1985 BMW 318 Stage Rally Build - 1988 Porsche 924S Street Build - Sequoia Build

Nice that you found a bolt on solution. I am hoping that I can find something similar for my Honda.

In reply to irish44j:

Is there a perk to buying the full ARA license I'm missing? E36 M3's pricy, I'm pretty sure we'll do single event licenses assuming the entry fees are reasonable enough to even consider STPR.

irish44j wrote:

Is it just the lighting, or is there a lot of dirt up in your intake boot?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: In reply to irish44j: Is there a perk to buying the full ARA license I'm missing? E36 M3's pricy, I'm pretty sure we'll do single event licenses assuming the entry fees are reasonable enough to even consider STPR.

to clarify, we got a single-event license and a full-season "membership." The only ARA event we plan to run is STPR. I would imagine the fees will be similar to prior years for entry.

gearheadE30 wrote:

irish44j wrote:

Is it just the lighting, or is there a lot of dirt up in your intake boot?

I'll have to look when I get home, but that's probably dried oil since the crankcase breather dumps into the boot there and it's always oily inside. I can't see how dirt could get in there seeing as we have a stock intake box and regularly change filters..

Then again, dirt gets everywhere when you rally, so who knows lol...

I feel like you would be better served with a Vband connection, that way it's only one bolt to swap mufflers

Gaunt596 wrote: I feel like you would be better served with a Vband connection, that way it's only one bolt to swap mufflers

That would be a bit more convenient, I don't plan to swap it all that frequently, so it's not really an issue. To be honest, I had never looked into Vband before, so will keep it in mind for future reference. I'm not convinced that Vband is quite as strong as a full-flanged setup (thought I could be wrong), and since our muffler has a big dent in it from a rock, making sure the connection is as strong as possible is a key concern.

Doing some little stuff in prep for WMWR. Rerouted some wires in the car (intercom, GoPro, etc) to put them in more convenient locations. Also installed another tie-down on the inner rear driveshaft tunnel to use as a forward mount point for a ratchet strap (along with the two stock rear seatbelt eyebolts) so we can strap down the toolkit in the back seat area rather than the trunk, which is getting more difficult now that we're going to start carrying two spare tires. Forgot to take any photos, so will post some later...

Also got the decals for WMWR in the mail, and they look great. Sadly they required removing my NRS banner and Black River Stages cars. With us running in three different organizations (ARA, NASA, SCCA) is't like a game of musical chairs swapping out all the required numbers, decals, banners, etc. I have a few ideas about how to make this easier, but those will come later.

Also need to cover up the NRS header since SCCA did not provide one....

Also got my hands on another full set of 14" weaves for $100. So now we have three sets of 14" weaves, which I like for rally (both the looks and the design being stronger than bottlecaps), to go along with the 3 sets of bottlecaps (for winter tires/beater rally tires, and spares) and the Euroweaves (15") for my street Star Specs. Need to figure out where to cram all tese things in my garage!

Waste Management Winter Rallyspring 2017 (SCCA)

We headed up on Friday to our second WMWR since it became an SCCA event (it was previously a Rally America event, with basically the same format). Like last year, the field was fairly small (15+ cars) due to the unseasonably odd weather. Usually in mid-February in upstate Pennsylvania it's very wintry. Last year it was cold but no snow. This year there was a good amount of snow on the ground but temps got up into the 60s, so the stage was a messy mix of ~6" of snow, slush, mud, some ice, some gravel, and every other surface you can think of.

loaded up

This made tire choice interesting for everyone. About half the field left on snow tires and the other half on gravels. Last year we used snows in similar conditions and ended up flatting two of them, which sucks. So this year we decided to go with the gravels - we'd give up some traction and speed, but would be able to "abuse" the tires a bit more without fear of flatting. Keep this in mind for later.

Ozgur and his/our crew trying to get Alp's e30 ready to roll....in a shopping center parking lot

About half of the field was in our class, R2U (2WD cars under 2.5L engines/NA), with some accomplished regional drivers who we know. With the conditions, it was sure to be a battle fo FWD cars for the class, with most RWD cars just fighting it out amongst ourselves for bragging rights. This proved to be the case, in the end, with FWD cars taking the top 5 spots in the class.

