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

[Graham]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

thoubht you said NEVER NEVER NEVER buy a custom cage:-)

i did, the only reason i bought another one is i left some of the origonal custom cage in the car, and this one should of been a relatively easy fit back to the origonal mounting points, some bits it was others not!

if i built another car the only way i would ever buy another custom cage would be if they fitted it FOC or no one else made one.

final weight saving, not much, perhaps 5-6kgs, it would of been more like 10-12 had i not starting putting extra tubes back in, its impossible to know exactly what i've saved, but what i will say is im much happier with it than the old one so im happy

[mk2stu]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

thats the main thing i hate looking at somthing ive done and not being happy with it
the better fit and finish should see a gain in strength aswell which is nice

[Retromotorsport]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Glad the X brace doors bars are in ..also tieing them into the rear cage is good too. with a single door bar mounted halfway up an unsupported tube you run the risk of it being pushed in and bending the main hoop forward (attaching to the B pillar ... its thin as feck, and tears) When the door bar is at TC height, (half door height) it moves in, and traps your pelvis into the seat, which is wedge against the trans tunnel.. the bar resting nicely between or through the ribs and the hip bone trapped under it.

Graham.. I'm smiling now

[david_white]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Nice work Graham, glad to see you both found a compromise and are happy with the cage.

Must say I would never scrimp on door bars now, not after having a car bounce off of my drivers side one, and even more so as that was a bar that we had added and was not part of the origional OMP cage...

[Graham]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

a change of plan on the rear beam, without modding the floor in about 15 different places it simply cant go any higher, so i got out my spare beam to mod that, i just about have room under the floor to lift the inner trailing arm mount 10mm, this will take some more camber out judging by my 2002 which had a similar beam it wont be enough but somes better than none.



after linking alll the mounts together with studding and nuts, i cut through the mounts leaving only the outer edge of the outer one still attached



after bolting the beam in the vice and leveling it up, i bent up the outer mount on its one remaining attached side, the gap it created at the other mount looks enormous, but in fact its only change the pivot angle by a single degree,



after welding it all back together i added a couple of braces, stregthwise they are not the most idealicilly positioned but anything else and i wont be able to service the trailing arms without taking the beam back out the car

[dsm2002]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Graham, I like what you are doing keeping the centre line of the bushes aligned.

I have a 2002 with the K-Mac camber/toe adjusters and I am not happy with them. The centre sleeve is a large size eccentric with little actual surronding polyurthane bush material with less give. The adjustment mechanism of both adljusters naturally misaligns the bush centres a small amount. It feels like it binds a bit.

BTW have you considered the slotted camber/toe plates with eccentric bolts ie



These at least allow normal rubber or poly bushes with more compliance.

I have an E30 I am building. I was thinking about modifying a spare E30 rear beam and trailing arms. 1st idea is to change the sweep angle from the standard 15° to 12° to minimise camber and toe change, and modifying the plane of hub to realign possibly by bending the trailing arm and then welding braces to locate and strengthen the hub. The late DTM E30 M3s had 12° sweep angle. (The 2002 is about 20°)

Another idea is to fit an extra pair of longitudinal links and a watt’s linkage type arrangement and fit really soft highly compressible bushes to the trailing arm. [our regs allow this]. Basically this arrangement will force the trailing arm to take a new, hopefully better, arc.

I have not really explored these ideas yet. Currently I have conventional Bilsteins, 2½ springs, height adjusters, sway bars, urethane bushes, etc. in the meantime, I'll probably fit camber toe adjuster similar to those in the above picture.

[Graham]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

some intersting ideas there, im trying to avoid modifying the trailing arms themselves, then repair in the event of a problem can be effected by simply fitting a new arm from a scrap yard, the watts linkage is a very interesting idea, but for me anything that adds weight to the car is also a no no, my car is chewing up trailing arm bushes, they are simply too compliant to cope with 250/640/18 slicks, so i need stiffer bushing so camber plates are out of the question because the arms will bind if i use them.

had my wheels not been 18 inch them then the combintaion of the rear beam having a bit trimmed off the top of its mounting tubes and the shortened but upsidedown bushes would be enough to keep the rear camber sensable with a lowish ride height.

[Tristan]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Graham, I like what you are doing keeping the centre line of the bushes aligned.

