As I know nought about BM's what engine is it Graham. Straight 6 2.5 or something...?
As I know nought about BM's what engine is it Graham. Straight 6 2.5 or something...?
it started life as a 2.5 straight six, 12 valve, they make 170bhp as standard, its been bored and stroked so its now 2.8, reworked head, forged pistons, 6 branch and throttle bodies so give or take a fraction its got 100 bhp more than standard. lovely flat power delivery though and at quite low revs.
Nice... Plenty of torque aswell.
no progress worth talking about, but all the holes in the rear bulkhead have been sealed and belts are now in, so its getting closer to being race ready, that didnt make for any good pics to i took a pic of the throttle bodies instead
ive just read through this over the last coupleof days , a compeling read, talented in all areas it seems , i am looking forward to your return to the track and your updates.
absolutely brilliant from start to now
steve
i'd entered an all comers race last sunday it was a mixed bag of cars entered from a triumph gt6, renault clios, various bmws, hondas a very fast cossy and a ferrari 355 change car. As pic above shows i made it JUST! car wasnt ready until late Saturday night so no time for pictures in the build up. i hadn't had the chance to get any actual practice in the car other than driving it round the estate where i work, so to say i was nervous was a bit of an understatement, ive not raced since oct 2012 but i have spent a lot of time scrutineering so ive seen a lot of racing, crashes, things going wrong. even scrutineering was nerve racking, i dont think anybody likes it, but ,as a scrut myself my biggest concern was id missed something obvious. the thing is there are a large number of chief scruts, they tend to have their own teams, its possible i woulnt know any of them. driving down the scrut bay i realised i knew every single one, either my car would be pulled to bits or barely looked at, in the event it was something inbetween and there were no issues. that didnt do anything to reduce my nerves though, i dont know how many races ive done but it must be around 300, even so it felt like my first. in a way it was, a car ive never driven before, using tyres id never used etc etc. next up was to get up to the assembly area for qualifying, my mate graham had come down to crew for me, but having never done it before it i was left was struggling to remember everything, which including arriving at the assembly area without him, which left me legging it back the pit garage to collect him. i needed graham to make sure i was strapped in properly including the Hans device, which id never used and dealing with the slave starting battery. no sooner had a got back to the car with graham i realized i didnt have my balaclava! arrh! by the time id legged it down to the garage and back for a second time, i was now very hot, flustered and had very steamed up glasses, above all the whole time i had been concerned i might not be able to cut it out on track after the break so flustered was the last thing i wanted to be feeling. one major point though was id chosen to come back at the circuit id raced at most at least i wouldn't have to learn where i was going. we had only just got me strapped in in time and the steam had barely cleared from my glasses when we were ushered out into the pit lane, nerves got the better of me and i promptly stalled the car which takes some doing ( you can pull away in 2nd with no throttle) a quick panic later and it restarted.
the moment i went up the pit lane exit i nailed the throttle and the nerves were gone, infact i was immediately cursing the Ferrari for holding me up. once on track i felt like id never been away. the car was familiar but strange all the same, the gearbox was throwing me, my other beemers have used a Dog leg 1st 5 speed box, this one has a normal overdrive 5 speed pattern, i was ok going up the box, but when i needed to go down i struggled as i found i wasnt sure which gear i was in and where a lower one was! the toyo 888's seemed pretty grippy and handling wise the car was without any vices, compared to its predecessor not surprisingly the longer more nose heavy m20 6 cylinder engine mad the car want to run wider after the apex's. the brakes felt really good, a bit too god really i found it all to easy to lock up the fronts. One aspect of the car did surprise me though, it felt slow! it felt like a rocket ship round the industrial estate but nothing like that at the circuit, i think thats mainly the higher speeds meaning higher gears in use and the better surface giving more grip so it went forward rather than trying to swap ends all the time, its also deceptive, it makes very similar power to my old s14 engine, but the much lower revving engine and flat torque curve dont give an impression of speed, it cant of been slow though as i passed the ferrari down the short cooper straight. my qualifying session came to a early end when the throttle cable snapped 4 laps in. annoying because it was a new cable, but none the less i was pleased to of posted a 58.8 second lap which looking at the competition and everything else considered wasnt bad going, i wasnt much slower than a another e30 fitted with wider tyres an s54 engine with about 100bhp more than me and a driver who hadn't taken years off.