On the RWD side were Alex Jagger and Ryan Symacek in their 240SX, Billy Petrow driving the Broken Motorsports 240SX, Ozgur Simsek and Brian Battocchi in Alp Seyhan's BMW 325i (a last-second replacement for Ozgur's e30, which wasn't quite complete), and Rober Pepper's Porsche 944, plus one or two others I'm possibly forgetting. I think all the RWD cars except Ozgur's went out with gravels.

During the Friday recce it was clear that traction was going to be questionable in many areas - sunny-side areas were getting a ton of melting turning to gooey mud and giant puddles. Shady-side areas still had full or partial snow cover and were very slick as well. THere were some dry(ish) gravel areas here and there, but not many. In the soft areas, this stage gets very, very rocky with big chunks getting dug up by the high-power cars, making some danger for underbodies and wheels/tires.

Transit into the sunset

Friday night we got tech'd (no issues) and then met up with some of the other drivers at a local bar and while Jim recopied his stage notes at a table, I drank way too much and chatted with a table ful of locals nearby. I don't usually have hangovers, but had one all day Saturday lol....oops.

we love Pepper's Porsche. From Fairfax, VA same as us :)

Local brewhouse...

Before the rally, we drove over Petrow's skidplate to try to straighten it. Didn't work, so they found a bigger weight...

The off to parc expose, where we signed some kids t-shirts and hung out before starting off

Turner and Rhoads, who would go on to win overall

Alan's Neon Porsche

We started mid-pack on Saturday in the draw. WMWR is the same stage run 5 times (3 times one way, two times reversed). Each stage is about 10 miles or so with transits of a few miles. We went out pretty cautious to feel out the conditions on gravel tires (we did recce on snow tires).

First stage was fairly uneventful other than one steep, long hill that begins after a sharp right turn (so hard to carry any speed). This was tough in recce with snow tires and promised to be tough on gravels. As luck would have it, we turned the corner and.....Alex Jagger's 240 SX was midway up the hill backing down after failing to get to the top. Since we had no way to help, we went "two wheels off the track" and did oiur best to get past them and up the hill. Somehow by the slimmest margin we managed to get through and went on to finish the stage - not terribly fast but clean.

The 240s after finally making it up the hill (both had issues)

Second stage we went out with more speed and again had no major incidents that I recall, but knocked about a minute and a half off our first stage time, which is good.

Third stage was interesting as we caught up to one of the Subarus, and managed to pass them. About 5 minutes later coming into some tree-flanked kinks, when I went to make the right kink the tires didn't bite at all and we slid right at the tree. I straightened them out and aimed at the smaller tree to the left hoping to get some braking bite, and we managed to stop a foot short of the tree. The Subie went on by us again, and we got back on his tail for the rest of the stage.

Then off to service - got a bit of fuel, and cleaned some glass. And ate some good food made by our and Ozgur's crew. Our crew stayed busy , however, helping out Ozgur and his crew making multiple repairs to Alp's e30. So there is that.

ON the first reverse stage, just a minute in we found that same Subie overcooked a corner and stuck in some snow. We stopped to try to give them a tug out, but it was a slippery downslope and we couldn't get any traction at all when pulling so they unhooked and we went on our way, now with Tad Uzzle's Mazda2 on our tail. We let him go by after a couple minutes, but ended up catching him and passing him again.

