E30 Zone

I have been toying with the idea for a while of turning an '85 4 door chromie into a track car. Here is the car itself:






It was bought 50/50 with my brother as he wanted the rear bumper, interior and the rear plate board thing for his Henna red 323i. That leaves me with everything else.

So far I have been keeping my out locally on ebay/scumtree here etc and I have some bits and bobs to turn this into something good for track use.

I picked up these for £60 with some OMP harnesses



I potentially have an LSD and a set of 15" BBS coming, also have a full set of Spax suspension which I know isn't the best but it hasn't cost anything as my brother wants to swap it out of his car to return to original.

Before anyone says 'it looks to good to bastardise' the car itself has a few bodywork issues, the roof tray is starting to crust, drivers wing, both rear arches are all shot but it is solid enough. It also needs an exhaust sorting as it would appear the mid box baffles are blowing and the car feels restricted when you give it a boot.

I am going to attempt to change this over to M1.3 with 325i management and give the engine a refresh (new timing belt etc)

I also have a set of VDO gauges in stock, I think I will install those too whilst I am there.

I know it isn't amazing and it's a 4 door but it should be a relatively simple project and I am not bothered about it looking mint or anything because essentially this car is a breaker. The only reason I am not breaking it is because all the valuable bits are already spoken for! It has manual steering, manual windows all round, manual sunroof Front and rear roll bars etc so I figured why not?

I was planning on welding some comfort seat bases to the bucket seats but that will probably be one of those type of jobs. Other than that does anyone have any pointers/advice for me? May get some universal types from ebay and prat about with them. The drivers seat needs to adjust/slide.

It's nothing serious just something cheap for me to get some seat time on track with my bro to split costs and if it gets stacked or turns out to be a PITA then I will just move it on.

I know there is no cage and there could be a hell of a lot more money thrown at it but it is a budget shed to get going. The car should cost about a grand to get 'track ready'.

Feel free to throw in some input or handy websites and stuff I can look at

I wasn't going to throw a thread up but the zone is boring at the minute so thought I would chuck something new/different to look at

looking good dude, looking forward to the updates

Spot on mate

I wouldnt fck about with a sliding seat, you just make it higher up in the car and a complete ballache, plus the safety side. Get it fitted into a position where the shortest driver can use a cushion wedged behind their arse

Nice. How come you're not using your other e30 on the track?

Duke137 wrote:I wasn't going to throw a thread up but the zone is boring at the minute so thought I would chuck something new/different to look at

Fairplay dude, t'is a bit shit round here at the moment!

How far you going with the interior strip? Get the spax on there, replace as many of the other bushes you can and get some of Dans void fillers in the beam bushes.

You've got my old exhaust still kicking around haven't you? I'll lend a hand as and when to get this ready, shouldn't take too long since you're not out to make it a minter!

DanThe wrote:I wouldnt fck about with a sliding seat, you just make it higher up in the car and a complete ballache, plus the safety side. Get it fitted into a position where the shortest driver can use a cushion wedged behind their arse

Cheers Dan, but I would prefer a sliding seat if I can so I will check it out I think before I shelve the idea

BTW, I will ring you in the week as I need to go over to Burton one night so will pop over if thats ok as am half way to yours

redcar wrote:Nice. How come you're not using your other e30 on the track?

Well even though it probably would be awesome on the track it wasn't built for that, I just wanted a nice E30 road car and it got a bit out of hand

At least I am not going to be bothered about making a couple of errors in this heap

Kedge wrote:

Duke137 wrote:I wasn't going to throw a thread up but the zone is boring at the minute so thought I would chuck something new/different to look at

Fairplay dude, t'is a bit shit round here at the moment!

How far you going with the interior strip? Get the spax on there, replace as many of the other bushes you can and get some of Dans void fillers in the beam bushes.

You've got my old exhaust still kicking around haven't you? I'll lend a hand as and when to get this ready, shouldn't take too long since you're not out to make it a minter!

Too true, this website is dying a slow death it would seem

Cheers bruv, will give you a shout as and when I have some new T/A bushes and might upgrade to some M3 eccentrics too. Don;t want to get too silly so might try it out first and then I can fettle later there is no plans other than what is above and yep that exhaust is still floating about.

Kedge wrote:

Duke137 wrote:I wasn't going to throw a thread up but the zone is boring at the minute so thought I would chuck something new/different to look at

Fairplay dude, t'is a bit shit round here at the moment!

There seems to be quite a flurry of projects and stuff at the moment IMO

rix313 wrote:

Kedge wrote:

Duke137 wrote:I wasn't going to throw a thread up but the zone is boring at the minute so thought I would chuck something new/different to look at

Fairplay dude, t'is a bit shit round here at the moment!