Last edited by Graham; 07-05-2018 at 14:13.
i converted a spare extinguisher pull cable into a throttle cable, i think the cable broke because attachment to the pedal box isnt ideal, and just had to hope that as the old cable had lasted a couple of hours on the rolling road it would last the race distance.
the race itself was to be a pitstop race, which i wasnt looking forward to from the prospect of dealing with the hans device. i had to be stationary for a minimum of 45 seconds, but had to get out the car shut the door get back in and belt up again. if you've never worn one the hans is a pain if you need to belt up in a hurry. graham and i practiced me getting in and out quickly, not easy with x door bars the hans and a seat with big "wings" no danger of me not stopping for long enough, we were well slow, i then roped Karen my other half in to deal with the passenger side of the belts and we got quicker, i also found i could get in and out without removing the steering wheel, that was a real time saver. there was nothing else to do before the race other than worry about the weather, it was threatening rain, the car was on toyo 888's, i also had a set of soft v700 kuhmos, they would work better if it got lightly wet and a set of uniroyals incase it really rained, the correct tyres was going to be critical to a good race.
on the estate id practiced a couple of standing starts (it had been a lot of years since i did a standing start race) in the event it was a rolling start, my race start was ok, the guy beside me had lagged back a bit which meant we had a bit of a gap between us and the cars ahead so no places were made up on the start, we all bunched up into the first three corners but no places changed. a lap or so someone dumped a load of oil from druids down and around graham hill corner, that caused a good few moments, but stayed on track at the expense of the cars in front pulling away a bit, the we had a light bit of rain to help make things more slippery. a few laps later i pitted, the practice paid off, despite sitting on one of the belts when i got back in we did the stop quickly enough that the stopwatch showed i had to wait a bit before leaving. unfortunately i didnt get many more laps in before the gearlever remote snapped leaving me a box of neutrals.
overall im well pleased, i did a 58.4 lap in the race, more time in the seat would of cut that down, the car handled well, and i haven't forgotten how to drive
Great news Graham
Pleased to hear you’re back out
Hexham and District Motorclub
Well done makes all those hours in the garage worth it to put the smile back on your face
Well done Graham, great to see you back in the seat and reporting on the races. Next best thing to being there.
To finish first, you must first finish
i giggled at the time in garage comment, only because i own one and do about an 80 hour week! its great that equipment wise i have just about anything i could want to hand, but its nigh on impossible to find time to work on my car, getting customers cars back on the road always take priority.
i didnt intend to make any further upgrades to the car as im only going to do a few one off events, but thats now changed a bit. i need to do something with the throttle pedal so i dont suffer more cables failing, the gear linkage needs repair, but i will probably upgrade it whilst modifying it for strength and get the lever a bit closer as its rather a stretch to reach when strapped in.
still slightly surprised it didnt actually feel fast i think i will put the car on a diet, loosing some weight should be fairly cheap and easy.
Just like a Builders house is never finished - so it would seem exactly like a Racing, car owning Mechanic!
very true.
even though the car didnt appear to have any real vices, on track its got more rear grip than front, not surprising given the straight six engine and the front wearing modest 205 tyres (rear is wearing 235's) at some point i want to rectify that, but it means wider wheels (current fronts are 7J) and most wheels wont clear the big front disc/caliper combo (brembo peugoet 406 coupe) so thats another job, re engineer the front brake/hubs to get bigger wheels on
Last edited by Graham; 07-05-2018 at 14:09.
Well done in getting back out there Graham.