Tad

Some other photos

On the second reverse stage, we went out faster but about halfway in I overcooked a slippery turn and had a small off, but happened to be where a rock was buried in the snow. We hit pretty hard on the back wheel, but kept on going. As it turns out the wheel was slightly bent and it caused a slight air leak, but it held up for the rest of the stage with no noticeable issue (and both wheel and tire shoudl be salvageable). We had another chase with Tad in the Mazda but didn't catch him this time. Instead, by 3/4 of the way through the stage we were a turn or two behind Tad and Paul Batman had come up on us in his Impreza. Didn't really have a place to let him by in the last section of the stage, at least safely, so we just pushed harder and he dropped back a little bit. The last two hairpins were tricky as the car was so mud-covered I coudln't see anything out the side windows so was basically asking Jim to call out the apex so I knew when/how much to turn. As we hit the last stretch, a half-mile long stretch with mostly 4s and 5s (fairly mild) turns, the surface was still partially snowy. We hit the last right 5 fine, but on the following left-4 I couldn't hold the track and we slid toward the trees on the right at a good clip. (Luckily) there was a water-filled ditch there and we basically fell into that with the right wheels, stopping us from hitting any trees with Jim's side fo the car, and I pushed on down the ditch trying to get out and hitting random objects in the way. As it happens, Batman followed us directly into the ditch as well, but managed to jump back out quickly (AWD), so he roared by and I mnaged to give it enough gas as the ditch got shallower and we popped up and out (and almost went off the other side of the road lol). So anyhow, that was like 50 feet before the finish. So we finished!!!

We transited to time control and then started to head back to the Rally HQ area and.....lights and car went dead. Voltmeter showing zero. Before stage 4 I noticed that the alternator was doing funny things with all the lighting on, but it seemed to have stabilized. Guess not. I think we ran that whole stage with full lighting on and no alternator charging! Recall that I just installed this one (a 105A unit to handle our lights) to replace our fully-functional 80A alternator. Figures.

Luckily, our crew was heading down the same road and saw us. Chris Nonack and Mike hung out while Stepehn took my tow rig to get the trailer. After about an hour we loaded up on a gravel road and went to Rally HQ.

As it turns out, only two RWD cars finished the rally - us and Jagger/Symancek, who got stuck several times and were far behind us. Robert Pepper's 944 fought an electrical issue and bowed out on the last stage with a failed alternator. Petrow's 240SX lost a front wheel and/or hub and had to be picked up on stage. Ozgur and Brian battled all kinds of issues all day (blow-out rear shock mount, fuel pump relay, etc) and eventually broke their oil pan on stage 4 and retired. The R2U class was won by our friends Kevin Turner and Matt Rhoads in their FWD Impreza on snow tires (also the overall winners!), followed (I think) by the Beliveau Boys from up north in their Golf and Alan Edwards in his Neon (who hit a tree last year). We had no major/damaging offs and no penalties, so those are both good things.

Ozgur's oil pan

Petrow's lack of wheel

Then we had some celebratory Gennys

Then we all went out to a bar and drank some more with the other drivers, navis and crew

All in all, not a fast or trophy-winning performance, but with the conditions out there taking out about half the entry field, we're pretty happy to have gotten through with only a few small issues (two banged-up wheels and the alternator issue). While we'd love "great" conditions (i.e. either all-snow, or all-dry), this kind of event is challenging and I think it improves my driving more than anything else - plus we had a good time with rally friends and crew.

On the way home, we stopped at some middle-of nowhere car lot we passed, as Jim has been talking about another vehicle to haul engines and generally use for utiliy tasks and during this trip seems to have gotten onto the thought of a Baja. So we saw this BFE car lot with liek 10 cars, but a silver Baja sitting there. Hooked a U-turn with the trailer an went back. Nobody came out to talk to us, so Jim just got in the car and stood in the bed (but did not buy it) ,lol....

So, got home, unloaed, unpacked, washed the tow rig and the rally car, put the trailer away. Tomorrow I'll do an inspection fo the car for any other damage and swap back in our old alternator and send this one back. .

Mike (our crew) took a ton of awesome photos of us in action, so hopefully I'll be able to post those up here in the next couple days. Also we ran 3 GoPros on the car (roof, inside middle, and one facing back at us) so once we tet some video edited, will link that up. Posted some updates on our facebook team page, please visit us there and give us a like!

Upcoming schedule: DC rallycross in March, DC rallycross in April, NASA Rallysprint in NJ in April, more rallycrosses, STPR in June, more rallycrosses, Black River Stages in September. All tentative!

Thanks once again to our crew for this event: Mike Seitz, Stephen Nichols, Katie Spoth, Chris Nonack, Brian Morse, an Tyler (whose last name I forget, because I suck at names). Also thanks to the WMWR and SCCA organizers, especially our friend SueAnne Carson!

