compile all of the pics and video, but in short: the car and our driver Costas did very well in the autocross, considering the car had ZERO testing and we had a terrible alignment (we couldn't fix the -4° camber in the rear in time) and way too stiff on rear spring rates. I think we were 3rd fastest in the autox at one point but maybe slipped to 7th fastest, out of 55 cars? And he beat the Pro driver that we let take a fun run in the car (who had dozens of looks at the course). Again, the handling was a MESS, and also the brakes didn't work worth a damn. But man, it had power! I made one fun run and pretty much put on a drift show... it was a MESS, but it was FUN.



Our drag race driver, however, had more serious troubles on Saturday... a CV joint in the old halfshaft shattered on his first drag launch, we replaced that with a spare, and then third gear exploded on his 2nd run, by 10 am. We're still not sure what happened, but this was an old, used T5, and he had never driven the car until hours before. Its weird because we put a bunch of 1st through 4th gear runs on the car on the street, to have it let go on a mild drag race pass. We'll crack it open and look for long term fatigue cracks and the like. With any real dragstrip testing this would have showed up as well, and been fixed.



So after the 2nd driveline failure by 10 am Saturday we were pretty bummed, and still had an 18 hour drive home ahead of us. My wife was running a NASA Time Trial event the next day and I wanted to get back if I needed to help. Costas had already flown back the day before to instruct at that event, too. We had planned on staying for the banquet and then leaving at around 10 pm for Dallas, but we talked about it and decided it wasn't worth it for us to stick around another 12 hours waiting, then leave at 10 pm and drive that 18 hours all night and through the next day. So, I made a judgment call and we packed up and left by 11 am - and got home at 4:30 am Sunday morning, almost a full day early, for some much needed rest. Worth it! I slept through them leaving for the NASA event but spent most of Sunday cleaning the truck, trailer, unloading the broken car, and then putting away all of the crap we brought with us. Otherwise... hell, it would still be sitting out there loaded up today.

Before we left the event Saturday before lunch, we said our goodbyes to the GRM staff (that we could find - which admittedly wasn't many people at 10 am on Saturday), stopped by and talked with some of the other GRM teams we met, wishing our competition well in the drags, and hit the road with a smile. We had fun, but yes, we were a bit disappointed that we didn't get a single drag run in - that totally boned our chances in the overall placing. We never expected to win overall but had hoped to at least get some sort of respectable drag times in. At best if the car hadn't broken we might have eeked out a top 5-10 place finish, but that's a total guess. Could our car have run the 1/4 mile in the low 12s? 11s? Not really sure, but I damn sure want to find out NOW, you know?!



We were surprised at how well the car ran in the autocross, and we were happy that the car and our team was well received by the competition and the GRM staff.

http://vimeo.com/15490390

I already took our four official runs, then Fair took it on a fun run. First time he had driven it more than a few dozen feet. I asked if he knew about 'drop-throttle oversteer' and he nodded....so I said: 'this is more like any-throttle oversteer'. Too much rear negative camber, too stiff rear springs and no rear toe-in.....oh, and a lot of power in a light car.

Check the video above for my "total hoon run". I don't know how we placed overall yet, but I'll call GRM and find out tomorrow. Probably not well, considering the only timed drag run was an 18 second ET, coasting from 330 feet to the end. I'm not bitter, but that sure left a bad taste in my mouth. One full year of hard ass work... we can't NOT go back next year, you know??

Again - we'll let you guys decide the fate of this car soon. Check back for the poll on Friday.

More soon!

[turbotoddie]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Nice job! Sorry it didn't go as planned but why would you want to go back if the rules aren't enforced? Sounds like a 'brother in law' deal.

turbo

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Nice job! Sorry it didn't go as planned but why would you want to go back if the rules aren't enforced? Sounds like a 'brother in law' deal.

turbo

It wasn't that bad, we just didn't know which things were important and which weren't. Obviously keeping the full interior and glass and all the OEM steel was a mistake - one we wouldn't make again.

Not testing hurt us most of all...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 30, 2010: Yep, I'm writing this from the past, but doing it in the future. I have a time machine. How do you think we squeezed the last 500 man hours in the final week on this project??

