Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Nice job! Sorry it didn't go as planned but why would you want to go back if the rules aren't enforced? Sounds like a 'brother in law' deal.

turbo

It wasn't that bad, we just didn't know which things were important and which weren't. Obviously keeping the full interior and glass and all the OEM steel was a mistake - one we wouldn't make again.

Not testing hurt us most of all...

[turbotoddie]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Nice job! Sorry it didn't go as planned but why would you want to go back if the rules aren't enforced? Sounds like a 'brother in law' deal.

turbo

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Mini-update for October 3, 2010: OK, let me post this up quick to stop the rumors and poor guesswork. I've got three Project Updates coming shortly... one full update later tonight showing the last minute thrash to get the car driveable before we left, then a post about the event itself will happen Wednesday (along with pics and video of our car and others') after we know more about the results, and Friday I'll post up with the Future options for this E30... and its up for a vote. By you guys.

That's right - we're putting the fate of the little E30 in YOUR hands!

So, let me give a quick update here, mostly to address the haters that have posted up with wildly inaccurate rumors... (shakes head)

I heard it didnt go to good. not only was the guys from miami e30 ALOT nicer bodywork wise but it was alot faster in both events also.

"It didn't go to good"? Kind of like your grammar lessons in 3rd grade didn't go to good?

The Condor Speed Shop's white E30 (aka: DirtE30) probably was nicer inside and out than our flat black car, and I think they just eeked past us with a Pro driver on a 5th run at the autocross, (they got a re-run, which was lucky as their driver had lots of cone issues), but I didn't see their drag race times. I think they needed to run an 11.18 to beat the Georgia Tech team's Miata V8 entry, which dominated the autocross and did well enough in the concours and drags. We left the event after we had two driveline failures in the drags early on Saturday, so I'm not sure about anything on who won what.

So we almost beat the white E30 in the autocross (up until their 5th and final re-run, and only the first 4 count), but our drag times were barely more than a DNF (see below). And they crushed us in the car show. Not a surprise, after seeing that car in person.



I think their white E30 won overall best the concours event, but that's only a rumor - GRM is VERY slow to post updates about the event online and we don't know much for fact. We also had two different photo shoots with our black E30 and their white one... good vs. evil. Several GRM photographers took 100's of photos of both. I won't be surprised to see their entry get in the magazine with a full 4-page spread, but our ugly duckling might sneak in there, too. You never know.

Remember that this was their 3rd or even 4th? year at this event in the same car, and they do local autcross events between Challenges to fine tune things. We're total noobies to this event, and foolishly finished so late that we had ZERO testing on ours. We left in almost all of the interior bits, glass, and other "functional street equipment" as stipulated by the Challenge rules. The Condor E30 was gutted like a real race car and tipped the scales at a scant 2160 pounds with a full tank of fuel. As we found out the hard way, nobody took the "street functionality" aspects seriously at all. Well, we learned that lesson the hard way, as our car tipped the scales at a portly 2490 lbs with working power windows, all the stock glass, most of the dash, heater, lights, horn, carpet, etc. We wasted a lot of time with all of that, and it probably didn't help us one bit in the concours judging that we had a beautiful stock dash, interior panels, fully carpeted interior, 4-point roll bar, etc.


Left: Condor Speed Shop E30 = gutted car that was 2160 lbs. Right: Vorshlag E30 had working windows/lights/wipers/interior and was 324 pounds heavier at 2484 lbs

I have a lot of respect for those guys - their E30 looked awesome, and even had the same E36 front and rear bumpers our car had (hey!). But ours... well, for 2 days worth of bodywork and paint it sure was well received (or "received to good" for you 2nd graders) by both the concours judges (at least to our faces) and by the other competitors. We had dozens of groups come by to gawk at the car and most left saying they loved our little E30, and many said they'd be looking for a 5.3L LM7 for their car next year (see why we held back on that piece of info until late in the build?).

... rumor has it they didnt show up for the banquet at the end because they expected to beat everyone easily and was pissed off they didnt win anything. cant imagine that sat very good with the grm community.

Wait... what??? Hold on there, hater, your rumors suck. Don't speak for us, please, even based on second hand rumors from someone who might have been there.

I am going to post a better update about the event later this week when I have time to compile all of the pics and video, but in short: the car and our driver Costas did very well in the autocross, considering the car had ZERO testing and we had a terrible alignment (we couldn't fix the -4° camber in the rear in time) and way too stiff on rear spring rates. I think we were 3rd fastest in the autox at one point but maybe slipped to 7th fastest, out of 55 cars? And he beat the Pro driver that we let take a fun run in the car (who had dozens of looks at the course). Again, the handling was a MESS, and also the brakes didn't work worth a damn. But man, it had power! I made one fun run and pretty much put on a drift show... it was a MESS, but it was FUN.



Our drag race driver, however, had more serious troubles on Saturday... a CV joint in the old halfshaft shattered on his first drag launch, we replaced that with a spare, and then third gear exploded on his 2nd run, by 10 am. We're still not sure what happened, but this was an old, used T5, and he had never driven the car until hours before. Its weird because we put a bunch of 1st through 4th gear runs on the car on the street, to have it let go on a mild drag race pass. We'll crack it open and look for long term fatigue cracks and the like. With any real dragstrip testing this would have showed up as well, and been fixed.



