318iS race car - back on track

[Willeh]

I saw your post on facebook too, congratulations on the job mate.

Oh, the car looks alright as well I suppose.

[milescook]

Nice one mate have fun in Canadia

[rix313]

Getting thrown in the deep end a bit. Start Monday, fly to Canada to Tuesday for the Grand Prix

Before all that madness kicks off I took my 2nd set of wheels to Dunlop and had a fresh set if boots put on them. I did have 205 on them but due to the collar in the AST dampers being quite large I've had to change them for 195. Even with the bigger offset wheels I wasn't comfortable with the amount of room left. The 195 are also a smaller profile and as a result have a smaller rolling radius but this doesn't worry me as it will help with acceleration slightly.

[Altrezia]

That wheel/tyre combo looks ace. Love it.

Let's book a trackday when you're back in the UK and my brakes are done.

[Mikey_Boy]

^^^ Loving the wheel and tyre combo!

Tell me, just how long did you have wait for your AST suspension to arrive?

Phone call last week stated mine was 'imminent' whatever that means!

[rix313]

I think my dismay at waiting for my AST dampers is documented in the early part of this thread. Curtis promised them to me week after week for touching 5 months I'm sad to say. I know that's not what you wanted to read


Sounds good Alex, need to give it a blast some where

[Mikey_Boy]

No worries - at least I know I have to keep badgering them...

Now it's sorted you should go an thrash the living bejesus out of it...!

[Mikey_Boy]

And congrats on the job too! I was trackside with the red lot from 2003 - 2006... Word of advice though - toilets at Montreal suck - shite in the hotel before you go!!

[crossie]

Fitted a t-piece and dry brake to the fuel system so I can pump the fuel tank out. This enables me to work out fuel usage over a lap, session etc. plus it allows me to only run the fuel I need for a race rather than having to 'guess' how much is in the tank and how much to add:






Thats all for now

where did you get the t-piece from?

shame you had to pull out of the racing!

[DanThe]

Getting thrown in the deep end a bit. Start Monday, fly to Canada to Tuesday for the Grand Prix

Hope to see some backstage pics

[Demlotcrew]

Fitted my lap timer, just need to pop the transponder in the windscreen so it can link with the beacon as I drive past:

Bare in mind that pit walls are on different sides at different tracks so the transponder needs to be 'mobile' between the sides of the car. I would also only have it 90º against the car and not in the windscreen as having the sensor diagonally facing the beacon will yield in different times depending on how far away you are from the beacon when passing.

[rix313]

And congrats on the job too! I was trackside with the red lot from 2003 - 2006... Word of advice though - toilets at Montreal suck - shite in the hotel before you go!!

HAHA cheers for the heads up. My team manager at the job I just left was team manager for Jordan back in the day and he was saying it's one of his favourite circuits, failed to mention that though haha Can't be worse than what we had to endure at the Blancpain Sprint 'Baku World Challenge' in Azerbaijan last year

where did you get the t-piece from?

shame you had to pull out of the racing!

It's a FSK3 kit from Mocal. Have to say though the 'dry break' is toss and does 'squirt' a bit when connected to a fully pressurised system

It's a shame about the race for sure although the weather for next weekend at Silverstone looks horrendous haha.

Hope to see some backstage pics

Wil do The machine and fabrication shop at the factory is mega

Bare in mind that pit walls are on different sides at different tracks so the transponder needs to be 'mobile' between the sides of the car.

Yes I am quite accustom to having to do this. With the GT3 cars we have kits for swapping fuel quick fillers and air jack lines from side to side. However we normally send the data gimp across the track to put the beacon on the infield for the circuits where it is the 'wrong side' haha.

For my car I'm going to run the wire from the centre of the dash under the windscreen so it is easily swapped from side to side.

[Mikey_Boy]

"HAHA cheers for the heads up. My team manager at the job I just left was team manager for Jordan back in the day and he was saying it's one of his favourite circuits, failed to mention that though haha Can't be worse than what we had to endure at the Blancpain Sprint 'Baku World Challenge' in Azerbaijan"

(Mr iPad doesn't like the quote selected function!!!)

Azerbaijan sounds proper class!!

