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

[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...

[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

[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

[chatteris]

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

looking good, do you need to look at throttle cable again or will it be ok,

[Graham]

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

looking good, do you need to look at throttle cable again or will it be ok,

i think thats todays job

[Arieke]

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

looks verry good, love the read everytime i check this :-)

[Graham]

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

ive lost the picture, but the only other job a did to the car was modify the throttle to allow the cable to pivot thus reduce its bending load.

after that it was off to brands for a 40 minute pit stop race with the cscc, considering gear lever aside the car was the same i felt much more at home in it, we had a long 30 min practice session i decided not to bother pitting if felt good, about 20 mins in the tyres started to go off , so i did pit, i wasnt sure if i had overheated them or something else, or whether it was the 30 plus degrees temp causing issues, i sat of a coupe of mins and went out again, that was a mistake i had a violent steering judder and the car just didnt turn in, i was missing apex's by miles, so immediately returned to the pits and checked the tyres. the left front had de-laminated badly.

back in the paddock i showed the tyre to the tyre technician and asked his advise, he thought it was merely down to the heat, not helped by the tyre being 11 years old! interestingly he didnt see an issue with the set up, only the track temperature, i would of bought a new tyre but as i had a spare he didnt want to sell me a new tyre, that was a first! .

the good news was with no real changes to the car i was 1.2 secs a lap faster than my previous outing, and for sure if temps had been a bit lower i would of gone faster still, i had an idea i was fairly quick, but stunned when the practice times came out and i was 7th fastest overall! the was nothing to do to the car other than change the shagged tyre so we relaxed in the very hot sun.

come the race despite a start procedure which was new to me i got a good start and made up a place only foe the race to be red flagged half a lap later. after what felt an eternity sitting melting in the car on the grid the race restarted, i held my position and even made one up, i was running a comfortable but lonely 6th overall, the leaders had pulled about half a lap on me, and i was way way ahead of anyone behind me, trying to push really hard had the car just sliding around, at one point going through surtees i lost the rear and and ended up sliding broadside a full 90 degrees to the direction of travel, finding myself looking where i was going out the side window i thought i was going off into the tyre wall, but somehow collected it up and carried on, proper drifting stuff, just not what you should be doing in a race!

i didnt have a plan regarding when to pit, i had decided to play it by ear, as i had clear track both infront and behind me the best thing seemed to be wait until i start to lap back markers then pit, if i was lucky and the guys at the very front hit traffic sooner perhaps could get me back in touch with them, wasnt to be, about 25 mins in a familiar steering judder came back. i pitted and sure enough another tyre had delaminated



so another dnf, but i wasnt too bothered as i had front running pace, but was never going to trouble those at the very front. Afterwards talking to the cars previous owner he is sure the issue with the tyres was just the age of the tyres, i think the heat had a major part to play, but im sure some of it is suspension geometry, i have been running the car set up as it was previously raced, thats with 4 degrees negative camber in the front end, to my mind that is probably ok for a 15 min race, but given the air and track temps and me trying to do a 40 minute race i think i was always destined to melt the tyres, 11 years old or not.

[Graham]

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

back at the workshop we decided to corner weight the car just to see, with me on board it weighed in at a creditable 1075kg, so
car itself was 992kg with a LOT of fuel still on board, not having yet got a handle on how much fuel it uses we played safe and went out on a full tank.

front to rear bias isnt too bad at 52/48 but i know any weight reduction is only going to make that worse, still i think i need to, so ive set a target to take 50kg out the car, it will make the car more nose heavy, but if you crunch power to weight figures that will be the equivalent of gaining 25bhp. and even if the car is more nose heavy, if the front tyres have to deal with less weight, they will have an easier time. so far ive found 6kg, 3 off the car and 3 off me lol!

obviously i need some new tyres but am also looking at the front end geometry, ive pulled a degree of neg camber out, so its down to 3 degrees which in my book is still a lot and increased the caster angle, that should give the same camber in the corners, but less on the straights so the tyres should have an easier time.

i did have a camera in the car, but for some bizarre reason it didnt start recording until a lap before i pulled off Arhhh!!! so all i have is one pic of the event

[351escort]

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

Graham

Was good to see you there and despite your tyre issues, glad you enjoyed it.
The only footage i have of you is you pulling away from me at the start

[Graham]

