BMW 330CI E46 Build thread
Discussion
Amazing thread, thanks for taking the time to keep it updated, i'm totally in awe of your technical ability!!! I'm having a BMW 325ti compact with a m54b30 built as a track car. In regards to the s50 exhaust manifold, did you source a b30 or b32? I've been told the b30 fits but the b32 doesn't.
Muzzman said:
Amazing thread, thanks for taking the time to keep it updated, i'm totally in awe of your technical ability!!! I'm having a BMW 325ti compact with a m54b30 built as a track car. In regards to the s50 exhaust manifold, did you source a b30 or b32? I've been told the b30 fits but the b32 doesn't.
Thank you Muzzman. Always trying to keep it updated regularly with whats going on, thoroughly enjoy the building and documentation as much as the driving. My manifolds are S50b32 I believe. The difference is where the location of the lambda bumps are in the manifolds. If I remember correctly B30 manifolds have the sensors in the middle section were mine are in the manifolds for the two banks.
If you go down this route I have still got a small stock of the adaptor and spacer plates for fitting this manifolds.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274233104506?ssPageName...
tombate911 said:
Muzzman said:
Amazing thread, thanks for taking the time to keep it updated, i'm totally in awe of your technical ability!!! I'm having a BMW 325ti compact with a m54b30 built as a track car. In regards to the s50 exhaust manifold, did you source a b30 or b32? I've been told the b30 fits but the b32 doesn't.
Thank you Muzzman. Always trying to keep it updated regularly with whats going on, thoroughly enjoy the building and documentation as much as the driving. My manifolds are S50b32 I believe. The difference is where the location of the lambda bumps are in the manifolds. If I remember correctly B30 manifolds have the sensors in the middle section were mine are in the manifolds for the two banks.
If you go down this route I have still got a small stock of the adaptor and spacer plates for fitting this manifolds.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274233104506?ssPageName...
Interestingly enough i've also gone for the GAZ Golds with adjustable top mounts as well, what's your overall opinion of them on the e46 now that you've run them for a while? I notice you ran them on your Clio too so you must be a fan. I've heard really mixed views on them but the guy that is building the car is a massive fan, plus GAZ are about 5 miles down the road from me.
BTW, you may have a lot to answer for, your thread has inspired me to 'have a go' and use the car to expand my knowledge of car mechanics! :-)
Muzzman said:
Great thanks, i'm having a set of b30 manifolds delivered on Wednesday, i've sent your link to the guy that's building it and told him to let me know if he needs them.
Interestingly enough i've also gone for the GAZ Golds with adjustable top mounts as well, what's your overall opinion of them on the e46 now that you've run them for a while? I notice you ran them on your Clio too so you must be a fan. I've heard really mixed views on them but the guy that is building the car is a massive fan, plus GAZ are about 5 miles down the road from me.
BTW, you may have a lot to answer for, your thread has inspired me to 'have a go' and use the car to expand my knowledge of car mechanics! :-)
Great thanks, Glad it's given you an idea to thrown your self in their with yours.Interestingly enough i've also gone for the GAZ Golds with adjustable top mounts as well, what's your overall opinion of them on the e46 now that you've run them for a while? I notice you ran them on your Clio too so you must be a fan. I've heard really mixed views on them but the guy that is building the car is a massive fan, plus GAZ are about 5 miles down the road from me.
BTW, you may have a lot to answer for, your thread has inspired me to 'have a go' and use the car to expand my knowledge of car mechanics! :-)
They serve two purposes. One to adapt the slightly different bolt patterns on the manifolds between different production year heads and secondly to space the manifolds away from the engine block and gearbox castings on all engines as when bolted against the block there is a minor clearance issue in a couple of areas.
Regarding the Gaz. I've been really happy with them for the money, the dampers work well providing you are not going to the extremes of the damping settings as they do offer quite a wide range and being single adjustment the rebound can get a little extreme at both ends of the spectrum. They a nice and controlled, predictable and so far have been nice and reliable.
Amazing build thread Tom! Having been into trackdays for a few years with a civic ep3 I have built specifically for track, I now have been on the look out for a 330ci as a rwd track project. I came across this thread and it totally convinced me my decision to go for a 330 was the right one! Everything you have done has been thought out well and completed to the highest standard.
Great work. Look forward to more updates!
Great work. Look forward to more updates!
tombate911 said:
Another expensive but worthwhile purchase for this engine build turned up. Set of custom ARP studs and nuts which are loner than the M50 kit ARP sell giving full thread engagement in the block. Decided to go down this route rather than spending the money have timeserts fitted to the block.
Could you tell me more details of the ARP studs you have used please? I'm considering rebuilding my M54B30 and looking at using studs instead of timeserts. I understand the M50 stud kit doesn't give full thread engagement in the block, hence why they sometimes pull out after installation.Alan_M77 said:
Could you tell me more details of the ARP studs you have used please? I'm considering rebuilding my M54B30 and looking at using studs instead of timeserts. I understand the M50 stud kit doesn't give full thread engagement in the block, hence why they sometimes pull out after installation.
Evening Alan.I was able to source a set of studs from a company in Poland which have figured out there is an ARP stud from another BMW engine which gives the full thread engagement and the correct length stud for the M54. Basically the M50 stud with a longer engagement. I think it's off one of the larger engines so the quantities are incorrect as they are adjusted by the seller. Cost around £270 when I ordered them, well worth it in my opinion with the aluminum blocks.
Small update.
I haven't managed to achieve anything too exciting yet over the christmas period, I've mainly been taking things apart and planning what small changes I want to make before we get back into track day season.
The first one trying to get a bit more weight out of the car.
I'm currently at 1260kg @ 265bhp = 210bhp/t.
Kerb weight of an e46 330ci = 1400kg.
In 2019 at Oulton it weighed in at 1300kg we're heading in the right direction but I think think I'll be able to get sub 1200kg without replacing panels for fibre glass.
However with some of the modifications I have got planned I wanted to drop a bit more weight out of the car to offset it.
When I first built the car I removed the lower door cards, airbag and window motors bringing the doors down from approx 40kg to 31kg as per the photo below.
I set about cutting excess material from the door and removing the window mechanism as the windows stay up all the time now.
This brought the weight of the doors down to 23kg saving 8kg per door.
While the door was off and split I weighed the glass which was 4.3kg which I would half by moving to 4mm lexan. Probably something to do later in the year.