Montreal is a mega place - the town goes bananas for F1 so you are going to have fun!! Shite-ing at the hotel in fairness is a general rule, most paddock toilets are pretty grim...

[rix313]

Trust me Azerbaijan is crap haha. They're talking about trying to do an F1 race there next year which is utterly laughable. Don't wana go back if I can help it haha.

As you say Canada is great. Centre of town was heaving Saturday night:






Not at all what I'm used to. Bloody fragile and being taken apart every slight opportunity, still prefer my GT cars that 'pound round' for 24hrs. The 'turd':




Back to my turd, from what I gather it was a good weekend with a large grid of 33 cars for the Pre 93 race at Silverstone. Hey ho always next year....

[milescook]

Prefer yours to this monstrosity! Hope you had fun anyway you off to Austria?

[rix313]

To be honest so do I haha

Couple more bits on the car while it's not doing anything. I bought a BBTB and fitted that up, remains to be seen if there is any noticeable performance increase but every little helps. After I ran it to check it all worked ok I noticed the alternator belt was slipping. Went to adjust it but the teeth on the adjuster were toast so swapped it for a new one and all is good under the hood




I then turned my attention to cosmetics and gave the splitter a dusting of paint, and fitted it properly. Really happy with how it makes the front look now:

[bumpygt]

Nice to meet you at castle Combe. Your cars look great. Lots of time has been put into them, great work

[NoTurbo]

How do you feel about the BBTB now that it is on?

I only noticed a very slight increase at the top end and more engine noise with mine. Also has slower throttle response in the mid-range.

[rix313]

Nice to meet you at castle Combe. Your cars look great. Lots of time has been put into them, great work

You too bud. Sorry didn't get a chance to catch up with you again. Hope the iS sells

How do you feel about the BBTB now that it is on?

I only noticed a very slight increase at the top end and more engine noise with mine. Also has slower throttle response in the mid-range.

I didn't do a 'back to back', and it's been 6 months since I've driven it so I can't really comment too much. I wasn't expecting to notice a lot but I thought better have it than not. It went well haha.



So yesterday I was at Castle Combe. The sun shone which was lucky as I was running on my free set of worn Dunlops. The fronts just about lasted the day but one had a giant flat spot on it and that started to effect the performance quite early on. Regardless it was good to finally drive the car on a proper circuit, even if it is one as beaten up and bumpy as Castle Combe. Had an issue with fuel pump relays for some reason which caused a bit of a faf half way through the day but that is hopefully sorted now. I had the passenger seat fitted, was my 'old' Cobra Suzuka Pro so I was able to take the family and mrs out for a ride which they enjoyed. Time for some pictures, thought'd I'd take this as a chance to upload some pictures of when I first bought the car coming up on 8 years ago:








....And some pics of the race car and the road car together:

[rix313]

Just had a couple of pics through from a chap who was there on the day.

[milescook]

Nice

[rix313]

Seeing as I now have both steeds in the garage together, I took it as a good opportunity to compare the engines and try and get to the bottom of why when my cam sensor is plugged in, the engine won't run.




The theory I had which was that the cam sprockets with the 'trigger lug' for the cam sensor, were fitted wrong previously, was about the only logical explanation. So I pulled the cam covers off both and put cylinder 1 to TDC on both and compared:

Race car:



Road car:



Spot the difference? The cam sprocket on the race engine is 180degrees out, so when turning over, the ECU is firing the injectors at the wrong time hence why it won't run. This must have happened before I bought the engine, as it didn't run the first time I fitted it, I then had it rebuilt and the engine builder rebuilt it as it came apart. He wasn't to know that these were wrong. So now that has been identified I have booked him in for a couple of weeks time and we are going to rectify it

Lastly, my harnesses had different dates on the lap straps to the wrest of the straps. Seeing as I need them to be in date I spoke to TRS and they sent me a pair of new straps which match the dates on the rest of the straps FOC. Good service from them

[rix313]

Sooo a little quick update. Dave the engine man came over a couple of weeks ago and corrected the timing chain sprocket issue. All back together with the cam sensor plugged it in now runs as it should to. We also made an adjustment to the idle screw on the throttle body as well to help that as it was set too low.

