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

[Graham]

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

On the suspension side of things (though im sure youve checked this!) Have you re-calculated the lowering effect on the rest of the geometry (caster, scrub radius etc) as this might be causing a few issues?

the geometry is right, but i've thought about it quite a bit,

my initial impression of the car was the springs were too stiff, i dont think its on the bump stops in anycase i did lift it up a bit, thinking about the race although the car feels too stiff the rear was planted, which i think is key to the case, although the car is dramatically lower, most of the lowering has been done on the rear as it was very tail high, this will of transferred more weight to the rear, effectively making the front lighter and the springs seem stiffer, when i did the adjustment i actually dropped the rear spring rate down a bit, 375 from 400, but i cant remember whats in the front but its going to be either 700 or 800lb so i'll put somethingh softer in the front and go from there

as for the oil issue, gotta look deeper into it, i very much doubt its the gauge (mechanical not electric) as i wouldn't expect it to read different from one race to teh next whilst on track but the same normal pressure in the pits at idle

[Graham]

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


bit the bullet this morning, and dropped the sump, it looked good, no surprises, and no evidence the engines eaten itself


looking up at the crank same again, no evidence of anything amiss


nothing wrong with the ends, i might even just put them back.



some of the mains are looking rather battered, im guessing the long stroke shortish rods and no crank damper are giving them a hard time, guess i'll have to use a damper if i ever build a longer stroke 2.7, but tbh they dont look that bad, infact they were secondhand when i built the engine!



nought wrong with the oil pump either!

so i'l get it a new set of mains and put it back together and see what the gauge then says, but what ever its says i will know the engines actually ok

[caprimentle]

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

good news , sort of, would have been nice in a way to find something obvious so your'd know the cause of your problem.

[Graham]

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

the main thing is it isnt in need of serious surgery, god knows where the metalic bits came from, i guess the could be left overs from the broken crank, dunno where they could of been hiding through it was all cleaned to within an inch of its life before the rebuild.

as the engine should be a goer, before the next meeting, i've now got to take a look at the rear end noise which i recon is a diff bearing, oh and swap some springs

[david_white]

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

Glad the engine looks ok, i take it the issue cant be top end then?
Are all of your camber settings good now? Sounds like you really need a really nice diff in there, guess that is mega money though so maybe needs to wait a while. Sounds like the front end needs to go a bit softer for sure, I take it the front wont go any lower due to the size of the tyres so a bit softer might help turn in and stop it washing out. I got mine turning in to clearways better by going lower on the front and a tad softer, before that it was really missing the apex and then losing speed down the pit straight.

[Graham]

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

i dont think theres an issue in the top end dave, the blocks oil feed to the head a restrictor in it so you cant loose significant amount of pressure through the head, plus it mechanically sounds good, s14's are known for sounding like a bag of nails at the top end, this is anything but.

a decent diff is a grand just for the slipper, without the rest, so yes as you say its going to have to wait,

camber settings are all good, there is in fact not much camber in it at all! tyre temps suggest it wants even less, but i think that just because it wouldnt load up the tyres, as you say the front cant come down any more, tyres will be hard on the inner arches and the tca's sitting at a very silly angle, smaller wheels would be the only way to get it lower, i'll just knock 100-200lb off the front springs and try it.

[Roadsport]

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

Good to hear everything is in order.

[david_white]

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

Would love to see the car on 16s with a fossie diff and some wide fibreglass wings.
Have you considered robbing the post office, they must be millionaires judging by what I've given them in ebay postage this week!

Is the rear arb on now?

[Graham]

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

the trouble with 16's (apart from me not having any 16" wheels) is tyre choice isnt great, i've mentioned 16's to dunlop several times and the answer is always DONT, mainly i think because other than radicals there isnt much using them so teh development isnt there, and a lot of the 16's are nearly as tall as my 18's.

rear arb is off as it never benifitted from it being on

[david_white]

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

I guess the developement with 18s will increase now that the ngtc british touring cars are adopting them. Drivers say they are a lot better than the 17s like mine over a race distance.

[Graham]

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

i'll do an update later, but good news this time the car liked the changes i've made, instead of struggling in 56's round brands i found it easy to bang in low 54's

[david_white]

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

Car looked way more stable today with the changes you've been making. Cant be too long before it gets into the 53's

[Graham]

