Looking on ebay, that UFC clutch for the e30 is sold out and no pic, but all the other blue-colored UFC stage 3 clutches for other cars have straight spring plate arms, just like e30 stock ones.
So unless the UFC e30 one is different for some reason, it looks like yours has bent spring plate arms. Here's the e36 one:
Just looked up a replacement clutch/pp on Rockauto and noticed that the LuK pressure plate has fingers that look just like the ones on my car right now:
I may just get a new friction disk to improve the clutch feel to make the car more drivable.
that's interesting. I have a stock M20 clutch behind my M50 and it definitely looks like the photo I posted. Must be a brand thing.
Had some time to get my new clutch kit in last night and reinstalled the transmission:
The bad news is that this "new" (read: very used) transmission turned out to be quite a bit noisier than mine so it'll have to come back out.
The bad/good news is that I was able to clearly distinguish the transmission noise from the other unidentified driveline noise that I've been chasing since I got the car. So I can safely rule out that the transmission is not the culprit.
The good news is that this new OE-replacement clutch is MUCH nicer to drive with. I've also learned a lot of little tricks on how to get the trans in/out of this car with the engine still in place, so I should be able to get the original trans that I had swapped back in before this Saturdays rallycross. And while I was waiting to get the new clutch, removed the camber plates from the front and installed some M3-style "offset" front control arm bushings to give me some extra caster.
Rallycross Report!
Had a bit of a scramble Thursday/Friday to get the original transmission back into the car and buttoned up. reinstalled the skid plate, and did a little self-alignment with some toe plates and tape measures.
I woke up on Saturday morning to the sound of rain, which on a rallycross day is dreadful. Fortunately it was light rain and the forecast said it wouldn't last long. We sent out Modified AWD and Modified FWD to clear some of the mud off of the course for everyone else. After seeing how slick it was for that run group, I decided to air my tires down to 20psi, which may have been exactly what I needed. Talking to the other guys in grid between runs, it sounded like my car was somehow finding more grip than the other fast guys in our class. I didn't see results posted at lunch, but I believe I had a decent lead in MR after the first set of runs.
By the time the afternoon runs came around, the course had dried up significantly. The organizers also changed the course up a bit, and it seemed like a lot of us were struggling to find our rhythm in the afternoon. On my second to last run of the day, the car decided to start falling on its face for seemingly no reason. Unlike my previous misfire, this did not seem to happen at a certain RPM, but the car would just completely fall over and then come back to life, and repeat. Ended up losing 5 seconds on that run. Fortunately, one of the other guys let me do my last run in his Miata, with which I promptly blasted 2 cones.
I haven't had a chance to really dig into what was going on with my car that afternoon yet, but my "wishful thinking" theory is that my fuel gauge is inaccurate and the car was fuel starving. E30's have a "saddle" tank that goes over the driveshaft, with a pickup on one side, and a small tube that allows fuel to flow back and forth. My gauge said it was at about a quarter tank (I know, I should have noticed this earlier and filled up before the event), but I'm wondering if it's just not terribly accurate. That or maybe it's some sort of ignition issue again.
I didn't stick around to see the results in person, but I was pleased to see that I had won Modified RWD when I saw the results posted online. Very excited to have pulled off my first class win in this car, and I think this puts me in the lead for season points in MR as well. And with that, here are some more photos:
My buddy Joe's Volvo trying it's best to lift an inside tire:
And I just thought this was a cool photo:
I don't think the local quarter carwash owner is particularly fond of my car:
Your car looks great sliding around.
For whatever it's worth fuel was my first instinct as well reading your post. It's a bit different in the E21 because I've got a cell but that's exactly what happens when I have the level too low and G's pull fuel away from the pickup. Is it happening on corners where that would be the case?
In reply to AxeHealey :
Thanks! To be honest, my memory on the exact conditions under which it died are fuzzy in my mind at this point. car still starts, idles, and revs up normally. I drove it to the car wash and did a few second gear pulls without any issue, but there weren't any great opportunities for me to really flog it around corners. I intend to find some time to drive it around before the national challenge with more gas in the tank and see if the issue repeats itself.
In reply to artur1808 :
My E30 had fuel starvation w/the tank at 1/3 at an autocross this winter. W/two consecutive right-handers all the fuel shifted left and it cut power halfway through the second turn...every lap (fuel pump is on the right-hand side). It's probably difficult to replicate at street-legal speeds.
I just remembered that I spotted a Saab at the last rallycross with GRM stickers and one of the few vanity plates I've ever liked:
I never got a chance to meet the driver but I'm guessing this is someone from this forum??
artur1808 said:I just remembered that I spotted a Saab at the last rallycross with GRM stickers and one of the few vanity plates I've ever liked:
I never got a chance to meet the driver but I'm guessing this is someone from this forum??
that's Brian (paranoid_android on here)
And you'll chuckle that the sticker at top right for "Dirty Industries" is for a DC-based e30 rallycross team who he crewed with at SOFR last weekend.