I am in progress with some more weight saving around various parts of the car but i'll update more on that as I get to it and weight it as we go.
Obviously I wont be leaving the doors exposed as they are above, I will be covering them in a thing 3mm HDPE or Foamex sheet. Still to be decided due to price and availability of sheet size for the door cards being slightly longer than the standard 1000mm length it's supplied in being a coupe with long doors.
So for the time being I have made card templates ready to cut the material when I get some ordered in the new year.
Adding in another sensor. I already have an oil pressure sensor going to the Innovate gauges on the dash but I am unable to log this. I did look at spending some time figuring out the serial messages sent from the gauge but decided It was much easier just to add a 0-100psi sensor next to the other one and feed it onto the CANBUS which can easily be picked up by the dash and logged on the logger
I've also tided up the footwells with replacement grip tape on the boards. I know the tapes go in different directions. It annoys me slightly but not enough at the moment to take one of them off and replace it as they're never normally seen side by side
Other jobs in the pipeline which I will document further in coming weeks.
-I've removed the centre console switch panel for a more updated version which will probably hold the logger screen.
-Relocated the logger under the dash now rather than having it mounted on the exhaust tunnel.
-Removing the handbrake mechanism from the car. Car isn't used on the road so not required, it is ineffective as a lot of bmw handbrakes are and they sometimes fail on track causing the brake shoes to rattle around inside the brake disc so all that will be doing removed too.
-Boot will be removed of excess weight and mounted on pins
-Bumper will be mounted on pins too as the standard mounts are awkward now with the splitter fitted - Need to remove the bumper to remove the headlight to replace the side lights for something brighter more visible on track.
Spent a little bit of time today with the squib removed from the car as I'm looking at replacement steering wheels, while I'm doing that I have decided to move some of the switches and controls closer to me including scroll buttons for the logger screen and functions to make it easier to view when driving rather than using the touch screen.
I have made a number of laser cut switch panels for friends cars in the past laser cut from plastic, it's about time I sorted my own car out with one.
However in other cars they've used coiled cable which is a great idea and worked really well but I thought I would use what I have in front of me.
So when I thinned out the wiring in 2019 I kept some of the plugs and wiring loom from the rear of the squib. there is a connector with 10 pins on which I am going to use become steering wheel switches to do various functions at my finger tips. Made up a small loom to a temporary connector for testing purposes before pinning it into a proper plug and wiring loom.
As usual I will be posting more about the car and track days throughout 2021 on social media
https://www.instagram.com/tommyting1/
Edited by tombate911 on Saturday 2nd January 18:48
tombate911 said:
Evening Alan.
I was able to source a set of studs from a company in Poland which have figured out there is an ARP stud from another BMW engine which gives the full thread engagement and the correct length stud for the M54. Basically the M50 stud with a longer engagement. I think it's off one of the larger engines so the quantities are incorrect as they are adjusted by the seller. Cost around £270 when I ordered them, well worth it in my opinion with the aluminum blocks.
Thanks for the reply. Was it this lot? I was able to source a set of studs from a company in Poland which have figured out there is an ARP stud from another BMW engine which gives the full thread engagement and the correct length stud for the M54. Basically the M50 stud with a longer engagement. I think it's off one of the larger engines so the quantities are incorrect as they are adjusted by the seller. Cost around £270 when I ordered them, well worth it in my opinion with the aluminum blocks.
https://k64performance.com/engine/746-arp-bmw-m52-...
Alan_M77 said:
That's the garage. I used them on recommendation of a friend who's had studs and manifolds from them, I've then recommended them to other people who have used them successfully.While I'm here I might as well add a little bit of an update from today.
Change of steering wheel from the deep dish OMP to a flat OMP in 330mm diameter. Any wider put my hands to close to the vertical bar which comes down near the A pillar and I catch my hand on it if the car gets out of shape. Will see if I can get away with just the steering column adjustments without having to run a spacer to bring the wheel closer.
Did a quick laser cut test out of some card of a drawing of a steering wheel panel I had from someone else just to test the size and locations of buttons before modifying it for what I want.
Test fitting the two together. The outline of the panel matches the steering wheel perfectly. I will be changing the layout to 4 switches and changing the labels to suit what I will be using the buttons for and then laser cutting from plastic.
Will post come more updates this week.
Productive Sunday on the E46 today resulting in making a good impact on the to do list, I like these type of days were things start to get back together rather than constantly taking things apart.
To continue to work through the rearranging of the dash the first thing was to relocate the fuse box out of the dash panel and mount it below, I cut all that area of the dash out to give a nice clean look when I rebuilt the car last year so a nice laser cut plastic fuse box holder which can be mounted on the underside of the dash was designed and cut.
I also did a test 3D print of the screen holder and the new centre dash panel. Moving the fuse box has given room for the screen as well a couple of additional switches.
Testing the adjusted version of the switch panel with a smaller design with 4 switches, always lots of templates being made with this car to get things right.
Laser cut the new steering wheel panel and mounted some switches into it. Two momentary switches and push latching for different purposes. Only using two for the moment, when the other two functions are required I'll add the engraving.
Test fit with the steering wheel
Mounted the fuse box to the centre console and put the dash board into the holder in the centre of the dash, needs a good wipe down with some brake cleaner but it's nicely packaged together.
Steering wheel is up in the highest position here while working on the car, normally pulled down and towards the driver when in use.
Material for the door cards turned up this week. Ended up going for 2000 x 1000 x 4mm HDPE.
Used the card template I mocked up last week to transfer the shape and cut the material out.
Fixed into position with 8mm black trim clips, love how this has turned out, I wish I had done it sooner but I wanted to get all the doors stripped out properly before making them, I have spent a lot of time getting the standard glass mounted in the doors correctly to get to this point.
Interior looking fantastic, still a little bit of wiring to finish off under the dash in the passenger side but that'll get finished off next weekend, as there is still an awful lot on my to do list with planned changes before it goes back out on track again.
One thing that has always been a pain with this car since fitting the splitter is access to the front end due to how the bumper is bolted to the chassis legs from the underside of the bumper.
I had the front end off to replace the side lights for something brighter, so while I was there I looked at making the bumper removeable on a couple of pins
Separated the crash bar from the bumper skin and bolted that to the chassis legs so it's always fixed to the car. I put pins in that structure and the receivers in the bumper skin, mounted them just below the washer jets. Nice and simple to pop the bumper off in 10 seconds now. Nice to have access to the coolers and the front of the car for when checking it over or doing small jobs without taking the splitter off.