So after the 2nd driveline failure by 10 am Saturday we were pretty bummed, and still had an 18 hour drive home ahead of us. My wife was running a NASA Time Trial event the next day and I wanted to get back if I needed to help. Costas had already flown back the day before to instruct at that event, too. We had planned on staying for the banquet and then leaving at around 10 pm for Dallas, but we talked about it and decided it wasn't worth it for us to stick around another 12 hours waiting, then leave at 10 pm and drive that 18 hours all night and through the next day. So, I made a judgment call and we packed up and left by 11 am - and got home at 4:30 am Sunday morning, almost a full day early, for some much needed rest. Worth it! I slept through them leaving for the NASA event but spent most of Sunday cleaning the truck, trailer, unloading the broken car, and then putting away all of the crap we brought with us. Otherwise... hell, it would still be sitting out there loaded up today.

Before we left the event Saturday before lunch, we said our goodbyes to the GRM staff (that we could find - which admittedly wasn't many people at 10 am on Saturday), stopped by and talked with some of the other GRM teams we met, wishing our competition well in the drags, and hit the road with a smile. We had fun, but yes, we were a bit disappointed that we didn't get a single drag run in - that totally boned our chances in the overall placing. We never expected to win overall but had hoped to at least get some sort of respectable drag times in. At best if the car hadn't broken we might have eeked out a top 5-10 place finish, but that's a total guess. Could our car have run the 1/4 mile in the low 12s? 11s? Not really sure, but I damn sure want to find out NOW, you know?!



We were surprised at how well the car ran in the autocross, and we were happy that the car and our team was well received by the competition and the GRM staff.

http://vimeo.com/15490390

I already took our four official runs, then Fair took it on a fun run. First time he had driven it more than a few dozen feet. I asked if he knew about 'drop-throttle oversteer' and he nodded....so I said: 'this is more like any-throttle oversteer'. Too much rear negative camber, too stiff rear springs and no rear toe-in.....oh, and a lot of power in a light car.

Check the video above for my "total hoon run". I don't know how we placed overall yet, but I'll call GRM and find out tomorrow. Probably not well, considering the only timed drag run was an 18 second ET, coasting from 330 feet to the end. I'm not bitter, but that sure left a bad taste in my mouth. One full year of hard ass work... we can't NOT go back next year, you know??

Again - we'll let you guys decide the fate of this car soon. Check back for the poll on Friday.

More soon!

[bpeet]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Holy shit Terry!

Y'all have really pulled it together over a very little amount of time. GRM is at the end of this week? We're getting Savanna moved up this weekend and I know you're burnt out on this thing but let me know when you start fixing it the "right" way and I'll come help out!

[Jerry]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Great job guys, amazing effort and a great result for the work! Best of luck at GRM Challenge!!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 28, 2010: Normally I'd wait more than a day to post another update, but the differences from the last 24 hours are dramatic:


KA-POW!

We spent all night putting the car body panels and interior back together and it looks good. We've also started on the graphic layout, with the decals being cut today on one of the team's plotters. Hopefully we're putting decals on tonight or tomorrow before we load up... otherwise Costas will be laying them down at 70 mph inside the trailer. "It won't be the first time, nor the last".

We had Amy, me, Paul Costas and Paul M (aka: The Two Pauls) working from about 6 pm until well after midnight but the results were worth the additional late night push. I painted the bumpers flat black; I started by cleaning the E36 front and rear bumper covers, then hitting them with Scotchbrite pads to scuff the surfaces (they were both used pieces that were gloss black, but pretty beat up). Cleaned the CCWs while I was at it, plus a bunch of other pieces we painted last night: rear window trim, wiper motor cover plate, and some other bits and pieces.



Amy and Paul M cleaned up the various OEM weatherstrip seals (Armor All) and installed them for the hood, trunk, both door openings and rear window surrounds. We also started laying out where decals would go, and I took a ton of measurements for our upcoming graphics (pretty simple - mostly just big Vorshlag decals). The Two Pauls then installed the front and rear window glass - which neither had done before. They did a good job - no cracks!



The engine bay is a mess. Its nowhere NEAR my normal engine cleanliness standards of even the lamest cars I've ever owned. I usually get them crazy clean, detailed to perfection, and am proud to open the hood on any vehicle I own and show it off. Except this E30. We just flat ran out of time and cannot do the proper "pull the engine, bodywork the panels, repaint and reassemble" that we had planned. I had it pretty damn clean right after I bought the car last year, but we cut away several brackets we didn't need and then sanded/primed the areas... and now there's ugly gray primer in an otherwise shiny blue engine bay. Oiy.



Amy looked at it and decided that the worst part was the wiper cover. Its normally covered in ugly studs and sound insulation mat, which we cut off and ground smooth months ago. It was now rusty bare metal and looked terrible, so she yanked it out, Paul M prepped the surface with the Crud Buster, I blasted it with flat black, Amy laid on a small Vorshlag decal (over some crazy surface shapes) and then she reinstalled it. Huge difference. I'll clean the engine bay tonight and we'll go with the "look at the V8 and ignore the rest" for the underhood area. She also helped with the interior trim pieces - door sill, etc. - and cleaned and polished all of the glass. The Two Pauls reinstalled the carpet and cut around the 4-point bar. It looks pretty good in there now. We got the rear deck lid, dash panel, and center console cleaned up but still need to detail the door panels and maybe find a piece of carpet to cover the area for the missing backseat.