Well done for getting it complete and back out on track! Offer still stands for a go in the Fiesta if you ever fancy something with a lot less power/FWD...
its took a while, but finally ive got to do something on the car,
someone spent a lot of time and effort welding and strengthening the gear linkage, unfortunately, it broke just where the work finished.
what ive done is do away with the remote stabilizer part of the linkage, something i did on both the old e30 and 2002, and fitted a pivot to teh bodyshell itself, the pivot is actually rover P6 auto, coupled with a modified manual p6 lever
on the trailer at least, the gear change feels very slick, the old lever had been modified to shorten the throw, ive gone a bit further and been able to get it slightly closer to me, handy because it was a stretch to reach the gear lever before
Last edited by Graham; 02-06-2018 at 22:17.
looking good, do you need to look at throttle cable again or will it be ok,
looks verry good, love the read everytime i check this :-)
Ford Taunus Going RS2300 16v with 48s!!!
ive lost the picture, but the only other job a did to the car was modify the throttle to allow the cable to pivot thus reduce its bending load.
after that it was off to brands for a 40 minute pit stop race with the cscc, considering gear lever aside the car was the same i felt much more at home in it, we had a long 30 min practice session i decided not to bother pitting if felt good, about 20 mins in the tyres started to go off , so i did pit, i wasnt sure if i had overheated them or something else, or whether it was the 30 plus degrees temp causing issues, i sat of a coupe of mins and went out again, that was a mistake i had a violent steering judder and the car just didnt turn in, i was missing apex's by miles, so immediately returned to the pits and checked the tyres. the left front had de-laminated badly.
back in the paddock i showed the tyre to the tyre technician and asked his advise, he thought it was merely down to the heat, not helped by the tyre being 11 years old! interestingly he didnt see an issue with the set up, only the track temperature, i would of bought a new tyre but as i had a spare he didnt want to sell me a new tyre, that was a first! .
the good news was with no real changes to the car i was 1.2 secs a lap faster than my previous outing, and for sure if temps had been a bit lower i would of gone faster still, i had an idea i was fairly quick, but stunned when the practice times came out and i was 7th fastest overall! the was nothing to do to the car other than change the shagged tyre so we relaxed in the very hot sun.
come the race despite a start procedure which was new to me i got a good start and made up a place only foe the race to be red flagged half a lap later. after what felt an eternity sitting melting in the car on the grid the race restarted, i held my position and even made one up, i was running a comfortable but lonely 6th overall, the leaders had pulled about half a lap on me, and i was way way ahead of anyone behind me, trying to push really hard had the car just sliding around, at one point going through surtees i lost the rear and and ended up sliding broadside a full 90 degrees to the direction of travel, finding myself looking where i was going out the side window i thought i was going off into the tyre wall, but somehow collected it up and carried on, proper drifting stuff, just not what you should be doing in a race!
i didnt have a plan regarding when to pit, i had decided to play it by ear, as i had clear track both infront and behind me the best thing seemed to be wait until i start to lap back markers then pit, if i was lucky and the guys at the very front hit traffic sooner perhaps could get me back in touch with them, wasnt to be, about 25 mins in a familiar steering judder came back. i pitted and sure enough another tyre had delaminated
so another dnf, but i wasnt too bothered as i had front running pace, but was never going to trouble those at the very front. Afterwards talking to the cars previous owner he is sure the issue with the tyres was just the age of the tyres, i think the heat had a major part to play, but im sure some of it is suspension geometry, i have been running the car set up as it was previously raced, thats with 4 degrees negative camber in the front end, to my mind that is probably ok for a 15 min race, but given the air and track temps and me trying to do a 40 minute race i think i was always destined to melt the tyres, 11 years old or not.
