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

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

B: the cars changed .. and its bloody quick, how much has it changed and how much more settling in do you need to start being on the edge again. 3 seconds off your own lap record is huge, and yet you yourself said you was still learning ... could there be another second of 2 to come off .. you had what 30 odd mins running at Snett.. What would you have done with an Hour and a few changes to the car.

i can see it now gary, i will end up in no mans land, i wont be able to catch rod or the skylines, and will end up having a loney race all on my own as i will leave the seats and sierras, the more i think about it the more i realise i enjoyed the racing more and it was far cheaper when i was in the middle of the pack and had 20 other cars to race against, and the cheap bit is important when my racing is funded 100% out of my wages, £5000-£7000 a year is too much for what im getting out of it.

turbo or no turbo, its going dry sumped, an accusump is only a bandage, whilst it might prevent a total loss of oil pressure you can end up with a relatively long period of low oil pressure,

after multiple oil surge related failures an accusump saved richard brents Mi16 engine a couple of times, but only in as much as it stopped it self destructing, the bearings still took a hammering and gave out anyway, i dont fancy doing a bearing change after every meeting,

although me being me i will probably buy a pinto kit and adapt it, because i dont want to use second hand bits and a pukka kit for the beemer is big bucks

[FOSSIE]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Graham, what did you do to the front end that suddenly gave you so much more grip that you now suffer from terminal oil surge?

I'm sure you've thought about all the options, I just can't help thinking that there may be a simpler "fix" (given how quickly your problem came about) than having to build new engines, change class etc. Just seems quite drastic... But I know you've thought it through, so probably best to ignore me!

All the best anyway, whatever direction you go in.

[david_white]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Graham, what did you do to the front end that suddenly gave you so much more grip that you now suffer from terminal oil surge?

He went up to 10x18 front wheels with extremely good slicks, probably doubling the grip.

I know what Graham means though, after watching and working in this championship for some time now you do see that classes C D and E have a lot more close racing and the cars nearer the front come and go quite quick due to the costs and reliability issues of such rapid machinery.

As long as Graham is still racing in DMN, preferably in the beemer I for one will be happy. Maybe I'll hunt him down in whatever class he decides to 'hide' in Just kidding Graham

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graham, what did you do to the front end that suddenly gave you so much more grip that you now suffer from terminal oil surge?

a couple of things, i moved the engine and gearbox back 45mm, and my seating position back 100mm, bit i think david hit the nail on the head and main reason the car went so so much better was, i went from using cheap easy to get second hand 235/610/17 touring car slicks to new 250/620/18 Gt slicks the difference is grip is beyond belief.

i have to totally rebuild the bottom end of the current engine anyway and probably wil have some remedial work to do at the top end also so a fresh engine isnt going to be quite the expense it seems and it will bolt straight upto the transmission as it is, i will just need to change the final drive ratio and i hanker for the old days when i just used to do as many races as i wanted without worring about the cost/ wear and tear on an engine, in rallying terms its a case of do you run a strong but maybe not ultimate spec pinto or xe which you can rally every weekend without doing much more than checking the oil and water, or a full house maximum attack BDT, and finish really well every so often but spend half you life dealing with DNF's and expensive failures and not actually enjoying your sport as much.

with the turbo now i rather feel i have proved a concept and cant really develop the engine much more because even if the engine hangs togther as the transmission will never cope.

actually am looking forward to a new challenge and thats beating the best of the curent crop of 2.0 16v fwd hathes with a good old fashioned 8v and rwd chassis, my target horsepower is 250bhp 200lbft from a 2.5 8v 4 pot.

theres nothing to stop me going back to the turbo later on.........................................................

[david_white]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Our little escort with it's xflow has given the class C cars such as the megane, integra and 306's a good run this year so with a load more torque, grip and power theres no reason why your concept won't work Graham, go for it.
And as you say a new challenge is always fun and the car will be much simplified too, especially in the plumbing and wiring stakes.

[FOSSIE]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

in rallying terms its a case of do you run a strong but maybe not ultimate spec pinto or xe which you can rally every weekend without doing much more than checking the oil and water, or a full house maximum attack BDT, and finish really well every so often but spend half you life dealing with DNF's and expensive failures and not actually enjoying your sport as much.