Got some stills of our off into the ditch. Closer to the tree than I thought at the time - the ditch saved us some damage (though we were only going about 40mph). Apparently we thought it was funny...

a few seconds later, as we were trying to get out...

I'm in one of those pictures, as is Tyler Worman! As to the pic of me, I grabbed the board that goes between your spares, and Steven was like "whoa, dude! Don't take that!" And I was like "I was going to hand it to you." And he was like "oh! I thought you were going to get rid of it." Laughter ensued.

I will say again how impressive the Pitchblack car and crew are. The car and the guys in it took a beating on the stages. At service we changed some tires around, cleaned off as much mud as we could and did the other routine checks. That was all the car needed, and it finished the rally.

As for Ozgur and Brian- well, I bet they were exhausted when they got home! The car started fighting them before they even got to recce. We got into Wellsboro at 5:30 or so, registered, talked to Josh for a minute and went to find them by 6:30 or so. Before that time, and before recce, they realized they had two broken motor mounts and a broken rear shock mount. With Steven's help they got that sorted (SueAnn Carson's hockey pucks FTW!) by shortly after seven.

Then they said they have to go register and get the car through tech before 8 (!). So Ozgur threw me the keys to the BMW and asked me to get it to tech and get started (!!) while Tyler took them to get registered at the fairgrounds. So I went to the address my gps showed me for tech, building was dark. I drove up and down the road in the dark and found nothing jumping out at me (!!!!). berkeley! A panicked call from me to Tyler got me to the right place at 7:40. Whew!

And they busted our balls on every little thing they found. But whatever, we got through.

Then Saturday went pretty much the same way for them. They had to push, pull, kick and swear that car through as much as they could.

Thank goodness Nonack was there with chief! He became the designated flat tow vehicle for the E30s ;-). Not to mention much troubleshooting on the stalling problem.

Then Katie and Michael cooking up the amazing food brought by Ozgur! This is the way to crew!

Permanent additions to my crew bag after this event: hockey pucks, a sleeve of electrical tape rolls, and an e30 wiring diagram.

It was an awesome weekend!