So, anyway - here's what we did after our last Project Update on Sept 28th up until the registration party in Florida on Thursday the 30th. More accurately - its what I can remember. Those last few days are a total blur, with virtually no sleep. We worked crazy late on Wednesday night, when hood pins were installed by Paul M and McCall, and where Amy started on applying decals and cleaning stuff.





I really liked the custom silver/yellow GRM decals Costas made... we had lots of people ask us "where'd you get those?!" We made 'em all.



Matt spent the evening until 1 am and finished our budget book, and I don't remember what I did - probably ran around in a panic most of the night? Paul M installed $11 worth of cheap black indoor/outdoor carpet inside that I got at Home Depot earlier that day, covering up the area where the back seat was, and I detailed every inch of the interior and underhood.



On Thursday we were closed so I went and got the trailer and the guys showed up around 2 pm. They put a bunch of used parts/spares together, installed the last of the trim that we had, faked the door trim chrome with aluminum tape (it looked great - only 2 people figured it out!), and then backed the car out so Costas (our designated autocross driver) could take his first test drive. And then I stopped him in the driveway after seeing a MASSIVE fuel leak. On the lift it went again, a lot of testing, and out came the two main hard lines, on with the brazing rod and torch, and an hour and a half later that was fixed. Hairline crack at one of the brazed fittings. Then we slapped on the 15x10" wheels for the first time in a LONG while and Costas finally took that first real test drive at around 6:30 pm.



And 2 minutes later, he called us from a mile away for road side assistance with a collapsed front spring... (facepalm!)



I nut and bolted the car myself, but missed the collar clamping bolt loose on one of the used coilover sleeves on the front strut. We ran out there with a jack and some tools and put it together on the side of the road good enough to limp it back to my place, then got it on the lift again. Off came the strut, and then the now damaged strut collar wouldn't come off. Rusted on solid. Jason "the hammer" McCall managed to get it off the strut, and mangled it to a pulp in the process. Luckily we had a spare, which I had to re-machine on the lathe to fit this particularly rusty strut housing. We got it back on and reset the ride height quickly (we got the cross weights to 50.9%, which we didn't know until days later, which was pretty good for a total guess).

So the car was test driven once more - quickly - and nothing fell off or caught fire. Woo! Costas went blasting down behind our neighborhood and was swerving wildly to test the handling... and freaked out one of our neighbors walking her kid in a stroller (who was dozens of yards away - he saw her and slowed WAY down, but any car this loud is going to scare soccer moms), who almost called the cops. Oiy! Damage control on that front was underway, then we finally loaded the car. The 4 pm departure window we had set slid to 8:30 pm. We rolled out and started our 18 hour tow over 1070 miles from north Dallas. That drive was driven in shifts by me, Costas, and McCall with absolutely no issues - just the way I like it. We watched a few episodes of Archer on the way - hilarious!



We drove non-stop and arrived at our hotel at about 3:30 pm, and immediately unloaded the car and got to work installing the rest of the decals and checking the alignment (toe, camber) and Costas strung the car. Amazingly, my 10 minute toe change done in the wee hours days before was spot on, and the rear was lined up to the front. Total dumb ass luck! The rear camber was amazingly BAD, however, at -4 degrees. We had no way to adjust this, and this meant that a good portion of the rear tire wasn't touching the ground most of the time. Sheesh. Not good.



Some big slabs of blue/red/white vinyl turned out pretty damn nice as a Texas flag for the roof. Costas worked his magic and got that multi-piece freehand decal laid up perfectly. Covered up that mess of bondo on the roof. Don't Mess With Texas



The car was at least looking pretty darn good, and sounding pretty darn good, and that was as far as we got on Thursday. Went to the welcome party at 7 pm and met everyone on the GRM staff as well as some of the competitors - and consumed tasty beer and pizza. We actually did some more decal work while waiting for the gates to open Friday morning at 7:30 am, making room for the huge red Kumho banner we had to run by placing it diagonally on the hood - came out great! - and did some more "testing".



I'll go over everything about the event itself in the next project update this Wednesday - where I show how we did in the overall standings (24th out of 55, ouch!). But it wasn't all bad - our auto-x time was good enough for 7th, and our concours judging results weren't half bad, either. One judge gave us a perfect 25 score on exterior - ha! I totally love that guy.