After having been keeping my eye out for a 4.27 or 4.45 ratio LSD for a while, a 4.45 came up so I grabbed an opportunity to buy it. The 4.1 I currently have fitted is great but I wanted to just see what difference fitting the 4.45 would have and have the option there to change should I feel the need to. It's not the sort of item especially with this hard to find ratio that will lose value on what I paid for it.




The chap I bought it from did hill climbs in his car and had this diff paired up with an E36 318iS gearbox. Being a bit of a sucker I bought that and associated prop shaft and linkages as well as the price was reasonable. After putting some numbers into a spreadsheet however, it became apparent that with my rev limit; the E36 gearbox and 4.45 diff combo would bring my top speed down to ~108mph. Alarm bells started to ring as he had told me that his car had done ~120mph in the past and not to worry. It later transpired that his engine was a bit of a monster and revved to 8700rpm in comparison to my relatively standard 7000rpm.

Here's the E30 318iS gearbox comparison with 4.1 and 4.45 diff ratios:




And E36 318iS gearbox comparison with 4.1 and 4.45 diff ratios:



Quite a noticeable difference there, wouldn't be much help when heading down hanger straight at Silverstone to name just one example!

I decided to extend the table just to see what the difference was with this other engine revving to 8700rpm and it explained a lot:



Long story short I will more than likely be keeping the standard gearbox in and moving on the rest of the parts. I will hopefully get time to do a track day earlyish next year and will be able to do a back to back with the diffs and see what the differences are in practice.
Also if any one notices and blatant errors I've missed in those tables feel free to point them out so I can amend the spreadsheet

[milescook]

When you're thinking of track time if it's around your neck of the woods give me a shout, I may well join you.

[AdamGardner]

I run an e36 gearbox and a 4.445 lsd in my rally car and the gearing is great for my use, might be a little short for some circuits though.

[duracel79]

With gearing have a look here at the speeds the PBMW guys get at Snetterton, still one of the fastest straights you'll see.

http://www.tsl-timing.com/?loc=club&sea ... tid=144352

108.2mph for 320i in PBMW
114.9mph for a 325 in the TTRS race

I'd guess your 318is would be somewhere between the two, or hopefully for you a bit quicker



Regards

Duracel79

[rix313]

I run an e36 gearbox and a 4.445 lsd in my rally car and the gearing is great for my use, might be a little short for some circuits though.

With gearing have a look here at the speeds the PBMW guys get at Snetterton, still one of the fastest straights you'll see.

http://www.tsl-timing.com/?loc=club&sea ... tid=144352

108.2mph for 320i in PBMW
114.9mph for a 325 in the TTRS race

I'd guess your 318is would be somewhere between the two, or hopefully for you a bit quicker



Regards

Duracel79

Cheers for the input guys much appreciated

[rix313]

Quick update! The car has laid dormant under a cover since last year. A rare spare weekend has come up between my work and I have put an entry in for a CTCRC Pre 93 race at Donington on the 6/7th of June!

A couple of small jobs were required on the car. I fitted some switches to my dash. Only two of them are wired up at the moment. One powers the rad fan manual over ride and the other for my heater/demister. I also rewired my gauges as well so they are on an ignition fed live as opposed to being connected directly to the battery feed. Wired the switches up to the light comes on when the switch is active:




Lastly the other requirement was to fit my transponder which is what tells race control and the timing which car is which. I've used the redundant screen wash pump ignition live to power that and mounted it at the front:

[milescook]

Sexy panel Rich! I didn't realise transponders could go that high?

Good luck this weekend!

[Rob175kks]

Looked good going round mate, how did you find it?
(we spoke in the pits previous to your race)

[/img][img]

Few more photos of you & others here.....
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11720525@N06/

[trojen]

Sooo a little quick update. Dave the engine man came over a couple of weeks ago and corrected the timing chain sprocket issue. All back together with the cam sensor plugged it in now runs as it should to. We also made an adjustment to the idle screw on the throttle body as well to help that as it was set too low.

After having been keeping my eye out for a 4.27 or 4.45 ratio LSD for a while, a 4.45 came up so I grabbed an opportunity to buy it. The 4.1 I currently have fitted is great but I wanted to just see what difference fitting the 4.45 would have and have the option there to change should I feel the need to. It's not the sort of item especially with this hard to find ratio that will lose value on what I paid for it.