Costas has decal experience and had a strip of black vinyl he wanted to use for the windshield. He and Amy laid that on at a 6" height and we'll slap a yellow decal over that when they are cut today. We can all see underneath this windshield top strip well enough and it will provide good shade for racing under bright skies. Paul M also got the rear Dzus fasteners riveted to the trunk panel again.



The Two Pauls hung the doors, and that took a while. Blue tape on the leading edges to avoid scratches, the limit strap fell inside the door so the door panel had to come off one side, etc. Fun fun fun! Paul M laid on some black electrical tape for the X's over the headlight bulbs, for that period correct look.



I rolled the car out this morning and snapped some pictures as the sun was coming up...



We are all quite surprised how good it looks, even in black primer, for as rushed as the bodywork has been. Its far from perfect, but its mean and looks like it can get the job done. I found some stick-on chrome letters at an auto parts store and put those on for a little description of the model (325e became VM-353) and to sport our $2010 roots. Represent!



Some last bits still need to go on the car (rear quarter windows, kick panels), some wiring bits need to be finished (ABS light, a ground or two) and some pieces need to be found in the shop and installed (hood pins, one more front bumper trim piece). We have got to mount the 15x10" wheels and do some driving on them, too. Then the decals go on and we load it on the trailer tomorrow. If all goes well.

More soon!

[hancheyb]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

TUG! That is hilarious.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Project Update for Sept 27, 2010: What a difference a week makes...

One week ago we had one flare finished, and the car didn't run or stop, and it looked like total crap. Now we've got all 4 flares completed and the bodywork "done" and the car "painted". Now its less craplike. We took huge shortcuts, as you will likely notice. Some of the bodywork is visible under the flat black primer, and the roof likes like a mess. The bottlecaps were just for painting, so ignore those, too.



Friday night was an all-nighter, and Saturday and Sunday were also insanely work days. I lost count of how many people were there. We've worked until midnight or later for so many days in a row I didn't even know what day it was - I had to look it up. We had planned to and paid for an autocross on Sunday in the E30, to test all sorts of things, but missed the paint and bodywork plan by a mile. Let's see what I can remember...



The old E36 K-brand struts we bought for $15 were partially revived (one needed fluid) and turned into coilovers. Costas had fun with the plasma cutter chopping off the old lower perches, and Paul M cleaned up the used coilover adapters these came with on the lathe, for a better fit. They are on the car but we have yet to test them on the road or set ride height. There's some old crusty Eibach springs on the front that came with my '97 M3 when it had TCK struts. They've been on the car for years and sitting on the shelf for longer. 750 #/in and I hope that works. No time to test!





Chris, our wiring fiend, finished the custom E36 ABS wiring harness over Friday and Saturday and ran some old CAT5 for the sensor wiring. Chris and Costas did some testing Friday night in the rain on my wife's E36 M3 and figured out how the pedal position sensor works, and we're adapting it to be a "tunable" ABS. Its pretty complex, and involves expensive items like some painters tape. I'll explain further, if it works. Heh.



Chris was dodging sparks from my welding on the bottoms of the flares the whole time. I think I only barely caught him on fire. I was adding reinforcement plates to the bottom sections to make the box flares more rigid and "cone hit capable".



Chris and Costas got the new harness routed through the dash and car and mounted the ABS computer as well as the truck ECU in the glove box. It looks cleaner than the pics here show.



I started out Friday by cutting the top left flare off and fixing a lot of bends and angle problems. After taking some time checking angles I found the problem, made a little patch panel to bridge the gap from the flare top to the fender, and got it all welded back together and the underside brackets built and welded in place. The right front fender had similar problems, as the hammer formed top was made from the same (incorrectly cut) pattern, so that was some extra fun there, too. Somewhere in there McCall and I made rear bumper brackets (very light, also made from electrical conduit and scrap sheet). So the rear bumper was mounted and attached to the flares at the leading edges. Lined up pretty well (better than the front) but with so many pics in this update I didn't show it.



Paul M and Jason helped me cut and hold and hammer these front flares into shape. I don't know how many hours I spent welding on these but it was a lot. Probably 20 hours just from this weekend alone was spent on the front flares. We did a lot of spot welding and hammer/dolly work fixes to the rears before bodywork began, too. Making custom steel box flares is a LOT of freagin work. Trust me on that one. We have probably 60-80 hours in the layout, cutting, fab work, grinding, and bodywork on these flares. And they are far from perfect - we were pretty rushed on the front pair. 4 people worked on them over the course of the last 2 weeks. That 60-80 hour number might be low, too. It didn't help that we'd never made anything like these, of course.



