Which issue is it in? I don't bother to keep them, but if it's in the one that's about to arrive, or the last one I might have it and I'm happy to mail it to you. I'm about to drop my BMW club membership, I can't stand their cars anymore and the magazine, which I used to read cover to cover, I now skim through and then throw away.
docwyte said:Which issue is it in? I don't bother to keep them, but if it's in the one that's about to arrive, or the last one I might have it and I'm happy to mail it to you. I'm about to drop my BMW club membership, I can't stand their cars anymore and the magazine, which I used to read cover to cover, I now skim through and then throw away.
As far as I know, it's the one that's just arriving now, or one that recently arrived. IDK, I haven't gotten it in years either lol....
I really just need Jim to get me a higher-res copy. He has the magazine, so I wouldn't ask you to bother mailing it to me! But thanks for the offer!
I'll check and see if I have it Tuesday. It might be in my office waiting room magazine stack
So it's well-documented that I like to DIY stuff, but sometimes you just gotta throw down some money in the interest of saving time and/or hassle. In this case, needed to replace the broken hood vent, since it look s like crap with an empty hole in the middle of the hood. I previously had a lightweight vent made for track stuff. Thin aluminum with very thin edges. Well, that piece didn't like the vibrations at NEFR and two of the four louvers broke off (and fell into the engine bay!)
So there were a few options: First, just put a piece of sheet metal over it and call it a day. That would look crappy and also undo the noticeable cooling/better engine temps that came with the vent. Second, design and build something that would very likely not look great. Third, order something cheap that might work, and may or may not look good. Fourth, find someone to make something for me (friend with CNC machine). The last one would be the most fun, but that takes time and other people have their own lives to live.
So on to the final option: buy a nice one that's more expensive than I'd generally pay. That's what I did, from a shop in Canada that makes some cool e30 stuff.
Definitely beefier material. It's a bigger vent than the old one but it fits over the old hole perfectly, just had to cut another 4" or so out of the top. Also came with stainless bolts and nyloc nuts and washers, which is nice. Anyhow, install was pretty simple, and I think it looks pretty good and should, in theory work much like the old one.
In unrelated stuff, it sound like Bristol Forests Rally (which we're runing in May) may have a full tarmac stage in addition to the regular gravel course. So, I guess I need to track down some wheels and tires to borrow since this car literally only has gravels and snow tires.....and not buying a new set just for one stage!
I have a set of 205 rt660's on miotter wheels you can borrow for a stage.
I'm undecided about coming myself to crew. TN is being E36 M3ty to folx like me, and not sure I'd feel safe.
Stim.tech is local to me, lots of cool stuff going on there.
ralleah said:I have a set of 205 rt660's on miotter wheels you can borrow for a stage.
I'm undecided about coming myself to crew. TN is being E36 M3ty to folx like me, and not sure I'd feel safe.
well hopefully that won't hold you back, as you well know it's not an issue with the rally people you'll be with! I'll keep you posted on our plans either way (reminder: I need to actually MAKE plans), and your call on what you do, of course.
Sounds like a plan on the tires, thanks :) IDK if the tarmac stage is official yet, but I heard it through the grapevine!
For those who follow this thread, you know well that when I don't have something mechanical to do, I always have rattle cans and vinyl....
It's been a few years since I refreshed things cosmetically.....the car's looking pretty beat these days, I'll admit. So let's touch some stuff up. On a related note, I finally found something useful to do with SCCA Sportscar magazine.....
soooo exciting, right? well here's more. The old ARA door cards have to come off since there's a new series sponsor so new door cards. Of course they pulled off plenty of old paint, so I sanded down both doors and just hit them with some satin black....goodbye door stripes.
And decided to do the front of the hood too sicne that paint was pretty chipped/scratched/ugly
But that looks boring. Let's try something and see how it looks.....out with the vinyl
That came out ok I guess.
Dog isn't impressed
What else....
