318iS race car - back on track

[martauto]

Have you any pics of the cams as they sound horrendous !!!
Stuff like that does NOT get through quality control !!
The operator knows it`s wrong and so does inspection too so the company should be held to task .

Mart.

[rix313]

There was nothing visually wrong with them, hence I just fitted them. But yes I am waiting for a report from the guys that measured and reground them, once I have it I’ll be feeding it to Dbilas. But the new engine will be pretty special and Bruno is doing a great job as I knew he would.

[martauto]

Visually maybe but when you make something you know it inside out, and when your job is to "inspect" as in visual and with instruments, it`s just not good enough anymore.
I have worked on the shop floor in Medical and Oil and Gas ......................somebodys arse would have been down the road

Mart.

[rix313]

Hey y'all. BDS have been super busy the last few weeks on the engine. It is now back together and installed in the car. They have fitted an uprated, unsprung padel clutch for snappier gear changes.




They've also made a complete 2.5inch exhaust system. The one I have been running was 2.25inch however after they made this amazing exhaust manifold I got them to make the rest of the system too. I'll let the photos do the talking as it is a work of art.
















Lastly they decided that they are going to do some tests with and without the airbox. Queue a set of carbon trumpets

[steve_k]

i'm not a 4 pot fan but that manifold?
i bet that wasn't cheap.

[MrBenn]

Very nice dude! Very.... nice!

[JungleGus]

Lovely manifold indeed! I love the "This side down" note as well =D

[rix313]

It's running and mapped and I am going to collect it early next week!



Bruno did a lot of tuning with it on his dyno. Initially on open stacks he created a really nice smooth power and torque curve. 208nm of torque and 200bhp at the flywheel revving at a conservative 7400rpm. He then fitted the Dbilas airbox and filter which I sent the car there with. There was a small drop in figures to 195bhp. There is scope to tune further with modifying the intake and higher compression from a thinner head gasket. For now though it's really good to have it at this stage; I can get it back, finish some jobs off then book a test to see how all these upgrades have changed the car

Rumble rumble.

[tha881]

Making some good power, and 7400 rpm too, that should be very fun to rev out. Definitely not a baby m3 anymore!

[DanThe]

Bruno loves the 4 pots

Lets see the curvy bits then

[rix313]

This was with the open stacks:




And with the manifold:




Going to collect it tomorrow

[rix313]

The other week my Hispec BBK turned up. About a 7 week lead time but it was worth it when they arrived. 6 piston R126 caliper, 295mm diameter 28mm wide floating disc and I have gone for DS2500 pads to see what all the fuss is about. Beauty of them is they fit under my 15inch team dynamics 1.2 wheels. My master cylinder set up was spec'd off of the Willwood kit I had so it remains to be seen if I need to alter anything to tune the pedal feel. I plan to 'shake' the car down at a local airfield to test the brakes and also get BDS along to do some partial throttle mapping on the ECU.

[steve_k]

now those brakes do look good

been tempted by those callipers myself for a while now,
how mych were the bells & rotor's? if you dont mind me asking?

[rix313]

The whole lot was about £1200 Steve.

[rix313]

August last year I had a company design and produce a livery for the car. The guy who owned the company is an E30 owner and enthusiast so it was cool to work with them to finally have a proper design done. The car spent 3 days with them and came back looking fantastic. Then in November I had an extremely last minute opportunity to shake the car down at Silverstone. It was a 15 minute session at the Motorsport Days LIVE! event. It was great to be out in the car and it wasa helpful session to find any issues with the car.










Main issue I seem to have is the clutch pedal is not returning properly. Not sure if there is an issue with the lines I made or the master cylinder. I've been a bit too busy with Poppy but I intend to get to the bottom of it soon as I want to get out and use it.

[martauto]

Come on Rich.....................
PICS .....................

Mart.

[DanThe]

Very loud

[fixedwheelnut]

Great build, you will have to post up track day video's

[rix313]

Hi all, hope youre well.

The quick run out at Silverstone was a handy shake down which highlighted a couple of issues that needed addressing. Most importantly was the fact fuel was trying to escape from the tank through the threaded holes for the fuel level sensor. This was due to the fact that the people that made the top plate had drilled and tapped the thread directly into the plate, this allowed the tinniest of tiny gaps up the thread for the fuel to work its way out of (this was even with the correct rubber seal and dowty washers on the bolts). So I managed to find some blind riv nuts and installed them with some fuel safe Hylomar sealant.








Other jobs to sort were minor and included setting the electronic fan control in the ECU and squaring up the tracking.

So it was about time I actually hit the track and did some testing! I booked onto a day at Castle Combe with an organiser whos days I tend to go on with my dad at Combe. They're very quiet and you get tonnes of track time with very little traffic. I was a little anxious as so much had changed with the car since I last drove it and there were a lot of things to check and make sure everything was working. Thankfully it all went very well! The clutch still seems to be a bit slow to engage with fast changes so I need to try and look into the cause of that. There is also a bit of mapping that needs to be done to the engine to fine tune the mid range. But it was a great day and my dad was there in 'Emily', our black 318iS which we use for track days together so it was cool to have both cars out on track.









The E34 also did very well as a tow car for the day too

[ceige85]

The other week my Hispec BBK turned up. About a 7 week lead time but it was worth it when they arrived. 6 piston R126 caliper, 295mm diameter 28mm wide floating disc and I have gone for DS2500 pads to see what all the fuss is about. Beauty of them is they fit under my 15inch team dynamics 1.2 wheels. My master cylinder set up was spec'd off of the Willwood kit I had so it remains to be seen if I need to alter anything to tune the pedal feel. I plan to 'shake' the car down at a local airfield to test the brakes and also get BDS along to do some partial throttle mapping on the ECU.