We had a volunteer that knows paint and body pretty well help us this weekend on the bodywork and some of the spraying. He didn't want to be named so we'll call him The Underpants Gnome. TUG did the mud work on the rear flares, hood and trunk for about 8 hours on Saturday and told us we were insane to think we'd be autocrossing the next day. He got the rears shot with primer after that full day of bodywork, and said he needed another week to get the bodywork right. The roof, doors, and front fenders were not touched yet. We had another full day. Hmm...



So Saturday night we decided to punt and pound out what we could on Sunday. "Right" was far from our goal. We needed "good enough at 50 mph". Jason, Matt, Amy and I poured another 12 hours on Sunday and mudded/shaped/sanded the front fenders and roof "quick and dirty", and just ran the D.A. over the doors quick and got to taping and cleaning. We poured in an entire day of bodywork, sanding and prep - done by people that had little to no skills in this area. We're racers, not bodymen!





We got it looking good enough from 50 feet, so we degreased the body and trunk and rolled it outside. Even with heavy winds gusting to 25 mph Jason sprayed a coat of sandable primer (mostly) on the car and all of the panels by 5 pm Sunday, while Matt, Amy and I held up a 20' x 10' tarp to block the wind. We don't have a paint booth, you know?? The winds were knocking us over holding this huge sail, but it deflected some of the wind away from the spray gun.



We ran to grab food at 6 pm and were back sanding this now dried primer coat by 7:30. We had it sanded, cleaned and ready to shoot by 8 pm, when TUG shot some black primer on the whole car and we were done by 9 pm. We were all ready to collapse but we got it sprayed. Always bet on black!



This morning I went out early and pulled the paper and tape off the car and panels. We'll put it together tonight and try to get some sort of testing done tomorrow. Probably something illegal and insanely dangerous. We pack up the trailer Wednesday to go 17 hours to Gainesville, Florida for the $2010 GRM Challenge. We might be wrenching in the trailer on the way. Its OK - it has lights inside... Costas, McCall, Matt and I will be there with the E30, one way or another. It will likely have zero testing, and might explode into a huge fireball, but we're going to be there and make loud noises.

Bleary eyed. I'm going to crawl under my desk and take a much needed nap. More soon...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 24, 2010: We're progressing along nicely on the bodywork, and ironing out some other details. Matt has been working on the budget and build book we're putting together to show the build, and Chris finished the ABS wiring harness last night (just have to wire the sensors up tonight).



Earlier this week we hit a snag and lost fuel pressure when doing that dyno test, dropping from 65 psi to 35 psi almost at once. Hmm... no visible leaks. We chased the problem for a few days, but we think we have found the root cause - a ruptured 2" piece of fuel line inside the fuel tank that attached the fuel pump to the E30 pick-up tube. We also imploded the fuel filter, which we found out later was made for carbureted cars (and much lower fuel pressures). Everything was fine at 40 psi, but when we cranked up to 65 it only worked for about 2 dyno pulls.

We've built a new fuel filter (a cheap replacement unit for an EFI Ford truck) to fit the very tight confines of the old outboard fuel pump (we re-used that bracket) and its working fine - and actually cost us less by $4 whole dollars than the old set-up. We wasted hours custom making it, of course, and would have gladly spent $100-150 for a real fuel filter with AN fittings... but that's the nature of this bizarre build - "time is free". There's plenty of time to sleep when we're dead.



Costas spent part of Wednesday night working on the fuel pump/pressure issues and then the rest of the evening buried under the dash, extracting our custom brake master cylinder pedal pushrod/clevis. We tried to re-use the E30 clevis pin that finally showed up, but it was too short, so I drilled a bolt for a cotter pin and Costas put it all back in. We also shortened our pushrod by .040", as it was a tick too long and was leaving some residual pressure in the rear brakes when the pedal wasn't pushed. It rolls easily now with the brakes off. We'll test it for real Sunday at the BMWCCA autocross.





The past two nights I've been working on the first front fender flare, with some fits and starts. Paul M worked on it Wednesday night and finished the cardboard top layout, built the buck, hammer formed the top piece, and we got it tacked on. Last night I cut it off and fixed a bunch of things, then tacked it back in place, at the correct angle this time.



Sometime yesterday I made a pair of brackets to hold the E36 front bumper cover to our E30. I got tired of looking at the zip ties...



We had spent several hours carving up the bumper cover to fit onto the E30 a few months ago - I can't actually remember when that was. McCall's cousin gave us the idea to use E36 bumper covers on an E30, since they looked so good on his when he tried it. He was right! The brackets I made were carved from some 14 gauge sheet, some 20 gauge scraps from the fenders, two 2" pieces of 3/4" electrical conduit, and 4 M8 bolts. We gotta be cheap here.





Yes, those two side supports are made from some lengths of PVC pipe and a 4" long bolt. Nothing but class here, folks. The front bumper looks better in person than in this series of close up pics, and will make more sense once we have the front flares finished and blended into the wider bodyline. The rear bumper cover is a better looking fit, however, as it is already mated up to the flares.



Costas scored this non-M E36 rear bumper cover for us off of CraigsList Wednesday night and it was a steal. McCall spent a good 3 hours last night fitting it to the E30 body. He whittled away about an inch of plastic to get the rear fascia to line up to the trunk section tight, and the wheel arches lined up almost perfectly with the rear fenders we built. A little more trimming at the arches, and some more brackets I'll build today, and that is completed.