Changed the oil with fancy stuff that i had sitting around. Spilled it on the engine cover like I always do and made a mess.....lol
Today was supposed to be for doing oil changes and filter changes and maintenance on a bunch of my vehicles, but first I had to go out and get a new battery for my mother in law, whose late model Forester seems to eat batteries. Anyhow, got her battery, installed it, came home. Then decided to take the Porsche out of the cover and take it to go back to wally world to return the old battery core. Of course, it's been sitting for a few weeks so I had to jump it (as usual, it has an oldish battery). But done that plenty of times. Then ran 10 minutes down the road to walmart and returned the battery and picked up several gallons of oil since several of the ones I use were on Rollback. Walked back out to the car and this was parked next to me. Nice. The driver was an older lady, and it had two stickers on the back that said "student driver." So, that was pretty funny. When I'm in my 60s and have a 911 Turbo, maybe I'll do that too :)
Got in, turned the key, and turned over once and died. Crap, guess I didn't run it long enough to get a charge. But hey, I'm here, so walked in and bought a new battery. It's worth noting that the 90/91 battery that came in these cars is basically impossible to find that size outside of a dealer. The forums are full of various alternatives and after standing there reading in the aisle on my phone I got an H6 size, which is basically a drop-in fit though just a hair taller (which is a big deal since there's very little hood clearance).
Anyhow, unfortunately I didn't bring my tools with me nor my Noco jump pack (I usually bring both on trips in this car, but this is 10 minutes from home). So, called the wife, she came with the Noco, started it up and got home.
--break--
jumping back a second, when I got into the car earlier I noticed there was light mold on the passenger floormat and it was very wet (!). I only know of one leak in this car and it's the rear of the sunroof - I put a little plastic container where it drips to catch it. It has rained several times recently. Hmm. Will worry about that later since I have to drive.
--unbreak--
Got home, took the old battery out. Those who read this whole thread probably recall these cars are galvanized, but the battery tray is notorious for rusting thanks to battery acid, and then leak directly into the passenger footwell. This car was no different. At the time I didn't have a welder but I was pretty good with fiberglass, so I cleaned it up and basically molded the whole front of the tray in fiberglass. Worked fine for years, no leaks, no drama. But it looks like the flexing of the remaining metal from the battery weight caused the fliberglass to partially delaminate and water was going under it.
Sooo....spent an hour ripping out the fiberglass inlay (not fun since it's a tight area to work in to some extent).
and baseically this is what's under it.
Out with the wire wheels and welder, and hey here's some metal I just cut out of the rally car's hood a few posts above this one....Snip Snip to match my cardboard template and we have a patch panel of sorts.
Much more cleaning and wire wheeling to get sufficient bare non-rusty metal, and then some terrible tack welds in a place where my welding helment can't easily fit so doing it half-blind....
That looks crappy, but it's very solid and way stronger than it was now.
Not pictured - half a tube of seam sealer I slathered it all with.
Also not pictured - some sparks went though that hole and caught my cheapo ebay carpet on fire (thankfully I didn't have the NON-cheap floormats in there). Just a small spot but yeah....that stuff is definitely not fireproof. :/
Anyhow, new batter is in and works fine, not surprisingly. Except now my stereo isn't working....grr. Will have to dig around the fuse box.
--
The only actual maintenance I got done was cleaning the air filter in the Sequoia. This thing has the TRD airbox and I'd never opened it up. Figured it was a flat panel filter but nope.....it's a huge cone filter, like the biggest one I've ever seen...
Anyhow, spent time cleaning it out since I'm not buying a new one for $99 and this is obviously washable.
Never seen a TRD airbox before, kinda cool. Wonder if they make one for the 200 series....
ONe of the biggest annoyances of rally (and racing in general) are the recurring costs of things that expire or things that have to be recertified.....helmets, harnesses, etc. For rally we have to have a full-car fire system AND two extinguishers, plus extinguishers for the pit area. My two car extinguishers have been going strong for 8 years, but ARA recently changed the rules to get rid of a loophole that let you basically recertify them yourself or have a fire department do it. Now a "certified fire extinguisher shop" has to do it. I did mine a couple times at one back in the day and it's about $20 each.