Last edited by Graham; 07-08-2018 at 04:24.
back at the workshop we decided to corner weight the car just to see, with me on board it weighed in at a creditable 1075kg, so
car itself was 992kg with a LOT of fuel still on board, not having yet got a handle on how much fuel it uses we played safe and went out on a full tank.
front to rear bias isnt too bad at 52/48 but i know any weight reduction is only going to make that worse, still i think i need to, so ive set a target to take 50kg out the car, it will make the car more nose heavy, but if you crunch power to weight figures that will be the equivalent of gaining 25bhp. and even if the car is more nose heavy, if the front tyres have to deal with less weight, they will have an easier time. so far ive found 6kg, 3 off the car and 3 off me lol!
obviously i need some new tyres but am also looking at the front end geometry, ive pulled a degree of neg camber out, so its down to 3 degrees which in my book is still a lot and increased the caster angle, that should give the same camber in the corners, but less on the straights so the tyres should have an easier time.
i did have a camera in the car, but for some bizarre reason it didnt start recording until a lap before i pulled off Arhhh!!! so all i have is one pic of the event
Last edited by Graham; 07-08-2018 at 04:46.
Graham
Was good to see you there and despite your tyre issues, glad you enjoyed it.
The only footage i have of you is you pulling away from me at the start
Darren
If you don't lose it now and then , Your not trying Hard Enough !
about 6 month late but i guess id better bring this upto date! after brands i fitted some new tyres, tweeked the front geometry, by pulling a degree of camber out and adding some more caster and took about 30kgs of weight out the car. As the car ran well at brands i headed off to my next meeting at Thruxton feeling good about it, sadly it wasnt to be!
its many years since i raced at thruxton and even than i only did two races so i was on the back foot, firstly having to learn where i was going, secondly out on track i kept throwing up, not good when your wearing a balaclava and crash helmet, thirdly the engine kept cutting out and miss-firing, which it would only do intermittently when out on track. Some how i qualified mid field, i was less sure about the start, it was a standing start race, i havnt done one of them for nearly 20 years, fortunately i'd practiced a couple starts on the estate at work, so knew 1st gear was a waste of time and a 4K start in second span the wheels a fair bit on a not very grippy surface, so i opted for 2nd gear and 3.5k on the clock, it worked like magic and i picked up a couple of spots, the race didnt go well, the misfire came and went
varying from chronic to just being flat at the top end, measnt while i was stil throwing up, so i was yoyoing up and down the second half of the field, with a couple of laps to go the throttle cable outer pulled through the pedal box, leaving me at best about about 10% of throttle, enough to pull only 3.5k in 3rd! not good on the fastest circuit in the country, i made it to the end of the race although stone last!
What is it with you and throttle cables ? LOL! Best get a 'fly by wire' or a decent bit of string!
Ouch... Not sure I have a clue as to how the pedal box sits in the car, but Escort outer cables sit against the bulkhead. Have you got a floor mounted pedal box or something?
back at base, i had a lot of head scratching, the bloody engine only played up intermittently when reved hard, driving it round the estate after everyone had gone home with a top plugged in logging data suggested loss of rpm signal, but i couldnt cure it new sensor (genuine bmw at a genuine eye watering price) i replaced the pins and plugs on the crank sensor wiring them the crank sensor,, no cure, so i figured interference perhaps, after changing the tps and fixing various wiring niggles no joy, then a spotted on the logger that the charging voltage was all over the shop, in particular hitting almost 17volts at times, so i disconnected the wiring it and tried it again, still the same, id spotted the alternator had a noisy bearing was it momentary seizing?? at this point i spotted the plastic rear casing was partly melted, and realized its cooling fan was missing, no wonder the melted case and charging issues. so i put a new alternator on, charging voltage was no fine, but problem was still there!
at this Point Karl at Emerald suggested it may be a power supply issue, so i looked hard at the rest of the loom, i bypassed the ignition switch, rewired the master switch correctly, wired the ecu direct to the battery. it felt better until i revved it really hard and it died on me, the ecu had shut down and locked up. desperate to make the next race meeting i sent one of the lads over to emerald to pick up a new ecu, again it was ok until a reved it hard, that ecu shut down and wouldnt fire up again at all. Both ecus then went back to emerald and again Karl said it was a power supply issue, a noisy supply as he put it, he then fixed them before i refitted them i doubled up on all the earths, fitted new power cables, disconnected everything not strictly needed to make the car run, that didnt work either. i ws now out of time to make the race i wanted to do and pulled my entry, Karl did say to me it might not be a connection, there may be a component causing voltage spikes.