About to put the final touches on the fuel pressure fix, then get after the rear bumper brackets and then attack the front flares. Tonight is going to be another LATE work night, and Saturday we will slap on some mud and black primer. Sunday we race. Sounds like an easy plan, right?



More after the autocross...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 22, 2010: We've been working damn near around the clock since we got the 5.3L V8 running and driving, thrashing to finish the bodywork and to iron out a few unfinished details on the fuel system and some other aspects. Let's start with where we are today, then I'll back up and go over how we got here...



We've been busy for the last week and Paul, Jason and I have knocked out the work required to custom make new rear fenders/flares. We've never done something like this before, so we were flying blind on several fabrication techniques we had only read about or seen done on TV.

Jason and Paul M worked their flare magic last Friday night after adding the 3 Dzus fasteners to the gutted trunk (Matt played "Trunk Monkey" and marked the inside locations on the underside of the trunk). We worked until almost 2 am last Friday night so my memory is a bit sketchy on all of the details...





Here's how we did the rear box flares - the first step was to make cardboard versions. We are making the flares fit the larger 18x11" wheels, as the 15x10" steel wheels are only being used for the GRM event.



The cardboard looked so good I was dying to get to work on the steel versions, but that was just finished in cardboard (many iterations) done at about 1:30 am Friday night. Costas and I had been making the "de-castered" camber plates all night, which came out pretty good for about $5 in scrap steel and 2 hours of work.





The finished result took us from +15° front caster to around +7°, which is more reasonable. The weight jacking that +15° of caster causes with steering input was horrendous! 7 degrees is livable. The camber is still "adjustable", but its pretty ghetto and only has 3 stepped camber settings (-4.7°, -3.5°, and one less than that). We'll test with the -3.5 setting and hope for the best. We hacked up the strut tower pretty bad to make this work - moving the top of the strut forward 1.7" to dump all of that caster. This excessive caster situation was due to the E36 front suspension swap we performed on this poor E30.





OK, so Saturday Paul M and I burned the whole day making the wooden buck for the left rear flare, which you can see in the above pictures. Then we hammer formed the 14" radius for the top flare piece by clamping the sheet steel to the buck and hammering it over the routed bend in the wood. The flimsy 20 gauge steel now was super rigid, with the formed radius along the outer edge. This was welded to the fender and two braces were added, tilting the top flare piece down at 24.1° from level.



We then traced the cardboard mock-up onto the steel, cut that out, and hung it from the top piece. Once the fit was tweaked and the lower bodyline was marked, we added a slight ~30*° bend in the lower section, then lined this up with the bodyline at the bottom edge of the door. It flows nicely there, visually.





We used Paul's pneumatic "crud buster" to remove the paint on each body panel edge that the flare would be welded to. Great tool! That work above burned the entire day and well into the night on Saturday. Again, we didn't know what we were doing, so there was a lot of trial and error, but we stumbled upon a good method (thanks to Greg for the hammer forming/buck tips!). I spent Sunday making two lower wedge sheet pieces that braced up the bottom of the side of the left rear flare, and welded them to the body. Now the flare is welded on all edges and is rigid as hell - it can take a cone hit at any speed, no worries, but its all fairly lightweight (20 gauge) steel.



I spent all day Sunday finishing the left rear flare and started finished the second buck, cut the steel, and hammer formed the top for the right rear flare. I welded it on Monday, but made some mistakes trying to do this work solo. Always have some extra hands (and eyes) when welding on big, long bodywork pieces! I have a "dip" on the top section of the RR flare that will need some serious mud.



We spent this past Monday night finishing up odds and ends on the flares, and Costas made this antenna hole plug which we welded in place flush with the fender. Tuesday night was spent grinding welds and such, and Chris worked on the custom ABS wiring harness (with parts stolen from an E36). Somewhere in there we got the used 275mm Hoosiers mounted to the 15x10" steel wheels, tried to get a dyno run in (but the fuel filter imploded), and worked on the brakes and clutch a bit more (finally getting them more reliable and "right").





I'm not going to spill the beans about the dyno numbers... but its somewhere between 300 and 400 whp. If its too high people will call BS, and if its too low, well... it would be embarrassing. Its in the believable range, but its not embarrassing or stellar. The GRM event is in a week so we'll share more after that (and then go back and fix SO many ghetto shortcuts we've had to make for cost reasons!).



We've also added the used E36 sedan front bumper cover to the front as well as laid out the front fender in cardboard (Paul M worked on that last night). I am out of room for pictures in this post so I'll show that after the first front flare is done in steel. Costas just rolled up with a smoking deal on a used E36 rear bumper cover, so we'll get that mounted and lined up with the flares (I hope that fits what we've built!). Paul M has already started on the wooden bucks for the front fender flare and Costas is putting the new fuel filter on (this one was fuel injection rated, and we ghetto-ized it pretty good to work with our weirdly-sized/used/existing E30 fuel lines). We have put the E30 KYB rear shocks back on that came with the car, and we're just adding some more fluid to the leaky and very rusty (and locked up adjuster) $10 pair of E36 Koni front struts we bought many moons ago. Those will go on the car probably tomorrow and we'll try to make some autocross runs Sunday out at Mineral Wells with the local BMWCCA chapter.