I have a 2002 with the K-Mac camber/toe adjusters and I am not happy with them. The centre sleeve is a large size eccentric with little actual surronding polyurthane bush material with less give. The adjustment mechanism of both adljusters naturally misaligns the bush centres a small amount. It feels like it binds a bit.

BTW have you considered the slotted camber/toe plates with eccentric bolts ie

I have not really explored these ideas yet. Currently I have conventional Bilsteins, 2½ springs, height adjusters, sway bars, urethane bushes, etc. in the meantime, I'll probably fit camber toe adjuster similar to those in the above picture.

Some nice looking kit there , could be adapted to a lot of cars.... where did you get it and was it expensive?

some intersting ideas there, im trying to avoid modifying the trailing arms themselves, then repair in the event of a problem can be effected by simply fitting a new arm from a scrap yard, the watts linkage is a very interesting idea, but for me anything that adds weight to the car is also a no no, my car is chewing up trailing arm bushes, they are simply too compliant to cope with 250/640/18 slicks, so i need stiffer bushing so camber plates are out of the question because the arms will bind if i use them.

had my wheels not been 18 inch them then the combintaion of the rear beam having a bit trimmed off the top of its mounting tubes and the shortened but upsidedown bushes would be enough to keep the rear camber sensable with a lowish ride height.

You have some clever ssolutions Graham , where did you learn about chassis tuning? I reckon I've 5 secs a stage to be gained in my car if I get the chassis sorted..

[Graham]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

, where did you learn about chassis tuning? I reckon I've 5 secs a stage to be gained in my car if I get the chassis sorted..

just thinking about things!

i have to say for a mixed or loose surface rally car i'd proabaly not be much good, afterall a slick shod circuit race car has virtually no suspension movement,

im feeling pleased with myself , having saved £100 by mending something, although it was something that shouldnt of needed mending in the first place

prior to doing the cage work on the car i removed the fuel tank, seat belts fire extingusher etc, but left behind its power pack big mistake i leant on it! and broke its switch, i wasnt happy especially when i found a new one was going to cost me £100 to replace it,

i instantly thought of maplins, but they didnt do the switch i needed, i googled for switches and miniture swicthes, i nearly gave up, but happened across a site called technobots, and oredered a 49P switch off them, i didnt know if it would work but at that price who cared

luckily when it did turn up it was exactly the same one as was in the powerpack



a bit of soldering later


dont get much for your £100 do you?

[andypipe]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

I know how you feel mate. Had the same thing with my LDV as you well know

[exboyracer]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

£100 for that! they're taking the piss!

[dsm2002]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

Some nice looking kit there , could be adapted to a lot of cars.... where did you get it and was it expensive?

The bolts washers and nuts are standard BMW parts from the E39. Part numbers are:

E39 camber Bolts 33321095102x 4 - $6.35 each
E39 camber washers 33321092310 x 4 - $2.15
E39 camber nuts 33326751446 x 4 - $0.55

The prices listed are USD that I paid recently from bmaparts.com.

The plates were machined up out of 8mm plate.

[Graham]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

whilst the beams out the car i set to removing the OE rear brake pipe brackets because they will foul the modded beam, so i removed a few more whilst at it, including the origonal spring mounts which have long been redundant, to my suprise once i'd drilled through the spot welds one side i found a hole ( 2 one inch holes to be exact) in the chassis rail, im really glad i removed the mount now,

its very localised corrosion, because after cutting out the offending area and then some you can seet the inside of the chassis rail is as good as new and still full of wax



i cut a plate to but weld flush with the hole, which made a nice repair, the only downside being i had to weld it bit by bit, to stop the wax in the rail melting and running into my weld which the mig dont like

[Graham]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

in between a zillion phone calls i've managed to put some STEEL back in the bulkhead
4

[Tristan]

Re: A racing bmw 316, 240bhp Atmo M10

The bolts washers and nuts are standard BMW parts from the E39. Part numbers are:

E39 camber Bolts 33321095102x 4 - $6.35 each
E39 camber washers 33321092310 x 4 - $2.15
E39 camber nuts 33326751446 x 4 - $0.55

The prices listed are USD that I paid recently from bmaparts.com.

The plates were machined up out of 8mm plate.

thats cheap!