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

[Graham]

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

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

[Graham]

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

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...

IF i can find a space in the calendar then great i might take you up on it. i was glad to see you finished the race after the hurried gearbox strip/reassembly

[Frodo]

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

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...

[rallyrob]

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

Well done in getting back out there Graham.

[Graham]

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

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

[katana]

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

Just like a Builders house is never finished - so it would seem exactly like a Racing, car owning Mechanic!

[Graham]

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

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.

[Group4_Mark2]

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

Well done Graham, great to see you back in the seat and reporting on the races. Next best thing to being there.

[headbolt]

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

Well done makes all those hours in the garage worth it to put the smile back on your face

[mexicotait]

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

Great news Graham
Pleased to hear you’re back out

[Graham]

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

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

[Graham]

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



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.

[steveu1500]

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

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

[Graham]

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

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

[rallyrob]

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

Nice... Plenty of torque aswell.