Another interesting bit of information.
When I built up the engine fitting the Schrick camshafts there was a note in the technical information which said to check valve clearance with those cams which it didn't say on the smaller lift cams, At the time I spent a lot of time measuring parts of the engine, block, pistons and cams to calculate a theoretical clearance between the pistons and cams with the block and parts I had infront of me. I had it all written down in a note book but while discussing engine clearances with a friend building a new engine at the moment I took the chance to put it into excel with formulas and make it clearer to read.
To continue to work through the rearranging of the dash the first thing was to relocate the fuse box out of the dash panel and mount it below, I cut all that area of the dash out to give a nice clean look when I rebuilt the car last year so a nice laser cut plastic fuse box holder which can be mounted on the underside of the dash was designed and cut.
I also did a test 3D print of the screen holder and the new centre dash panel. Moving the fuse box has given room for the screen as well a couple of additional switches.
Testing the adjusted version of the switch panel with a smaller design with 4 switches, always lots of templates being made with this car to get things right.
Laser cut the new steering wheel panel and mounted some switches into it. Two momentary switches and push latching for different purposes. Only using two for the moment, when the other two functions are required I'll add the engraving.
Test fit with the steering wheel
Mounted the fuse box to the centre console and put the dash board into the holder in the centre of the dash, needs a good wipe down with some brake cleaner but it's nicely packaged together.
Steering wheel is up in the highest position here while working on the car, normally pulled down and towards the driver when in use.
Material for the door cards turned up this week. Ended up going for 2000 x 1000 x 4mm HDPE.
Used the card template I mocked up last week to transfer the shape and cut the material out.
Fixed into position with 8mm black trim clips, love how this has turned out, I wish I had done it sooner but I wanted to get all the doors stripped out properly before making them, I have spent a lot of time getting the standard glass mounted in the doors correctly to get to this point.
Interior looking fantastic, still a little bit of wiring to finish off under the dash in the passenger side but that'll get finished off next weekend, as there is still an awful lot on my to do list with planned changes before it goes back out on track again.
One thing that has always been a pain with this car since fitting the splitter is access to the front end due to how the bumper is bolted to the chassis legs from the underside of the bumper.
I had the front end off to replace the side lights for something brighter, so while I was there I looked at making the bumper removeable on a couple of pins
Separated the crash bar from the bumper skin and bolted that to the chassis legs so it's always fixed to the car. I put pins in that structure and the receivers in the bumper skin, mounted them just below the washer jets. Nice and simple to pop the bumper off in 10 seconds now. Nice to have access to the coolers and the front of the car for when checking it over or doing small jobs without taking the splitter off.
Another interesting bit of information.
When I built up the engine fitting the Schrick camshafts there was a note in the technical information which said to check valve clearance with those cams which it didn't say on the smaller lift cams, At the time I spent a lot of time measuring parts of the engine, block, pistons and cams to calculate a theoretical clearance between the pistons and cams with the block and parts I had infront of me. I had it all written down in a note book but while discussing engine clearances with a friend building a new engine at the moment I took the chance to put it into excel with formulas and make it clearer to read.
Been a couple of months since the last update in January, I've been holding back on post anything but I thought I would do an update on some of the bits I've been working on, nothing too major but hopefully interesting stuff.
Starting off was some simple little modifications, there was nothing more annoying than getting in the car in the middle of winter or at night and not being able to see anything in the dark interior. I 3D printed a little holder for some LED circuit board that fitted to the role cage and put it on a small plug. I'd already wired in a switch to the dash when I redid that earlier in the year.
It does a great job at night lighting up the whole interior of the car. It was great for working on the car when we still had some dark nights, powered from a perminent feed so can be switched on without the key in the igniton,
Steering wheel cover to keep it clean from my grubby hands and fading from the sun as I don't run a quick release boss.
So earlier in the year I had already been on the search for reducing some weight out of the car. I found 16kg in the doors as well as finding another approx 6kg of additional weight in things like hand brake mechanism and hinges from the boot. I have this in a box for weighing so will do a more accurate post on weight soon.
I mounted the boot on two quick release pins but kept the boot latch working on the key, mainly because it gives a solid mounting point as well as locking the boot onto the car.
However the boot wasn't just done for the purpose of saying a few kg's from the hinges...
The purpose was to enable proper mounting of this to the chassis...
1.6m wide fibreglass wing.. here is a photo of it when it arrived... Explanation for why I've gone down this route is at the end of the post...
However prior to this I had been doing some CAD work. Actual CAD work not just Cardboard Aided Design this time.
First job was drawing the profile of the wing I was planning on purchasing into CAD to ensure proper mounting, with suitable adjustment to give a range between 0-9 degrees, with the aim to run somewhere between 4-7 degree of wing angle.
With the legs I went for my own style of design mounting to the standard hinges, I wanted the legs mounting parallel to each other for aesthetics mainly so the little cut out at the rear is for the mounts to clear the bodywork.
I went for a standard BMW looking end plate often seen on a lot of E46 M3's and E92's
I did some testing of the material and had no issues of it being made from a much thinner material with cut outs but for the sake of a few grams I decided I would make it from 8mm aluminum, I also prefer the wings without cutouts, but I might make a second version with cutouts in the future just to test.
Before actually making them I did a quick test of the profile by cutting out some MDF and mounting the underside brackets.
Looks quite high with the boot removed but I reduced the height of the wing down by 100mm from version one. At this point the aero foil is just placed on the underside brackets as they require profiling and then bonding to the underside of the wing
From the CAD model I had the legs laser cut from the 8mm Aluminum, pictured with the fibreglass mounts for the underside of the aerofoil
Quick test fit to test the aluminium hardware I machined to take up the angle offset in the body work.
Boot marked out for cutting.
Mounts painted in BMW Black Saphine paint the same as the body work.
Mounted in position, You can just see the aluminium bosses to mount it to the factory hinge mounts. The last job now was to laser cut the end plates, at the moment I have just laser cut the profile from some plastic to get an idea for mounting, shape and style, will laser cut a final version soon or make some carbon end plates. The underside mounted were also bonded to the underside of the wing as well as bolted into the captive nuts in the underside of the wing.
Sat on the wet wheels but it gives a good idea on the appearance and height of the wing.
