Announcement

**Fair!** · 11-04-2024, 04:14 PM

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

**Fair!** · 12-26-2024, 06:20 PM

Project Update - Dec 26, 2024: The last year (2024) has really flown by, and we have worked on 9 different Vorshlag owned project cars - our 2018 Mustang we call Trigger, which we raced all year and even took to SCCA TT Nationals. Our 2024 Mustang Darkhorse which Amy raced all season in Texas Region SCCA, then sold in November. A 1988 Mustang which we semi-restored before it goes for its first track test, as well as a 1989 Camaro IROC-Z which got restoration, some upgrades, and its first track test.

We also bought back an E30 (1991 BMW 318is) that we sold 16 years ago - we purchased this to "rescue" it, and it has received a lot of the same "restoration + race prep" work as the E36. There was an E46 ZHP that got a ton of attention, and my '22 Maverick and Amy's '23 Bronco, among other vehicles. Last but not least was our red 1995 M3 Project #Hellrotten here - which we have now tracked twice and done a ton of restoration and upgrades to!

Long story short - it was beyond a busy year for our little race shop to maintain and upgrade these shop vehicles + customer cars, but I wanted to sneak in one more Forum Build Thread update before the end of the year, and we picked this E36 project to cover. Much of the work shown below happened from late July to late November 2024. Let's get to it!

FULL POWERFLEX BUSHING INSTALL

With any 30 year old car that has been stored outside for much of its life, you have to look closely at ALL of the rubber and plastic on the inside and out. The rubber suspension bushings on this M3 were looking pretty old and craggy, so we made the decision to order the entire Powerflex catalog of bushings in their "Black Series", which is their racier / harder durometer versions.

The most damaged bushing on the car - and one of the most critical bushings to improving handling - was the front lower control arm rear bushing (LCA). These are super soft from the factory and very hard to remove from a control arm without destroying.

Last time when we showed the new LCA going on the bushings came apart. We have to salvage the steel "lollipop" housing, which we did, and have now pressed in the new 2-piece polyurethane Powerflex offset version. This is one of the few bushings on the BMW that has to pivot in 2 axis - which stiff poly does NOT do well. So Powerflex makes this a 2-piece bushing, with one bushing that rotates within another, and that allows just enough pivoting to keep from adding bind in the suspension.

We kept the 1992-1995 "offset" LCA bushing design and matching arms to go with our 1995 M3 here. The 1996-99 models use a "centered" bushing and add caster in another place. Of course we drilled the lollipop and tapped it for a grease zerk, with a hole in the outer bushing to allow grease to pass into the inner bushing interface. Annual greasing of this zerk will keep these poly bushing working quietly and smooth for ages. I will show the other Powerflex bushing installs for the rear in a section below.

MOOG SEALED SPHERICAL IN RTAB

The Rear Trailing Arm Bushing is another "2 axis of rotation" bushing on the BMW, and as such needs to be able to both rotate and pivot on a different plane. This is where we always avoid a stiff poly bushing, and either use a Lemforder Z4M rubber OEM bushing and our RTAB limiters or this Moog "problem solver" sealed spherical bushing.

This is a bushing we have installed on E36 and E46 models before, and it pivots smoothly because it is a p[roper spherical bearing. But it is also SEALED from the elements, so it doesn't get blasted with rain / grit / salt like a racing style "all hanging out there" metal spherical does. The inner bore of the RTAB arm housings or the outer diameter of these Moog units need to be shaved about .002-.008" to get a proper press fit (.002" of interference), and I am not going to try to show this here - because I don't need a bunch of PMs or calls from folks for a product we don't sell...

I will show that the RTAB cassette needs to be drilled out from an M12 hole to a larger M14, and the bolt has to be upsized as well - to mate to the Moog unit. The cassette also needs to be spread out just a hair, but otherwise it is a relatively smooth install. There are other forum posts and YouTube videos showing this work.

NEW VORSHLAG RTAB POCKET REINFORCEMENT

We have made a weld-in RTAB pocket reinforcement for the E46 chassis for a while now and realized on this car that we never made the E36 version. So we made a "rubbing" of the factory RTAB pocket, scanned that, turned it into a CAD drawing, then CNC cut a pair of these. After a few small revisions we had a production worthy part, and the guys got to work cleaning up and welding them into the chassis.

Again, this was a Texas car so it wasn't "rusty", but it sat outside for a lot of years so they needed a little clean up. The RTAB cassettes were bead blasted and repainted, as they looked a little crusty.

The chassis side of this RTAB mounting was cleaned up and paint was removed around the perimeter of the plate we were to weld in. The revised E36 RTAB reinforcement plate was mocked up, then tack weld each plate in place.

We like to use a TIG with a special rod to attach anything that needs to be welded to a BMW chassis, as we can better control the heat and prevent blowing holes in the chassis. We had the interior out of the car in the back seat area and a "fireman" in the back seat area with a spray bottle of water, in case there were flare ups of materials. Once we have the full perimeter and around each bolt hole welded, we slather everything in seam sealer.

The next day we hit everything with Zinc based primer made for bare steel. You can then cover that with something "pretty" and some color, but for now that worked for us. We're not going for a concours restoration here... at least I keep telling myself that!

REAR SUBFRAME & DIFF HOUSING RESTORATION

This is where I kinda pushed things over the edge and we massively detailed everything on the rear subframe... I just really hate janky looking suspension parts, so I helped clean things up and pushed Christian to do the same.

The cleaned up finished subframe assembly, above, is probably too clean for this car, but it makes me happy when I see it. Christian pulled the whole assembly out of the M3 on July 31st, 2024. We power washed it outside and I got covered in grease, but that's part of the job. I then used my secret WD40 cleaning techniques and got the subframe and arms all shined up.

As you can see above right, all of the stock bushings were swapped for the Powerflex poly units in the subframe. That took some effort with our mega-sized C-clamp tool, sometimes some heat, and a bit of persuasion.

The stock RTABs fought pretty hard, as did some other hardware. We took the rear diff cover off to inspect the Limited Slip differential and gears, which all looked great. That was all cleaned up before it went back together.

I cannot stand rusty bits on my race cars, so the 188mm "medium case" LSD housing was removed. It was then cleaned up, degreased, taped off and painted gloss black with 3 coats of paint over about 48 hours.