irish44j wrote: Waste Management Winter Rallyspring 2017 (SCCA) We headed up on Friday to our second WMWR since it became an SCCA event (it was previously a Rally America event, with basically the same format). Like last year, the field was fairly small (15+ cars) due to the unseasonably odd weather. Usually in mid-February in upstate Pennsylvania it's very wintry. Last year it was cold but no snow. This year there was a good amount of snow on the ground but temps got up into the 60s, so the stage was a messy mix of ~6" of snow, slush, mud, some ice, some gravel, and every other surface you can think of. loaded up This made tire choice interesting for everyone. About half the field left on snow tires and the other half on gravels. Last year we used snows in similar conditions and ended up flatting two of them, which sucks. So this year we decided to go with the gravels - we'd give up some traction and speed, but would be able to "abuse" the tires a bit more without fear of flatting. Keep this in mind for later. Ozgur and his/our crew trying to get Alp's e30 ready to roll....in a shopping center parking lot About half of the field was in our class, R2U (2WD cars under 2.5L engines/NA), with some accomplished regional drivers who we know. With the conditions, it was sure to be a battle fo FWD cars for the class, with most RWD cars just fighting it out amongst ourselves for bragging rights. This proved to be the case, in the end, with FWD cars taking the top 5 spots in the class. On the RWD side were Alex Jagger and Ryan Symacek in their 240SX, Billy Petrow driving the Broken Motorsports 240SX, Ozgur Simsek and Brian Battocchi in Alp Seyhan's BMW 325i (a last-second replacement for Ozgur's e30, which wasn't quite complete), and Rober Pepper's Porsche 944, plus one or two others I'm possibly forgetting. I think all the RWD cars except Ozgur's went out with gravels. During the Friday recce it was clear that traction was going to be questionable in many areas - sunny-side areas were getting a ton of melting turning to gooey mud and giant puddles. Shady-side areas still had full or partial snow cover and were very slick as well. THere were some dry(ish) gravel areas here and there, but not many. In the soft areas, this stage gets very, very rocky with big chunks getting dug up by the high-power cars, making some danger for underbodies and wheels/tires. Transit into the sunset Friday night we got tech'd (no issues) and then met up with some of the other drivers at a local bar and while Jim recopied his stage notes at a table, I drank way too much and chatted with a table ful of locals nearby. I don't usually have hangovers, but had one all day Saturday lol....oops. we love Pepper's Porsche. From Fairfax, VA same as us :) Local brewhouse... Before the rally, we drove over Petrow's skidplate to try to straighten it. Didn't work, so they found a bigger weight... The off to parc expose, where we signed some kids t-shirts and hung out before starting off Turner and Rhoads, who would go on to win overall Alan's Neon Porsche We started mid-pack on Saturday in the draw. WMWR is the same stage run 5 times (3 times one way, two times reversed). Each stage is about 10 miles or so with transits of a few miles. We went out pretty cautious to feel out the conditions on gravel tires (we did recce on snow tires). First stage was fairly uneventful other than one steep, long hill that begins after a sharp right turn (so hard to carry any speed). This was tough in recce with snow tires and promised to be tough on gravels. As luck would have it, we turned the corner and.....Alex Jagger's 240 SX was midway up the hill backing down after failing to get to the top. Since we had no way to help, we went "two wheels off the track" and did oiur best to get past them and up the hill. Somehow by the slimmest margin we managed to get through and went on to finish the stage - not terribly fast but clean. The 240s after finally making it up the hill (both had issues) Second stage we went out with more speed and again had no major incidents that I recall, but knocked about a minute and a half off our first stage time, which is good. Third stage was interesting as we caught up to one of the Subarus, and managed to pass them. About 5 minutes later coming into some tree-flanked kinks, when I went to make the right kink the tires didn't bite at all and we slid right at the tree. I straightened them out and aimed at the smaller tree to the left hoping to get some braking bite, and we managed to stop a foot short of the tree. The Subie went on by us again, and we got back on his tail for the rest of the stage. Then off to service - got a bit of fuel, and cleaned some glass. And ate some good food made by our and Ozgur's crew. Our crew stayed busy , however, helping out Ozgur and his crew making multiple repairs to Alp's e30. So there is that. ON the first reverse stage, just a minute in we found that same Subie overcooked a corner and stuck in some snow. We stopped to try to give them a tug out, but it was a slippery downslope and we couldn't get any traction at all when pulling so they unhooked and we went on our way, now with Tad Uzzle's Mazda2 on our tail. We let him go by after a couple minutes, but ended up catching him and passing him again. Tad Some other photos On the second reverse stage, we went out faster but about halfway in I overcooked a slippery turn and had a small off, but happened to be where a rock was buried in the snow. We hit pretty hard on the back wheel, but kept on going. As it turns out the wheel was slightly bent and it caused a slight air leak, but it held up for the rest of the stage with no noticeable issue (and both wheel and tire shoudl be salvageable). We had another chase with Tad in the Mazda but didn't catch him this time. Instead, by 3/4 of the way through the stage we were a turn or two behind Tad and Paul Batman had come up on us in his Impreza. Didn't really have a place to let him by in the last section of the stage, at least safely, so we just pushed harder and he dropped back a little bit. The last two hairpins were tricky as the car was so mud-covered I coudln't see anything out the side windows so was basically asking Jim to call out the apex so I knew when/how much to turn. As we hit the last stretch, a half-mile long stretch with mostly 4s and 5s (fairly mild) turns, the surface was still partially snowy. We hit the last right 5 fine, but on the following left-4 I couldn't hold the track and we slid toward the trees on the right at a good clip. (Luckily) there was a water-filled ditch there and we basically fell into that with the right wheels, stopping us from hitting any trees with Jim's side fo the car, and I pushed on down the ditch trying to get out and hitting random objects in the way. As it happens, Batman followed us directly into the ditch as well, but managed to jump back out quickly (AWD), so he roared by and I mnaged to give it enough gas as the ditch got shallower and we popped up and out (and almost went off the other side of the road lol). So anyhow, that was like 50 feet before the finish. So we finished!!! We transited to time control and then started to head back to the Rally HQ area and.....lights and car went dead. Voltmeter showing zero. Before stage 4 I noticed that the alternator was doing funny things with all the lighting on, but it seemed to have stabilized. Guess not. I think we ran that whole stage with full lighting on and no alternator charging! Recall that I just installed this one (a 105A unit to handle our lights) to replace our fully-functional 80A alternator. Figures. Luckily, our crew was heading down the same road and saw us. Chris Nonack and Mike hung out while Stepehn took my tow rig to get the trailer. After about an hour we loaded up on a gravel road and went to Rally HQ. As it turns out, only two RWD cars finished the rally - us and Jagger/Symancek, who got stuck several times and were far behind us. Robert Pepper's 944 fought an electrical issue and bowed out on the last stage with a failed alternator. Petrow's 240SX lost a front wheel and/or hub and had to be picked up on stage. Ozgur and Brian battled all kinds of issues all day (blow-out rear shock mount, fuel pump relay, etc) and eventually broke their oil pan on stage 4 and retired. The R2U class was won by our friends Kevin Turner and Matt Rhoads in their FWD Impreza on snow tires (also the overall winners!), followed (I think) by the Beliveau Boys from up north in their Golf and Alan Edwards in his Neon (who hit a tree last year). We had no major/damaging offs and no penalties, so those are both good things. Ozgur's oil pan Petrow's lack of wheel Then we had some celebratory Gennys Then we all went out to a bar and drank some more with the other drivers, navis and crew All in all, not a fast or trophy-winning performance, but with the conditions out there taking out about half the entry field, we're pretty happy to have gotten through with only a few small issues (two banged-up wheels and the alternator issue). While we'd love "great" conditions (i.e. either all-snow, or all-dry), this kind of event is challenging and I think it improves my driving more than anything else - plus we had a good time with rally friends and crew. On the way home, we stopped at some middle-of nowhere car lot we passed, as Jim has been talking about another vehicle to haul engines and generally use for utiliy tasks and during this trip seems to have gotten onto the thought of a Baja. So we saw this BFE car lot with liek 10 cars, but a silver Baja sitting there. Hooked a U-turn with the trailer an went back. Nobody came out to talk to us, so Jim just got in the car and stood in the bed (but did not buy it) ,lol.... So, got home, unloaed, unpacked, washed the tow rig and the rally car, put the trailer away. Tomorrow I'll do an inspection fo the car for any other damage and swap back in our old alternator and send this one back. . Mike (our crew) took a ton of awesome photos of us in action, so hopefully I'll be able to post those up here in the next couple days. Also we ran 3 GoPros on the car (roof, inside middle, and one facing back at us) so once we tet some video edited, will link that up. Posted some updates on our facebook team page, please visit us there and give us a like! Upcoming schedule: DC rallycross in March, DC rallycross in April, NASA Rallysprint in NJ in April, more rallycrosses, STPR in June, more rallycrosses, Black River Stages in September. All tentative! Thanks once again to our crew for this event: Mike Seitz, Stephen Nichols, Katie Spoth, Chris Nonack, Brian Morse, an Tyler (whose last name I forget, because I suck at names). Also thanks to the WMWR and SCCA organizers, especially our friend SueAnne Carson!