Still plenty more to come but I'll leave it there for the moment. Have been doing some more research into engine modifications and will be doing some final tweeks and developments with the wing but I'm really happy with the progress of it so far. I wanted to make something that was functional, not just an aesthetic item, for that reason I wanted it to be correctly mounted to the chassis rather than just mounted to the boot. Lots of 330's run the Tegiwa wing but It looks a little narrow for my liking so I went down the route of making my own.
I also wanted to see what difference some downforce onto the rear of the car would make, I have often found the car a little tail happy, if you're seen some of the youtube videos you might have seen, I've ran different spring rates, alignment, dropped the rear ride height etc but It would be a lot more confidence inspiring with a more planted rear end which led me at the point where I wanted to make something that functions well, as well as putting it all together myself, we'll see if it makes a difference to how the car handles.
Starting off was some simple little modifications, there was nothing more annoying than getting in the car in the middle of winter or at night and not being able to see anything in the dark interior. I 3D printed a little holder for some LED circuit board that fitted to the role cage and put it on a small plug. I'd already wired in a switch to the dash when I redid that earlier in the year.
It does a great job at night lighting up the whole interior of the car. It was great for working on the car when we still had some dark nights, powered from a perminent feed so can be switched on without the key in the igniton,
Steering wheel cover to keep it clean from my grubby hands and fading from the sun as I don't run a quick release boss.
So earlier in the year I had already been on the search for reducing some weight out of the car. I found 16kg in the doors as well as finding another approx 6kg of additional weight in things like hand brake mechanism and hinges from the boot. I have this in a box for weighing so will do a more accurate post on weight soon.
I mounted the boot on two quick release pins but kept the boot latch working on the key, mainly because it gives a solid mounting point as well as locking the boot onto the car.
However the boot wasn't just done for the purpose of saying a few kg's from the hinges...
The purpose was to enable proper mounting of this to the chassis...
1.6m wide fibreglass wing.. here is a photo of it when it arrived... Explanation for why I've gone down this route is at the end of the post...
However prior to this I had been doing some CAD work. Actual CAD work not just Cardboard Aided Design this time.
First job was drawing the profile of the wing I was planning on purchasing into CAD to ensure proper mounting, with suitable adjustment to give a range between 0-9 degrees, with the aim to run somewhere between 4-7 degree of wing angle.
With the legs I went for my own style of design mounting to the standard hinges, I wanted the legs mounting parallel to each other for aesthetics mainly so the little cut out at the rear is for the mounts to clear the bodywork.
I went for a standard BMW looking end plate often seen on a lot of E46 M3's and E92's
I did some testing of the material and had no issues of it being made from a much thinner material with cut outs but for the sake of a few grams I decided I would make it from 8mm aluminum, I also prefer the wings without cutouts, but I might make a second version with cutouts in the future just to test.
Before actually making them I did a quick test of the profile by cutting out some MDF and mounting the underside brackets.
Looks quite high with the boot removed but I reduced the height of the wing down by 100mm from version one. At this point the aero foil is just placed on the underside brackets as they require profiling and then bonding to the underside of the wing
From the CAD model I had the legs laser cut from the 8mm Aluminum, pictured with the fibreglass mounts for the underside of the aerofoil
Quick test fit to test the aluminium hardware I machined to take up the angle offset in the body work.
Boot marked out for cutting.
Mounts painted in BMW Black Saphine paint the same as the body work.
Mounted in position, You can just see the aluminium bosses to mount it to the factory hinge mounts. The last job now was to laser cut the end plates, at the moment I have just laser cut the profile from some plastic to get an idea for mounting, shape and style, will laser cut a final version soon or make some carbon end plates. The underside mounted were also bonded to the underside of the wing as well as bolted into the captive nuts in the underside of the wing.
Sat on the wet wheels but it gives a good idea on the appearance and height of the wing.
Still plenty more to come but I'll leave it there for the moment. Have been doing some more research into engine modifications and will be doing some final tweeks and developments with the wing but I'm really happy with the progress of it so far. I wanted to make something that was functional, not just an aesthetic item, for that reason I wanted it to be correctly mounted to the chassis rather than just mounted to the boot. Lots of 330's run the Tegiwa wing but It looks a little narrow for my liking so I went down the route of making my own.
I also wanted to see what difference some downforce onto the rear of the car would make, I have often found the car a little tail happy, if you're seen some of the youtube videos you might have seen, I've ran different spring rates, alignment, dropped the rear ride height etc but It would be a lot more confidence inspiring with a more planted rear end which led me at the point where I wanted to make something that functions well, as well as putting it all together myself, we'll see if it makes a difference to how the car handles.
Edited by tombate911 on Thursday 25th March 22:19
April update - Will be interested to hear any comments on this one...
Been holding back on this update for a while as it hasn't really yielded any of the results I'd hoped for. But decided to document it as it has been an interesting process even through no progress has been made at all despite the work that's been put into it.
Starting back in July last year I ran the the new engine in but at the time It turns out I had a faulty cam sensor so it was ran in with the cams in their fail safe position, 120 degrees and -105.
This is the printout from July 2020, Good considering the cams were in the failsafe Vanos position which is where they would be above 5500rpm anyway.
Earlier in the year I was looking for things that could be improved, Possibly improve higher rpm airflow, as well as getting back to the dyno with working Vanos. I had heard some internet myths that the M54 inlet was better at higher RPM and wanted to try it with the bigger cams. It was also reported online that the bigger throttle body that Dinan made also picked up horse power so I looked into big bore throttle body for M54. Couldn't find anything on the market so designed my own.
M54 Big Bore throttle body adaptor
Throttle body mounted in place going up from 69mm to 76mm, also machined a blank for the Idle air control valve and removed the DISA valve as I don't have wiring for it anymore.
March 2021
This is the result on the dyno... unexpectedly a drop in power, we spent a little time adjusting the timing and moving the vanos around, we picked up 5bhp, it's a great shape graph holding power to 7,000, the smoothing on the graph rounds the power off at the limiter.
255 bhp and 257 ftlb - Ignore the fact that the limiter looks like it's set at 6700RPM the sync with the dyno was slightly out by 300RPM (This has no effect on the power reading of the dyno)
Logs from the dyno:
Peak numbers:
701kg/hr
626mg/stroke
7008rpm
Load/Mass vs RPM for the M54 manifold with the bigger throttle body.