I bead blasted the aluminum diff cover a few times until the crust and grime was all gone. That leaves it in a "raw" aluminum state, and it needs to be finished with something. Instead of waiting on the time it takes to clear anodize aluminum I found a suitable "ceramic silver" engine paint and gave it a few light coats over a couple of days...

The new Powerflex bushings were pressed into the 3 points on the diff housing and cover, and I even painted the cover bolts, speed sensor housing, and Christian got it all put together. Then the diff housing was reinstalled into the subframe as the work wrapped up about a week later. It all looked SO GOOD when it was finished.

SPL PARTS REAR ARMS & SPHERICAL BUSHINGS

There were a couple of other small upgrades out back we wanted to tackle - and SPL Parts had what we needed. The upper bushings at the rear uprights were cruddy and those got replaced with their spherical bushing kit.

These lateral lower arms on BMW E36 and E46 models are interchangeable, and we often see the factory stamped steel arms bent - mostly from tow truck drivers stupidly hooking chains to these during a roll back tow. The SPL Parts version is a more adjustable tubular design with a spherical at one end.

On the opposite end, the outer bushing can be replaced with another SPL Parts spherical housing, as shown above. This includes a knurled housing that is pressed into the steel upright and then a spherical bearing inside, with compliance bushings to make up the distance at the forked end of the mating arm.

We have installed these to numerous E36 and E46 model cars here at Vorshlag, and we will do this whenever the rules allow us to replace the stock arms.

The image below is the entire E36 rear subframe assembly (shown upside-down) on the bench, fully upgraded and restored, about to go back into the M3.

This took probably 3 full days of work to get to this point, but well worth it. After track testing we noticed zero issues with clunks, looseness, or weird handling.

SUNROOF "DELETE"

This is one of those common things done to a race car but there are good reasons for it. First is the weight - we replaced this 36 pound sunroof cassette with a 2 pound panel (later), and that 34 pounds net removal is from the very top of the car. We will reinstall the headliner at a later date, to be SCCA TT Max class legal - more on that next time.

We also gain much needed headroom - for me (bottom left) that is welcomed. For Amy (bottom right) that is not at all needed, ha! We are working on some tweaks to the lower seat cushion in the Sparco EVO seats to better fit both of us - more on that in a future installment.

We ran both track tests #1 and #2 without a panel in place, and the open roof panel caused some real issues - I will cover that in the Track Test #1 review, below.

FULL MISHIMOTO COOLING UPGRADE

This brand is very polarizing to some readers, and I get it. It is a Japanese sounding name for an American company who clearly builds much of their stuff in Taiwan. They have a lifetime warranty and we have had exceptionally good results from the brand, but others blame everything from cracked cores to global warming on thm. If you don't like Mishimoto then choose CSF or one of the many other import aluminum racing radiator brands.

For this 30 year old car with much deferred maintenance, I was wanting to change EVERYTHING in the cooling system at once - water pump, radiator, coolant expansion tank, hoses, thermostat, electric fan upgrade, and more. We went with this package "Essentials bundle" that included much of what we needed.

In addition to the thicker all aluminum radiator this bundle includes the electric fan conversion kit, shown above left. It comes with all of the mounts, wires, mounting, and relays needed to ditch the problematic and power robbing mechanical cooling fan. The bundle also includes the all aluminum coolant expansion tank, which replaces a plastic unit that often cracks and fails.

In the 2nd week of August, Christian tore down all of the cooling system upgrades and knocked this out in about a day of work.

PART RESTORATION, PART RACE CAR BUILD

Any time we are working with a car that is 30 years old that has seen a lot of neglect, we have to restore many things that we take for granted on relatively new race car builds.

The driver's side window motor is a common failure point and this car had a dead window from the time we bought it. RockAuto to the rescue!

As shown in images above, we started with removing the door panel - which was trashed. Then you have to drill out some rivets to swap over the new motor and rivet that new part in place.

The door panels are falling apart so we will work on a lightweight plastic replacement at a later date. The lower windshield cowl panel plastics were crumbling but I ordered this replacement from Schmiedmann in Denmark with a big parts order (even with shipping from Europe, this was cheaper than US based shops - at least for some parts and bigger orders), and it looks great when replaced.

continued below

**Fair!** · 12-26-2024, 06:30 PM

continued from above

NEW VORSHLAG SEAT BRACKET BASE + SEATS

This work spanned several weeks and took a few design revisions before I was happy, but the end result is now we have seat bracket bases for the E36 chassis - a new, possibly better way to mount racing seats into this chassis. For this dual purpose street/track car we are adding fixed back racing seats but with a slider (for multiple drivers) and both the OEM retracting 3-point belts as well as 6-point Sparco racing harnesses.

Picked up the 4 seats above in an annual Sparco sale, with the two fixed back EVO L models going into our E36 and the two tilt back Sparcos going into our little E30. I also bought some steering wheels, sliders, and steering wheel Quick Release (QR) units for both cars.

On August 16th, 2024 we started on this E36 seat install by pulling the driver's seat and making a cardboard template of the factory holes. We're making this seat base bracket to work with the factory carpet and wiring underneath (we have to keep carpet in SCCA TT Max class), but it will work in a stripped race car as well.

We then tied a string and weight to the center of the steering wheel, and marked that centerline on the seat base - you can see how far offset the factory seat bolts are to the wheel! We mean to correct that in our design.

The cardboard template that Christian started with was mocked up with the Sparco EVO L seat and Sparco sliders, all connected with our Vorshlag side brackets. We modified the template several times and left room to allow the driver's side seat to slide to the right, to better line up with the steering column (see the string). We weighed the stock seats (above right) while they were out, too.

Myles drew up and CNC cut this early prototype plate. One thing we came up with to be able to use these brackets as low as possible but still clear carpet and wiring underneath were some cylindrical risers turned on the manual DRO lathe. Those will be CNC machined for production, and welded flush to the top surface (to let the sliders sit on top of those spots, if needed) - this new idea will come in handy on a few other seat bracket designs we have in process, so that pretty big breakthrough!

The early prototype plates were solid (no windows) and a pretty generic shape, and only used to get the seat bolted into the chassis so we could see where to "window" the final design. We could then mark the best slider locations (again, allowing for the seat to be aligned with the steering wheel) so the final design could be cut next.

The driver's and passenger's side brackets were then CNC cut on our table, with slots for the reinforcing ribs. Then the ribs were cut and those were welded onto the bottom side to make the design much more rigid. We need that rigidity because we also have lap belt and anti-sub anchors built into the plate assembly. As we have said before, this is the shortest, most rigid platform design out there that you can mount side brackets and/or sliders to.

