An e30 race car is born

[JimmyC]

The light is at the end of the tunnel!!! and for the first time in 2 years I can see it!!!

And I thought as I found Gary (northloop) 's trackday car thread such an interesting read, i'd wade through the mountain of pics I have of various stages of the 2 year build on my PBMW race car, as some of you may be interested.

I took the car to the bodyshop yesterday for all bodywork and paint to be finished so as I say the end is near!!

It may have taken 11 1/2 hours in the car yesterday to get it to sunny South Wales and me back, but knowing that on 15th September I will be popping back to see it all in primer and prefitted made it all worthwhile!!

Then it will only be another 2 weeks before I go back to collect it in its blingy 2 tone paint scheme!!

I'm so relieved that its finally coming together, hoping to have it out in October/November for some fun once I've refitted all the mechanics back on/in (thats right its a rolling shell AGAIN!!!)

I'll start on getting all the pics up today/tomorrow and it will probably run into next week as theres loads!!

Watch this space

[JimmyC]

Before digging into the build details I feel a before pic is needed

The dagenham dustbin, picked the car up for a grand old sum of £450 from dagenham (an ebay bargain!)

So much of a bargain that I got a princley sum of £650 for all the kit, sports interior and other bits that I dont need in a race car!!

So started off £200 in pocket with a free car

[blingsta]

this sounds a good read !! waiting for pics dude

[JimmyC]

Right first jobs, off with the money makers!! Sold the entire kit to a guy in Ireland for nice money

So M Tech spoiler off



Rear kit off, lovely weather and working on the drive



Check out the lovely rear lights!!!



Front kit off, and a lovely butchered front valance, and towing eyes chopped off!!

[JimmyC]

The "depimping continued"

The addition of a new valance (in my early e30 ignorance I bought a post facelift one- DOH!)



The side kit came off, in lots of small pieces, its fitting was terrible, real cowboy job!!



Time to swap those nasty rear lights!!



Bit of 2 tone primer for the short term





And a nice pair of chrome bumpers





and there you have it, a de pimped if slightly shabby base for the race car project!!

[JimmyC]

Right next up was the strip down, strip it and strip it bare!!!

All the interior out, seats, carpet, belts, doorcards, headlining, you name it it came out, only thing to go back in dashboard basically!!

Once all the carpets removed, all the lovely tarboard has to come out- not a nice job!! A heat gun and wallpaper scrapper make easy work of it, then all remaining gunk removed with a mixture of thinners, petrol, HIGH as a kite!

Seats out!





Dash and a wiring headache!!!







Before the loom all goes back in this time round I may just get a new loom and start again, as its soldered together in so many places!

The fuse box has been relocated inside the car as the roll cage runs through where thats normally placed- more on that later!!

So at this stage I have a completely bare shell inside!!

[northloop]

Great stuff Jimmy

[keri-WMS]

Looking good! Get yourself a mask if you use any more thinners / petrol - Halfords-who-are-everywhere do an "ok" twin cartridge one, it'll stop most vapours, helping you see straight when scraping the car, and live a bit longer too...

[Lloydie38]

Loving this - Keep it going fella

[northloop]

Did you take any weight out of the rear panel Jimmy? The one that sits behind the rear seats.

[JimmyC]

Did you take any weight out of the rear panel Jimmy? The one that sits behind the rear seats.

Cage pics up next ;) but basically the parcel shelf was butchered by the previous boy racer for his 6 x 9's, and the ski hatch removed for his sub !!

When the cage was originally fitted large sections were cut out to allow for the cage to pass through the bulkhead- this is how the car is at the moment

BUT I got a donor car the other week and have removed the entire bulkhead and parcel shelf to go into my car. So no material will be removed from here.

Mainly because our regs dont allow it and secondly IMO it provides a fair amount of structural strength across the car

[shorty73]

What are you going to be entering it in?

[JimmyC]

Its a Production BMW car, so will be out in that next season

The build is coming on quicker than my photos at the mo, car now has a roof, new arches, and sills.......Will catch up on the write up today

[JimmyC]

Right next jobs are 2 fold, cage for the professionals (Dave Kear @ MTech) and running gear for me

So car up in the air (my mates quiet short but the cars went nice and high for easy)



Before dave can do the cage, the fuel tank needs to come out, so off with exhaust and prop and out with the tank

Back on the floor off to Daves workshop, and once back in the air off with all the running gear to start the rebuild on all of that

So first up the front control arms





First up remove the old bushes, fire in the hole!



Quick wire brush on the arms



Then a lick of paint and the new powerflex bush on



I have sinced changed from the powerflex bushed to BMW M3 bushes dues to a number of bush failures seen last year

Next up the rear beam



Bushes out



Quick wire brush



Lick of paint



And new powerflex rear bushes



Whilst out I converted to rear disks rather than nasty drums

New disk railing arms:



And finally once all back on, the suspension was changed to GAZ coilovers all round and new bearings fitted on all 4 corners

[JimmyC]

I dont have many pics of the cage install, but heres a few of the finished item, once the cars back from the body shop i'll get some better pics

Its a Custom cage, and a serious piece of kit, I took this route at the time as SD had gone under and couldn't supply cages

It is when fitted correctly by someone like Dave Kear @ M Tech its the safest and best cage around IMO, but useless if fitted by a numpty without a clue.

If your on a budget I'd say SD cage is an easier cheaper fit, if you want that extra rigidity through the shell then Custom cages are the way to go.