Looks like a great event! I agree on the conditions making for more fun sometimes, snow is good, and gravel is good, but throw it all together and it makes for much more of a challenge.

Was one hell of a weekend for us! A big thank you to the dirty e-thirties crew for all their help particularly Stephen the day before the event. As Josh mentioned, we started our day by finding a broken motor mount and one on its way out. Did some parking lot repairs with hockey pucks and a right rear shock change as Brian found out it was busted the day before with no spares. Luckily i had some as did Josh. On our way to recce the mount failed this time. We did a single pass of the reverse stage and headed back to replace it. Good thing i am very familiar with this stage... About a half mile in coming into a downhill right hairpin i went into a pendelum and bumped the outside which spun and buried us. Brian came out and pushed us out along with a couple of corner workers. Another half mile later car died and we ended up figuring out all it was was the fuel relay that popped off (apparently common e30 problems). We cut the stage short as directed as sweep had went by back to start of SS2. Another spin this time just before where the fuel relay popped off and beached it again but was able to get it going. After that pretty much any water puddle we went thru (snow was melting and there were a lot of puddles) car was stalling or losing power sometimes not re-starting for 2-3 minutes. I think it was at end of second stage we barely made it across the finish line coasting. Those that were following the EZTrak system didnt understand what was going on as it would show us stopped, traveling 1mph and then back up to speed. We blew another rear strut mount (bmw problems!) and Brian, Chris and the others replaced strut and we switched to gravels went out on our way. Car was very unpredictable as well due to a torn control arm bushing and either a loose or bad right rear wheel bearing. I was ready to call it quits but Brian B who was codriving for me was in charge with a Press On Regardless attitude so we continued. We took a big hit on ss4 on a fast-ish straight which bent the skid plate and busted the oil pan. On our way to start of last stage oil light came on and after we lined up at start, we realized oil gushing out of pan and called it quits. Hope i didn't thread jack too much but since it is another e30 it is related :) Ozgur