More soon!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Update for Sept 16, 2010: It runs! It Drives! Nothing caught fire or fell off! Hot damn!

I've worked every day and night since this past Sunday, after returning from the sound drumming I took at the Solo Nationals. Thanks to everyone that has come by and helped this past week. We've had a LOT of frustrating work days fighting with bad brake master cylinders, a bad clutch master, and wiring woes. Chris got the wiring ALL sorted out - the "unloader relays" are in and functional and he's started on the ABS wiring harness. McCall, Costas, Matt, and Paul M have also pitched in in the past week, in the final push to get it driveable.

Without further ado, here's the first drive video and engine reveal...


edit: Vorshlag E30 V8 - First Drive Video

Some of the hydraulic failures could have been avoided by NOT using used hydraulic parts. Lesson learned. This insanely low budget has led us to make mistakes in judgment. Sometimes there's a fine line separating "cheap" and "stupid".



The 3 massive fuel leaks are all finally fixed, with 3 separate repair jobs done to the fuel rail alone!



So after the 3rd fuel rail fix I had the car back together and did a quick test drive around 6:30 pm last night. Amy took the video for the "reveal video" (she had never used this vidcam yet so its a bit shaky). The "walk around" video is below. I talk about some of the aspects on the motor that we've not shared over the past 11 months.


Click this for "walk-around video"

Briefly, I'll fill in some blanks on what we've got: this car has a 2004 Chevy Silverado 1500 truck engine called the LM7, as many of you correctly guessed. Iron block, aluminum heads, 5.3L of displacement, made in the hundreds of thousands each year so they are abundant and cheap. In the trucks they make 315hp but we've taken off the uber-tall truck intake manifold and gone with a lower profile (not some say lower flowing) 5.7L Camaro intake manifold and throttle body.

The LM7 is a "Gen III" engine like the LS1, so all of the sensors and layouts are identical - except the LM7 has an electronic throttle body. We lost that with the truck intake so it now has a cable operated Camaro throttle body. The original and massive truck accessories were sold to recoup budget room to pay for used Camaro accessories, which package shorter in length and narrower in width - to better fit the small engine bay of the E30 better. A used, modified GTO oilpan was used to clear the subframe. We built motor mounts and a trans crossmember similar in style to what we use on our E36 LS1 kit, but they were of course completely different. The Camaro driveshaft was shortened to fit the car.



The uniqueness of this swap is that it was built for $2010, as well as being coupled to the the unloved V6 Camaro T5, which we used no only for budget reasons but also for low weight (we had mocked it up with the V8 Camaro T5 originally but they are fairly pricey). The T5s are much lighter than the T56 normally used behind an LSx, and it paid off with a very lower total weight for our car. The V6 T5 has a Ford front bellhousing mounting pattern, so we used a scattershield made for an LS1 to use a Ford Toploader trans, and that made it all work. Scattershields are an allowed safety expense and the one we used doesn't ding our GRM Challenge budget.



I'm sorry if some of you are disappointed that we didn't use something more exotic or silly, like a Northstar V8 or a Ford Mod Motor, but ALL of the DOHC layout V8s are massively huge and won't fit without major surgery. And they don't make good power when you have a budget this tight. The LSx engines are compact, inexpensive, powerful, reliable, and supported better in the aftermarket than any other modern V8. We're pretty happy with the finished engine install, and we have had really good results with LS1 powered BMWs in the past. We still have a lot of work to do to the car, like building flares, dialing in the suspension, and testing it it on a dragstrip. The car has driven under its own power for about 1000 feet, and we have a week to go before the GRM Challenge. (facepalm)



We're under the gun on time, I'm dead tired and busy as hell with regular Vorshlag work, so I'll post up more details soon.

[Fair!]

...vroom vroom...

Update for September 1, 2010: I said I wouldn't do another update without a video of the car running - so here you go! Please ignore the chuckle-head announcer in the video, and just listen to the sweet V8 melodies....


Click for video of the first fire of the Vorshlag E30 junkyard V8 - 51 MB, 1:13 in length

Can you guess the engine now? Some of you nailed it already (and some of you on corner-carvers gave us the idea in the first place - I had no idea those engines were this cheap yet, or this lively!). This sound should just about give it away. No, that isn't the stock camshaft(s) - it was a used set-up we purchased second hand.

Also, no, this engine/computer has not been tuned whatsoever - hence the copious clouds of black smoke (fuel rich). Once it can drive safely around the block, we'll get a bit of a tune on it. It was running last Friday, but dumping fuel everywhere (3 fuel leaks). We've been hacking away at tons of little issues that cropped up for the past week and a half. The biggest fuel leak is fixed, I've done a ton of small wiring re-dos and clean-up, LOTS of brake system/lines/pedal/pushrod work, the upper radiator hose was reworked/rerouted for the 4th time, engine fluids were filled and bled and rechecked, a battery tray was built, and more of the interior was installed last night.