BD every time, but then again I'm young and stupid

Nah, just kidding, I couldn't agree more

Whilst you're at it, I reckon there's a chunk of time to be found, relatively inexpensively, from your LSD. Once you've got your current engine issues out the way, I'll bounce some ideas off you, (if you like) and see what you think...

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

the wheels are in motion

accralite will do me pistons to my spec which will allow me to have a very low compression height so that i can use 10mm longer rods with the 87mm long stroke crank to get the best rod/stroke ratio i can ( the current bottom end uses 87mm stroke with short rods)

i aim to run a absolute bonkers high compression and when say bonkers high i mean none of this mere 12:1 namby pamby stuff, so high that theres not a dizzy in the world that could cope with the ignition timing requirements i m pretty sure the head gasket design that ferriday came up with for the turbo will work just fine because cylinder pressures wil be far lower than with the turbo, and have worked out using the right chamber designs i can do it using nice combustion burning friendly detonation resisting flat top pistons

im collecting cylinder heads as i want to try some new variations on the port sizes/shapes, Dave walker is all up for flow testing them for me

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Whilst you're at it, I reckon there's a chunk of time to be found, relatively inexpensively, from your LSD. Once you've got your current engine issues out the way, I'll bounce some ideas off you, (if you like) and see what you think...

sure tom, sound great, infact my LSD came from a scrap yard and hasnt had anything more than an oil change certainly with the turbo lump it could do with a tad more lock

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

it could be this is the base for my new engine, a very manky looking carb'd 90bhp 1800 lump from a e28 518, that i scraped 10+ years ago and put in the stores where i used to work, much to my suprise it was still there and they gave it to me just to get rid of it.

i only really wanted the head, this version has small ports so i can try to some new port shapes out on the flowbench, you never know, the rods are interchangable with the 2.0 unit so they might come in handy as i've almost run out of good 2.0 rods and the bottom end or crank might come in handy as an exchange unit, if you by a new crank from bmw they dont seem to care what you give them back, i once gave them a knackered peugoet 205 crank as an exchange for a new m3 crank!!!!!!!!!!!

[lee76]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Good on ya Graham all the beautiful drivers are in class C

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

hi lee I'm going to be careful what i say on here now i dont want to give to much away to my new class opposition now do i

[Dave]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Best of luck Graham, and when I come to watch I will sneak in without telling you.
Wouldn't want to jinx you.

[david_white]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Good on ya Graham all the beautiful drivers are in class C

Welcome aboard Lee

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

ive made a little progress, i've stripped the new small port 1.8 head, ready to open the throats up for big valves. you may remember the plan is to get a couple of heads and prepare several different port shapes and flow test them.



below is a normal 2.0 type, which i've been busy reworking, one port is std, one has the "normal" mods, one has had the port floor lowered, lowering the port just encourages the air to do what it naturally does but more so and thats just flow straight across the back of the valve ignoring the short turn.
and as you can see one port has had the roof considerably lifted up like 8mm up which was a lot of grinding.


by comparison the 1.8 head has very small ports, but still as big as a pinto so they are not really small, where im hoping to gain with the 1.8 head is the port floor is a lot higher, its rather like compairing injection and non injection pinto heads

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

ive done a bit more, after a lot of work with the die grinder i've consideraly opened up and downdrafed a port in the 1.8 head, it has a much shallower turn to both the long and short side of the ports, it looks like it should flow really well, but only time on the flow bench will tell





i also dug out the crank i damaged early 2006, it was a new crank so i was pretty p@@@@ off at the time, but now having trashed theother new one its time to see if it can be salvaged, when i took t out the engine the crank was bent, where no1 big en had goot very hot, sometimes if you leave them they straighten again, so it was time to see,


dropping the crank in a block with just a couple of upper mains, i suck a dti gauge on it and spun it over, it has 0.0045 run out, on no1 main, or in other words its bent by 0.0022, not a lot but bent anyway, now normally i would throw it away, but seeing as it bent only at no1 pin which has only the load from no1 cylinder going through it and it was a virgin new crank i'll take it to see if it can be reground and and given a new lease of life, otherwise its a £600 piece of scrap