E30 M52 Track car -UPDATED

[redcar]

...

[johnmaccow]

Very nice work mate.
How does it do on the track?

[rix313]

Looks good man. How's the cage coming on? What rear discs did you use?

[Mikey_Boy]

Excellent stuff...!

I am sure I will be shot down in flames for asking this, but how did you lower the steering rack? Easy job or a PITA?

[redcar]

Hello, thanks guys.

It's good fun on the track. Now that i've taken it on track I have a short list of improvements to make. Most importantly I need to raise the seating position slightly as I'm struggling to see out of the car. Also, I would like to get some stiffer springs for the coilovers but for the time being the 'soft' setup should help me get a bit of a feel for the car as I haven't driven it on track much.

I do want to get a cage but I'm a bit unsure whether to go for a quick bolt in solution or take the headlining out, delete the sunroof and strip most of the inside and go for a proper weld in with turret triangulation etc. Time will tell...My brother has a custom cages one for his white e30 so when the weather warms up a bit we will see how nicely that all goes together
The rear discs are custom.

Mikey the steering rack isn't lowered. It's just an e46 067 rack with the spacers above the rack. However, I have lowered the steering column a great deal and have got a deep dish steering wheel on there. My seat is also very close to the floor as you can see. That's all done in an attempt to improve the driving position. I'm nearly there, but I just need to raise the seat up very slightly so I can see the front of the car.

Cheers,
Harjun.

[Mikey_Boy]

^^^^ Sorry - I meant the steering column!!

I am keen to do the same so just wondered how you did that to aid the driving position...

Cheers!

[tha881]

Nice work. Are they 15" BBS, they look bigger to me. It could just be an illusion as they are sprayed black!

[redcar]

Hi Mikey, quite difficult to explain but it's quite obvious when you take a look.

Cheers mate, yep standard bbs which have been spayed black.

[rix313]

I put 15mm spacers on my column put the wheel in a nice place. Yours looks quite a bit lower though.

The rear discs are custom.

Who did them? Black Diamond said it would be about £30 extra to drill a set of E46 blank discs for E30 fitment which I didn't think was too bad.

[redcar]

I put 15mm spacers on my column put the wheel in a nice place. Yours looks quite a bit lower though.

The rear discs are custom.

Who did them? Black Diamond said it would be about £30 extra to drill a set of E46 blank discs for E30 fitment which I didn't think was too bad.

I've forgotten now dude, sorry. That price seems decent! Will bear that in mind for the future.

Short skid video. Didn't manage to get any decent onboard footage as unfortunately the GoPro ran out of battery quite early on.
Car probably isn't going to do any more drift days. Just did one day so I could get to grips with the car.

[youtube][/youtube]

[redcar]

Well, did another drift day at Snetterton

made a couple of changes since last time. Metal thermostat housing, new metal waterpump and new 88C thermostat. Raised the seating position a bit and some changes to geometry.
Thinking of upping the springs rates, especially on the rear. ATM they're 8Kg front and 6Kg rear (with inboard spring so a lower effective rate).

Heres a video of the drifting. Think i need to upgrade the engine mounts as the gearstick seems to be moving around quite a bit. They are new e21 gearbox mounts and new e28 m5 cylindrical engine mounts.
[youtube][/youtube]




thanks to the photographers.








https://www.facebook.com/AdamRousPhotography?fref=ts



https://www.facebook.com/AdamRousPhotography?fref=ts

[redcar]

Did a grip track day at Snetterton last weekend. Was great, had lots of fun.

The pin that holds the shifter linkage on to the geearbox fell off in the morning. Very random. Got that fixed though and enjoyed the rest of the day. Otherwise, the car was faultless! Was really impressed with the power the M52 was pushing out. After 4K RPM it just wants to rev all the way! Would like to get some S52 cams in there to give it even more top end.

Got some more updates planned for the car;

Roll cage and full respray of interior
Three pedal bias pedal box
Harder spring rates
Anti roll bars
Possibly some aero

Then eventually some fender flares and run 17s with a proper tyre size rather than 195s.

Here are some pictures from the day, no gopro footage unfortunately;

[SJW]

Cracking motor

[redcar]

Cheers mate,

Did a track day at silverstone a few weeks back. Track was wet and my r888s were basically on the canvas so there was little grip.

Car needs a fair few things soon (cage, pedal box, change in spring rates and anti roll bars).

[redcar]

The car has come along a lot over the past month.
It was last used at the northloop Rockingham day which was early 2015. Unfortunately one of the valve caps snapped and it bent a valve. The car sat outside for a year and a half looking pretty sorry for itself.

Made a short list of what had to be done to get the car roadworthy again;

Sourced a nice, low mileage steel liner replacement engine for only £150 which was popped in one weekend.
Bought a safety devices roll cage.
Restored the braking setup back to a servo and master cylinder using brand new ATE e32 750i master cylinder, clio servo and a wilwood proportioning valve.
Replace mechanic handbrake setup.

So to start with, Karan came round and did all the rust removal and welding up of the jacking pads.
Later in the week we made the boxes for the roll cage to sit on and those were welded in also.










I have never sprayed the interior of this car before, but on my quest to make it a more presentable road/track car I thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to do it now.
So I spent two days rubbing down the inside of the car with red scotchbrite pads to get it looking like this.




Ordered some colour matched BMW 308 brilliantred paint and sprayed the inside of the car.
The interior was all refitted carefully and necessary parts tidied up along the way. Also fit my DTM steering wheel.
That got us up to this point and I was quite happy with the results;





With the interior nearly sorted I set my attention to rectifying the badly faded paint. The paint was beyond saving with a simple hand polish. So with some advice I bought a 3M fast cut cutting compound with the 3M green compound pad and DA polished the whole car. This took 3 full days but I am more than happy with the results.
After cutting with the 3M fast cut, I used Autoglym super resin polish on a softer pad and then used a good few coats of Mer wax.
I also fit new front wings and again, was pretty happy with the colour match.











And that's where we're up to now with the car. I only have a few small jobs remaining here and there to get it completely up to scratch. Unfortunately I don't have as much time to work on the car as my holidays are over, but I hope to get these done fairly quickly as they aren't long/complicated jobs.
- Shorten ignition loom and loom earth in engine bay
- New engine earth strap
- Fit new alternator as current one has packed up
- Refit sump guard
- Fit road tyres on BBS wheels
- Fit mechanical handbrake
- Paint bottom of front wings black
- Tighten up roll cage and fit padding
- Restore all the plastic trim on the car

Thank you for reading,
Harjun.

[DanThe]

Looks loads better, I would definitely invest in some UV wax

[redcar]

Looks loads better, I would definitely invest in some UV wax

Thank you
I googled UV protection waxes but couldn't find a recommended/proven one. The wax I used says it protects from UV rays but then I think they all say that anyway. Open to any recommendations of what people have used to prevent fading

Car sits under a cover now so hopefully it shouldn't fade. Ideally need to park it in the garage tbh.

[rix313]

I can't believe it faded that much Wowsers. Amazing what you can bring back though. Cage looks good too.