Since I want better fire extinguishers for the Raider and the Sequoia, figured I'd just move those to there (checked by a shop 3 years ago and full load on the gauge) and buy some new ones since they're only about $60 each new anyhow. My garage /slash/ pit extinguisher (40B:C) after 9 years finally went dead so got a new one of those as well. This all in addition to the $160 or so I just paid to have my fire system tank recerted (every two years, and have to ship it away to get it done). So, that's $400 out of the racing fund, would have been nice to have for other things but such is racing life
Shiny new stuff....
So since I got the Diode Dynamics LED bar, we've had some significant interference with our in-car comms - a loud popping/buzzing sound when the bar is on. Strange since the WRC Stilo comms are their own system, battery-powered, with no connection to the car's wiring at all, so not sure what the deal is. Oddly my cheap Ebay lightbar doesn't do that, nor does my small Hella bar. Just the MUCH more expensive DD bar....This is an issue on night stages.
Anyhow, I picked up a pack of ferrite coils and I'll stick those on the wiring and see if it fixes the issues (as it's intended to do). TBD
docwyte said:Never seen a TRD airbox before, kinda cool. Wonder if they make one for the 200 series....
oddly, hard to find replacement filter for this. Seems they also made a TRD airbox for these with a flat panel filter, which is more widely available. Odd, but the PO was the sucker that paid $600 for this noisemaker, so I'm not complaining.
How does the filter mount, does it have a big hose clamp or is it a moosh-into-place gasket seal kinda thing?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:How does the filter mount, does it have a big hose clamp or is it a moosh-into-place gasket seal kinda thing?
gasket seal. So yeah, you can probably use a panel filter in place of the cone, now that I think about it.
Been doing minor things on the car getting it ready for the rallycross season and Bristol Forest Rally. Bristol is still a month away, but so far the registration list is a lot of 2WD, and a lot of our friends. I guess the Subibros don't like this event? IDK...
DC Rallycross is shaping up to be another great season in MR class. The joke in some parts of the country is that MR is "Miata RWD" but I think we scared all the Miatas away...
Otherwise, checked a lot of bolts, secured a loose wheel well liner that had been making noise last year, changed the snow tires off, etc etc etc. all the boring stuff that isn't worth talking about.
So while cleaning up I found this cheap Amazon interior LED bar (very lightweight) that I had bought for a project on the Sequoia, but it was too big for the spot I wanted to put it. As it happens, it fits perfectly in the e30 trunklid.
So I wired it up to the trunk switch. Man, this thing puts out a lot of light. And with the red trunk will make for a nice warning sign if we break down on stage at night or something :)
18 ENTRIES NOW. This is gonna be a hell of a class shootout. And Petrow will be there with the 370, so that'll be cool to check out.
2023 DC RallyCross - Event #1 @ Summit Point
The MR field ended up being 19 cars (!!) today, and the weather was outstanding. Perfect for a tune-up before Bristol Forest Rally.
On the way there I got passed by a half-dozen C7 and C8 vettes (at various points) heading to the track day at Summit. Also Drift Nirvana going on in the open paddock next to us, so plenty of mismatched-body-panel 240sx's and stanced BMWs and other stuff (I have to say, few things are more annoying than listening to drift all damn day).
At the gas station on the way in some of the trackday crowd was chatting and getting gas
Our event was on the big Barn Course, which starts smooth and gets super-hardpacked and bumpy as the day goes on. I used to be really good on this course back in the day, but in recent years several of the other MR guys are faster, in general. Back then I was an autocrosser so i was good on hardpack stuff. Now I feel more like I have an advantage when it's slippery (muddy and/or loose). But not on this day. As usual, a metric crap-ton of BMWs in attendance, including every driver who has won the class over the past decade....
Even Billy Petrow made the haul down from NJ in the 370z, though it clearly wasn't ready for the conditions and sitting really low, did some bumper damage.
^^ the other e30 there is Eric Patylsyk (sp), who is also running Bristol and came down from the NYC area to check out our group. That car actually used to run with us when Alp owned it, so if you've followed this thread for a while you may remember it from the Frostburg days. Now it has Samsonas suspension and a pretty good driver, though.