We were busy working on several new seat bracket base designs in the Summer and Fall of 2024, but managed to get the production ready E36 seat bracket bases built for both sides and powder coated before our track test in mid October. You can see the Sparco harnesses and OEM seat belts in the image above right.

STEERING WHEEL, QUICK RELEASE & STEERING LOCK DISABLED

August 19th we started the steering wheel replacement work, which included an NRG quick release that has a functional 2-pin pass-thru so we can have a working horn - for both the E36 and E30 projects. We need a horn on both cars for street use, and it comes in handy in paddock and grid, too.

We actually started with a Sparco model "323" steering wheel for this E36, but at the same time I had ordered this MOMO Montecarlo alcantera wheel for the E30 and it just felt SO much better. I sent the Sparco wheel back and got another MOMO Montecarlo alcantera in 350 mm this time, with the optional red stitching and red born button.

Initially we had the 320mm wheel on the E36, but we later upgraded to a second 350mm wheel, which allows for a better look at the gauges and slows down the steering a bit - which as an autocrosser at heart, really helps slow down my jerky inputs on track.

Before the steering wheel work we had to tackle the removal of the steering wheel lock. This is a job we have done countless times on E36 models, so I sent Christian one of our old forum write-ups on this and he tackled that in a few minutes - you have to know where to drill a hole, then yank out a spring, and you are good. This way if we ever have to turn the key off while on track the steering doesn't lock.

We also tried a couple of different NRG QR hub kits, starting with the "SFI" rated one (above left) but ended up with this "Gen 2.5" model (above right). This came form some miscommunication with a buddy and his race car, but I was able to send that back and get the correct horn compatible model from NRG. A little more expensive but not too much. NOTE - I used to be a "quick release snob" and only used $400 Sparco or Lifeline units. Using an NRG in a buddy's race car cured me of that. The price is good, they make SFI approved versions, and they aren't super thick.

Before we could start we needed a replacement clock spring, which I found on marketplace and picked up the same day (the original was busted). The clock spring assembly (above right) allows for the pair of wiring pass-throus to the stock steering column, and we are those for our horn. You could easily use those for a push to talk radio or anything else.

The adapter hub from NRG is bolted onto the column in the above left pic, with the horn circuit connected through the clock spring and column wiring. That inner piece of the QR assembly is then bolted to the hub adapter. Then the opposite end of the QR assembly is bolted to the 6-bolt, 70mm bolt circle that is on virtually all Sparco and MOMO steering wheels.

The image above is from early September 2024, when we had the smaller 320 mm MOMO wheel installed. the larger diameter 350mm wheel fits the E36 so much better! I had been using 320-330mm wheels for my last two E46 models and they were always covering up gauges. I won't make that mistake again (I hope).

MCS RR2 COILOVER INSTALL

In late August we received our coilover dampers from Motion Control Suspension for this car - this set of remote reservoir 2 way adjustables, or what we call the RR2 model. I pick these remote doubles for most of our shop cars - I know how to adjust them for the best performance, they give us the most stroke, and the best damping curves for our cars.

This was probably the most major upgrade we will make to this project, and is worth a lot of time drop once we have the car dialed in. Ideally we would have made some "baseline laps" with the stock suspension and wheels/tires, but the OEM dampers were blown and the tires were all dry rotted junk. So our first test will be on MCS RR2 suspension - which is pretty deep down the list of things we recommend for most folks, but I knew we would be here eventually.

I personally built the camper plates and shock mounts for this set going onto our car, and it gave me a chance to triple check the bushing setup for the struts and shocks from our database entries.

We have sold countless numbers of E36 dampers and our stainless steel bushing call-outs were spot on, allowing for the most bump travel and perfect thread engagement on the strut (above left) and rear shock (above right). I assembled these with our springs, perches, and all the rest. I decided to keep the rear damper with the "divorced" spring setup in the stock location, but using our ride height adjusters and alignment cones.

We setup our dampers with our GTR spring rates, which is as high as we go on any E36 without aero. This uses 600 #/in front springs and 750 #/in rears, which is what we used on our 1997 M3 from 2006-2014. Amy is very comfortable on this spring rate, as she racer the 1997 on these rates for many years. Christian got the fronts installed quickly and we got enough pictures to make a proper E36 damper install gallery, too.

Out back the rear shocks are installed in the traditional non-inverted layout, which is where the lower eye bolts onto the stock lower mount and the "pin" upper goes through our spherical upper shock mount. This gets the rebound knob in the trunk for easy access to make adjustments.

The compression adjustments for the RR2 models are on the remote reservoirs. We like to make custom brackets to mount these for easy access, and up front the brackets were made from sheet aluminum. The hoses are long enough to allow them to route under the frame rail and into the engine bay. We picked a good spot underhood and mounted the reservoirs vertically, right to the radiator support behind the headlights (and away from radiator heat).

Out back the hoses had quick disconnects, but like all monotubes charged with 180+ psi Nitrogen, you have to bleed off the Nitrogen before you can disconnect the lines - so we try not to mess with that unless we have to. We have been routing the rear reservoirs through the trunk baffle plastics, which just pop out of the trunk sheet metal. A small notch on one end allow the hose to fit without major surgery. Our crew also made some reservoir brackets that bolt to the rear frame rails in the trunk also.

This install spanned a few weeks, while other work was proceeding, and we put the M3 on the scales on August 22nd, where we saw 2910 pound weight - very encouraging! We still have the very heavy exhaust on the car, the air conditioning, and some other things we can legally remove for Max class Time Trial use.

I was very happy with the initial ride heights - which we copied from our 1997 M3's (above left) specs we came up with back in 2005. But that car had properly sized wheels and heavily rolled fenders. As soon as we added the E46 spec 18x9.5" wheels and 265mm tires to Project #Hellrotten, we ran into major rubbing issues. We went through several ride height changes and fender rolls to get through the first two track tests - and none of them were "right" (the rear tires rubbed hard). We are just now properly fixing in late December 2024 - cutting the fenders and adding widebody flares. More on that next time!

REAR TIE DOWN HOOKS

Most of the time we will trailer this car to and from the track, so the car needs to be strapped down properly. I dislike strapping down to the wheels, but the BMW does have the "T-hook" slots that are somewhat easy to access.