More soon.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

By chance, did you guys see on Two Guys Garage, that Kevins doing an LSx swap into an e30? How timely!

Yea, Kevin has been in contact with us for the past few years, and we've shared some ideas between the two cars. I've had pictures of parts of that car I couldn't share with anyone - his build is absolutely insane; very very well done, and there's an episode coming up (that may have already aired? My DVR has several eps on there I need to watch) with more info on AST shocks he's using on his E30. I like the way he did his flares and the headers/exhaust are worthy of much praise also. Top notch build!

Update for Oct 11, 2010: So yea, I missed my scheduled update for last Wednesday... business is picking up and we've been slammed, and I promised my wife not to work nights for at least a week. This weekend I already started scrounging for parts and testing potential changes for next year, which gobbled up all day Saturday. Anyway, here's more about the actual $2010 GRM Challenge event. Let's start with the gallery of about 300 pics from the event: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...010-Challenge/

Just a couple more pictures from the trip out. We were fueled by Waffle House:



Once we got unloaded we had a steady stream of other Challenge teams coming by to take a look (some of which had followed our build thread), and most liked our little E30, including the guys from Georgia Tech. That was the massive roaming hoard of yellow shirted student builders. I'm kinda glad G.T. team won it - they had a great team, good spirit, and after 2 years of DNFs they came back with one helluva V8 Miata. Nice job, guys!



That engine had a ton of set-back, which had to help their overall balance. I really liked their hand built fiberglass extractor style hood. Massive attention to detail on this car all around.



They were so dominant in the autocross they didn't have to be ridiculously quick in the drags to win.



Another long term Challenge competitor was the Nelson family car. This is their latest iteration of the same theme - huge V8 with crazy power, Ford 9", massive drag tires, automatic trans, massive cage, and effortless 10 second times. I'm still a bit baffled at how they can get that much hardware into a $2000 budget, but hey... we're just noobs here. We'll learn eventually. The car was beautiful, and I am not trying to take anything away from their fabrication abilities. It was a top notch build, and when you heard the motor fire up... you knew it was all business.





There were many other V8 swap cars at the event like Datsun 240Z's, Nissan 240SX's, RX7s, and Miatas. Some were even turbocharged, like this blue Z.





Then there were some.... wackier builds. The K-car was pretty cool with the dual hoods, including the massive "four pack" hood for the drags. In which it hauled down the strip with some respectable speed!





How about a gutted/Lexan/Hoosier equipped 2600 pound Jeep? That the team put a turbo on the night before the drags? Definitely wacky! The damn thing was quick in the autocross, too! And how about an east German Wartburg with its anemic 2 stroke engine replaced with a Subaru flat four, stuck in the rear? The most wacky, but pretty cool, too.



There were more traditional "low cost sport cars" in abundance, of course. MR2's were popular, as we're some Hondas and even a few SAABs.



---had to break this post into two parts, since I exceeded the 30 image limit----

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Oct 11, 2010 (part 2):







That last one pictured there was pretty slick, but a bit of a stretch of the tube frame rules, with a custom frame & suspension, rotary power, and a little BMW Isetta body slapped on top. It tipped the scales at a sprightly 1400 pounds. Pretty ingenious build, but clearly outside of their intent of the tube frame limitations, no matter how you read the rules. I've asked the GRM folks pointedly about this one, as anyone could pull this trick if this type of build is allowed. Not trying to poo-poo this team's hard work, but If this is the way the Challenge is headed, we won't go back with our E30. Something that light, when fully tested and optimized, would be hard to lose with. Anyone could build essentially a tube framed formula car and slap some little micro-car body on it, too.





Just a few more autocross pics and then I'll sign off... this post is already too long. I did manage to get one of the Pro drivers in a massive spin in the Condor Speed Shop E30, ingesting large quantities of cones and ejecting their rear valance cover in the process. Enjoy!





I'll post up later this week with more on our team's actual event details, pictures and videos. Still have some video edits to finish.