Anyhow, came out of the gate on-pace, sitting in 2nd out of 19 on the first run, and maybe the 2nd run. Car felt good though not as "fast" for some reason. On the next 3 runs I noticed a (noticible) lack of power over around 4-5k rpms (so, any long straight) where the car just wouldn't accellerate any more and just kind of fell on its face. My VANOS was noisy at the end of last season, so I thought maybe the VANOS was shot and not doing its job, but from what I've read that isn't generally the case. Hmm. In any case, it was losing me a good bit of time since the course had three long straights where I was not able to accellerate the second half of, and I dropped all the way back to 5th or 6th by lunch as the other guys got up to pace.
First run of the afternoon, the power lack was even more apparent, and the second half of the run the car felt down on power across the entire band, almost like I was in 4th not 2nd, just kind of bogging. I pulled into the paddock after the run and opened the hood, blipped the throttle, etc...everything looked and sounded fine. Turned around to talk to someone and the car sputtered a few times and died, and would not restart at all. After all these symptoms, sounds a lot like a fuel issue. Checked to make sure the relay was snugly in (it was) and can't raelly do much other than that in the grid area. I jumped into two other e30s and did a couple of "meh" runs and then just called it a day.
Eric Eisele (who blew an oil cooler line and ran half the day in Nick's M3.....and won the event) towed me back to the paddock...
So, that's that for event 1. I'm not sure what fuel system component is the culprit here. Could be the in-tank "lifter" low pressure pump. Could be the high-pressure pump (though that's only 2 seasons old, so that would be annoying). Could be a clogged filter, but that seems VERY unlikely with it only being 2-3 years old along with the fuel tank, so shouldn't be any crap in there like rust, etc. Could be a wiring issue, though the fact that the problem got progressively worst rather than being intermittent makes me think that's unlikely.
In any case, ordered up a new HP Bosch pump and filter, and also a new LP pump (aftermarket, since the BMW one is $600!!) and will put all those in later this week and see what's up. I could have taken all this out of the M42 e30 project car (literally new stuff installed last winter with zero miles on it) but that means opening up two fuel systems, screw that.
So, hopefully it's just a fuel issue that can be solved easily.
Side note, Eric Pat just got a Sequoia tow rig, so that was funny to see also towing a black e30 stage car
Side note 2: Dan G. was there in his 944, as were a couple guys running a stock 944 in SR. Watching them, and how capable an open-diff, bone-stock 944 is at rallycross, makes me have bad thoughts about using my 924S.......but I won't lol...
Thanks Dan Shirley lol
Oh man, I didn't know all of that was going on at the other end of the grid, I didn't realize there was anything wrong until I saw folks pushing your car onto the trailer at the end of the day.
Hopefully it's just a fuel pump, that's one of the easier things to replace in engine issues.
Dove into diagnosis after work today. Checked main relay and fuel pump relay (good). Jumped the lifter pump in-tank (good). Jumped the HP pump (good). Checked wiring (good). All done on things with a nice coating of dirt, dried mud, etc.
<scratches head> well, I know there's fuel in the tank since it was reading half a tank at the end of last season and also yesterday and no way I'd leave the car sitting all winter with hardly any fuel in it, right? right?
<pulls out tank sender unit from the top and it's not dripping out gasoline from the chamber and has no gas on it at all> Yup, the tank is empty. Not just empty, but really empty, like totally dry looking down into the "reserve cup." I mean, there may be some left in the other side or something, but not enough to go through the crossover pipe.
Soo....looks like just out of gas, like a dumbass. I'll put gas in it and make sure it runs fine, and check the wiring on the sender, though I suspect the float was just stuck...
In other news, Jim brought over some wheels/tires to use for the 2 tarmac stages at Bristol. These were bought for his race e30 before he put it away for years, so these tires are practically unused, but pretty old (they're BFG Rivals - the originals). They've been kept indoors the whole time and don't feel particularly hard, so we'll see. I'm going to take them out for some testing next week.
Also, they're shorter than the gravels, so gonna look a bit silly on the tall suspension (I'm not going to bother with any suspension adjustments...not worth the effort). Pic here is not full weight on the wheels since they're not bolted on tight, so not sitting THIS high lol
I know that feeling, I ran out of gas mid-run at Nationals (in Nashville) one year, and it was so far away from grid/paddock, I DNF'd a run or two!
