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

[david_white]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

208 bhp per ton for me with my fat arse on board

and I only had 190 per ton maximum, but as graham says corner speeds and driver ability are still more important than just power to weight, ie car no.90 !!

With regards to tyres I was suggesting that economies of scale might help, dunlop will get a lot of feedback to help developement and slightly worn ones will come up at a good price which is ideal for testing etc. Either way it will help the series, just look how many cars in dmn run on current btcc rubber and wheels, including myself

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

With regards to tyres I was suggesting that economies of scale might help, dunlop will get a lot of feedback to help developement and slightly worn ones will come up at a good price which is ideal for testing etc. Either way it will help the series, just look how many cars in dmn run on current btcc rubber and wheels, including myself

agreed although they wil all have to buy new 18 inch wheels,

its not often im ahead of the game!!!!!!

[stephen bahr]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

possibly a nice drop in price for the 18" wheels then?

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

long time no updates, sadly not much good to report either,

i sent my rear shock off to gaz for them to be revalved to suit the much stiffer rear springs i now use



we also added some helper springs, which will preload the shocks a bit and hopefullly aid traction out the tighter corners where body roll which although minimal removes all load from the inside wheel.

so we then headed off to mallory park, i venue i've never driven before, i'd booked a test session, where we scrubbed the new slicks and played with the rear damper settings and ride height which gave spot on tyre temps, although not timed as such i knew i was cirulating in an easy 53 sec lap, the plan was to push hard and get some lap times on the last session, but once again things didnt go to plan, the engine dropped onto 3.5 cylinders, a quick check showed i had lost the stelitte tip off an exhaust valve, meaning no racing for me the following day, nothing for it but to pack up and go home

a very hasty rebuild and road trip saw the defective valve replaced



and it was time to head to brand for the gp circuit meeting, a difficult qualiying session which had several yellow flag laps with cars stuck in the gravel trap, meant i got very few good clean laps in but qualified in a reasonable 1.47 something second lap, although sadly but as it would later turn out fortunsate for my chmpionship i didnt have anyone else in my class, still i didnt care i wad going to get a good race against others even if my actuall finishing position ddnt really matter. i'd qualified 16th, as we sat on the grid i realised it was going to be hard to get much further up it, pretty much everything ahead of me was either was more powerfull, or shed loads lighter, i got a great start though and even outdragged the seat turbo of chris hayes, caught and passed steve danns 300bhp turbo golf, as the race settlled down i was catching several cars in front, untill the engine started to missfire, it felt for all the world like fuel surge, which it couldnt of been running a swirl pot means the main tank can run dry and still the swirl pot would supply the engine, i peddled on coughing and spitting, steve dann retook his place and i just hung on hoping to limp to the end and collect my points.

i'd laped with a best of 1.473 which is half second better than last year and would of got faster still

back in the paddock we checked pumps filters regulators but nothing appeared wrong so with fingers crosed some tightened hose clips and a new filter i headed for the grid for race two, the engine ran clean for the gren flag lap and half the first lap then it went sick again, it also ran hotter than normal further confirming my thoughts it was being starved of fuel, so i limped round, quite frustrated as i had plenty of corner speed but nothing in a straight line, i simply kept out the way and limpped round, eventually finishing last but still 1st in clas!!! so i now have the biggest ever trophy for a last place finish!!!!!!!!

[Toymex]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Well done on the first in class Graham and well done on even making it to the grid ,what do you think the problem is ? a dodgy fuel pump

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

problem is ? a dodgy fuel pump

yes i think so, the missfire felt like fuel, surge and wasnt violent enough to be electrical it would just randomly loose power and sometimes almost all of it them clear, if iit was on carbs youd say there was a lump of crap in the float bowl randomly blocking jets, certainly the rev counter didnt mess around suggesting nothing wrong on the engine management front,

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

i checked the current draw on the pumps yesterday and all appeared to be normal,

plugging the laptop in this morning has given me the answer, the throttle pot is playing up,

idle is site 0 full throttle is load site 15, if you hold the throttle full open the site number jumps up and down all over the place, this obviously directly relates to the amount of fuel injected, new throttle pot and a spare! are now on order



when i took the screen shot the throttle was wide open as you can see its says site 3 its should of said 15!

[dangerousdave]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

I recon its not that, and its because they have spelt your name wrong on the filename of the map?

