318iS race car - back on track

[rix313]

I've got a week off this week so going to get a few jobs done and ticked off the ever growing job list. Yesterday and today I spent making the air pipes for the heater box. Pretty happy with the results and routing of the pipes. I've plumbed in the side 'face' vents so that I can aim them at the side windows if they steam up.






Passenger side:




Drivers side. The section which goes behind the clocks required flattening with a mallet but it all fits very nicely:






The engine is coming out tomorrow and going off to the builder to have some work done. I'll then be cracking on with getting the windows fitted and a few other jobs wrapped up

[Demlotcrew]

Heater looks good! Just needs some fresh air ducting to it

[rix313]

Going to make a panel to go over the hole in the bulkhead and then put a bit of ducting from there to the matrix. There are a couple of bits I need to blank off where some of the air is escaping the wrong way at the moment, it feels a little limp in the middle of the windscreen vents.

[Motorhole]

All looks really neat and tidy mate.

[Demlotcrew]

Going to make a panel to go over the hole in the bulkhead and then put a bit of ducting from there to the matrix. There are a couple of bits I need to blank off where some of the air is escaping the wrong way at the moment, it feels a little limp in the middle of the windscreen vents.

Sounds like you need to stack another fan on there, and reduce the ID of the hose going to the screen. (To increase air velocity).

[rix313]

I shall have a play with it at some point, I've looked at how I'm going to wire it up so once that's done can have a play.

Spent today doing more bits and bobs. Changed the prop centre bearing, measured the spacer for front tow strap, put arrow stickers on aero catches, dash clocks and surrounds refitted, tied up a bit of wiring, fitted the fuel pump and took the engine out and took it over to the chap who's going to be doing some work on it for me.

[rix313]

Just a couple of pics I took in between the rain before I left today. The rear windows are in, I've left the polythene on them for the time being so they don't get damaged while I'm still working on it:




And I did my cage padding too:




Wasn't the exciting Got quite a bit on with work over the next month so I won't be able to get back and work on the car. I have ordered a few bits to be getting on with while I'm away though such as a Corsa C steering linkage to bastardise into something I can use with my E46 steering rack and M42 engine; some carbon to make my dash insert and ordering and fitting some new studs to my uprated engine mounts.

[rix313]

A few little jobs sorted today. First was fitting my tow strap. I mounted it by using a 120mm long M12 cap head bolt and a 25mm spacer:




And a mate of mine came over with his welder and we got the sunroof panel tack welded in. Next job for that is to paint the edges of the panel and silicone seal around the gap. It did burn the paint a little on a couple of the tacks so will have to sort that as well.

[AdamGardner]

Hi mate, I used a structural bond type sealant on my sunroof after tacking it in place, made by soudal. Highly recommended by a mate of mine who is a welder by trade! He reckons its as strong as a weld??!! It also painted over well.
What sort of engine work are you having done? Im currently getting my parts together for an 2.1 m42 build for a rally car

[Neilios]

[quote="AdamGardner"]Hi mate, I used a structural bond type sealant on my sunroof after tacking it in place, made by soudal. Highly recommended by a mate of mine who is a welder by trade! He reckons its as strong as a weld??!! It also painted over well.
What sort of engine work are you having done? Im currently getting my parts together for an 2.1 m42 build for a rally car[/quote

I agree, Sika or Tiger seal is strong and watertight. Nice build.

[rix313]

We use a 3M 2 part chassis glue at work for repairing stuff. It's like concrete when it sets and is what things like the Aston Martin aluminium tubs are bonded together with. I did think of using that but it took about half an hour from start to finish to do this. I've got some tiger seal some where in the garage so I will be using that Sadly 'er indoors' was kicking off so I had to retreat back inside the house and didn't have a chance to do it all in one hit haha!

With regards the engine nothing crazy. It was a race engine already which I bought from another zoner. It had an oil leak so I decided to get it stripped down and inspected. It's a good job I did as all the exhaust valves were bent and a few pretty badly! As for the basic spec of it though he's recutting the valves and valve seats, balanced crank, billet steel flywheel and clutch assembly, all components chemicaly cleaned and painted, crank polished. It's also got some Delta reground cams going back in which were fitted previously. The engine came with a live mapped ECU and it was around 155bhp. I'm hoping that being properly timed up, with no bent valves (and therefore proper compression!!), the steel flywheel and maybe a few tweaks on the rolling road I can see a bit more than that! Here's a picture of the block he sent me last week:

[Demlotcrew]

Any more information on this 3M chassis epoxy?