Took a nice little camping trip with the lady over Memorial Day weekend, but I had a chance to work on the car a bit yesterday/today. I didn’t have the energy to do any actual work to diagnose driveline noises and generally make the car better, so I decided to make progress on interior stuff so I could feel better about being IN the car.
I picked up this seat a few weeks ago on Facebook marketplace so I decided to make a couple of brackets and mount it up.
I figured out that the oil pressure gauge wasn’t working because it wasn’t grounding. So I need to figure out a nice way to ground it permanently, but the oil pressure at idle doesn’t seem too terrible. Granted it’s not fully warmed, but I’m going to call it good enough. Jumps right up into the 40-60psi range with a bit of revs.
Also added a spacer on the steering column to move it down slightly and added a slider to my drivers side window to help get some more air flow and generally make the car a bit more user-friendly:
I wish that event was rescheduled for May as I wont be able to make the june events, I better hope I do good come July then - should be a big MR mix all year. nice job!
In reply to fidelity101 :
Unfortunately I won't be able to make the July event because I'll be out of town. Do you have any more stage rallies scheduled for the year?
Took the car to the Great Lakes Division Rallycross National Challenge this past weekend. Unfortunately, the weather wouldn't cooperate and the second day of racing was canceled, but I still had a ton of fun on the first day.
I noticed that once the engine warmed up, my oil pressure at idle would sit around 10psi. This seemed a bit low, but after some googling that seems to be common for m20 engines. At any rate, the car seemed to hold up well!
Managed to pull off a 5th place finish in a very competitive MR class, which I'm real happy with. Looking at my times, it seems that I was relatively consistent, which I'm happy about as well (aside from the botched final run). There is certainly plenty of room for improvement, but overall I was happy with my results from this event. I managed to stay competitive with guys like Pete and Evan, and that's good enough for me at this point!
Thankfully we had some great photographers at the event, so here are a couple photos of my car:
The Ohio guys have a driving style that makes for far more interesting photos:
My buddy Joe was pushing his 240 about as hard as he could. Unfortunately, he blew up a tire in one of the ruts and because our campsite was so far from the course, he wasn't able to get back in time for his rerun and therefore got penalized. I'm hoping this will motivate him to get proper gravel tires.
So much for me saying you didn't beat me since we would have more runs on Sunday...
Leaving saturday night made for an absolutely miserable drive home, but I think staying just to camp in the rain would have been even worse. If you hadn't hit those cones, it would have been dangerously close!
Your car looked and sounded great on Saturday. I'm the guy who called you ArtHur after the driver's meeting. Sorry about that!
In reply to AxeHealey :
Haha no worries, it takes most people a few tries to get my name right.
Unfortunately I've gotten a noise complaint at one of our local rallycross venues. That, combined with my exhaust hanging lower than I'd like, means I'll probably be making a new exhaust for the car shortly. Which is a bummer because I do enjoy the sound as it is right now.
Some more photos of the last event have surfaced and I thought this one in particular was neat.
I thought that the limited slip felt loose in this corner, but I'm now realizing that I may have been completely lifting an inside tire and asking a bit too much of the limited slip....
In reply to artur1808 :
That is why I am a fan of front sway bars, or at least front springs of about double stock rate, on a RWD. (And both with front drive, because the weight distribution is so screwed up)
Where are the photos being posted? I saw a few photographers come in and wouldn't mind buying some photosets.
nice job! photos look great -
In reply to Knurled. :
With the exception of that final corner, which was a bit off camber, it seemed to be alright. But I may need to reinstall my front sway bar for an event to try it out.
The first batch of photos were taken by Jon Seaton (Dash-n-Cars), he posted an album to facebook. The photo I posted today was from another photographer, he has the album posted here:
https://www.berchakmedia.com/2019-SCCA-RallyCross-and-Autocross/The-SCCA-GLD-RallyCross-Divisional
Yours is hiding under Prepared RWD.
I didn't want to pay for this one to remove the watermark, but I feel that GRM just needs to see this turbo, awd, civic wagon:
In reply to artur1808 :
The wagovan was nuts. Turbo the size of the D16 underhood, and lots of loud angry turbo spooling exhaust noises when it launched. Dude felt like he'd fit in here just fine when I was talking to him.
Y'know we probably should be discussing this in the event thread.
Looking at the pics of the ultralighted Miata, it was doing a Dutch roll in every corner. It would understeer a lot less and have much more consistent handling if they stiffened the front a bunch. That is probably why they were messing with diffs on Saturday night. They were attacking the wrong problem.
Dirt handles different, you get more grip the more you can drive the outside tire down into the surface. The trick is to get a suspension that can both do that, and follow the ground contours.
Look at Vaughn's 924 for comparison. He's always got the car back over the rear axle. That is a combination of good suspension setup and forceful driving.
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