Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Vorshlag BMW E36 Development + Project Hellrotten

Collapse
X
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Vorshlag BMW E36 Development + Project Hellrotten

    Project Introduction - July 31, 2024: Some of you are reading this "new" E36 thread might be wondering, how is this new? The E36 chassis has been out for 33 years - the 1992 model brought the E36 chassis to our shores, and 1995 model brought the E36 M3 - but we don't have a single unified "E36 Development" forum thread that is still active.


    This is a teaser of where we are with Project Hellrotten in October of 2024 - full suspension upgrade, 4-point bar, seats, & 265mm tires

    All of our old E36 forum threads are now lost or just fizzled out about 14 years ago, when we last owned one and quit making updates to those threads. Of course Vorshlag has worked on countless E36 cars, and even owned several examples of the E36 chassis. We have even written project threads for each of those and most of them are "lost to history" now (on forums we no longer frequent).



    The "for sale" thread for our unicorn "no sunroof / M-technic interior" Silver 1997 M3 coupe (top left) is still around (here). I thought we got good money for that car when we sold it in 2011, but the new owner saw this red M3 build and offered to sell it back to me!


    Don't ever look at a car in the rain - the paint ALWAYS looks great when it is wet. The paint was totally fried on this 1995 M3 once dry

    We now have a "new" E36 project in the shop, the 1995 Hellrot red M3 coupe shown above. I figured it was a good time to start an E36 "Development" thread, which ties in old projects and new, and we have already made numerous new E36 related parts using this car. We will gather the data we have from working with this chassis over the last 20 years and put it into one easy to search forum thread.


    This is what we started with on the "barn find" we now call on Project Hellrotten - a ratty 1995 M3 that had no clear coat and a lot off issues

    We rescued this car from a long term "non-running" status and have turned into a street legal track car in a couple of months of work. If you want to learn more about this barn rescue to race car, and about other E36 tricks we have done over the years, maybe this is your forum thread. We will keep updating our 1995 M3 build here but also bring back some previous E36 chassis work we have done - and sometimes E46 work, which is often nearly the same.

    And while this was posted in November 2024, I mostly finished this update July 31st - and that is where the project updates mostly stop.

    PROJECT HELLROTTEN - INITIAL INSPECTIONS

    Back in July of 2020, a customer reached out about this red 1995 BMW M3 his brother had owned, which was parked in a military barracks lot for "a number of years" in the sun, and not running. It ran when parked, but we know how that usually turns out. I first looked at the M3 on a rainy day (some of the pictures in the section above), and was somewhat smitten...



    But I know a wet car always looks good, so we went back on a dry day and saw the poor condition of the paint in a better light. We haggled over price, I let the seller think about it for a few days, then once we came to a number we could all live with, Amy and I hauled it back to Vorshlag HQ. We were SLAMMED at the time so we left it next to our many "potentials" parked outside the shop, under car covers.



    Somehow FOUR. YEARS. WENT. BY. That's right, time snuck up on me! On July 10, 2024 we finally had room in our schedule to bring this car in for a look. We dragged it over to the shop with my tractor and realized that the extra 4 years waiting outside had done the car no favors. We washed it off then pushed it into the shop to take a closer look - to see whether this could be a restored M3 or a race car candidate. Once I saw that it had 214K miles on the odometer, plus the condition of the paint and interior, the restoration plans were thrown out.




    We looked closely at the interior, the exterior, engine bay, underneath, and more. I began factoring in costs to fully restore this car, and researched what they are bringing on the market with 214K miles. It became clear that restoring this in stock form made no sense from a financial perspective. It needed too much time / parts / money for what it could ever bring in a sale. It would be a Money Loser.

    But a race car doesn't care about paint or mileage! Vorshlag had hired a new technician earlier in the summer that was good at diagnosing problems, so we threw this M3 on his schedule and he got busy. This car had so many issues to sort through that it would tie him up (between other projects) for a good three months. But what could we do with this race car build?



    My wife Amy had sold her 2023 Subaru BRZ in early 2024 (above left) after racing it for a year in SCCA Tuner 3 class and winning the regional T3 championship - and we used it for developing a lot of new 86 parts. She had also just finished the 2024 SCCA TT season in our region winning 6 of 6 events in her 2024 Mustang Darkhorse (above right), on which we also developed new products on and it was going for sale in August 2024. So she needed a Time Trial car for her to run through the 2025 season, while we finished her 2013 FRS widebody LS swap build.



    We started bench racing different classes and builds for this car, and settled on SCCA Time Trial Max4 class for the 2025 season. This lets us upgrade all of the suspension, add some aero, and put on as wide of a 200TW tire as we want. We can also do a cold air intake / full exhaust and header, plus a tune, and stay in one of the "slower" Max classes with the 2993 cc stock S50B30 engine.