Will need some for my sunroof install.

[rix313]

I forgot to in the truck today but I will remember to have a look tomorrow when we load one of the cars. We just call it chassis glue but I've banged that in google and got nothing back. We buy it from Trident Racing Supplies at Silverstone. It's expensive though and comes in giant tubs, not sure if they do a scaled down version.

On another note I was bored las night and ended up buying more toys for the car. I decided to get some aluminium side mounts for the seat to replace the woefully heavy steel ones; a selection of aluminium nuts and bolts from Probolt to mount various items; a roll cage mount for the Go Pro and finally an Eibach anti roll bar kit

[rix313]

Had a mega day in the garage today, having a couple of weeks to hoard and plan has been handy! Where to begin!?

Fitted my Corsa/E30 linkage for my E46 rack. Also changed the nuts on the rack bolts to proper K nuts:




My fabricator mate poped over again and welded my turret reinforcement places in. Once that was done I got to painting:






Dad was feeling in a helpful/bored mood so he wandered outside and decided he wanted to seal the sunroof up so I left him to it




Also finally got round to making my carbon facia for the dash centre console:




Bought myself some proper battery cable cutters and crimpers and sorted my battery cables out with anderson plug. Then did the bits under the dash too:






Hello cheeky




Didn't hang about getting them fitted






Not bad for a days work IMO


Apparently it's Christmas tomorrow and I have to go in the house and be with family n stuff??? Wana get back out there now and get the other bits done

[AdamGardner]

looking good, get back in the garage and bolt some more shinys on! im hoping to get my wiring harness back in mine over christmas and start bolting some other stuff back together

[milescook]

Excellent choice of battery

[rix313]

looking good, get back in the garage and bolt some more shinys on! im hoping to get my wiring harness back in mine over christmas and start bolting some other stuff back together

I will be burying myself away in there again tomorrow Windows, fuel tank and a few other bits are on the agenda! It's nice to finally start cracking on, looking back at the picture of when I got it back with the cage in to now, and seeing the progress

Have you done a special harness or chopped down the standard one?

Excellent choice of battery

it's the same one I fitted just over a year ago. I've got a couple of spare ones on the shelf just incase

[AdamGardner]

just took a standard harness and removed all the extra wiring for the bits not needed. then added back in the auxillary stuff for the extra bits as its a car for rallying, so lamps, trip meters, electric fans etc.
im on the job of making up a dash cluster like the prodrive e30s with seperate gauges and shift light etc for today or tomorrows task.
i have had a good look through your build as my car simular i the respect i want to retain a 4 cylinder engine on a standard inlet for my class, so m42.
some nice touches on your car i have to say!

[rix313]

Ah cool. I've got some extra bits I need to hook up (transponder, heater, leccy fan, rain light etc). I'm going to steal some of the live feeds from items I've removed but I do want build a chassis loom in the future and properly minimise it. I'm waiting on some gauges from SPA but it's a bit of a back door job so they aren't in any hurry to get them sorted for me

Gotta say I'm pretty happy with the spec of the car. There's quite a few nice bits on it but I've achieved it by being cheeky and asking for discounts and making use of working in Motorsport any way and knowing people

You got a thread going for your build?

[AdamGardner]

not yet its on the bmw rallying forum but heres a taster.

[rix313]

Look forward to seeing more

Today I tackled my bulkhead blanking panel. Such a 'simple' panel, which no one will ever see certainly tested my patients today! Any way, it's finished so I can tick it off and chill! Mounted to the panel is the ECU and also a cold air feed for the heater box.










And a nice easy one was to bolt up the wide mirror. Even though my cage is 45mm and I bought the mirror kit to fit 45mm tube, the brackets were too tight and did not fit very well. So I used a barrel sander on a die grinder to open it up a bit so it fits around the tube.

[rix313]

Gave the drivers side floor and seat rails a going over with paint so I am ready to bolt the seat in when my new aluminium runners arrive.




'Cracked on' and got my windscreen back in and fitted the front door windows. All sealed up now




Also got the fuel tank back in and all connected up and ready to go Going to wrap up a few more little jobs tomorrow and then will be collecting the engine monday

[Altrezia]

Cracking looking build. Wish mine was as nice

[LondonTom]

Hi Mate - where did you get your electric heater/fan from - mine is bloody freezing without one!!