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

after the last brands meeting i had to make a couple of changes, first i dropped some softer springs in the front, secondly the diff needed attention, it got noisy last race, but then again i cobbled it together to last one race only, and it had now done a couple of meetings,

as ever a budget of nothing came into play, i had a couple of problems, first off i didnt have a really suitable cwp and secondly a hole diff, what ive been using is a mishmash of bits from several different diffs, so in reality i needed a whole diff a suitable cwp and a new lsd, ideally the lsd would be a gripper, but that was out the question as i also wanted a complete diff and new cwp, in the end i took a bit of a chance and bought a complete diff from a specialist, i was told it was low mileage and in really good nick plus it was a 4;1 ratio, which is really rare



your note how clean it was, plus it came with a solid bush in the rear cover which was a bonus

i stripped it and found it to be as good as new internally, so good infact that even the lsd plates were perfect, so i robbed a few plates out the old diff, and machined the end cover so i could get 4 sets of plates in it rather than the oe two and gave it 75lb preload



with the diff back in the car i headed to brands, i have to admit i was a bit nervous going out in it, having dropped front spring rates by 200lb and put in a lower ratio diff with a lot more preload than the one i took out, but no changes to the rear suspension i was a bit concerned i might of made the car really tail happy.

i neednt of worried though, out in practise the car felt different, perhaps better out on track, although i didnt know what the lap times were, it latter turns out i quickly dropped into low 58s, which is absolutely nothing to write home about, after a while i pitted and stephen took tyre temps, unlike last time out they made sense i knew the tyres were actually warming up, and went back out, feeling more confident, immediately pushing harder, the out lap was 1.0.01, then came 57.0, 56.3, 55.5, finally 55.0 as the flag went out. a 55 dead isnt exactly stunning, but it came easy and im sure with a another lap or two wolud of been considerably faster, the main thing was i was pleased the car was starting to work.

my lap time had qualified me alongside bill richards once again and ahead of the sierra cosworths of peter taylor and paul eve, both having vastly more power than myself.

race one,

the race start wasnt good, the starters messed up with the lights, which meant some cars started racing before others so come the actual start several cars were out of position, including me having a sierra infront of me which should of been behind me! by the time we crossed the line bill was 2.5 seconds ahead, i was gutted as in theory i should of been able to move into a gap that should of opened up in front of him, instead he was gone with little chance of me catching him, which was gutting i had a good sized class and a chance of some decent points even though i knew i would never beat gavin thompsons ultra fast pug, still i knew i still had two others in my class behind me, so i pressed on, it wasnt long before i had a stroke of luck, gavins pug had gone sick and was going slowly and smoking out the exhaust, so i was soon past him, clearly the gods were smiling at me because i was soon to see bill pulling off with gearbox failure, i was gutted for bill but happy in the knowledge that i now lead the class, i decided to try and push on to see if i could catch anything in front of me, with four turbo cars, 3 cosworths and a seat, i pretty soon realised that although i was lapping close to there lap times i was never going to get past them, at about the same time i made a mistake into paddock and that allowed andy woods dean in his megane to get closer, i wasnt too worried about beating woody as such that would of only been for pride, but woody was dicing with another class C clio, which i didnt want on my tail so i played it cool, being sure to be slow in to the corners and rely on the s14 grunt out of them, which is accurate and no risk of leaving a door up the inside open, so thats how the race finished in terms of lap times i'd clocked a best of 54.2 which was great news, theres a lot more to come, especially when i can stop myself braking too early for paddock.

post race weigh in showed the car with me in it to be a rather lardy 1009kgs, so i really have to try and find some weight savings.

race two,

another bad start, the lights again didnt go right and at least one car which should of been behind me jumped the start and was ahead of me before the race start, wooys megane would of made a great rear guard keeping the clio off my tail, it didnt help be me being a bit too cautious which allowed the clio past, not to mention nick's mk1 escort which also came past his much softer tyres clearing giving him plenty of confidence from teh moment go, damm that was yet another spot lost, still i felt i could catch the clio so pushed on, unfortunatly the sierra of peter taylor and wrc escort of malcom wise had a coming together down cooper straight, taking to the grass i avoided the incident, but it brought the safety car out, i now knew i was in trouble, for the car in front was nicks escort, no offence to nick i knew because nick gets most of his lap times from corner speed rather than outright grunt, i knew when the restart came the clio in front of him would pull away, giving it some breathing space, in actual fact it was worse than that, bill was now right behind me so i had no breathing space, the situation was made worse because not only the safety car was out a long while and lapping quite slow, so come the restart my tyres were cold, they did start to wake up but too late to do anything good, i repassed nick, but in reality that was just for pride nothing else, my heart wasnt in it knowing i simply didnt have enough laps left to do anything about bill or the clio, still it wasnt all bad, i still wasnt last in class and came away from the meeting with some decent points, for the moment, and i have no doubt that its anything other than for the moment i lead my class and am second overal,
the two most important things though are the engines oil pressure held up and the cars working better

[exboyracer]

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

Good news generally then Graham, very good news that there were no mechanical issues!

[Toymex]

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

Well done on the results Graham you could see it was quicker ,its interesting to hear you say you are braking to early for paddock ,i was going to ask you and Nick at the first meeting how you judge your braking point whether you just wing it or if you pick a mark and use that each time ?