[JimmyC]

Its also just had a new engine fitted, well the forth one!!!!

After getting the cage etc in, the car went out for a bit of a shakedown, which turned into a breakdown!!

Did number 6 big end on first original engine, that got binned built nice new engine. That after some testing proved to have a cracked head, so I opted for a completely brand new head!!!

Next outing showed that the car had a duff rad that caused it to over heat this was masked previously due to the head being cracked, so instead of over heating it was venting out the cracked head/exhaust.

New rad in, and next outing picks up number 6 again!! Probably caused by over heating and duff rad!!

It now has another new bottom end, with the additioin of a 325 oil cooler system, which will need running in when the cars back in one piece!!!

[JimmyC]

Right that brings us up to about where i'm at, at the moment and the car heading off to the bosy shop last Wednesday!!

All loaded up with not alot left on it and nothing at all in it!!



Few Parts inside



Loads of wheels in the boot!



Bodywork wise its got the below to be sorted before paint:

New roof skin to go on



New rear wheel arches to go on
New sills to go on
New rear bulkhead and parcel shelf to go in
Big holes in the floor to be welded up
Then general prep and primer on entire car, inside and out

plus a few little trick bits but not revealing them yet ;)

[JimmyC]

Just had my first progress report and pics from Al, cant believe how much he has done in 2 days!!

"The rear panel is properly welded in to the boot floor and the o/s boot floor finished correctly.

The roof is on - spot welded down the channels & apertures & seam welded at the pillers. I've also repaired some damage to the inner o/s/f piller which must have got cut through in error when the previous guy removed the roof. (that was me :wall)

The n/s sill is done, & the outer rear quarter panel is on (the covering part of the rear sill area) and the n/s rear arch panel has been cut out, the inner bowl cleaned up & repaired at the base & the new arch fitted."

[JimmyC]

Got another update today

"Cut out the rear bulkhead assy & unpicked the replacement.

All cleaned back & welded in."

The new bulkhead and parcel shelf curtosy of the donor car niggy cave me

I can honestly say removing the bulk head and parcel shelf is the worst job i've had to do on the car- an entire day, with a grinder, air chisel, and a sledge hamme!!

[northloop]

As you know I have the same cage Jimmy. It's hard to see from the pics where you have tied it to the body?

Great thread by the way

[JimmyC]

I haven't yet mate ;)

Its being tied in down the a pillars, b pillars and finally across the front bulkhead behind the dash

The inside will be chemically stripped of all paint, before it gets its proper paint job inside

Depending on how the car handles, I may over winter 2009 modify the cage further, to tie it into the rear axle mounts and diff mount

[JimmyC]

Just had my nice armtech electrical battery isolator delivered, dont get much for you money do you

Anyone looking at getting one, Rally design are £30 cheaper than DT or anyone else (y)

[HairyScreech]

getting lots of no shows on the pictures

[keri-WMS]

www.e30motorsport.co.uk : "This account has exceeded it's bandwidth quota and has been temporarily disabled."

Heads-up that the server has shut you down by the looks of it, the price of popularity eh!!

Try smaller images, and / or a bit more compression if needs be...

[zimm_zimmer]

hey mate this may of been covered but the pictures are not showing anymore so what you doing with the bumpers, are you refitting them or selling them and what are they??

[JimmyC]

Arse!!! will look at increasing the bandwidth on the account now

[JimmyC]

Right bandwidth increased, hows best to compress the images?

Do I need to compress the files being hosted? If so what size will still be good for web?

TIA

Jimmy

[northloop]

You can reduce the size of the files using something like photoshop or whatever your computer has on it? Go for something like 800 x 533 in size and you will be fine.

If you dont have that then use someone like photobucket (online) as your picture hoster and pick the reduced size option as you upload.

I look forward to reading more on your build

[keri-WMS]

imageshack.us are good (and free) as well, I use them a lot....

[HairyScreech]

there all working nicly now. good bit of work there.

[Jon_Bmw]

Jimmy whats your target for its completion? The cage is seriously impressive, but please don't test it out on the first race

Would be nice to catch up with you at one of the PBMW races to have a look at the car and to say thanks for all the tickets I've had off you

[JimmyC]

Deadlines are as follows:

All welding due to be completed this week
All body prep inside and out, primmer and dummy fit 15th Sept- I then have to go over with the next pile of cash and make sure everything is just how I want it
Then a further week or 2 for the paint job inside and out, refit and some other little bits

So car back to me end of september

On its return I have the following to do:

Petrol tank back in
Prop back on
Exhaust back on
Change front bushes
Spanner check everything underneath

Then back on the floor
Pedal assembly back in
heater box back in
rewire the entire car to include (start buttons, all warning lights, electric FX and electric cut off)
Fit and run FX tubing
refit dash
hopefully start it
then do all fluids, stick the new disks and pads I have on it

Job done, MOT and run in new engine

My target date is to get it on track November 12th at Goodwood, so on the road end October

Biggest job when back is the wiring loom, but I plan to start that at the weekend - deep joy!!

I should be at Oulton Sept 29th just spectating and getting stuff ready for the end of season doo that night, not racing til next year.

Talking of tickets, Thruxton freebies about to be posted up

[northloop]

I live 3 miles from Thruxton. If you have tickets going begging I would be interested

[JimmyC]

Gary U2U me your address and i'll send you 2 off, wont be there myself but wander round the paddockk and make yourself known

[northloop]

I have replied Jimmy.

Thank you very much