[rix313]

The heater is from Demon Tweeks. As I said previously it's not the power of the standard heater box, its basically just a 12v computer fan. I do have the drivers side vent plumbed in though incase I get chilly haha!

Couple of bits done today. I built up my lower inlet manifold with a set of serviced injectors (done by our friends at www.injectortune.co.uk) and also fuel rail which I wrapped with gold heat shield to try and keep the temperatures down in the rail.




Also wrapped the exhaust in Titanium heat wrap. It was custom made on the car and does hug the underside of the car quite well. To prevent any thermal issues I decided to cover it:






Finally plucked up the courage to take the protective wrapping off the windows from www.templarperformance.co.uk, pushed it outside and see how it looks. The front is still high as obviously there is no engine.








Collect the engine tomorrow

[rix313]

Picked this up yesterday. Red, black and white, even matches the colour scheme of the car It was done by www.dyengineservices.co.uk top service so far very very happy.





Will be dressing and fitting it tomorrow exciting stuff.

[Demlotcrew]

Fresh

[AdamGardner]

very nice!!!

[Altrezia]

That looks sharp - nice work

[rix313]

Hope it's as fast as it looks haha! It was supposed to be going in today, sadly it won't be going in for a while, until my flywheel is sorted I bought a light weight steal flywheel from TTV but when I went to bolt it on today I noticed the standard bolts were only biting on the first couple of threads. Baffled, I sat down with my collection on flywheels, bolts and an array of measuring equipment to find out the problem. There were 2 issues. One was that the centre of the TTV flywheel was 14mm, the standard is 9mm. So that explains the reason the bolts are too short. Second was when I had a look to see if I could simply source some longer bolts, I noticed that the head of the bolt sat higher than the 'drive face' of the flywheel, so the clutch pate would sit on the head of the bolts! A few phone calls to and from TTV which included rather annoying questions to do with whether my stock of flywheels, bolts and clutches I had were 'OEM' spec because what I have doesn't match their drawing Any way in the end I agreed to send them a standard flywheel to amend their drawings to and my seemingly useless TTV one back so they can modify it or scrap it and replace with a new one. So thats buggered the running and drivable before I go back to work idea, such is life

I still got on with painting the manifolds and other parts and getting them bolted on. I had built up the lower manifold but I stripped it and painted it black along with the top half because it looked rubbish in the standard rustic silver. Also painted the oil filter housing, alternator brackets and engine mounts. Fitted the alternator and PAS pump along with new belts. On the other side I replaced the heat wrap with new thinner neater stuff which the rest of my exhaust is covered in. I just need to order some new studs and nuts for it which I now have time to do. Also got some bolts the right length for the uprated Vorshlag engine mounts and popped them on too.






That's all folks, doubt there will be any more now for a while, had a good run these past 2 weeks just a shame it's stopped here

[rix313]

Credit where credit is due, TTV turned around my flywheel pretty quickly all things considered and it arrived back today. They machined the mounting holes to accept the bolts with the perfect amount of tolerance for a socket. I can't bolt it on as my bits from BMW haven't arrived but I have a weekend lined up to nail it. This is before:




This is after:








This is one of the reasons that having the engine inspected and rebuilt proved to be extremely worth while:




Finally for this week I fitted my Laranca quick release steering boss. I had previously bought a cheaper one on eBay thinking it was the product of a more expensive brand but it proved to be utter toss and frankly dangerous so I have replaced it with this. Tis rock 'ard!

[rix313]

I was at Autosport today and I got a picture through from dad. My bits from BMW arrived



Ready to fire it in and fire it up when I go back

[shedrool83]

Engine looks awesome.

[rix313]

All down to ma man Dave at www.dyengineservices.co.uk

In preparation for it all coming together I've booked 2 track days at Keevil airfield (5 miles from my house ) with www.motorsport-events.co.uk which should help me rack some miles up to run the engine in before I take it to Paul at Circuit Motors a.k.a. 'ShepsEvo3' for mapping and power runs

[Hoobs]

I had the exact same issue with an eBay quick release boss. Might have to copy your solution.

Might be dropping down to see Paul myself, so he can give my M3 a once over. Be nice to time it right and have a nose around your car.