But I am lazy, and speeding up my loading and unloading times is always welcome. So when we have access to the underside of the car (ie: no diffuser) we add these tie down hooks to the lower shock mount. We make these for a number of cars, and have optional longer lower shock mounts to make these 1/4" thick pieces fit onto the steel lower mounting point. Makes tie down straps super easy to install and remove - much quicker than the T-hooks.

OIL PUMP DRIVE + BAFFLE UPGRADE (ACHILLES)

One of the most notorious failures of these BMW S50/52 and M50/52 engines is the chain driven oil pump drive falling off. And when that happens the oil pressure goes to ZERO, and trust me - that is ZERO fun. I lost a couple of E46 M54 engines from this issue. Our 1997 M3's S52 lasted for a long time in racing because we welded the nut on, but there are better modern solutions to that ghetto fix we did to that car in 2004.

We also have a TON of oil leaks that have sprayed the underside of this car in black goo for decades - that just makes me crazy. So we ordered the oil pump and oil pan upgrade parts and Christian hung the engine from above and the subframe and rack came off for a deep cleaning.

With the oil pan off I asked Christian to also remove the valve cover, which was also suffering from multiple gasket leaks. All of that needed major cleaning and new gaskets, of course.

We tapped Achilles Motorsports to supply the oil pan baffle kit as well as their oil pump shaft upgrade. This is a common fix with a new oil pump shaft that incorporates a unique shaft end shape that mates to the hole in the sprocket, then a drilled bolt for safety wire. This is a double secured sprocket so it cannot come off without breaking the shaft.

I cleaned up the subframe, steering rack, oil pan and valve cover in our parts cleaner. Lots of heat, soapy water, and scrubbing made a dent in these parts, but the oil pan needed to be spotless since we had to TIG weld in the baffle kit.

I drove over to our "sister shop" HorsePower Research with the oil pan and valve cover, which both went through their sonic cleaner for a 10 minute cycle. I did a little scrubbing in their parts washer, then sent them through the sonic one more time. The magnesium valve cover's ugly gold factory coating was even peeling off that this point. Above right you can see the Achilles Motorsport aluminum oil pan baffle kit, which has two swinging trap doors to keep the oil pump pickup submerged under cornering and braking.

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**Fair!** · 12-26-2024, 06:35 PM

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Myles mocked up the baffle into the now spotless oil pan and added TIG weld bead to the spots that Achilles recommends. This baffle upgrade is good insurance to do before taking any BMW S50 on track.

I spent some time making the steering rack and subframe spotless, and the subframe paint was well preserved under all of that oily grime. Christian got the oil pan and pump shaft upgrade wrapped up in late August 2024.

With no more oil leaks we can finally put some proper oil into this S50 - so a full fill of Motul 8100 5W40 synthetic oil was added, and it was indeed leak free.

Other than the old exhaust system, the underside of the front of this very neglected M3 was looking pretty clean. After this work we only had a small power steering leak that remaining, and parts were ordered to fix that next.

ENGINE BAY DETAIL

One of the things that triggers me (beyond fluid leaks) is a messy engine bay. This M3 was pretty nasty looking under the hood when we removed it from the barn, so that whole area needed a major cleanup. This M3 has to show what Vorshlag is about, and all of our cars have clean engine bays at all times. Sure, the nappy paint is not great, but all in good time.

We have come a long way from that pair of nasty images above, with the underside now cleaned up as shown in the previous above. But the engine bay from up top needed help - that started with a power wash in July, but in August I started an engine bay detail job with liberal use of WD40 on all surfaces. I spray everything with the BIG BLAST can, let the fluid it sit for a bit, blow all of that liquid around with compressed air, then wipe down all surfaces and rubber.

That clean up made a big improvement to all of the painted surfaces and plastics, and especially the rubber bits. This is before the cowl panel plastics had arrived from Sweden, but we were getting closer.

Next the sonic cleaned valve cover was run through our bead blaster a couple of times to get the top side down to bare metal. This was then sprayed with two coats of primer and then 3 coats of gloss red Ceramic engine paint over the course of a few days.

Christian put the black plastic panel over the valve cover, which covers up the 6 ignition coils. But I liked the red valve cover too much uncovered, so that "BMW M Power" plastic bit came off and will not go back on. I am finally not embarrassed to open the hood on this old thang!

MOMO 18X9.5" WHEEL, 265MM TIRE AND FENDER ROLL

Don't think I am losing my touch here - this is just a temporary wheel and tire package! Why? Because the stock 17x7.5" wheels and 235mm tires were beyond using. These tires dated back to the stone age, and I was cautious even driving them around the block (one wouldn't hold air long).

Instead of buying a set of tires to use for the baseline test, we looked in the shop and found a brand new set of MOMO 18x9.5" ET35 wheels with a BMW bolt pattern. Now these are not ideal for the E36 chassis, as they have an offset better suited to use on the rear of an E46 non-M chassis (we bought these for an E46 ZHP we are restoring). But these were on hand, and I had also scored a set of the previous generation Bridgestone RE-71R tires on closeout in 265/35R18 size.

To be clear: I AM NOT ENDORSING THIS MODEL OR SIZE TIRE FOR ANY E36. These DO NOT FIT this chassis well, as we will show from here through the first two track tests. It took a LOT of compromises to fit this tire, including butchering the fenders and raising the ride heights to a 4x4 level. These wheels are also heavy AF, as you can see in the scale pics. Anchors, but again - I had them on hand and it was all "new". The DOT dates on the Bridgestones were 2019, but the tires were stored indoors and still had mold release (which protects them from oxidation) so they actually worked great on track.

These wheels used to be called something else but they are now the MOMO "Catania" - we bought them in 2022 for a decent price. The wheels and tires were installed in September with a 12mm spacer up front, but we clearly needed more camber and a major fender roll to clear the fender lips. Again, these do not have the right offset for an E36 rear.

We also installed Vorshlag 90mm front wheel studs and our 12mm spacer as noted. The rear was used without a spacer and our 75mm wheel studs. We do recommend a light coat of anti-sieze on the outer threads where they interface with the lug nuts, and torque specs are 85-90 ft-lbs on these M12-1.5 threaded fasteners.

I had Christian take our Eastwood fender roller and work the fenders at all four corners, but it took some serious persuasion. To fit this wide of a tire you have to not care about the paint or outer shape of the fenders - we rolled them, cracked paint, distorted the fender shape, and they still barely fit.