The chap I bought it from did hill climbs in his car and had this diff paired up with an E36 318iS gearbox. Being a bit of a sucker I bought that and associated prop shaft and linkages as well as the price was reasonable. After putting some numbers into a spreadsheet however, it became apparent that with my rev limit; the E36 gearbox and 4.45 diff combo would bring my top speed down to ~108mph. Alarm bells started to ring as he had told me that his car had done ~120mph in the past and not to worry. It later transpired that his engine was a bit of a monster and revved to 8700rpm in comparison to my relatively standard 7000rpm.

Here's the E30 318iS gearbox comparison with 4.1 and 4.45 diff ratios:




And E36 318iS gearbox comparison with 4.1 and 4.45 diff ratios:



Quite a noticeable difference there, wouldn't be much help when heading down hanger straight at Silverstone to name just one example!

I decided to extend the table just to see what the difference was with this other engine revving to 8700rpm and it explained a lot:



Long story short I will more than likely be keeping the standard gearbox in and moving on the rest of the parts. I will hopefully get time to do a track day earlyish next year and will be able to do a back to back with the diffs and see what the differences are in practice.

Also if any one notices and blatant errors I've missed in those tables feel free to point them out so I can amend the spreadsheet

I'm Running a 4.45 Medium Case LSD paired with the standard Getrag 240 box and the speeds in each gear seem spot on.

The optimistic speedo read 137 @ 7000rpm. GPS was around late 120's

The ratio in second can sometimes get annoying, a little to short. must be especially so with the 250 box.

[rix313]

Sexy panel Rich! I didn't realise transponders could go that high?

Good luck this weekend!

As long as it's pointing down mate it's fine lol. Don't think there's any real limit or reason not to have it higher up. I just had a couple of points to mount off of and a power source near by so thats that. My only advice for fitting one is fit it as far forward as you can

Looked good going round mate, how did you find it?
(we spoke in the pits previous to your race)

Cheers bud yeah it was good to see you and have a chat. First race was a bit of an experience which I shall explain about below.

I'm Running a 4.45 Medium Case LSD paired with the standard Getrag 240 box and the speeds in each gear seem spot on.

The optimistic speedo read 137 @ 7000rpm. GPS was around late 120's

The ratio in second can sometimes get annoying, a little to short. must be especially so with the 250 box.

Good to know thanks for the feedback! I'm keen to fit the diff after this weekend and see how the car is with it in there. Around the tight twisty UK circuits it's certainly an advantage to be able to accelerate faster. Around Donington at the weekend I think I was getting near 115MPH on the longest straight if I hooked up the previous two corners so will quite happily lose some top end MPH in return for better 0-60.


------


So after all this time my first race weekend has been and gone! What an experience. My prior experience with track driving has been a few flurries at Castle Combe (my local) and most airfield days because they were cheap and neigh on next door to my house. It feels great to have finally ventured out and driven a proper race track like Donington. I'd been for passenger laps before with a couple of the race teams I've worked with so I roughly knew which way to go.

Scrutineering: This was my first sort of worry. I knew I had built the car to regulation and it was just a matter of having a scrutineer cast their eye over the car and my safety equipment (helmet, boots, overalls, hans etc.). I had my fire extinguisher serviced before the event so that was all tip top and everything else was brand new so no drama's there. Dispite it being a lovely sunny day and the forecast for the Sunday was the same, I was asked to show them my 'rain light'. This can either be a single light in the centre or both standard fog lights. I am running the latter but for some reason they didn't work With little time a 'quick fix' was required but it got me through and I will have to investigate further at a later date.


Qualifying: I made sure I was 'fashionably late' for the assembly area so I was at the very back as we went out on track. This way I wouldn't be getting in any ones way early on and I could find my way round. The first few qualy laps were very steady. Just taking in the feel of the circuit and its characteristics. I set a time of 2:04:237 which put me 15th out of 21 on the grid. Happy days can't ask for any more or less than that!