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

something i've kinda got used to dave doing, only been using his rollers for 10 years, occasionally he does spell it right though when saving a map or graph, then we cant find the thing!!!!

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

a quick update, a rather bleary eyed one at that, i flew back from the isle of man saturday after getting only a couple of hours sleep and headed to brands for an intermarque race on sunday,

other than to replace the throttle pot i did very little pre race prep, i worryingly found the radiator empty, and 4 litres of coolant in the catch tank, i figured doing a whole race with an engine overheating from chronic leanness had pushed it out the overflow, or at least thats what i hoped, the only other way the water could of got there was by it ending up in the oil and getting there by the dry sump tank breather, as it had been run very hot i retorqued the head bolts most of which moved quite a long way, which was rather worrying, was the water loss and overheat actually a headgasket failure?

as it happens it seems not and normal service was resumed water temp wise and none had been lost after practise

i had a couple of excellent and very close races with various cars notably john chaseys caterham, we even did a bit of rubbing, thankfully no damage to either car other than some fairly minor from/rear wing,

3 abreast out of druids is rather tight! due to lack of numbers the tvr's which should of had there own race were clumped in with us, which was pretty annoying on track, as most of them had more straightline speed but were frustratingly slow through the bendy bits, so we were being constantly held up by them which somwhat spoilt the racing and hurt lap times,

anyway the main point of doing the meeting was to check the car was working ok and it certainly was, as i did a best lap of 54.1 without the TVRs or less traffic im pretty sure i would of dipped into the 53's,
still got some work to do on the car though its rather pogo like coming out of clearways and traction is still poor coming out of graham hill, it not really bad but the revs do rise indicating the inside wheel is spinning, as much as i dont want to, i think i will have to look at getting more lock into the diff

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

ok update time, but it looks more like a seasons finisher than anything,

after a quick spanner check of the front end we headed for lydden, a two day meeting DMN and intermarque, i was looking forward to it, last year i had great pace round there and was looking forward to doing a bit of giant killing, ufortunataly it was rather short lived, changes to the car which have really helped with lap times at brands really didnt seem to suit lydden and i just couldnt get any drive out of devils elbow, so much wheel spinning was going on it felt like clutch slip, far far worse than anything i normally experience there, some of that may be due to a lot of ol on the circuit, some maybe down to my never overhauled std diff being tired, but mostly i think its just suspensioon changes havnt suited the circuit, i think some of that was going on att the front end too, the car not turning in as well as i'd of liked, the slower speeds and tighter cornesr of lydden probably want the old big neg camber settings on the car,

not that any of that mattered after a knock and drop in oil pressure happened, back in the paddock it was obvious what it was, the crank pulley was loose and rattling around, ah har i thought, loose bolt, no the bolt was tight, so had the pully worn and was rattlling around on the crank? but once removed i could see the plley was still tight on the crank but the pulley AND nose of crank rattled around together, the crank seems to of broken between the pulley and the timing sprokets which is weird, but thats how it must be as the engine wil still run.

so it looks like game over for the season, i have a spare crank which i know to be cracked so fitting that is just asking for an expensive blow up, do i just order a new crank from bmw (£1500 =+vat), and fit that only to do a total engine strip in a couple of meetings, wait to get a better steel crank from fardon, or take advantage of the rules and make the engine a bit bigger by getting farndon to make me a longer stroke crank which wont cost any more for the crank itself but will mean starting again with another block and head

[exboyracer]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Bad news Graham, sorry to hear about the crank

[Group4_Mark2]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. After all the work you have put into the car it it very unfortunate.

Is it possible to get a good second hand crank anywhere so that you can get back out for the remainder of the season.

Do you fit a crank damper to the front of the engine?


Tom

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

no damper on the crank although they are fully counterweighted,

its not done badly, its a std bmw crank that had 5 years of racing its been to 10k which is huge revs considering big 95mm pistons and a thumping long 87mm stroke, it did all those years service with the turbo and megga power, not to mention ran an end through oil surge.

unfortunatly these cranks are practically non existant second hand as bmw only made 500 cars with them, as they are E30 EVO 3 only, a couple of years ago they were £400 each with bearings from bmw but i guess the origonal stocks sold out so they made another batch which are now dearer than from fardon

[Group4_Mark2]

Re: A race bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Will the internals and head fit any other bmw block with a different crank?

I was asking about the damper as it must have taken some very unusual harmonics to break the front piece of the crank off as there would not really be any big loading in this part of it.