A better option would have been a 17x9" wheel and 255/40R17 tire (which still needs a roll) - a popular size we have used before, but this was not our end goal and I did not want to buy an "interim" wheel and tire set.

There were consequences of running this tire width and wheel offset, which I will cover below. The wheels looked all right I guess, and while we had run wider 18x10" wheels and 265/35R18 tires on our 1997 M3, we had a better offset and more inner fender work to make those fit (and they still rubbed, if I'm going to be completely honest).

RAISE RIDE HEIGHTS!

On September 10th, I took the M3 on its first test drive with the MCS setup and the 18x9.5" wheels and 265mm Bridgestones, with ride heights set like our silver 97 M3 at 12" rear and 12.5" front. Yikes! The tire rub was off the charts just on a slow drive around the block.

We immediately raised the ride heights a half inch at both ends, as shown above right. That still wasn't enough and we would fight tire rub at the next two track tests until we finally cut the outer fender lips off and went to flares.

ALIGNMENT #1 - SEPT 9, 2024

We went pretty aggressive on the first alignment, but it worked well on track and gave us some much needed tire clearance at all four corners.

We could get more front camber if needed but this will work for the relatively small 265mm RE71R 200TW tire we have now. It was actually very well balanced on track with this alignment - zero front toe, lots of camber, and .33deg rear doe in.

GOOD TOW HOOKS ARE HARD TO FIND

For the last 20 years there has been a "Race to the bottom" on costs for cheap screw-in tow hooks for BMW models. The unit below left was once $40 is now $10 shipped, and the quality has gotten progressively worse. These easily bend even with gentle straight winching of a rolling car into a trailer. The hardware is also super cheap and rattles loose and falls out.

So in July when we revived this barn find I immediately began looking for a better tow hook to use front and rear with the factory threaded bungs. And we stumbled upon this Mishimoto tow hook kit that looked promising, but it was on close out. Normally $183 each (and price has some correlation to quality), some colors were as cheap as $63 each. So I ordered two of those in black and polished aluminum and waited...

It took several emails and follow ups to that original order but in late September they found some of the last inventory of these and sent the pair. I also bought one of the $10 Amazon versions to compare. The Mishimoto tow hooks are significantly better built and use 7075 aluminum for the hooks, with steel used in the various shaft pieces. It is a real shame these are no longer available - we have since used these many times and they work great.

We even had to use the cheap cast aluminum Amazon hook for one winch trip into the trailer (above left), and while it worked, it did get a bent after use. The Mishi tow hooks have been used multiple times with zero issues.

We do like to replace the removable covers for the front and rear hooks so we mark and cut them to fight with the tow hooks installed. Looks a little more factory and less janky. If we do not find a new supplier that makes REAL tow hooks instead of the "faux hooks" that are flooding the market, maybe Vorshlag will jump in with a better option. We've not been super impressed with some of the tow hooks we have used on many cars...

INJECTOR ISSUES AND VACUUM LEAKS FIXED

The M3 sat for at least 7 years and had rotted a bunch of vacuum lines, rubber bits, and seals in the intake tract - which led to a real chase to fix all of the vacuum lines. We used our smoke machine on this car several times, replaced a dozen feet of vacuum hoses, and kept finding more leaks every time I test drove the car.

All vacuum hose found leaking was replaced in entirety with better silicone versions in 4mm, 5mm, and 6mm sizes that I sourced off of Amazon. It is a good idea to keep a 10' section of these sizes on hand for German cars of this era.

One smoke test found this intake elbow with a massive crack in it - we have an aftermarket silicone version on hand for a future upgrade with a larger MAF sensor, but we don't want to "tune" the engine for that yet. So an OEM replacement for $15 off Amazon worked to fix that leak, and in this video from October 7th we had the S50 running as good as it ever had.

We had sent the injectors off for this S50 (not S52 as shown) and had them cleaned and flow tested. Prior to the cleaning 2 of them had no flow at all, so this was money well spent on these 30 year old injectors before we ever tried to fire the engine. The injector cleaner we used was not enough to get those two stuck guys going - or so we thought. Next time if I see a "fail" those after a test, those injectors will get replaced outright.

This next part of the repairs was tackled after Track Test #1

At the first track test (see below) I immediately noticed a rough running engine once again. It got worse over two sessions, so on October 20th when we had the car unloaded again I asked Christian to "smoke" the intake tract once again, and yet another new leak was found. This idle control valve connector was the culprit this time...

That was replaced, no vacuum leak, but the car still ran rough. We plan to build a full race exhaust but again, we don't want to "tune" the car yet so the factory catalysts were cut open to inspect and make sure they weren't plugged up. They were not so the outer skin was carefully reinstalled and welded in place.

The sticky hydraulic follower was also making noise again so the rest of the bottle of the Lucas "Oil Stabilizer" was added. We also took a compression check again, so make sure everything was still good. The 179-180 psi numbers looked dang near perfect, so it wasn't a mechanical issue.

Finally it was time to double check some systems - I was sure that we had a missing cylinder! And sure enough, one of the "cleaned and tested" injectors was not firing. The wiring was checked, and it was just a "bad injector". I bought one replacement (since we might replace them all with aftermarket injectors at some point) and that arrived from FCP Euro on October 31st.

Click the image above to see the video and hear the little S50 run smoothly with all 6 injectors working. The various vacuum leaks and all 6 injectors firing reliably transformed the little S50 for our second track test. The car has been running smoothly every since - finally!

KIRK RACING ROLL BAR + REWORK

Safety is important to me and Amy both, and we didn't want to skip on the rollover protection or harness mounting. There aren't "good" harness bars made for the E36 chassis, and I didn't feel like burning the hours to make something that half of you reading here would only scoff at.

After looking at $1800-2000+ 4-point roll bars, I went back to what we know and have used many times with this 4-point kit from Kirk Racing. We have used these on E30 and E46 models before, but never an E36. How different could it be? Well at $650 for the raw kit + $200 shipping, we definitely "got what we paid for", and no more.

Christian started stripping the back seat area Sept 23rd and got the chassis ready for the roll bar. the Sparco front seats were removed at this time. The upper back seats (33 pounds) and lower seat cushion were already removed. In SCCA Time Trial Max class with "Level 2 safety" (adding the 4-point roll bar) we can remove those pieces as well as the rear interior panels, rear carpets and the rear undercoating. All in we removed 80 pounds of junk from the back seat.