Overall at this point I am really happy with the figures logged especially compared with load and mass logs from other cars including standard engines but not really the expected power figures.
So I took the car away and went back to the original set up that the car was run in at with the M54 throttle body and M50 manifold, at this point I am starting to think the M54 inlet manifold is the restriction (It's not)
April 2021
Back to the dyno I went last week to continue to work on the puzzle and data log.
Strapped the E46 back down on the dyno and off we went again.
This is the end result of the dyno from the day, 255bhp / 257ftlb.
Leading up to this I experimented with with Vanos angles everywhere, Inlet being fully advanced in the mid range and fully retarded at the top, I spent a bit of time working on the transition from fully advanced to retarded and picked up a fair mount of power/torque in the 5000-5500 range, I do know now what the vanos needs just to remove the dip at 4750rpm. I did some experimentation with removing timing and adding some but the net result was pretty much the same or less.
Unsure why it completely flatlines at 5500rpm pretty much to just before the limiter at 6900rpm
Logs from the dyno run
Peak numbers:
740kg/hr
630mg/stroke
7009rpm
Comparison of the Mass and Load values against the M54 inlet posted above, considering the sample rate I am able to log at the values aren't too dissimilar.
Final test - Air Filter
I've always ran a standard paper filter in the car and never felt any need to change, anyway for the sake of comparison and wondering about restrictions and why the power is so flat at the top I pulled out the air filter and did another power run. Exactly the same as the two previous runs. No change in the power curve anywhere all the way to the limiter so no effect there either.
Post Dyno thought process
Not exactly the outcome I was expected but I have managed to learn a lot through this process, unsure why the car made slightly more power when running in last year so I start off doing some basic testing, I have checked the cam position of the cams when they are in the failsafe position by unplugging the solenoids while the car was running to see what position they defaulted to so see if it was any different to the 'max' I was setting the cams to in the ECU but they sit in exactly the same place. Inlet 126 degrees and exhaust -105 so no change there, the basic ignition maps for the ECU when it is in failsafe mode has an additional 1.5 degrees of timing, not enough to make a difference but something I will log when I next have the car out.
Final this today was to get the compression tester out and just check the heath of the engine across all cylinders as well as giving me a bench mark for the future.
Cold engine
175psi across all 6 cylinders, all making exactly the same compression.
For the next track day I am going to fit a pressure sensor into the exhaust manifold and log the pressure in the manifolds, I know the exhaust is getting louder and louder but I don't think there is a restriction there but I'm going to rule it out.
At the moment with this engine set up that's all she's got to give. Impressive areas under the curve and power throughout the full rev range.
Been holding back on this update for a while as it hasn't really yielded any of the results I'd hoped for. But decided to document it as it has been an interesting process even through no progress has been made at all despite the work that's been put into it.
Starting back in July last year I ran the the new engine in but at the time It turns out I had a faulty cam sensor so it was ran in with the cams in their fail safe position, 120 degrees and -105.
This is the printout from July 2020, Good considering the cams were in the failsafe Vanos position which is where they would be above 5500rpm anyway.
Earlier in the year I was looking for things that could be improved, Possibly improve higher rpm airflow, as well as getting back to the dyno with working Vanos. I had heard some internet myths that the M54 inlet was better at higher RPM and wanted to try it with the bigger cams. It was also reported online that the bigger throttle body that Dinan made also picked up horse power so I looked into big bore throttle body for M54. Couldn't find anything on the market so designed my own.
M54 Big Bore throttle body adaptor
Throttle body mounted in place going up from 69mm to 76mm, also machined a blank for the Idle air control valve and removed the DISA valve as I don't have wiring for it anymore.
March 2021
This is the result on the dyno... unexpectedly a drop in power, we spent a little time adjusting the timing and moving the vanos around, we picked up 5bhp, it's a great shape graph holding power to 7,000, the smoothing on the graph rounds the power off at the limiter.
255 bhp and 257 ftlb - Ignore the fact that the limiter looks like it's set at 6700RPM the sync with the dyno was slightly out by 300RPM (This has no effect on the power reading of the dyno)
Logs from the dyno:
Peak numbers:
701kg/hr
626mg/stroke
7008rpm
Load/Mass vs RPM for the M54 manifold with the bigger throttle body.
Overall at this point I am really happy with the figures logged especially compared with load and mass logs from other cars including standard engines but not really the expected power figures.
So I took the car away and went back to the original set up that the car was run in at with the M54 throttle body and M50 manifold, at this point I am starting to think the M54 inlet manifold is the restriction (It's not)
April 2021
Back to the dyno I went last week to continue to work on the puzzle and data log.
Strapped the E46 back down on the dyno and off we went again.
This is the end result of the dyno from the day, 255bhp / 257ftlb.
Leading up to this I experimented with with Vanos angles everywhere, Inlet being fully advanced in the mid range and fully retarded at the top, I spent a bit of time working on the transition from fully advanced to retarded and picked up a fair mount of power/torque in the 5000-5500 range, I do know now what the vanos needs just to remove the dip at 4750rpm. I did some experimentation with removing timing and adding some but the net result was pretty much the same or less.
Unsure why it completely flatlines at 5500rpm pretty much to just before the limiter at 6900rpm
Logs from the dyno run
Peak numbers:
740kg/hr
630mg/stroke
7009rpm
Comparison of the Mass and Load values against the M54 inlet posted above, considering the sample rate I am able to log at the values aren't too dissimilar.
Final test - Air Filter
I've always ran a standard paper filter in the car and never felt any need to change, anyway for the sake of comparison and wondering about restrictions and why the power is so flat at the top I pulled out the air filter and did another power run. Exactly the same as the two previous runs. No change in the power curve anywhere all the way to the limiter so no effect there either.
Post Dyno thought process
Not exactly the outcome I was expected but I have managed to learn a lot through this process, unsure why the car made slightly more power when running in last year so I start off doing some basic testing, I have checked the cam position of the cams when they are in the failsafe position by unplugging the solenoids while the car was running to see what position they defaulted to so see if it was any different to the 'max' I was setting the cams to in the ECU but they sit in exactly the same place. Inlet 126 degrees and exhaust -105 so no change there, the basic ignition maps for the ECU when it is in failsafe mode has an additional 1.5 degrees of timing, not enough to make a difference but something I will log when I next have the car out.