    And perhaps we can develop some NEW solutions for this 30 year old car - using techniques and solutions we have developed over the last 13 years since we last campaigned an E36 on track or autocross courses.

    INITIAL TRIAGE + PARTS LIST

    There were a number of things likely wrong with this car, and as the seller told us 4 years earlier it wasn't running then. Some tires were flat (time does this to tires), all but 1 of the 5 undertray pieces were gone, there was a lot of oil residue underneath the chassis,



    We knew the battery would be junk, and since the car had sat for at least 7 years, we knew the gasoline would be trashed after only about 24 months. So I asked Christian to check the fuel pump wiring, and then pull the pump housing and the secondary fuel level float on the other side of the saddle tank.



    With 12V applied to the pump nothing happened - it was shot, so Christian pulled the pump and float and sure enough, it was all ROTTEN. This car sat for a very long time. The fuel pump submersible fuel hose was broken, the electrical wiring was frayed, one of the floats had disintegrated, and the seals were trashed. A parts list was started.



    The battery was junk, so that was added to the list. He then pumped out all of the old fuel from both sides of the stock saddle fuel tank, then wiped the insides clean. It saved time over just dropping the tank and power washing it. We looked closely at the brakes (junk), front hubs (junk), suspension (trashed), and many other areas.



    Before throwing money at this rotten mess I asked Christian to do a compression check - and it actually came back pretty healthy. So the parts list was compiled and the credit card came out...

    FIRE THE PARTS CANNON!

    This is one of my favorite times in any restoration or race car build - the first round of parts ordering. We had some known bad parts and some unknown as well, and the fastest way to get a mess like this going is to "fire the parts cannon". This is a somewhat derogatory term used by hack mechanics to fix problems - just throw enough new parts at a car until you stumble upon a fix. But it works!



    Five days after rolling this mess into the shop we had parts arriving. And with all of the rotten parts we had found on this car, and the Hellrot Red color this was painted, the name for this project was found: Project Hellrotten.




    Some of the first parts to arrive were the "blue" fuel pump assembly and fuel level float assembly. These were relatively inexpensive and immediately installed into the now cleaned fuel tank. We hadn't replaced the battery yet but with regular charging it was good enough for initial testing.



    Of course with a car that has rotten fuel you always replace the fuel filter as well. We filled the tank with 5 gallons of fresh 93 octane premium fuel, as well as some Lucas Fuel Treatment, to hopefully clean anything downstream from the fuel filter - like the injectors. We had some Lucas Oil Treatment as well, which I will discuss later.

    continued below
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

  • #2
    continued from above

    ENGINE FIRES UP!

    July 16th the engine ran for the first time in at least 7 years after just 6 days of work. That was a big step! This was after replacing the fuel pump and filter and adding fresh fuel only. But it ran pretty rough, clearly had some vacuum leaks (many vacuum lines had been replaced already), and we had more work to do.



    A couple of weeks later on July 30th, having made made progress on other systems, it was time to try more outside running tests again - so a can of Seafoam was inserted into the intake tract and it was run like this for about 10 minutes. This stuff is a heavy duty top end and injector cleaner, and while it did spit out some smoke for a bit, it ran no better. Then while idling on the SeaFoam, the alternator "released the magic smoke"....



    The magic smoke only comes out of electric components once! Christian pulled the alternator and found all sorts of bugs and grass behind the cooling duct. The brush assembly was removed and they were both HEAVILY worn, and the grass and junk had shorted something inside. So I went onto RockAuto to ordered the brand new (not rebuilt) replacement. I was very careful about which brand and model I picked, too.



    A new one showed up in a box a few days later that someone had played "Rico Swappe" with, and it was absolutely the wrong unit - but in a box with the right part number. This made for a two week delay fighting with RA for the return and replacement (they don't have customer service reps that answer any phone number), but after some back and forth with a bot, the right unit finally showed up August 12th. that went in, and the car ran fine again. Well, it ran "like it did before", which was still plagued with vacuum leaks and a cylinder miss. More on that next time!

    VARIOUS BEAUTIFICATION TASKS

    The general nattiness of this car really did bother me, so I spent a few bucks on some front end bits to pretty things up a bit. New headlights, upper grills, fog lights, brake cooling ducting, and even found a black lower grill to replace the red unit (which was OEM in 1995, but I just didn't care for it).



    A good bit of elbow grease went into removing the flaking clear coat and polishing some areas of the paint. We still have a lot of work to do, but it was finally looking a bit better by the end of July.



    The interior looked about what you would expect of a somewhat neglected 30 year old car that had sat in the Texas sun for far too long - the leather was pretty rough, the glove box door had fallen off, and the door panels were coming apart. But it wasn't stinky or wet, so it was mostly salvageable. The glove box door was epoxied back in place with a little bracing to hold it in place for 24 hours, as shown above.



