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

[david_white]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

How did it go today Graham,did you manage to take the fight to Bill

Bill was unstoppable although his kad gearbox did end up stuck in 5th towards the end of the day which almost gave class A a chance of catching him...

Graham drove very sensibly and got another good haul of points despite an overambitious scooby turning the beemer into a 1 series

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

i'll do a report later but, in ideal, i.e very hot conditions i can take the fight to bill at lydden, but on a wet/damp track and slicks that need lots of heat to work i never had a chance. just pleased to come away with some handy points, although reduced i still have a 42 point lead over bill, with just 4 races left finishing is more important than ultimate position

[caprimentle]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

despite an overambitious scooby turning the beemer into a 1 series

that sounds worrying.

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

[caprimentle]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

ouch, nasty, your gonna need to sort that re shell out soon by the looks of things, poor old girl seen better days. hope your good with a slide hammer

[rwd2ltrfiesta]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

take more than a slide hammer i rekn alex, chain around a tree get that kink out or loadsa bogo,

[Roadsport]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

Ouch !!! Bloody hell they keep banging you ? I hate body damage!

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

given the right i.e hot and dry, conditions round lydden i can worry the likes of bill richards, but alas it wasnt to be, about an hour before our practisce slot the heavens opened, and torrential rain poured out the sky, thankfully it stopped and we had good half hour for the track to dry, unfortunatly it didnt so i found myself in classic too wet for slicks far too dry for wets situation, so practising was limited to slithering around slowly, the track simply had zero grip, a fact proven when a 4wd cossy on treaded tyres went backwards into the gravel at the elbow, this red flagged the session for a while, restarted i started to get into some sort of groove when it rained again, ARRHH! end result i quailified in a mind numingly slow 59seconds, some 16 seconds off what i'd expect to do in favourable conditions, i wasnt last but might of well as been, that said, im in championship mode, drive sensibly and finish is the top priority.

race one from the back row despite a still very damp track and cold hard slicks i made a couple of places, and i had a bmw mini in my sights passing it would be good for my championship as its was in my class, i had no chance of catching bill for a class win but 2nd would of been good, unfortunatly with a 4wd scooby spinning on the start straight and nicks escort ending up stranded in the gravel following an incident the race was red flagged,

somewhat to my frustration when we were regrided we were back in the origonal starting positions! this meant i had to work my way back through the field in order to challenge the mini, but in the damp and with insufficent laps i ended up trailing home 3rd and last in class, still points makes prizes and with serveral cars dnf'ing i was happy to finish ok.

race two, well i was a bit further up the grid, a long rolling burnout start to the green flag lap showed there was some grip, for me it was vital not to get left behind off the start the fwd cars having a distinct advantage, with a good start i made a couple of places when going into pilgrims (1st corner) for the first time i felt an almighty clout up the rear, the car wagged its rear heavily but thankfully it was early enough in the corner i haddnt turned in so i wasnt spun out, my oposition on the first couple of laps comprised of a renault clio and the bmw mini, i had the legs on the straights but they had the corners, the renault and i changed places a couple of times, then the mini out braked me into the elbow so got the advanage up the hill, getting a tighter line round north turn gave me the inside line into paddock bend, i held the inside but the compromised line saw my exit speed too low and the mini repassed, not for too long though the next lap i had retaken the place and pulled away, whilst i was catching those in front they were a long way infront, and i decided once again not to push, no way could i catch bill richards who went on the be the fist dmn car home or to make up meaningless overal positions and risk a dnf.

so with more carefull than anything driving i came away with a decent stack of points, enough to make my class position within the championship pretty solid, what only occured later is with darren bly's skyline loosing an engine i now have a mathematical chance of wining the championship outright!

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

since then i've porta powered the worst of the dent out the back of the car, but perhaps better with the assistance of my son stephen we gave the garage a massive tidy up and got the new shell in a workable position



above pic is of modified beam mounts, which are now shorter and and a welded part of the beam the length of straight tube sticking out the bottom gives a clue how much higher the beam will sit, this will put the beam much higher in the body than the modded polybushed beam currently in use



the current beam also has been modded to remove some camber, i wanted to see what effect that modding the mounts alone would have so we fitted a trailing arm and wheel and jacked it up to match the ride height on the current car, the good news is it gave exactly the same camber as the current car, this means if i carry out other mods to match the ones on the beam in use i can get the ride height down a couple of inches and keep the rear camber sensable

[david_white]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

Sounds very promising Graham, and glad to see you are able to get on the new shell properly again.

Get some bars in the car and we can start looking at the rest of the prep work and build. I have a cunning plan...

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

ok been a little bit busy, i taken about 10kgs of sound deadning out the car and did some more work on the rear beam, which basically involves moving the inner pivot up to take camber out, having refitted the beam initally it looked good, i had 1/2 degree Positive rear camber, ok positive isnt good but the ride height was only an inch lower than the current car, so when it comes down more (im looking for a total of 3 inch at the rear and 2 inch at the front it should of been about right) then i found a glitch trying to jack the supsension further up tipped the shell, odd seeing as no springs or shocks are fitted!

it turns out the combination of the much raised beam and me trying to drop the ride height so much further means the trailing arms was hitting hard on the chassis rail near its pivot, Dam!

checking the blue car indeed that has only about half in of clearance,





of coarse this would never be an iusse if i was using 14 or 15 inch wheels like the car was designed around!

a quick dig around the shed and find another beam, this time instead of just moving the inner pivot up, i've sliced the beam and moved in inner up only half as much and moved the outer down, which if i couple that with a slightly lower ( but still higher than the blue cars) beam mount i should be in bussiness, alternativly you lot can all sponsor me so i can switch to 16 in wheels

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

so after what seems a whole weekend of bashing cutting welding, i've reached a point im happy with, a 3.5 inch drop on the rear ride height results in 2 degrees neg camber, without the mods that would of been about 9 degrees! i wont run it as low as minus 3.5 but its worth checking to see what happens when the rear sqwats, the actual ride height at the rear will be about 2.5-3 inch lower than current and gives me a sensable camber of 1-1.5 neg,

the reason i cant go with a 3.5 inch drop is the car will end up with its nose pointing skywards, the tyre to inner arch clearance allowing a max 2 inch drop at the front, but as the rear sits a good inch higher it all sort of pans out



clearly i've a bit of work to do in the wheel arch dept!

[Roadsport]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

Is that 1 to 1,5 degrees per side ?

[Graham]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

Is that 1 to 1,5 degrees per side ?

yes

[Roadsport]

Re: A race bmw 316, now S14 powered again!

Do your tyres wear evenly? I have a problem with the insides of the rears not touching the ground at all. I'm hoping for more camber in the future as I now only have 0,5 degrees. One degree in total.