Custom brake pedal pivot bracket and pushrod - to work with E36 manual brake MC

The E36 master cylinder is giving me fits - it won't bleed. I've tried the manual push pedal/open bleeder valve trick, gravity bleeding, vacuum bleeding, but nothing works. We can't get a drop out of the MC. It was bone dry when it was installed so we're trying a pressure bleeder tonight (thanks for the loan, Greg!), but the hydraulic clutch circuit is giving me similar fits (it shoots fluid all over the place, but won't firm up). When those two issues are sorted we can do our first test drive - and the drive-by video and engine reveal. Hopefully before I leave for the SCCA Solo Nationals, this Saturday!


Battery tray made of scrap aluminum angle and some old/bent end links (Mustang? Datsun? Some old junk I had)

Today I rounded up some loaner woodworking tools (tanks Dave B!) to help with fender flare wooden buck construction that I'll hopefully start tonight, and we're also making some dash panel inserts to cover holes in which we'll place a few crucial (and dirt cheap/used) mechanical gauges. I'll try to make a small aluminum heat shield for the open element air cleaner tonight, too. We're still looking for a few last minute bits before its ready to race - hopefully it is tuned and running properly enough so that we can race it for the first time in about a week (we don't have much time left after the Solo Nationals and before the GRM Challenge, arg!).

If anyone has the following parts for sale cheaply, please PM me!

• 4th gen Camaro shift knob - stock? aftermarket? V6 or V8? anything inexpensive - we don't care (we might just whittle something on the lathe)
• A pair of used but usable E36 front Bilstein Sport struts - and I mean cheap

If you're gong to the Solo Nationals and need AST decals (for contingency) or Vorshlag decals (represent!), come find us at the back of the paddock. We'll be at the big red Vorshlag trailer from Saturday to Saturday, Sept 4-11th. If I'm not there I'm probably near the courses (walking/driving/helping/working), but we'll leave plenty of decals out for the taking when elsewhere. I'm running Thursday/Friday in DSP... hopefully the weaknut M54 doesn't blow up!

Thanks,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Whew... electric nightmare averted! Thanks to everyone on all 5 forums where we post up about the E30 V8 (corner-carvers, bimmerforums, r3vlimited, SCCAforums, & Vorshlag forums) that pointed out what the K5/K7 unloader relays do (disconnect many circuits during "START" to maximize voltage to the starter), and to Larry from Corner-Carvers for giving us a call and making me check the build date on this car (02-86... so this is an '87 model!?). And the suggestions several folks had to go to the round 20 pin "C101 connector" (engine bay, near the fuse box) were what Chris had been saying all along - easy access to the harness, and the pins are actually numbered on both sides of the connector (in the tiniest font EVAR).



Costas with a test light is like a surgeon with a scalpel - precise, quick and potentially deadly! He scoffed at our attempts to find the perfect wiring diagrams, and figured out the start wire we needed in the C200 connector within 5 minutes of probing. He and Chris had the starter solenoid wired up and working (from C101) with a turn of the ignition key within 20 minutes, schematics be damned. After Costas jumpered the two K5/K7 relays we also had working power windows, heater blower motor, and everything else worked again - even the aux cooling fan! He was mashing various buttons on the interior and the "recirc" button on the HVAC turned the aux cooling fan on...?! That's the fan we're using to cool the E36 radiator in this car (the same a/c aux electric fan worked well on E36 LS1 cars we built, so why not our little E30 V8?). I had plugged the fan into the factory connector so I guess the jumpered unloader relays completed that circuit? That was easy.

Question 5: Anyone know the trick to triggering the K5/K7 relays correctly, so that during START they kill power to their sub-circuits but remain on during "RUN"? Remember - we don't have the original DME in the car anymore, if that is what controls it, so we need to trick it from just the "START" wire. Its probably another jumper from Pin 18 at C101, but we're going to skip ahead to the fun part and keep the relay jumpers in place for now.

Chris couldn't stay long but he managed to solder wires for the starter solenoid at the C101 round (20 pin) connector as well as from the fuel pump relay we've got connected to our engine computer to part of the fuel pump (I finished that this morning). Costas stood on his head under the dash for a while and got the brake pedal out so we could make a custom pushrod to connect the pedal to the E36 master cylinder we are using without a brake booster. While cleaning it up I managed to crack one of the low pressure nipple fittings (clutch hydraulic supply) on one of the better of the two E36 brake reservoirs we had scrounged up, so my friend Mr. JB Weld came to the rescue and that's all fixed up and cleaned, ready for final installaiton.



I did a little welding on the brake pedal bracket and then started to remove the lower part for relocation of the pick-up point on the brake pedal itself - right up until the power went out to half the town. Costas thought we had tripped a breaker, but the whole area went dark. Eventually we went and grabbed food. After 2 hours of waiting we gave up, Costas headed home, and Amy and I went to the movies (Scott Pilgrim vs The World = hilarious, crazy, different). I went out this morning and after a little testing to find the correct positive and negative leads on the E30 fuel pump assembly connector, I finally made the fuel pump go WHIRRR!, so we're very close to making the big loud and revealing update that people are waiting for...



Thanks again everyone for your helpful electrical suggestions!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

Question 1: This connects to the starter relay and eventually feeds to pin 18 on the C101 connector at the firewall.