    The trunk was full of junk but once cleared out we noticed this huge subwoofer box, CD changer, and massive amp. The speakers were fried but the amp was a popular vintage unit that I traded away - for another car!



    I was displeased to learn that these OEM wheels were all 17x7.5" at all 4 corners, so those were pretty much useless. I would never be caught DEAD running wheels this narrow on an E36 M3! So I borrowed a buddies vintage CCW 3-piece 18x10" wheel, cleaned that up, and used it for some wheel testing.



    We WILL run something at least this wide and even flashier once we get the upgraded suspension on the car. The "teaser" pics at the top of this post show some MOMO 18x9.5" wheels (above left) on the car for our first track test, but those are very temporary.

    OEM BRAKE UPDATES

    We always like to move to motorsport brake calipers and rotors when the class rules and budget allows, but until this car proves itself worthy of that level of spending, I decided to order some inexpensive OEM style M3 coated brake rotors and some cheap brake pads. This way we can do some "baseline" track testing with some new pads, rotors and fluid. We also replaced the front wheel hubs, as they were worn, but the rears checked out fine.



    While we had the front hubs off the car, I asked Christian to work on his first brake cooling deflector prototype for this E36 chassis. There is an elaborate "dust shield" on these cars that covers the hub and back of the rotor, but with the hub off it can be removed and modified for better cooling.



    We could have just left this whole thing off, but it does keep dust and debris away from the hub and wheel speed sensor, so we chopped it down to what you see above left. Then the brake cooling deflector was made using cardboard and a couple of prototypes until Jason and I liked what we saw.



    With this deflector on the front corners the air from the now replaced factory brake cooling ducts can finally get to the inside hat area of the front rotors. That makes the factory brake cooling inlet ducts FUNCTIONAL and will extend the life of the brake pads, rotors, and wheel hubs.



    During any track stint these deflectors keep the brakes cooler for longer. We've tested this style of brake cooling on about 8 chassis now and it ALWAYS works. The first track test in this car was enough for me to decide to move this into production. The top right image is an earlier prototype, but the second prototype version allows for more cooling air to get to the hub and hat area.



    We couldn't install new rotors, pads and fluid without addressing the 30 year old, rotten rubber brake flex lines. All six of those were replaced with Stoptech stainless braided hoses.



    One of the rear brake hard lines was rusted and stuck, and the fitting rounded off when removing it, so a new line was replaced. Just "old car problems", even for a Texas car that has never seen salted roads once. Motul RBF600 fluid was bled through the system before our first track outing.

    OLD SUSPENSION PARTS REPLACED

    We had just started in on the front suspension inspections when it was obvious that the front control arms' ball joints & bushings were worn, and tie rods were as well. I hunted around for replacements from Leforder or Mayhle HD and... well those are not longer available from my old sources for an E36 without spending BIG money. FCP Euro had some name brand versions, but they were 3x more than I remembered paying in the past.



    So I did what i don't like doing and bought some off brand versions from eBay and Amazon. Yes, it was a cringe moment but I wasn't still sure how far we would take this car down the Racecar build. I just needed something that wasn't totally trashed and good enough to get through a few track tests before we got to more a serious suspension on the car.



    These off brand arms and tie rods were installed with new tie rod boots and they fit great, and we have been using them for a while. We also added Powerflex bushings to the LCA, but I will talk more about that next time. In the image above you can see the opening between the brake deflector and the front rotor hat - that's actually enough to do some real good.

    INITIAL PLANS + WHATS NEXT?

    I wanted to just post the first few weeks of work on this car, and stopping here after we got it running and the alternator replaced on July 30th of 2024 is a good stopping point. But let's discuss what we have planned and some of the highlights of what you will see in future posts.



    Once we realized the engine was good I went hog wild and fired the parts cannon again and again. We have MCS RR2 remote doubles for the car, a full cooling system replacement "essentials kit" from Mishimoto, and the entire catalog of Powerflex bushings for this car.



    We also went a bit overboard on the rear suspension and did a full rebuild of all bushings, SPL lower arms and spherical bushings, bead blasted the diff cover, and cleaned everything out back. An oil pan baffle kit and oil pump drive upgrade from Achilles Motorsports was installed and all new gaskets went on the engine, curing all of the oil leaks.



    Then we attacked the interior with new E36 seat bracket development, Sparco EVO XL seats, a MOMO steering wheel and NRG quick release, and a modified 4-point roll bar with new Sparco harnesses. We also cleaned up a lot of things under the hood while replacing and repairing various parts - and now just in late October the engine is running on all 6 cylinders reliably.

    We are about to order a set of widebody over fenders, Apex 18x11" wheels, and a full Max4 aero package. So stay tuned for the next installment when we will show more of this on Project Hellrotten! You can see real time updates on our Vorshlag FB or Instagram pages (look for the #Hellrotten hash brown).

    Thanks for reading,

    Terry @ Vorshlag
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

    Comment

    Working...
    X