At least it's an easy fix.
Bristol Forest Rally.
Here's a photo. More later
Just post the yeetbug video while we're waiting, I know you have it handy 
Bristol Forest Rally 2023
Our first (and perhaps last) rally this year. We had heard great things about this regional event - very turny, kinda rough, and lots of exposure (read: cliffs, huge drops, etc). Sounds like our kind of event, so we were pretty excited. Jim ran it last year codriving for Kevin Brolin and they got on the Limiited 2WD podium (we run in Open 2WD). The turnout this year was about 35 cars, the great majority of which were RWD, with four e30s in attendace - Downey (shooting for the class win), Brolin, ourselves, and Eric Pat (whos car has been in this thread many times going back years). We stayed with the Nonacks, fresh off their podium finish in the previous weeneds McCreary Gravel Rally in Kentucky and shooting for another L2 podium, and Andrew and Julia, doing their first rally in Jon Kramer's much-used (and many wins) old car. Both of those teams have threads on here so I won't steal their thunder with regard to results, go check them out when they post.
We headed down with Brolin and made a stop at some Dutch place for lunch
This was our first full rally writing our own notes on recce (rather than spending $200 on Jemba), and recce went well, we 2-passed most of the stages, and our notes would turn out to be pretty much dead-on, so that's good.
This rally crosses the Applachian trail, and transits are on "the Snake," which is an awesome curvy mountain road searies kind of like Tail of the Dragon. We would end up driving it inthe truck, the rally car, and the tow rig :)
Tech went off without a hitch, as usual
The first night of competition was a 7-mile tarmac stage (the Appalachian Tarmac Rallysprint stage) going both ways. HIgh speed, very smooth, pretty awesome. We used some Koseis from Jim's track e30 with brand-new but 5 years old BFG Rivals (the originals, not the 2s), so too a while to carefully determine if they would actually have grip! The first stage I was pretty tentative having not used this car on paved surfaces for a LONG time, never used these tires, and without any swaybars. But as they warmed up the grip was amazing and I really should have pushed harder. We hit 102mph on the long straight, and then......brakes.....brakes.....BRAKES.....pedal to the floor as we slowly slowed down as the car wiggled through the turn at the end while I got a charlie horse in my calf from pressing so hard (we bled the brakes before the gravel stages and found air in one of the front calipers. Yikes. In any case, not terribly fast compared to the group but the second pass would be better now that I had a hang of the tires. Unfortunately, the turnaround was long (photo in prior post), as a car in the front half of the group caught some leaves on fire so that had to be taken care of .
By the time it was clear, it was totally dark out and they decided to transit the last 10 of us out non-compeitition - probably lucky since my LED bars shorted out and we only had stock headlights (which are terrible).
Day 2 great weather, and we jumped right into the gravel stages. The first loop was two stages run twice each. One about 8 miles, the other 5, I think. Both were full of heavy elevation changes, tight linked turns, huge dropoffs into rivers and valleys, and some very rough sections. The first one we were pretty slow- notes were on-target but I was tentative. Second stage was better, but still not as fast as I'd like. Then the re-run of the two. So for stage 5 we knocked a full 50 seconds off of the first run, as I started finding the groove and Jim's calls were perfect. We were faster than cars I thought we could be faster than, and just a bit slower than Nonacks, who at this point have a LOT more development and experience than we do in a car that's roughly comparable in power/weight/suspension, so that was pretty decent. For the 2nd run of the other stage (6), at the top I noticed coolant temps were sitting around 220 even with the fan on and I could smell coolant. Figured we had a leaky hose clamp or something causing an air bubble, and assumed it would work its way out once we got going. Did I mention these stages have some VERY rough sections?
