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

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

yes a bigger rear bumper is possible, we'll see im a long way off thinking about bumpers.

i've had a quick meassure up with regards to moveing the engine back and the effect that would have on the prop, as you can see from the poor quality pic the prop has a sliding middle section, so i can shorten the prop nearly an inch just by compressing it, i then investigated the "nut" on it, it compresses a dust seal that lives behind it, if i remove the nut and seal i can shorten the prop 2 inches without spending a penny which is the maxmium i can move the engine back under the rules anyway.



so i now know the prop is ok for moving the engine back i have a problem in the sump and steering rack want to occupy the same space, one way and probably the besy way round that would be to dry sump the engine, but i dont really want the added weight and complication and i dont have the budget for it either so the steering rack has to be moved backwards, apart from making the steering arms too short it shouldnt effect the geometry and will help with the fact the steering wheel is too far away now i've moved my seat back, so ive now dropped out the x member


and started to hack some of the redundant bits off the rack to give more clearance around the rack neck allowing me to get it in closer to the x member

[penski]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

I like him ...

Rules are there to be interpreted

I was browsing pics of US Ovlovs and BMWs before bed...And the first thing I thought of when I woke up was 'US-spec bumpers' :/

*n

[Retromotorsport]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Graham, can plot your steering out for me ... as i think we may head towards a bump steer situation ...

the yellow arm is shorter than original

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

a small dave roberts style exploritary incision and the X member looks like this



yes bump steer, i have thought about it, to be honest i dont think its going to be an issue, im going to use some M3 offset rear bushes which will move the bottom arm a bit and reduce the amount the steering rack link arms will be too short by,

its never going to bump steer by much, the front suspension is allmost zero droop and only compresses by 2 inch infact i think its a little less than that so the total travel is only about 2.5 inches maximum.

i remember wickes escort should of bump steered like hell because i moved the TCA pivots but never got around adjusting the rack to suit, but it didnt, that i put purely down to a very limited amount of suspension travel

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

a bit more progress, hole in the x member filled in and the rack back on with some newly fabracated mounts thankfully the welder was having a good day and produced some lovely welds




i now had a new problem now that rack has gone back 45mm, the engine mounts want to bolt to the x member just where the lower arm is bolted on, the solution was to add an extra engine mount to both sides of the x member and for the engines mount to sit on a plate bridging the two, that left a new problem, no way to bolt these extra mounts on without cutting enorous holes in the x member and robbing it of a lot of strength just where it needs it, as a fix, i cut out a piece of the member drill a hole in it welded a nut on and welded it back in place, hey presto, capitive nuts into which i can screw the engine mounts which are actually RS2000 ones

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

now the engine has gone back 45mm, i can reach the gear lever pic shows it right at teh back of its hole, infact i've had to notch a bit out of the back of the hole



having prized the steering colume out of its mounting bracket you can see how much it needs dropping, strangly where it naturally wants to sit is the right height you would of thought it naturally wanted to go where bmw attached it!


after grinding off the shear bolts i've extended the bracket attaching teh colume to teh body, the bottom bolts on the colume as std, i'll weld the top to the body


steering wheel is still too far away, but i found a handy block of nylon to turn into a spacer to go between the steering wheel and its removable colume mounting boss


without the dash in inside of the car looks a huge mess!, but its not going back in i shall fabricate a small instument binical instead, it also save quite a few kilos in weight, the pic quite nicely shows the low slung height of the steering wheel to suit my new on the floor nearly in the back driving position

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

a little more progress, i tidied up the gear lever hole with a pair of tinsnips and make a new one, its a bit thicker than origonal as the factory tunnel is made of fairly thin metal and the rose jonted gearlinkage was pulling through it, i also put a nice lip on it to retain the gearlever gaitor




its only tacked in place for now i'll seem weld it later when doing other bits inside the car

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

struggling a bit for motivation last night i removed all the windows, doors and 95% of the wireing

[Dan]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

keep at it graham . always interesting to see what your next step is in the cars constant development popcorn:

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

this morning i thought i'd better do some proper work on the car i knew i would need some lock stops to stop the bigger wheels and tyres fouling the inner arches so i dug out some old carb chokes and turned them down to fit inside the outer rack casing to liimit the steering movement.

its amazing how times change, 20 years ago i would of never dreamt of remachining chokes to make spacers they were far to valuable for that!








finally i did a quick visual check on the tracking with the car back on the deck, it was toeing in miles but i have plenty of adjustment because since i rose jointed the steering to clear the big discs i fitted the other year each side adjusts at the rose joint as well as at the OE bmw adjuster

[Retromotorsport]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Stop with the seam welding of that tunnel... it wont come out with hit an inch miss an inch stiches .. and every time the arc strikes and the wire feeds your adding grammes ...

Looking good though, much better driving position

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Looking good though, much better driving position

yeah its really comfy to sit in the steering wheel is a nice height and distance away, door bars are now high enough to make great arm rests, it might take a tad of getting used to when i actually drive it because the new seat position is so far back i can only just see the nose of the car

[tom burgess]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

It seems you have been a very busy boy Graham.Nice work.the seating position looks very low but aslong as youre comfy is what really mattersIt seemd to be one thing after another moving that lot back so i hope it will all be worth itpray:we shall see next yearstill looks good though and i like the idea of hooooge rear bumpers

[Graham]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

cheers tom, i too hope all this moving stuff back works, it should, if you take my weight into account im effectivily moving 25% of the cars weight back by a couple of inches, the car has always had a 52% front bias in weight distribution, i'd like it to be more like 55% rear, i doubt i will get anything like that as the weight saving i have planned will lighten the back end, if it comes out 50/50 or better i will be happy,

i did some shopping yesterday, a more efficient pacet fan which now i've moved the engine, will fit on the back of the rad which is the best place for a fan rather than infront of the intercooler like the current one, and a nice electric extinguisher which can go in the boot ( more weight moving meassures) and save me using poxy bowden cables although i wanted to go that way for a while the cost put me right off, but PLR did me such a good price i couldnt resist, oh and a cable for my bias box, i dont really need one but now i dont have a dash the scruits might get a bit jumpy, cos they can see there isnt a locking devisce on the bias bar.

[david_white]

Re: a very powerfull and troublesome bmw 316

Great progress Mr Bahr, should be lighter and have better weight distribution for sure, good work