Question 5: I believe K5 and K7 are unloader relays for the starter circuit.

Not only does C101 Pin 18 handle the start signal (pull in coil) on the starter, it also energizes Terminal 85 on K5 (windows) and K7 (blower motor), such that during START, power to the windows and blower motor are interrupted.

C200 also must be plugged in.

Has your fusebox been tampered with, and do you still have a C101? It's the round 20 pin connector that is connected to the fusebox.

Thanks guys. We have one side of the C101 round connector and we have it mapped for some of the wires we're trying to tie into. It sounds like we need to dig deeper into this guy for most of our issues...

Since neither the blower motor or power windows work (a-ha!), it sounds like we need to trick the K5 and K7 relays into triggering them back on. I'm breaking out the ETK/Bentley and moving on to more work at C101.

Thanks!

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

This isn't a project update - this is a serious of questions.

Why do E30s have such terrible wiring schematics? I've been fighting with final wiring of the motor and car for the last week and its making me nuts (as well as wrapping up the last of the fuel/power steering/brake lines/trunk floor). Doug stopped by Saturday (thanks!) and we put the battery back in the car (first time in 8 months) and, after a little digging and a wire repair, got power to the fuse box and to parts of the interior of the car. Headlights work, some other systems work but others don't - there's power to some fuses/circuits, but not many.

Whenever I need to reference a wiring schematic, it rarely matches what's in the car. The wiring references in the Bentley manual are a JOKE - I wish I could meet the guy that put this book together, and punch him in the face. Little clips of the schematic sections here and there, and they don't always match the car. Chris found some more complete online schematics but, once again, they don't always match the car.


Half of these wire colors match the wiring at the connector!

So the wiring is kicking my butt. I don't know E30s well to begin with and we're trying to splice in the engine harness and computer from another vehicle to some of the E30 systems. Its usually pretty simple stuff in an E36, which has relatively good wiring schematics, and what we're trying to splice in are very simple systems (start, fuel pump relay, tach, brake, Check Engine Light). We've got everything on the donor harness identified/pared down/lengthened/connected to the engine, I just cannot get accurate connector pin-puts for the E30's wiring connectors for some of the last 5 wires we need to splice in. Some of the systems just aren't behaving like they should, too.

Question 1: The current (ha! a pun!) problem I'm having is trying to get a 12V positive "START" wire to trigger the starter solenoid. The "connector 50" 12V lead from the BMW engine harness to the BMW starter is long gone (we sold the engine harness with the motor) so I went upstream to the ignition switch, and the C200 connector under the steering column:



The connector doesn't look exactly like the numbering diagram (why aren't wires 9 & 10 shown in the picture above, right?) and many of the color coded wires are incorrect (from Figure 10-11, above). Apparently "Terminal 9" (black/yellow wire) is the start signal that becomes "Terminal 50", but at this wiring connector it is a microscopically small wire. There's no way that little thing can handle the juice needed to energize a starter solenoid. Did this "Terminal 9" go through a relay or circuit somewhere to become the larger "Terminal 50" wire that triggers the BMW starter? Or is it "Terminal 10"? Its so damn hot in the shop right now its hard to think, and once inside the car (with the windows stuck up!) you just sweat like mad and can't see within 2 minutes.

I've done continuity tests with the key in OFF, ON and START positions - and damned it if I can find the right circuit, or verify that "Terminal 9" is even the wire we want. The one we need only makes a 12V circuit when the key is in START. Once we get a 12v signal to a starter solenoid we can crank the engine. Sure, I could throw a momentary push button switch in the car to energize the solenoid, but the ignition switch and key WORKED BEFORE and I don't want to clutter up the car more than it already is with unnecessary custom buttons and switches. I've already burned hours on finding this wire... one stupid wire. (facepalm)

Question 2: The power windows no longer work, and they did before we tore the car down last year. I traced the schematic for this circuit back to fuse # 17, and there's no 12V power even when the key is ON. It shares the fuse with the sunroof, which we completely removed all traces of. Thoughts? The wipers worked for about half a stroke, then stopped. A closer look at the firewall routing for the wires to the wiper motor looks like it was cut then put back together by a previous owner (just twisted together - not even taped), so all that needs to be removed/re-soldered. I'm so sick of soldering and heat shrinking I could scream.

Question 3: Does anyone recognize this wiring bundle, located back at the diff? This cable was cut and dangling under the car when we got it, and it has 3 wires: red, blue, & yellow/green. Probably not critical, just want to get the mess of wiring as cleaned up as possible before we crank it. Its not the speedometer wiring, which was spliced together with speaker wire ends just and smashed onto the speedometer sensor terminals (ugh), but is now properly spliced/extended and has weatherproof spade connectors clicked onto the 2 terminals there.



Question 4: I've also got to trick the fan to come on when the key is in the ON position. Need to find an accurate diagram for the aux cooling fan, and try to decipher the hi and low speed circuit and relays for that.



Question 5: What do the K5 and K7 relays do?

If anyone has any answers, please feel free to share. Also, if you are in north Dallas and know a bit about E30 wiring, we're working on the car tonight - let me know if you want to come by and educate the E30 Ignorant!

Thanks,