At this point ive got the hump with the car, having found numerous wiring faults with it i decided to make a new loom, as it has a much butchered standard loom, with extra bits of wiring for the ecu, extra instruments etc etc. so i figure if a make a new loom and change the fuel pump and coil pack i have literally changed everything!
i got one of the lads to remove the cars loom, but that was months ago, until today ive not even had a chance to look at the car, but the 2019 race season is looming and i want to race!
although ive done nothing to the car for months i have spent some money, with the OE loom gone and thus factory instrument cluster now useless in most respects i picked up a nos stack dash cheaply, by cheap i meant relatively cheap for a stack, it wasn't actually cheap at all
it came with pressure transducers for oil and fuel, fortunately they fitted in place of the old plastic oil pressure pipe which i never liked and in place of a blanking plug in the fuel pressure reg.
i wasnt so lucky with the coolant temp sender, but got round that by drilling and tapping an 1/8 npt thread in a corsa sump plug which fitted in place of the oe bmw gauge sender. i havnt worked out what im going to do with the oil temp sender yet, theres not enough material for me to fit t to the sump plug
Has it got an alley sump? I had my oil temp sender in the side of my RS sump, with a plate tigged to it to thicken it up then tapped into that.
Graham, I fitted my Stack dash fittings to the oil cooler sandwich plate if you are running one
Cheers
Matt
cheers, the sump is alloy but its a hell of a lot of work to remove it just to weld something to it, it has got a cooler sandwich plate, but its the factory bmw one wish i dont think suitable for drilling, we will see,its not a priority
Has it got access to the main oil gallery in the side of the block, if so could you not use an adaptor of some description an put it in there somehow?
im rather surprised no one has asked weather OMP do bibs
ive sorted fitting the oil temp sensor, i turned up an adapter so it can fit in the sump in place of the redundant oil level sensor.
ive also made enough headway with the new loom that today i realized i only needed make another couple of connections and i would probably be able to start the engine (i left the engine management loom largely intact) it fired up easily
nice to see the dash works, its new but old and i bought it off ebay some time ago, so no comeback if it didnt work. it wil definatly be handy to have a fuel pressure reading and actually be able to be warned of oil pressure/temp issues via an automatic alarm, the car did have an oil temp gauge, but where it was located you'd of never been looking at it during a race, well not unless you wanted to crash!
unfortunately within minutes of running, its clear i still have a missfire issue, this time though it was a low rpm????. Having rewired and replaced practically everything im certain its not a wiring issue.
playing with the wiring with the engine running im now pretty sure its interference between the HT leads and the crank senor wiring, why i dont know, especially given, it not changed from when the previous owner raced it, or i took it to brands. im going to get two sets of 4cylinder leads to try and make up a short set of 6 cyl leads as the current leads are very long, im also going to re route the crank senor wiring, if that doesnt work it might be time ofr a box of matches!
Last edited by Graham; 27-01-2019 at 21:25.
is the crank sensor wiring sheilded ? (should be) and if so only one end of sheild is earthed.
sorry if granny sucking eggs comes to mind
got bored with wires, im on brakes now, ive started re engineering the front brakes, not to gain performance as they work well, but to gain clearance for wheels, i have 4 different sets of wheels for the car, but only one set will fit the front. the big disc conversion (peugoet 406 coupe) uses a very flat disc with next to no offset so it pushes the caliper out a long way.
i bought some universal bells and willwood discs from rally design, the discs are almost the same size, but with the bell i can save a bit of weight and move the caliper to gain some clearance for the wheels.
i had to bore the centre hole and add the stud holes and slim down the bell, it all mounted up quite well a check with a DTI showed i had 0.005 run out on the disc, that was probably ok, but i had another go at anyway, chucking up the bell in the lathe i trued it up in the chuck on a virgin surface ( well one that i had not already machined) i skimmed the face which goes against the hub, and took a lick off the disc mounting face, refitted to the car the run-out had dropped to 0.0015 at the outer edge of just over 300mm dia the discs, i can live with that
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