There seems to be quite a flurry of projects and stuff at the moment IMO

Maybe I log on too much then Rix, did I see a pic you once posted of some seat rails? any pics mate cheers?

Duke137 wrote: Maybe I log on too much then Rix, did I see a pic you once posted of some seat rails? any pics mate cheers?

Maybe I'm easily pleased lol!

Seat rails:



Bought from here: http://www.topcatcustom.co.uk/?page_id=336

You can mount sliders to them no prob an it won't raise the seat that much they're only an inch is so tall. Where I have those weld in rails set to, you'd have no problem with the seat being too high on runners.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Universal-Roa ... 3a78d0bc45

DanThe wrote:I wouldnt fck about with a sliding seat, you just make it higher up in the car and a complete ballache, plus the safety side.

You say that but all GT car seats are mounted on sliders to allow for different height drivers to share cars for endurance races. I don't think there's as much as a safety issue with them as people seem to think.

Cheers mate that looks good. Do you have a passenger seat fitted? Did you do the same at all?

Not too bothered about putting that on sliding runners obviously.

rix313 wrote:

Way way too heavy, probably heavier than a decent bucket seat! (well maybe not, but close!).

Ferg, have you seen?

http://www.massivebrakes.com/accessorie ... sidemounts

Much better and lighter

Andrew as good as they look and with a reasonable exchange rate etc this car is not going to be a serious car with thoroughbred pedigree, it is just for a bit of hooning

Also the car has 4 doors which doesn't help my cause lol

The seats I have appear to bolt from the bottom rather than the side? They were local and super cheap

There are these?

http://www.massivebrakes.com/accessorie ... aroAdapter

CAD $ is not that bad is it?

Andrew

Demlotcrew wrote:There are these?

http://www.massivebrakes.com/accessorie ... aroAdapter

CAD $ is not that bad is it?

Andrew

About $1.56 CAD to the pound I believe.

Might be a little pricey. I am looking at that kit on Top Cat and they are coining it in really for what that is

Demlotcrew wrote:

rix313 wrote:

Way way too heavy, probably heavier than a decent bucket seat! (well maybe not, but close!).

Ferg, have you seen?

http://www.massivebrakes.com/accessorie ... sidemounts

Much better and lighter

Yeah it weighs a couple of kilos, but it ain't going any where. How much do you think a full cage weighs? Be like saying nah I won't fit a chassis cage I'll just fit a hoop made from Ali tube because its lighter.

Duke137 wrote:

Demlotcrew wrote:There are these?

http://www.massivebrakes.com/accessorie ... aroAdapter

CAD $ is not that bad is it?

Andrew

About $1.56 CAD to the pound I believe.

Might be a little pricey. I am looking at that kit on Top Cat and they are coining it in really for what that is

Buy a set, get some copies made and sell them on

I have a set of these for the passenger seat, which is lower and further back.

They are good and weigh in at only 940g per side. The Recaro Steel ones are 1.89kg per side.

A recaro SPG is 6.5kg. The weight soon ads up.

Cage is slightly different as there is no Ali alternative ;)

UweM3 used to do E30-specific side mounts for the stock seat mountings, but stopped as it was not cost effective given low demand and cost of getting them cut & folded.

I'm looking at knocking up a 3-part sidemount out of 3 mm steel angle & plate, something like this, but specific to the stock E30 seat mountings:



Might be able to have a prototype by end of Jan.

You will have to get some details up in a thread Lewis when you have done them

Has anyone seen these on egay? They are cheap I will say that...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200834068140? ... 1423.l2649

That looks good Ferg, I too had looked at something like this from the likes of OMP etc for the passenger, but by the time I priced all the parts up (there are three different peices) It was well over £100 and weighed a tone!

Weight may not be a consideration for most track day cars. Its my number one mission right now.

Demlotcrew wrote: Weight may not be a consideration for most track day cars. Its my number one mission right now.

Wouldn't have guessed lol!

Here's what I've drawn up so far. Want to double-check measurements and make a dummy in ply or whatever first before it gets sent off for machining. Have two different seats to try with too, a fat-boy Toora and a regular Sparco.



Should come in at ~ 2.5kg per pair with fasteners I think...assuming 3 mm steel.

Duke137 wrote:You will have to get some details up in a thread Lewis when you have done them

Has anyone seen these on egay? They are cheap I will say that...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200834068140? ... 1423.l2649

Bought a pair of these as the offer is only on for another 3 days and they turned up yesterday, not bad for the money.

Not for you though Andrew, I reckon they are a good 3.5KG a side

Its only because I have an asthmatic S14 putting out a measly 235hp