Might have to noise you up about these when my time comes!

[rix313]

I'd only managed to fit one other day in at Combe since my last update. I had been running the airbox on the ITB's as I was waiting for the correct stacks to come into stock so the engine could be properly mapped with all the correct parts. Running the airbox was a bit rubbish as midrange, part throttle loads the thing was a pig to drive.

But now that is all sorted Running a healthy 205bhp and 219 nm of torque, the new tune should be night and day compared to how it ha been running.




I then decided to set my attention to the cooling. The Direnzza radiator I have been running always kept the water temp in check but it was a shit to bleed air out of the system.

*side story*

I have been seeing engine oil temps of around 115c on track, while this didn't bother me much with 'standard disposable' engines, it certainly bothers me with the money I have invested in this one! So I decided I'd fit an oil cooler and went the heat exchanger route and bought a Laminova. A couple of years ago I also liaised with Mocal about a filter housing take off plate for an oil cooler and not too long ago it finally came to fruition.



*circling back*

With the increased load on the cooling system from the heat exchanger I opted to fit a bigger radiator in form of an E36 M3 aluminium radiator. I spent a while researching different ones, Mishimoto, Direnzza, CSF, they all looked strikingly identical. Further research on ali express and the likes soon brings to light all of these brands are badge engineering something and doubling the price. Fair play but its not the game I play. I found a reputable UK dealer who weren't taking the piss and had them in stock so ordered it up and slotted it in. I could continue to use my lower rad hose from the old rad and the top one could also be retained.






Next up was to fit the oil cooler bits. The Laminova I have chosen is the smallest one they do and is meant to be equivalent to a 10 row cooler. Rough calculations that they did for me estimated oil temps down in the mid 90's which considering how small it is, could be impressive (proof will be in the pudding!). The best bit about this type of cooler for those that perhaps don't know, is the oil can't be over cooled by a thermostat-less air to oil system and it also helps oil temps build up quicker from cold reducing wear. There's plenty of room to go the next size up should it be required.




All that was needed was to make the an10 oil lines and connect it up. I dread having to change the oil filter but I didn’t have the space to start trying to fit dry break connectors without there being a billion adaptors and it starting to look untidy (not to mention expensive). As for the header tank I ordered a genuine one from BMW and fitted it to the standard location. I ended up mounting it a little high when I compared it to a 325i I had in but there is clearance to the bonnet so here is where it shall remain! All that was left was to modify the old 'feeder' hose and connect it all up. It all warmed up and bled up perfectly.

[DanThe]

Those heat exchangers are a fantastic piece of kit

[328ibarneysport]

This is mega Rich. The attention to detail, the journey, the documentation over the years, the quality of the finished product, the engineering
Never saw those oil coolers before, clever pieces of kit.
I bet it goes like stink with that PTW ratio, must be mega fun.

PS. I love the ‘Winston Slow’ and ‘Winston Fast’ buttons

[rix313]

This is mega Rich. The attention to detail, the journey, the documentation over the years, the quality of the finished product, the engineering
Never saw those oil coolers before, clever pieces of kit.
I bet it goes like stink with that PTW ratio, must be mega fun.

PS. I love the ‘Winston Slow’ and ‘Winston Fast’ buttons

Thank you Barry, this thread is nearly 11 years old so it has been a process getting to this point! I am excited to get some track time booked in next year, was a little late to the party when winter rolled in this year.

The W fast and slow are for the wipers. IF they did mean what you interpreted I'd hope to only need the fast one

[rix313]

I as of yet, haven't entered a race this year. I have done a couple of test days, one at Donington and the other at Goodwood.

Donington was good but I quickly discovered I had fuel surge that once it came on, never went away until the fuel was topped up.



Previously I would get a splutter and I could continue for a couple of more laps before needing to stop. So I decided a swirl pot system was in order. Luckily the wiring installed when I did the loom was beefy enough to not notice the small 1.5amp draw from the low pressure lift pump for the swirl pot.






After breaking my back doing that (not fun being hunched over the rear panel reaching into the boot) I also decided I wanted to fit an interior light to the car for the darker nights. This snowballed into also deciding I wanted toggle switches rather than rocker switches on my dash panel. As the holes for the rocker switches were much larger than the ones required for the toggle switches, I had to make a new facia panel. I was mostly able to trace the old one but I did decide to add a further spare switch to the panel on account of all 7 being in use.







Finally fitted:








The Goodwood day was wildly over subscribed so I got very little track time unlike Donington which times felt like a provate test day. The track gods didn't have much planned for me that day as my exhaust manifold cracked and stopped play. I've removed it now and I am waiting for it to be repaired. Im also going to get it crack checked by an F1 buddy to make sure it's not going to throw any more suprises at me when it's refitted.

[martauto]

That dash looks so cool and explain to simple people like me what a "swirl pot" does?

Mart.

[rix313]

It's a seperate tank to the fuel tank, only small volume which is fed by a low pressure pump and the return line from the engine. It removed the possibility of fuel surge when cornering on low fuel levels.

[martauto]

Mart.

[rix313]

Exhaust gate went on far longer that it should have and is in some respects, is still going on. But anyway, finally pulled my finger out and went to Donington to shake the car down and pick up where I left off nearly a year ago.

I'm rather pleased that the swirl pot worked an absolute treat. When I did a low fuel test, the car only stuttered when I was down to 0,6L of fuel left in the system! The fuel tank was bone dry (appreciate that's not going to be healthy for the lift pump, but it was an experiment). Compared to last time when with 7L, the car was undrivable it's a great win.

Some pictures