We got on it and were substantially faster than the first pass and I was really in rhythm. With about a mile to go and really picking up pace, I glanced at the gauges and saw coolant temps.......the needle was flat on the right, off the scale. Crap. With a service after the stage, i figured we'd baby it for the last mile and then maybe a friend could tow us back to service, or we could add a bunch of water or something. So I shifted to 4th and basically just "drove" the final mile (thankfully mostly downhill) at maybe 50% pace with almost no use of throttle, trying to carry speed through turns. We made it to finish and the car cut off as we handed in the car. Resterated it and went down out of the way and it cut off again.
(side note: on that stage, even basically coasting the last mile, we were STILL 7 seconds faster than the first pass and not far behind Nonacks and the other comparable cars....so we were definitely putting down a great pace).
Opened the hood and found coolant all over everything (including up throuh the hood vent on top of the hood). None in the reservoir, none in the hoses, and we could see sheared radiator upper support and a mashed part of the radiator down low by the power steering pulley. So, that was that, all done.
We coasted down the hill to the paved road and found Dan Downey there with a broken e30 (he hit zero-car's broken-off muffler and snapped his tie rod, and also had a major fuel leak that may or may not be related). A shame since Dan was shooting for the overall win possibly and was setting a blistering pace close to cars 10x the cost of his (or more). His car was leaking fuel all over the place so we started filling empty gatorade bottles..
Then we noticed as all the other cars finished the stage, nobody saw Kevin Brolin! Uh oh. About 10 minutes later we see them chugging down the stage and toward us. Car looked okay and was running, but seemed like they were 'out". Then suddenly the front wheel did this as the car veered into the ditch (note the other wheel is straight):
Apparently they had an off and hit something hard that snapped off the BIG inner balljoint for their control arm, causing a bunch of other related carnage as well. They had rigged up some ratchet straps to hold stuff in place to get them past the finish, but they were done as well (though they did rejoin later for the last 2 stages using my spare control arm)
Since we were an hour from service (over the mountain) and our crews were servicing other cars still competing, we sat around on a country road next to a falling-down barn with lots of cows, chickens, junk, and "no tresspassing" signs, hoping the owner would not come out with a shotgun (semi-serious there...)
One by one the trailers showed up and we loaded up and towed over "the snake" back to service
While Dan and Kevin tried to get their cars fixed (Dan = no dice, Kevin did eventually), we were done with no spare radiator and probable engine damage anyhow. So I got packed up and we got to hang out for a few hours while the rest of the field continued on (with many more DNFs).
Only 15 cars finished, so less than half. The last competing e30 (Eric Pat) on the last stage managed to roll it and DNF'd as well. So 0-4 for e30s. Then again, all 4 of Team Hooper's Lexus IS cars DNFd, so it was rough for everyone.
We went across the lot and watched some some of the action on the Bristol Speedway dragstrip for a while (yawn....)
Eventually, Nonacks and Andrew/Julia made it to finish and returned, but I'lll let them tell you about it.
There was an after-party downtown that was fun, and that wrapped the event
Tow home was uneventful (250 miles up I-81 is sooooo boring), though I did run into Marcel (from USRF stuff) while stopping for gas in Staunton, Va., so that was pretty funny.
--
Got home, unloaded, and decided to pull the radiator to see the carnage.
Yep, that's a leak....
So, radiator done, and while the engine did not seize, and i turned it on to get the car on/off the trailer, there's oily smoke from the tailpipe, which very likely means a cracked head or other bad things. So I'm going to take some time and consider what the next step is.....try to fix this engine, try to find another M50, upgrade to M52/M54 like Downey, or ??? We'll see. Next rallycross is in 2 weeks and I think I can fill in for Stephen co-driving with Crhis, so it may not be a quick fix. I also may just finish the other e30 project (which is not far from completion) and use it, in all its M42 glory, for rallycross the rest of teh season. I was considering doing another stage rally this year (maybe STPR, maybe AGS if it happens) but now maybe I'll think about doing course car or sweep? IDK, we'll see what happens.
Other random pics. Hopefully action pics to come when the photogs get home.
Bristol in a nutshell, seemingly. This was in a Walmart parking lot at like 1030pm, and I saw this truck 3 more times over the weekend in various places (or clones of it):
Also Bristol in a nutshell. It was cool having the service area right down the road from the raceway
(oops forgot to upload that pic, will do it later)
The money shot:
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