Final this today was to get the compression tester out and just check the heath of the engine across all cylinders as well as giving me a bench mark for the future.
Cold engine
175psi across all 6 cylinders, all making exactly the same compression.
For the next track day I am going to fit a pressure sensor into the exhaust manifold and log the pressure in the manifolds, I know the exhaust is getting louder and louder but I don't think there is a restriction there but I'm going to rule it out.
At the moment with this engine set up that's all she's got to give. Impressive areas under the curve and power throughout the full rev range.
Dyno Graph...
The hunt for the lack of power with the new engine continues. Scanned in some dyno graphs of the old engine vs the new engine to see what difference there is between the engines.
Clear to see where the Schrick cams are making more power with the same intake and exhaust set up.
One thing I have come to find out now though is I have an assumption that Schrick have ground the exhaust cam with the centreline as -114 degrees rather than -105. So when I'm looking at a cam reading of -105 I am inclined to believe it is actually -114 and the exhaust cam is actually 9 degrees further advanced that standard centreline. This is something I am going to measure with the engine after Anglesey but it requires making room at the front of the engine as well as removing the rocket cover to DTI the cams, I will however try running the car with the exhaust cam 9 degrees retarded at Anglesey and see if there is any noticeable difference, doubtful but I will explore and log.
Prep for the track day involved finishing off some jobs around the new spoiler. The last job on the list was to cut some laser cut end plates out of some 6mm plastic rather than the 3mm prototypes I have on at the moment.
That finishes off the wing besides the setting up of the wing angle but I want to do this properly with a accurate angle gauge on a flat surface so I will leave this until alignment. Decided to set the wing to 4 degrees for Anglesey. which seems like a good compromise and starting point.
I know the wing isn't to everyones taste. Personally I wanted to have a proper sized wing on it which was mounted slightly lower than the usual height of the M3 wings due to it being mounted on a 330. I also wanted to have solid mounts. I may in future laser cut another set with some material removed but when I set out to design it the solid legs was the style I wanted to go for.
I took the car down to a friends workshop to do the alignment, weighing and corner weighting after the changes this year.
Pulled the car onto the ramp and everything was already set up as we'd spent the morning aligning and corner weighting two friends E36's ready for the Anglesey track day the following week.
When I was at Cadwell Park last year I gave it a quick weigh and It came in around 1288kg with 30L of fuel. At the time I thought It weighted about 1250kg minus fuel but when I checked the logs there was 30L so about 22kg in fuel, leaving the weight around 1266kg. I did take some weight out over the winter from the boot hinges, cutting the doors, I added some weight back in with the wing and passenger foot plates.
On the scale this weekend it weighed in at 1258kg with 13L of fuel so 9.5kg leaving the weight at basically 1250kg. Not bad for a lardy E46 with a 16 point cage, rear strut brace, two seats and full glass.
We made a few adjustments to the corner weighting with me sat in the drivers seat and got it within a few tenths of a %. Happy with that for a track car that often has passengers in and out and varying fuel loads.
After that is was onto the alignment...
So with the changing from Federal RSR's to Nankang AR1's I wanted to run a slightly more aggressive camber on the front.
Front Camber
3.3 degrees
Front toe (Out)
1mm each side
Rear Camber 2.3 degrees
Rear toe (In)
0.5mm each side.
With passengers not really being a thing at the moment on circuit due to some form of pandemic, I thought I would have a look at slightly different camera angle. Keeping the standard front and rear cameras in place I've relocated the go pro to above the passenger seat to give a bit of a passengers eye view from inside the car
With that the E46 was all set for Anglesey minus the fitting of the front splitter which I've not refitted properly yet due to doing some fibre glass repairs.
The hunt for the lack of power with the new engine continues. Scanned in some dyno graphs of the old engine vs the new engine to see what difference there is between the engines.
Clear to see where the Schrick cams are making more power with the same intake and exhaust set up.
One thing I have come to find out now though is I have an assumption that Schrick have ground the exhaust cam with the centreline as -114 degrees rather than -105. So when I'm looking at a cam reading of -105 I am inclined to believe it is actually -114 and the exhaust cam is actually 9 degrees further advanced that standard centreline. This is something I am going to measure with the engine after Anglesey but it requires making room at the front of the engine as well as removing the rocket cover to DTI the cams, I will however try running the car with the exhaust cam 9 degrees retarded at Anglesey and see if there is any noticeable difference, doubtful but I will explore and log.
Prep for the track day involved finishing off some jobs around the new spoiler. The last job on the list was to cut some laser cut end plates out of some 6mm plastic rather than the 3mm prototypes I have on at the moment.
That finishes off the wing besides the setting up of the wing angle but I want to do this properly with a accurate angle gauge on a flat surface so I will leave this until alignment. Decided to set the wing to 4 degrees for Anglesey. which seems like a good compromise and starting point.
I know the wing isn't to everyones taste. Personally I wanted to have a proper sized wing on it which was mounted slightly lower than the usual height of the M3 wings due to it being mounted on a 330. I also wanted to have solid mounts. I may in future laser cut another set with some material removed but when I set out to design it the solid legs was the style I wanted to go for.
I took the car down to a friends workshop to do the alignment, weighing and corner weighting after the changes this year.
Pulled the car onto the ramp and everything was already set up as we'd spent the morning aligning and corner weighting two friends E36's ready for the Anglesey track day the following week.
When I was at Cadwell Park last year I gave it a quick weigh and It came in around 1288kg with 30L of fuel. At the time I thought It weighted about 1250kg minus fuel but when I checked the logs there was 30L so about 22kg in fuel, leaving the weight around 1266kg. I did take some weight out over the winter from the boot hinges, cutting the doors, I added some weight back in with the wing and passenger foot plates.
On the scale this weekend it weighed in at 1258kg with 13L of fuel so 9.5kg leaving the weight at basically 1250kg. Not bad for a lardy E46 with a 16 point cage, rear strut brace, two seats and full glass.
We made a few adjustments to the corner weighting with me sat in the drivers seat and got it within a few tenths of a %. Happy with that for a track car that often has passengers in and out and varying fuel loads.
After that is was onto the alignment...
So with the changing from Federal RSR's to Nankang AR1's I wanted to run a slightly more aggressive camber on the front.
Front Camber
3.3 degrees
Front toe (Out)
1mm each side
Rear Camber 2.3 degrees
Rear toe (In)
0.5mm each side.