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**Fair!** · 12-26-2024, 06:53 PM

continued from above

When the kit arrived October 7th I was not too pleased with the crude mounting plates that Kirk had welded onto the 4 points that meet the chassis. None of the plates matched the shape of the floor or fender wells at all, leaving large gaps on the main floor mounts. So we did what we knew we had to do - reworked the mounting feet.

Christian and Myles cut off the two mounting plates for the main hoop, designed larger and better fitting feet, and CNC cut those. The new, larger floor plates have a bend in them that matches the curvature of the floor now. This also sits on the stronger, outer portion of the floor sheet metal right at the edge where it meets a vertical portion - and has an overlapping ledge underneath. This wasn't that hard to do right - just disappointed that we had to do this.

The new "feet" were tack welded to the 4-point hoop while sitting in the car, then the "bolt on" rear downbars had their feet curved to match the wheel well. Then the 2 new feet and all tube junctions were fully MIG welded on the bench before going to our powder coater in early October 8th, one day after the 4-point kit arrived.

We waited 8 days for the gloss red powder coating to be completed, but it was worth it. We also made new "doubler" plates for the main hoop and bent the rear feet - which were powder coated also.

We normally budget 8 hours to test fit, tack weld, fully weld, and install a 4-point roll bar. We burned an extra 3 hours cutting the main hoop feet off and making new ones, but I'm much happier with how these mount than the way this kit came.

In the end the roll bar added 63 pounds to the M3, gives us a very good place to mount the 6-point harness shoulder straps from, and adds some rollover protection. It was still cost effective, but looking back in hindsight we maybe should have just built our own 4-point roll bar. A new design would have a few other improvements, too. Still, at $850 + powder coating costs, this was a relatively "cheap" upgrade. I do see why some of these roll bar kits cost $2000 now.

TRUNK BULKHEAD PANEL

Was a bulkhead panel separating the passenger cabin from the trunk completely necessary? We don't have anything mounted in the trunk that needs to be kept away from people - yet - but we do have plans for a remote fuel pump surge tank that I don't want spraying fuel on people, in a "worst case" situation. This panel cuts down on noise inside the cabin for street and even track driving - since the back seat cushions are now gone (the seats muffle road noise quite a bit).

Making a really nice bulkhead panel is also a bit of a "flex", and I'm not above that for one of our shop cars. This was one of the first "fab" jobs I had given to Christian, and he took it to the next level. From cardboard to aluminum sheet in an hour, which I was happy enough with. I just asked him to add a brushed finish, but he went beyond that.

Not only did he add the brushed finish with our burnishing tool, he added some bead rolled ribs to the perimeter and an "X" in the middle. Heck yes!

To help sound proof this I asked him to add the 1" wide x 1/8" thick weatherstrip foam tape we keep in stock to the perimeter. This was then bolted in using some stainless button heads threaded into some rivnuts added to the interior. The whole thing came in at 4.9 pounds and it looks amazing. But it also acted as a bass drum at the first track test... I will explain that in the Track Test #1 write-up.

3D PRINTED ALTERNATOR DUCT

Most of you E36 fanatics know that many BMW alternators are "air cooled" with special ducting that runs from the front radiator shrouding all the way to a housing on the back of the alternator. All of that was rotten on this car, but I had slowly been piecing together all of the necessary parts.

Some of the OEM parts are No Longer Available (NLA) new, so the aftermarket has stepped up to make this plastic part that we couldn't find. But unlike a traditional cast plastic part, this is 3D printed by Treedy Labs.

This is actually the first useful 3D printed part for a car I've ever purchased, and these Treedy Labs guys have since gotten more of my money for parts for both the E30 and E46 we are restoring. The fit was great and the quality was, well, about what you'd expect for a 3D printed part. Not great, not terrible, matched the price we paid. This isn't a "mission critical" part so I'm OK with it.

MOUNTING GARMIN CATALYST (VER 1)

This was our first attempt at adding the predictive lap timer and GPS data logger to the E36 - which has a camera that overlays this data to. The Garmin Catalyst is well known and Amy really enjoyed using this in her 2023 BRZ in 2023 and her 2024 Darkhorse in 2024, so we added the RAM branded mount to the E36 and wired up the camera.

Sadly, this location was not ideal for GPS coverage (the Garmin needs a direct view to the sky), and we got no usable video / data from this at the first track test. I will show where we remounted that for track test 2 later in this post.

UPGRADED SWAYBARS

During the MCS install we of course changed the OEM swaybars for aftermarket adjustable units. Up front we used We used the Whiteline BBF38Z (27mm with 3 adjustments per side) ran Whiteline endlinks up front, which are adjustable in length and have weather sealed OEM style ball joint ends.

Out back we used a Whiteline BBR38Z, which has a 22mm diameter with 2 adjustments per side. These came with some less than awe inspiring endlinks, but the better Hotchkis units we wanted were on a long backorder.

As we always preach about, of course we shimmed the poly mounting bushings (which come with the WL parts) and added grease zerks to allow for "pinkie finger effort" rotation of the bar once mounted. This removes all swaybar bind in the mounting bushings, which is super common and makes handling unpredictable. Annual greasing will keep these noiseless and bind free for decades.

TRACK TEST 1 - OCT 17, 2024 - PRETTY HORRIBLE

At long last I felt like we had a good enough setup to take to the track - for the first laps this car has ever made. This was supposed to be our "baseline" lap upon which we would hopefully improve from. I didn't want to hold anything back, because this is already a car with upgraded MCS suspension. I never sandbag any of our track tests.

I went out by myself to a member day at MSR Cresson on their 1.7 CCW course, and I went with a plan - absolutely nothing went to plan. Got there at 9 am, 44F after unloading, and there were not many people driving that day. Drove over to the Sunoco and fueled up with +6 gallons, set tires at 28 psi cold, but these were brand new RE71R tires covered in mold release that needed to be scrubbed in. Set the MCS RR2 dampers to a "good guess" setting of +6 Compression front and back, +8 Rebound front +6 Rebound rear.

I was a little delayed because I had to go back and clean the windshield and some other windows. I setup the Garmin for the first 2 sessions but the dang thing never worked right and I got ZERO video or data from the Catalyst. By the third time out on track I punted and put in a backup video camera with a somewhat janky camera mount (my normal RAM 1" ball to 1/4"-20 adapter was in the Pontini BRZ and the backup was in Trigger!) and the old AiM SOLO for some GPS and lap time data.