In reply to irish44j:

Vband held together just fine when it fell off the car at NEFR. probably got ran over too.

My own car has a vband setup i need to finish as well...

Ozgur, don't forget to get my rear shock back to me! That's my only spare ;)

Here are some other / action shots

By Mike Seitz (on our crew)

By Lori Lass

Nice air!! Looks like a lot of fun!

So I guess it's time to catch up a bit. With the cold weather and other things going on the post-WMWR work on the car has been sporadic at best, so will try to touch on a few things.

First the post-rally inspection. Well, it's dirty:

Looks like our off into the ditch took a bit of a toll on our right-side wheels. One of them was flat by the next day (appears to be a mild debead that has some debris so it won't seal, so will get it remounted).

Both wheels have a couple dents in the rims, but they appear to be ok for use - this set with the 175 DMacks will become the rallycross set anyhow, as I'm going to order up some 185/65s that fit better on my other set of weaves (which are 7" wheels) for STPR and future rallies.

A lot of much up on the skidplate, but after rinsing stuff off and inspecting, I don't see any kind of damage or other issues under there, so that's a good thing

As you may recall, our almost-new 105A e36 Delco Professional alternator bit the dust just after the rally ended, so I sent it back to RockAuto and they sent me a new one. Fingers crossed that this one holds up better. I find it funny that my 30-year-old OEM Bosch alternator that has never been rebuilt still works fine after years of beating, but a new one can't. WIsh the Bosch just had more amperage!

I also managed to finally get my hands on a 4.10 LSD, also. My car originally had a 3.91 small-case LSD with the M10 engine, which I've used on and off over the years. When the clutches went bad last year I switched to a 3.73 LSD medium case which we used at BRS and WMWR, plus some rallycross. However, I wanted a shorter ratio to keep me a bit more in the powerband on slower transitions in rallycross and give a bit quicker acceleration in rally, and this 4.10 kind of fell into my lap. It appears to be in good shape with good lockup.

Pressed a Condor Speed Shop solid bushing in (taken out of my 3.91, which is being sold)

Opened it up and fluid was pretty clean, no shavings, nothing that concerns me. Action is smooth and no play in the bearings or lash, so that's good as well

Also, since putting diffs in is a pain in the ass with the bolts, I chopped up some of our spare Motorsport Hardware lug studs (same pitch and thread) to make some diff studs, which will make install easier.

red loctited and tack welded them in as well so they don't unscrew themselves.

All that done, on to more fun stuff. After five years my original "cosmetics" for this car (which were a mishmash of rattle-can and vinyl) is pretty beat up, and the main vinyl pieces are kind of torn up from the abuse. With a couple warm weeks here in February and early March, decided to get moving with the new(ish) paint scheme. A bit tired of the black and white, and wanted a bit more color (dark color, of course).

So first, we take all the old stuff off about 75% of the car (the front doors and one fender will remain in the black-on-matte-black scheme for the moment....I have my reasons).

Then some priming

I initially was going to do some vinyl wrap, but the color I had here wasn't as dark as I wanted and didn't like the look, so took it off

As luck would have it, Pat Henry had a bunch of rattle-cans leftover from his Comanche project - three cans each of three different dark reds. All of them were close to what I wanted, so I did a test-band to see the differences

So I picked one and got to work laying down the base of all the areas to be repainted

This isn't so much a total change in look, just an evolution. So got out my straightedge and started cutting 2" vinyl striping in matte black, and began to apply. A few funky areas resulting from trying to line up the lines to the stripes already on the hood and the trunk, but overall fairly pleased with the look.