With passengers not really being a thing at the moment on circuit due to some form of pandemic, I thought I would have a look at slightly different camera angle. Keeping the standard front and rear cameras in place I've relocated the go pro to above the passenger seat to give a bit of a passengers eye view from inside the car
With that the E46 was all set for Anglesey minus the fitting of the front splitter which I've not refitted properly yet due to doing some fibre glass repairs.
Anglesey 2nd June 2021
Last time we were here at Anglesey Circuit was the beginning of the summer 2020 but I was only here helping friends run their cars as I had build the new engine and had it booked for running in on the dyno. So I haven't been to Anglesey in the E46 since 2019 when we did exactly the same layout. International circuit in the morning and Coastal circuit in the afternoon. It's always a great day to combine the two layouts on a track day with a swap over at lunch.
This time however it was a little bit different to the usual set up of open pitlane as due to Covid Anglesey Circuit are running 20 minute sessions throughout the day, splitting the attendees into 3 groups.
We set of Tuesday afternoon down to Anglesey. 5 cars on trailers and couple of minis following closely behind and booked into a hotel at Bangor the night before.
Tucked the van and trailer into the corner of the carpark and forgot to take a landscape photograph!
Set off to the circuit at 7am to arrive at 7:30, plenty of time to get unloaded and make sure everything was set up prior to sighting laps, AR1's already fitted to the car with the rainsports loaded onto the trailer just incase.
Decided to change the map on the car prior to going out moving the exhaust the previously mention 9 degrees and log the load values during sighting laps and see if it there was any noticeably difference. I ran some graphs and there could be a slightly increase in air flow through the engine possibly 5% but difficult to show due to the noise of the values and the sample rate. The car felt good and reved nice and cleanly through the rev range to 7000rpm so decided to stick with it. The only way to actually tell would be to dyno it, but I don't want to do that on the standard ECU now and will wait till I have actually measured the cams to see how they physically measure up.
So the morning was the international circuit. The longest circuit at Anglesey, wasn't really a fan of it in the Clio with two long straights and a hairpin but I really enjoy it now in the E46 with more power and torque for the hill up to the hairpin and more drive out of the corner.
Video from a couple of laps of the international circuit
https://youtu.be/Y_tsnHF1GZM
Back in 2019 my best lap around the international was high a 1:49. With all the changes made to the car over the past two years I've managed to get down to a lap time of 1:42's. A nice drop of around 6 seconds. Which I was not expecting at all. The car felt totally different, loads more grip, better turn in, felt a lot more planted and confidence inspiring which helped massively around the back section at Anglesey. The car was noticeably better under braking and this is something I've been trying to improve with my driving over the past year braking technique.
After a fantastic morning session consisting of 4 20 minute sessions the track was changed to the Coastal layout.
Video of the second to last session
Trying out the new camera angle with the go pro.
https://youtu.be/6HQel95zuzk
Caught at the end of the session driving back into the pits. Love the current set up of the E46 in this photo. Exactly the sort of car I envisaged building probably 8 years ago but didn't think it would ever happen but here we are.
Video of last session - Favourite of the day
Finally of my favourite things about track days is getting out on circuit with a group of friends and getting in some good quality laps.
Doing my best in this session to keep up with some faster cars and much faster drivers. Two e36's both over 300bhp and The Pinderwagen.
https://youtu.be/Kx_Az57ajCQ
Overall the car did 6 sessions on track, It was pretty warm in there so I was doing doing the full 20 minutes for the majority of the sessions with the odd one bringing it is a few minutes before the end of the session. Really glad to have kept the fans in the car with just the air being blown at the driver on speed 4.
The car ran flawlessly all day without having to touch it besides checking the tyre pressures which was great as it was a really hot day out on circuit and the logged temperatures weren't too bad to be honest with Coolant reaching a max of around 105 degrees, Oil around 110 degrees and Diff around 112 degrees.
Things to develop
Obviously I want to keep messing with the engine so I will be measuring the cams now the track day is done and see if that highlights anything.
You can hear in the videos quite a bit of wheel slip from the rear end in some of the corners. Something that was apparent when picking the car up on the ramp during alignment was there is a lot of stiction in the rear end with the polybushes and the wheel is very slow to droop. So under tight off camber corners it is picking up the inside rear wheel slightly causing the Quaife to have an unweighted rear wheel leading to some wheel slip. This is something I'm going to look at changing between now and the next track day in the summer so it'll give me something to think about, probably make some parts and have something to post about between now and then.
Last time we were here at Anglesey Circuit was the beginning of the summer 2020 but I was only here helping friends run their cars as I had build the new engine and had it booked for running in on the dyno. So I haven't been to Anglesey in the E46 since 2019 when we did exactly the same layout. International circuit in the morning and Coastal circuit in the afternoon. It's always a great day to combine the two layouts on a track day with a swap over at lunch.
This time however it was a little bit different to the usual set up of open pitlane as due to Covid Anglesey Circuit are running 20 minute sessions throughout the day, splitting the attendees into 3 groups.
We set of Tuesday afternoon down to Anglesey. 5 cars on trailers and couple of minis following closely behind and booked into a hotel at Bangor the night before.
Tucked the van and trailer into the corner of the carpark and forgot to take a landscape photograph!
Set off to the circuit at 7am to arrive at 7:30, plenty of time to get unloaded and make sure everything was set up prior to sighting laps, AR1's already fitted to the car with the rainsports loaded onto the trailer just incase.
Decided to change the map on the car prior to going out moving the exhaust the previously mention 9 degrees and log the load values during sighting laps and see if it there was any noticeably difference. I ran some graphs and there could be a slightly increase in air flow through the engine possibly 5% but difficult to show due to the noise of the values and the sample rate. The car felt good and reved nice and cleanly through the rev range to 7000rpm so decided to stick with it. The only way to actually tell would be to dyno it, but I don't want to do that on the standard ECU now and will wait till I have actually measured the cams to see how they physically measure up.
So the morning was the international circuit. The longest circuit at Anglesey, wasn't really a fan of it in the Clio with two long straights and a hairpin but I really enjoy it now in the E46 with more power and torque for the hill up to the hairpin and more drive out of the corner.