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

about 6 month late but i guess id better bring this upto date! after brands i fitted some new tyres, tweeked the front geometry, by pulling a degree of camber out and adding some more caster and took about 30kgs of weight out the car. As the car ran well at brands i headed off to my next meeting at Thruxton feeling good about it, sadly it wasnt to be!

its many years since i raced at thruxton and even than i only did two races so i was on the back foot, firstly having to learn where i was going, secondly out on track i kept throwing up, not good when your wearing a balaclava and crash helmet, thirdly the engine kept cutting out and miss-firing, which it would only do intermittently when out on track. Some how i qualified mid field, i was less sure about the start, it was a standing start race, i havnt done one of them for nearly 20 years, fortunately i'd practiced a couple starts on the estate at work, so knew 1st gear was a waste of time and a 4K start in second span the wheels a fair bit on a not very grippy surface, so i opted for 2nd gear and 3.5k on the clock, it worked like magic and i picked up a couple of spots, the race didnt go well, the misfire came and went
varying from chronic to just being flat at the top end, measnt while i was stil throwing up, so i was yoyoing up and down the second half of the field, with a couple of laps to go the throttle cable outer pulled through the pedal box, leaving me at best about about 10% of throttle, enough to pull only 3.5k in 3rd! not good on the fastest circuit in the country, i made it to the end of the race although stone last!

[katana]

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

What is it with you and throttle cables ? LOL! Best get a 'fly by wire' or a decent bit of string!

[rallyrob]

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

Ouch... Not sure I have a clue as to how the pedal box sits in the car, but Escort outer cables sit against the bulkhead. Have you got a floor mounted pedal box or something?

[Graham]

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

back at base, i had a lot of head scratching, the bloody engine only played up intermittently when reved hard, driving it round the estate after everyone had gone home with a top plugged in logging data suggested loss of rpm signal, but i couldnt cure it new sensor (genuine bmw at a genuine eye watering price) i replaced the pins and plugs on the crank sensor wiring them the crank sensor,, no cure, so i figured interference perhaps, after changing the tps and fixing various wiring niggles no joy, then a spotted on the logger that the charging voltage was all over the shop, in particular hitting almost 17volts at times, so i disconnected the wiring it and tried it again, still the same, id spotted the alternator had a noisy bearing was it momentary seizing?? at this point i spotted the plastic rear casing was partly melted, and realized its cooling fan was missing, no wonder the melted case and charging issues. so i put a new alternator on, charging voltage was no fine, but problem was still there!

at this Point Karl at Emerald suggested it may be a power supply issue, so i looked hard at the rest of the loom, i bypassed the ignition switch, rewired the master switch correctly, wired the ecu direct to the battery. it felt better until i revved it really hard and it died on me, the ecu had shut down and locked up. desperate to make the next race meeting i sent one of the lads over to emerald to pick up a new ecu, again it was ok until a reved it hard, that ecu shut down and wouldnt fire up again at all. Both ecus then went back to emerald and again Karl said it was a power supply issue, a noisy supply as he put it, he then fixed them before i refitted them i doubled up on all the earths, fitted new power cables, disconnected everything not strictly needed to make the car run, that didnt work either. i ws now out of time to make the race i wanted to do and pulled my entry, Karl did say to me it might not be a connection, there may be a component causing voltage spikes.

At this point ive got the hump with the car, having found numerous wiring faults with it i decided to make a new loom, as it has a much butchered standard loom, with extra bits of wiring for the ecu, extra instruments etc etc. so i figure if a make a new loom and change the fuel pump and coil pack i have literally changed everything!

i got one of the lads to remove the cars loom, but that was months ago, until today ive not even had a chance to look at the car, but the 2019 race season is looming and i want to race!

[Graham]

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

Ouch... Not sure I have a clue as to how the pedal box sits in the car, but Escort outer cables sit against the bulkhead. Have you got a floor mounted pedal box or something?

yeah floor mounted, what actually happened was the plastic grommet which is part of the outer cable broke so the cable went through the pedal box, ist got a metal one now!

[rallyrob]

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

yeah floor mounted, what actually happened was the plastic grommet which is part of the outer cable broke so the cable went through the pedal box, ist got a metal one now!

Oh ok, that was a pain in the arse then... An lets hope a new loom sorts it out.. I wouldn't want the job of new loom at all, that's just not me.