Carlos from Condor Speed Shop is sending me some new side graphics to replace the old white ones, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will all look! In the meantime, I got out the vinyl cutter and made some new stuff of my own (including new numbers for rallycross, new windshield banner, and some other stuff).

It's supposed to snow a foot on Monday-Tuesday, so no idea if the DC Rallycross season opener the next weekend will be a go....will keep you updated.

Aw man, I was just starting to think the graphics had enough wear and tear to look right!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: Aw man, I was just starting to think the graphics had enough wear and tear to look right!

lol, nah, stuff was starting to peel and such. Don't worry, this new look will get dirty and ratty too ;)

Well, let's get caught up a bit. I haven't really done anything to the car recently mechanically, just a few minor electrical things that don't really warrant any attention here. Also ordered six new rally tires (four Dmack Grippas for gravel, and a pair of Maxsport Mud/Grass tires for slippery rallycrosses, as you'll note why below...)

Anyhow the 2017 Rallycross season started a few weeks ago at the new Rally Farm venue (which we used for some events last year). This year all events (including East Coast Championships) are there - which is going to make it tough for me to repeat, as it's been pretty clear over the past few seasons that I'm faster on gravel than on grass. Guess time will tell.

First event promised to be a test....because the groun was soft with several very muddy and slippery areas. For as much as I love the Dmacks for most things, mud is NOT where they excel. But that's what I had, so that's what I used.....

Unfortunately, 2016 runner-up Eric Eisele had a bit more foresight, showing up with fresh Maxsport Mud/Grass tires on all four corners of his 325i. I'm not going to waste much time with a full-event recap because from the start there was little drama at the top. Eric, between his great driving and great tires, ran away with the win by over 10 seconds over 2nd place. But that wasn't me. Jeff Geier came out of the blue to take 2nd (moving up from PR last year). He was not on Maxsports, but did have a rally tire with a more soft-centric tread (IMO) and drove great as well. I eked out a 3rd place with Josh Sennett (in his now-functional M50 e30) and a couple others right behind me.

In short, this is gonna be a super-competitive season in our class with about 10 e30s all with a chance to win at any given event, plus Corey now bringing back the turbo Volvo, but now with a Ford LSD rear end (so no more breaking?).

The April event was cancelled due to a ton of rain and we'll have a May doubleheader. Let's hope it's dry!

A couple pics

Some other stuff....

Last weekend I sold my GT6. Just couldn't give it enough time, and it was collecting dust in my shed. It's been in the family for 47 years, but now it will go to a new home (a friend who I know will drive it and enjoy it and work on it). Makes me a bit sad, but happy it will keep being enjoyed.

The black fleet together for the last time

Then the next day this happened:

That's my neighbor's 100-foot red oak....which obliterated my deck and back porch. Thankfully didn't damage the house itself, nor did it hit my trailer parked next to the deck...but it's another thing to deal with.

But whatever, the next day I still loaded up the car to go to New Jersey for the NASA rallysprint at Englishtown Raceway - a combination tarmac and dirt event..

A lot of neat rally cars there, some of my regional favorites. The course was about 4 minutes+ long (2 miles on a track and a motocross course). It took a toll on a lot of cars, but we survived with no damage and put up times comparable to or better than most other RWD cars there - most of which were more prepped than ours and with more experienced drivers. But the course (both parts) was tight so the more powerful cars coudln't use their power much, and my car's rallycross chops came into play to make it very competitive....

So, got about 45 total minutes of on-course time during the day (and evening) with Brian Battocchi co-driving for me since Jim couldn't make it up for the weekend.

Here are some pics of that:

Looks like good times! Thanks for the updates.

What vinyl cutter do you use?

java230 wrote: Looks like good times! Thanks for the updates. What vinyl cutter do you use?

My wife's Christmas present a few years ago for her to do craft stuff. Silhouette Cameo.

In reply to irish44j:

Thanks! You use it more than she does don't you?

My neighbor has the older version of that one