In the first session the engine felt a little down on power. First time I hit 90 mph on the front straight the car was shaking violently with massive vibrations. It was so loud I thought the car was shaking apart!!

Came right in, got out of my driving suit, and pulled both rear wheels. A buddy Bryson from Xena Racing and I looked at everything in the rear suspension and axles. I bled the tires down but nothing looked wrong - nothing. Everything spun easily, rear wheel bearings were tight, nothing was touching or making a peep. Reinstalled the wheels and tires, put my gear back on, and went right back out in the same session. Hit 90mph and heard the same thing - on a hunch, I stuck an arm out roof opening and the noise went away. Made another lap and checkers. Fudge.

This was just buffeting through the open roof, and my arm out the hole disrupted airflow enough that the trunk bulkhead panel quit vibrating like a drum. I looked for some piece of trash wood, which I found in paddock. I taped this piece of wood to the roof to simulate the factory pop-up spoiler ahead of the sunroof opening. Probably used too much tape, but the paint is fried so who cares? Waited 30 minutes for another session to open up, meanwhile I fiddled with the Garmin but it just never worked - these things can be super flaky.

Went out again and realized the seat slider stuck too far forward and uncomfortable (we had a bolt in the wrong place). Brakes and tires worked great, just made as quick out lap to get heat in the tires, get a feel for the car. Came into the hot pits and bled the tires down to 31 psi hot. My final stint out was only 3 laps, but it felt even more down on power. Definitely down at least 1 cylinder, and it was getting worse. Of course that's the only timed laps I got that day (AiM SOLO).

Really sluggish in 3rd gear, and I didn't want to hurt the engine. This 1:32 lap is hardly a "baseline lap" and more of a shake down. This was not a great track test, and I will need to re-do this whole thing after we fix the engine misfire issue. We won't have any data since this is an OBD1 car, so it was a lot of driving (4 hours towing) to get 6 lousy laps over 3 sessions, but it needed to be done.

WEIGHT CHECK OCT 17, 2024

Got back to the shop the day of Track Test 1 and I wanted to get a weight before we brought the car into the shop. Yikes, the car got fat!

Gained 103 pounds since our August weight check, but that delta is accounted for like this:

Difference in stock 17x7.5" wheels and 18x9.5" wheels = 28.4 pounds
Addition of rear roll bar = 63 pounds
Rear trunk bulkhead = 4.9 pounds
Small difference in fuel load + added 6-point harnesses = approx 10 pounds

We took the August 2910 lb weight with the smaller stock wheels and without the back seat in the car, before we added the roll bar. We will start chasing pounds now.

I took this second picture to note the ride height, which still looked high but had ample tire rub in the slow-ish laps I took. We raised the rear ride height even more after this track test.

AC TESTING AND REMOVAL (CHASING POUNDS)

Now that the car exceeded 3000 pounds on the scales, I was a bit spooked and started looking for areas to trim some weight. This was one of the first victims - the factory air conditioning system.

Now I will say this - removing the air con from a car we are calling "dual purpose" seems dumb, and it is - but after testing the system with our lines and vacuum pump, we saw some pretty big leaks. Repairs for this car could exceed $1000 in parts alone, so I made the call and Christian pulled the "easy" parts off - the lines, the compressor, accumulator, and the condenser (not shown or weighed).

Removing that set of lines from the compressor to the firewall also freed up some room in the engine bay, which will come in handy when we add the stainless header we have ordered. Christian made a block off plate for the firewall port to to seal off the interior air con bits (evap core), so if we ever decide to add the air con system back that the interior bits aren't all full of junk and rot.

ARMREST DELETE - NEW CENTER CONSOLE

This wasn't really done as a weight reduction, but as a fix for the "I keep hitting my elbow on this dang arm rest" problem from Track Test #1. All of my E46 BMW cars in the past got the "armrest delete" consoles, but from what we can gather, all E36 coupe models came with this useless flip up arm rest.

I looked around and could only find E36 sedan models without the armrest. they are a different length but I took a chance and bought this tan one from eBay for $33 shipped. We had some black vinyl die spray to refinish that to match our black E36 interior.

After that was cleaned in the parts washer, scuffed with Scotch Brite, washed with soap and water, then wiped down with paint prep (above left) it was hit with a few coats of black dye and allowed to dry overnight. It really looked great and matched well! The front edge of this sedan console lines up with the "shifter" section of the console, but the rear mounting was different for the coupe model. Christian made a simple aluminum bracket that adapted the sedan console to the factory coupe rear mount, easy peasie.

The new "armrest delete" sedan console was then bolted in and it looks freagin factory. I have since driven the car on track and the missing arm rest is noticeable - no longer banging my elbow on every shift. The 4.5 pound drop was just a bonus.

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**Fair!** · 12-26-2024, 07:15 PM

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INSTALL VORSHLAG ENGINE AND TRANSMISSION MOUNTS

One of the more frustrating issues in our first track test - other then the complete lack of power - was how poorly the shifting felt in the car. Long ago we realized how terrible the OEM driveline mounts were in these cars (they are fluid filled hydraulic mounts) and we designed a series of engine and transmission mounts for the E36 chassis that we have sold since 2007 and redesigned in 2013.

These mounts dramatically change how the shifter feels because, like most BMWs, the shifter is mounted to the BODY while the DRIVETRAIN moves independently on the squishy factory mounts. It doesn't take much engine torque for the transmission to move relative to the body mounted shifter, which makes the 4-to-1 money downshift possible, when you just meant to do a 4th to 3rd downshift. This happened to me at track test #1, but I knew to watch for this, could tell it wasn't right, and put the clutch in before the engine saw "all the revs".

We ran out of stock of the CNC machined parts for a bit in 2024, as the sales of these seemed to taper off. After getting to drive an E36 on track with the stock mounts, I was quickly reminded how important these are! So we tooled up and made another big batch for inventory over the summer - and Project Hellrotten got one of the first ones built.

I chose the Nylon engine mounts and the red 95A durometer poly transmission mounts, which are the most firm setup we sell. Wow - what a difference! Night and day driving improvement at Track Test #2. It kept me from buying a $1000 shifter after driving the car with these mounts, at least for a little while.

LAST LEAK (POWER STEERING) FIXED!

