A race bmw 316, m10, s14, m20, turbo, na, its been the lot!

**tom burgess** · 29-11-2007, 22:06

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

As you want more weight over the rear wheels couldnt you have just stripped the front half of the car off and leave all 3 layers of paint on the back?

**Graham** · 11-12-2007, 18:03

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

went shopping today, went to see hp tyres today and came back with lots of new tyres, £2k worth from dunlop

thankfully i did get a very very healthy discount, but it was still a lot of dosh

i've never had a proper set of wets before so having bought a set it probably guarentees we wont get a wet race next season, not that i want one, i didnt mind sliding around in the wet in my old car be be honest with 2.5 times the grunt this car scares the crap out of me in the wet

**Graham** · 11-12-2007, 18:20

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

i've given the exhaust manifolding a lot of thought, the manifold on my 8v car was trouble free, my mk1 16v manifold had 2 issues, the turbo keep working loose, and it cracked, using a sierra manifold last year robbed me of a big chunk of power and the turbo kept working loose anyway.

thinking about it the turbo never worked loose on the 8v, i can only assume it didnt on that because it was held on with nuts and bolts, rather than just bolts or nuts and studs, so i've decided to go back to my origonal 16v manifold, cut the top section off it and remake it making sure i can use nuts and bolts which are accessable to hold the turbo on,

the new flange from the manifold is cut from a 16mm thick block of steel, i roughed out the hole in the middle using a pillar drill to drill lots of overlapping holes,

then used the milling machine to straighten things up

i picked up this cast turbo adaptor thingy off ebay, its T4/T3, the T4 flange being much bigger i felt would make it easier to fabricate to and having two nice thick flanges on it would be nice and strong and allow plenty of room to bolt things up.

this flange will sit nicely between the turbo and manifold and hopefully allow the manifold to run cooler and be less prone to cracking, here are some pics of it sitting in place whilst i mocked up

once i worked out where everything was going to sit, i tacked a couple of strips of steel between the manifold and the steel flange so i could take the whole lot back off the car and start cut and bend some thick 6mm steel plate to join the two together, the only problem being that 6mm steel plate is very difficult to bend, it takes two blow lamps to get it hot and a scaffold pole over an adjustable spanner to bend it all

**tom burgess** · 12-12-2007, 01:52

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Very innovative Graham

I really hope this proves to be a lot more reliable/trouble free way of doing it

**david_white** · 12-12-2007, 14:24

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Looking like you're getting there graham

Loving those new wheels you bought, they look hard as nails.

Wanna borrow one off you one day as I'd like to see if I have the space to run 18's on mine just to keep my options open

Do you run water cooling to your turbo or is it not worth it? Do you just blank off the inlet and outlet?

**Graham** · 12-12-2007, 14:34

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

no water cooling to the turbo, you dont blank the holes off just leave them empty.

from what i've seen and heard very few circuit racers run watercooled turbos because it doesnt do much of a job of cooling the turbo but it does do a really good job of overheating the coolant

**Dave** · 12-12-2007, 19:02

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

You can make a very effective furnace out of a BBQ with an air feed under it. (I used a hoover fan )
You can melt the 6mm plate that way if you wanted to, never mind bend it.

**david_white** · 12-12-2007, 19:10

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

You two and Gary should be on scrapheap challenge!

There would be an awesome machine built and/or a mahoosive explosion, great tv either way

**Graham** · 12-12-2007, 20:21

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

the manifold is completed now, before welding it i bolted it to a spare head,

i've tapped the holes in the flange, so the cast t3/t4 adapter will bolt on, and theres just enough room to get nuts on the back of the bolts so i can lock them in

im not out of the water yet, as i have a problem when it comes to attaching the manifold to the head, this manifold uses M6 studs, the head was drilled to M8 when the yb manfold was fitted, first thoughts are to drill the manifold to take m8 studs, but the primary pipes are so big the wouldnt be room to fit the nuts

IF i can find some m7x1.25 studs, nuts and some m7 helicoils, i can fit the helicoils straight in the current m8 holes in the head screw in the m7 studs and i think theres just enough room in the manifold to drill the holes out and be able to do the m7 nuts up,

although what im actually hoping is K nuts are compact enough i can use those with the m8 studs, which would entail just drilling out the manifold which is easier said than done because the primary flanges are a rock hard grade of stainless, i might have to do it the slow way with reamers

what ever i do its got to be reliable, i suppose worse case sinario would be to have to change the head on the engine, but that would entail an enormous amount of work porting the spare head, machining valves, shimming, not to mention having to buy another expensive head gasket

**Graham** · 12-12-2007, 20:26