Race 1: This didn't go to plan. On my way to the grid my brake pedal went very very long and any heavy pressure caused the rears to lock up. The fluid was quite old and I suspect may have boiled during the qualifying session. To ensure I didn't DNF (or worse DNS) my first race, I made the decision to just take it steady and get to the flag. This way I also get my first signature on my novice national B licence. The part of the grid I was on had a lot of novices but they had done races before. On the green flag lap I focused on getting the tyres warm and trying to get a feel for how I could use what little brakes I had. Queuing up on the grid and keeping an eye on the red lights waiting for them to go out. Out they go and off I went, 1st.........4th..... crap, find a gear any gear! 2nd! during that little curfuffle I naturally just want backwards and ended up right at the back. In all fairness I was happy with that what with the braking issue, I could properly keep out of every ones way. There was however one issue with that plan in the shape of a class E Honda CRX which was almost going slower than me, did he have the same issue?? Eventually he left such a wide gap I overtook him going into red gate corner. Other than that it was, as you can imagine, pretty boring affair. The positives to take were I had a practice at starting (ballsed it up), actually overtook some one and then when it came to the much more powerful cars blasting through to lap me, a bit of practice with dealing with traffic. Soon enough the chequered flag came out and I could breathe a sigh of relief! into the paddock and while the car was hot, a good thorough brake bleed and fluid flush to get the old crap and any air out!


Race 2: A much more enjoyable affair although I was nervous as anything whilst waiting to go to assembly. I had made a bit of a set up change in the shape of a few extra clicks on the dampers to stiffen the car up a little as it had been rather soft. Starting from near enough the back this time, I only had ground to gain over the cars in front. Green flag lap this time was more vigorous getting the temperature into the brakes and tyres. Queued up on the grid again watching the lights *don't put it in 4th, don't put it in 4th*. Lights out....1st......4th.....bollocks....2nd.... ah I'm at the back again . Never mind push on. By the time we got to Red gate I was back with the pack and made up a place as we exited and made our way down the Craner Curves. closely following a VW Scirocco and passing him on the back straight on the opening lap still. After him was the Honda CRX and an Alfa Romeo having a tussle which I caught up to about half a lap later. The pair were being very feisty shall we say and I didn't want to get caught up in any silliness. Sure enough though a lap later, the Honda put a wheel on the grass which fired him sideways across the front of me. As he did he also clipped the back of the Alfa causing him to go into the grass too. I slowed to avoid collection either of them and made my way through the gap to take both their places. With that one car remained in near distant view. A Rover P6 3.5L. Me and him had been on the same row of the grid for race one but he had a gearbox issue so didn't make the race. 2 laps later I was behind him and going on the attack! His 3.5L engine certainly had the legs on the straight but it was woefully bad in the corners and this is where I made up my time on him. For the last 3 or so laps of the race we had a fantastic battle. My car nimble in the corners but his car having the grunt certainly made for an exciting end to the race for us. I made a mistake coming out of the hairpin on the Melbourne loop and caused the rear end to get very snappy, this enabled him to get past me and it was up to me to chase him down. We spent most of that lap side by side. It all came down the the finally corner, he was in front and it in all honesty was his place. He went super defensive into the final hairpin and locked his brakes, in doing so he over shot the corner and went onto the grass leaving me to keep it clean and claim the place back right before the flag. Afterwards in Parc Ferme we had a great chat an the two guys who had the earlier contact came over and were talking about the race too.


Sum up: to round up quickly I had an amazing weekend. It started a little stressful I must admit but by the end I just wanted to get back in and go again. My track day experience is fairly limited as mentioned above however I cannot ever see a track day fulfilling the same feeling that the racing did. Sure it's expensive to get started in and the track time is substantially less in comparison, but there is nothing like being able to race other people. It sounds strange but it took a bit of time to sink in that 'oh I can overtake this person and hound them for a position', as opposed to the track day rules of only over take on one side and with consent etc.


For now some photo's which my dear mother took:














Hopefully some on track pics will surface soon!

[Altrezia]

Nice work Rich! Glad you had a safe and fun weekend. Motorsport is a terrible illness and I'm so sorry you're infected.

[LondonTom]

Nice one Rich!

[milescook]

Great stuff '...everything else is just waiting'