After all of the gunk and grime had been cleaned from underneath the engine and crossmember, we had one small dripping leak left - which was evident after towing the car back from track test # 1. I ordered a small hose for the low pressure suction connection from the loop cooler and Christian got that swapped out on November 8th, before track test #2.

We haven't had a single drop leak from any system since this repair - finally!

HOTCHKIS REAR ENDLINKS (IS THIS COMPANY OVER?)

I wasn't thrilled with the end links that came with the Whiteline rear swaybar so we ordered these Hotchkis adjustable units in July of 2024. They arrived in late November of 2024, which is pretty fast for this company of late. Great products, but they are always out of stock.

We had to take down all of the swaybar and end link options from this company years ago, because ever since about 2020 the lead times went to 6-12 months on anything. That does not look good and they have made statements like "(we) are currently reorganizing and are temporarily under construction" or "Hotchkis is working to fulfill orders as soon as possible, but (they are) experiencing some communication issues". This could be code for "we are going out of business", but what do I know?

MOUNTING GARMIN CATALYST (VER 2)

On November 22nd, it was time to make a better mount for the Garmin Catalyst lap timer to get ready for Track Test #2. It needed to be away from the shifter (in case I bought the long RTD / CAE style unit) where the first version of this mount put it. I also wanted a dedicated USB port for the Garmin and the backup AiM SOLO or backup video camera, as the cig adapter in the center console was super flaky.

I looked more closely at the interior with Christian this time. We talked about making a metal bracket mount above the glove box, like we did on the 2024 Mustang Darkhorse. That led to this finding the passenger side airbag, and shortly afterwards 6.8 pounds of explosives were removed from the dash. Into that gap slid the new aluminum bracket, which the RAM base and a dual USB port / battery voltage meter is attached.

This still allows the Garmin to be placed in view of the driver, ans also uncluttered the center stack panel - so much so that we could reinstall the radio. This new location leaves room for the mega-tall race shifter when we need to install that. The better USB power for the Garmin should help make it more reliable? (it did not)

TRACK TEST 2 - NOV 29, 2024 - LESS HORRIBLE

We planned for this track test on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which was a member day at MSR Cresson that is often under attended. But from the point I planned it until the day we got there, they changed the direction of running to the 1.7 CW course - which is backwards from our normal 1.7 CCW test course. I figured this out as I pulled into the grid - crap! Not the same course / comparison when you run a track in another direction.

The sunroof panel had not arrived yet, so the guys made me another "spoiler" with a chunk of material, which worked again. We planned a later morning arrival time, and were on track by 11:30 am. Amy joined me that day, and she hates being cold - this later arrival let us beat the cold early morning weather (31F), giving us temps in the high 40s/low 50 F range, which was nearly perfect. I went out first with with 6 gallons of fuel in the tank, which thought would be enough. Nope! This led to major fuel starve on right hand turns (which the 1.7 CW course is full of).

ABS trouble light was lit on the dash as I drove it out of the trailer, and as expected the ABS did NOT work at all. This made it super easy to lock the front tires, which is a problem we will tackle before the next track test. After just a lap of fuel starve I dove into the paddock, grabbed my wallet, drove to the pumps, got a full tank of 94 octane, and went right back out - this time with Amy riding shotgun. The Garmin stopped working in the middle of this stint. When these units "lose the camera" the timer stops working, too. Super frustrating. I bled the tires down to 33F/32R hot pressures and reset the MCS RR2 dampers to Compression +3 front/rear and +9/+6 Rebound. That smoothed things out a lot.

We stuck the dual 1080P video camera RoadKeeper and the AiM SOLO into the car for the rest of the day. I was over braking everything and then trying hard to avoid lockup and drove to a best lap of 1:27.9 with Amy riding shotgun. I thought I was "showing her the course" but apparently she is better on the 1.7 CW than me. This car is for her so she drove it for the rest of the day, after my super short stint. I rode for a few laps in the right seat on the next stint, then got out and let her drive solo.

The in-car video from this test shows Amy's best lap, and she straight smoked my times. You can also see how compromised the braking is when the ABS stops working in the first part of the video. She had 1:26.350 best running by herself, and she put in a string of 1:26 laps. This CW direction is about a second slower than the 1.7 CCW, so that translates roughly to a 1:25 lap - which is getting... quick-ish?

Now that we have "full power" and the car was 6 seconds quicker than Track Test #1, which meant we were pushing everything harder. That translated to higher cornering loads - and those 1.45g peak lateral g numbers meant that rear tire rub was now horrific. I simply couldn't "drive around" the tire rub noise. Amy didn't care or couldn't hear it, so she just sent it. The 2019 era RE71R tires worked great, as did the cheap RockAuto brake pads - keeps us from buying pricey track pads until we do the planned BBK upgrade.

Amy has a lot of laps in a similar E36 M3, and was super happy with her times being that much faster than me. I just couldn't "unhear" the heavy tire rub, and it got to me - but she put me in my place that day!

Notes: Seat needs to go up and one more notch forward for Amy. Speaker grill popped out on me, bouncing around back seat areas. Center console change was nice. Coolant temp mid mark all day, would be really nice to have an oil pressure gauge, though. Shifter now feels notchy, clutch releases right off the floor. Exhaust note is super quiet, hard to hear the engine revs.

We took close to 30 laps that day (some with the Garmin, then these 22 laps with the AiM) and the car was pretty reliable. Frustrated about the ABS and tire rub, but we can fix all of that. Lots more work to do, and we am hoping to have the car prepped with cut fenders/flares added and working ABS for another test on the proper 1.7 CCW course maybe before the end of 2024, or very soon after.

WHAT'S NEXT?

There is much more to cover next time but this write-up is running super long, so I am gonna cut it short here. I finally picked a widebody flare kit and ordered that from Eastern Europe, and the first thing we did was install the sunroof panel. The fender clearancing and flare install work is ongoing as I write this, too. We have plans for an 18x11 or 18x12" wheel and 295 or 315mm tire for Max 5 class use next season - hence the giant flares.

We are also chasing down the ABS issue, getting ready for another track test in the coming week or so. We still have lots of parts ready to install, including header, muffler, cold air parts, and more. Started looking at an aftermarket EFI system, since tuning these ECMs is so clunky (burn a chip!) and we have to get data into a logger of some kind, as well as a proper digital dash so we can see it while driving. More on all of this next time.

Thanks for reading!

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Vorshlag BMW E36 Development + Project Hellrotten

Vorshlag BMW E36 Development + Project Hellrotten

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