Thanks,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Since I'm too lazy to look up the rules, how does re-using the car work from year to year? Do you have to enter into the 2011 Challenge assuming some worth for your 2010 car? (So instead of having a $2011 budget you only get $1511 or $1011 or something like that?) If your budget isn't reduced in some way like that it would seem that returning cars would have quite an advantage - not only the additional time to tune and perfect the setup, but basically double the budget.

Pat

The same budget rules apply... but you get one more dollar to spend.

Most teams take parts off that didn't work well and recoup that money into their budget, then try different things. I'm sure its... complicated.

Mini-update for Oct 12, 2010: I'm getting some flak from my last forum post from a number of other GRM Challenge team members over on R3vLimited, so I replied to that there. They think we took the competition portions of the GRM event too seriously, so I explained that we're racers, and the sickness that entails. Trying to explain your insanity to the sane is difficult, as is the reverse.

Also got some grief about the part where I questioned the legality of the tube-framed Rotary Isetta - I was told that it was indeed classed in the tube framed/Locost class (where I felt it belonged), so I was wrong to call that build into question (I was told otherwise at the event, so it was my mistake and I apologized there). I wish they would put a class sticker on the cars so we'd know.



We're having a big team planning meeting this Saturday and discussing all sorts of potential minor (and major) changes to the build. We've already seen enough public reaction (on the 5 forums as well as dozens of PMs and emails and calls to me) that we have to go back to the $2011 GRM Challenge next year and give it another shot.

And we're not taking an untested knife to the gunfight, next time.

More soon,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Project Update for Oct 21, 2010: Well we had our first $2011 Challenge Team meeting last night and we came up with a solid game plan. Keep it simple: lower the weight, tune the chassis, tackle the reliability issues, and test test test. Many radical changes were discussed and all were tossed out.... except for a few small improvements. We'll talk about those later as we get to them.

We're going to definitely shoot for going back to the $2011 GRM Challenge event in the same car. We've also touched base with GRM about a possible $2011 Challenge class at the next Ultimate Track Car Challenge in July 2011. We'll be running it in local auto-x events, and if its halfway competitive we'll run it in XPrepared at the 2011 SCCA Solo Nationals in September. NASA Texas has their 2011 racing schedule up so we're penciling in dates for track testing already, too. We'll run the car in TTU and ballast up to make minimum weight for that class. And the damn thing will make a pass down the dragstrip under power at least once before we head back to Gainesville.

OK, blah blah blah. That was a bunch of boring fluff. I finally got around to editing and uploading some videos today, between hacking away at a backlog of 200 emails and a dozen phone calls. Here's a few in-car videos from the GRM Challenge event in our little E30. The car made a total of 7 autocross runs at the event without (much) incident, including 4 by Costas in competition, and 3 fun more runs by GRM's Scott Lear, me and McCall.


Costas, run 2, fighting for rear grip - click for video


Costas, run 3, his smoothest & fastest - click for video


Fair, fun run, drifting and spinning - click for video

Those were originally 1080P videos, and even compressed they are still pretty large (60-70 Mb each) and might take a bit to cache before you can watch one. As you can see we've got a lot of suspension tuning to do. And brake work. And power steering work. And the gauges need to be hooked up. Oh well, at least we've got 11 months to get it sorted now, instead of a handful of minutes before loading it on the trailer.

Other than a little cone damage to one of the flares, and the wiper motor catching on fire, the car was rock solid reliable. In the autocross. When we got to the drag race portion... not so much.



We're still not sure what was the cause of the 2 driveline failures in the drag portion - a halfshaft CV joint exploded first, then 3rd gear shed its teeth - but it was probably the 25 year old, untested halfshaft and junkyard T5's conditions. They both could have "just been about to let go". Totally untested junk. The dragstrip launch pad had LOTS of stick and the Hoosier A6 tires we're not the worst tires we could have had for drag racing (but they were a far cry from real drag slicks). We'll do like Costas mentioned - crack open the next Camaro V6 T5 and take a peek inside before we put the replacement in the car. Nobody knows what the T5 we used looked like before we stuck it in the first time. And we'll test the replacement halfshaft in anger at a drag strip around here. We've gotta make sure our home-brew nitrous system works, you know...

More soon!

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

"(too) Fast Hands" Fair strikes back! That car sounds so bad a$$ I love it.