Video from a couple of laps of the international circuit
https://youtu.be/Y_tsnHF1GZM
Back in 2019 my best lap around the international was high a 1:49. With all the changes made to the car over the past two years I've managed to get down to a lap time of 1:42's. A nice drop of around 6 seconds. Which I was not expecting at all. The car felt totally different, loads more grip, better turn in, felt a lot more planted and confidence inspiring which helped massively around the back section at Anglesey. The car was noticeably better under braking and this is something I've been trying to improve with my driving over the past year braking technique.
After a fantastic morning session consisting of 4 20 minute sessions the track was changed to the Coastal layout.
Video of the second to last session
Trying out the new camera angle with the go pro.
https://youtu.be/6HQel95zuzk
Caught at the end of the session driving back into the pits. Love the current set up of the E46 in this photo. Exactly the sort of car I envisaged building probably 8 years ago but didn't think it would ever happen but here we are.
Video of last session - Favourite of the day
Finally of my favourite things about track days is getting out on circuit with a group of friends and getting in some good quality laps.
Doing my best in this session to keep up with some faster cars and much faster drivers. Two e36's both over 300bhp and The Pinderwagen.
https://youtu.be/Kx_Az57ajCQ
Overall the car did 6 sessions on track, It was pretty warm in there so I was doing doing the full 20 minutes for the majority of the sessions with the odd one bringing it is a few minutes before the end of the session. Really glad to have kept the fans in the car with just the air being blown at the driver on speed 4.
The car ran flawlessly all day without having to touch it besides checking the tyre pressures which was great as it was a really hot day out on circuit and the logged temperatures weren't too bad to be honest with Coolant reaching a max of around 105 degrees, Oil around 110 degrees and Diff around 112 degrees.
Things to develop
Obviously I want to keep messing with the engine so I will be measuring the cams now the track day is done and see if that highlights anything.
You can hear in the videos quite a bit of wheel slip from the rear end in some of the corners. Something that was apparent when picking the car up on the ramp during alignment was there is a lot of stiction in the rear end with the polybushes and the wheel is very slow to droop. So under tight off camber corners it is picking up the inside rear wheel slightly causing the Quaife to have an unweighted rear wheel leading to some wheel slip. This is something I'm going to look at changing between now and the next track day in the summer so it'll give me something to think about, probably make some parts and have something to post about between now and then.
TheDukeGTi said:
I've said it before, but this thread is so great. I love the car, and the development you're doing to it. Please keep keeping us up to date!
Thanks again!Hopefully will have some more content to write about over the next few months before the next outing. See what we can develop before Cadwell Park and Snetterton. Got a few things in mind I've started collecting parts and materials for.
While I'm here, here is some of the photos from Anglesey.
blakey26 said:
100% car goals right here!
Would you consider selling those wing mounts? I might be looking at diffuser and wing next for mine.
I do have the files for it and can always get a couple of sets cut. I will probably be at some point be adjusting the design to take some material out of so will be cutting some more for that. Drop me a message on instragram at some point and I can always double up on sets.Would you consider selling those wing mounts? I might be looking at diffuser and wing next for mine.
Soo back to an update... This time I'll keep it a bit smaller and document the progress.
At the end of the last big post I said about the stiction in the rear end I noticed properly when lifting it up on the ramp, don't always get the full effect jacking up one side of the car due to the tension in the ARB. Decided it was something I was going to tackle to free up the suspension travel in the rear end to hopefully let the wheels track the ground a little better and stop it lifting the inside wheel in some corners as the damper can extend with less resistance as well as trying to reduce the little bit of wheel hop I get from the rear end which I think it down to deflection in the polybushes as it was improved when I upped the preload on the subframe bushes last year. That's my rational anyway for the following changes so we'll see how we get on.
First job on the cards is to drop the rear end off the car. Starting with the ARB, driveshafts, diff and brace. Camber arms also pulled off and these are going to be completed remade with bushes for the inner joint rather than a polybush.
Dropped the rear arms off the car. When I built the car I did fit two ball joints to the upper and lower mounts in the rear trailing arms the same as fitted on the M3's
Dropped the subframe off with the upper arms in place, nice to see the powder coating is still looking good 3 years on from building it originally, just a film of dirt all over it, will give it a good wash before refitting.
Pushed out the the poly bushes out from the suspension, at this point I decided while it was all off and fitting ball joints to the 3 rear arms... trailing arms, upper arms and lower arms, that I would do what I did for a friend a year or so ago which was make solid mounts for the subframe as well as the diff to stiffen up the rear end as well as raising the subframe as much as possible to give a little bit of roll centre correction while I am at it, Jordan has been running a set of bushes I made for him two years ago with great success so why not do the same on my own car.
First job in the process of making the bushes for the solid mounts was to order some 3" round aluminium. This then became an evening job I have been chipping away at in the evenings, here I've got the material mounted and supported on the lathe. Starting to face off the material and parallel turn it to the correct diameter.
Using the lathe I roughed out the diameters of the bushes on the material and parted of the majority of the way through the material before removing it from the machine and finishing the last bit of the cut with a saw.
To finish them off it was a case of drilling holes through the middle, finishing off the diameters to specification adding chamfers. I spent a lot of time measuring the subframe and the underside of the boot floor and designed each bush to move the subframe up, clear the factory subframe studs as well as still be able to use the E46 brace fitted to the front of the subframe
While I was working on making all the solid subframe bushes I did get delivery of the VAC Motorsport upper arm bushes. These are nice and simple aluminium sleeves with a rose joint in the middle held in by a circlip. I was originally going to make these myself but in the end with the money saved on making all the other bits I thought I would buy the mounts for the upper arms and the RTAB.
I cracked on last week and got the rest of the mounts machined and finished.
The photo consists of:
4 Subframe mounts
2 Front diff bushes
1 Rear diff bush
2 Vac upper arm inner
2 Steel CDS rings which I have machined to the correct diameter for the ball joints front left which will be welded to the camber arms to replace the inner camber arm poly bush
I am just waiting on the final piece to the puzzle which is a pair of Milway solid rear trailing arm bushes to finish off the solid rear end.
Fitting the diff bushes was a little more awkward as the solid bushes require a lot more force to fit, I tried to get it mounted in the hydraulic press but wasn't able to get the correct angle due to the ARB mounts so opted for the more simple big bolt and a long bar to pull them in.
Subframe mounts were a lot easier to get into the press so they were pressed in without issue. This is a top view looking at the top of the subframe, you'll notice the bushes don't have a top hat the same way the poly bushes do, this has enabled me to bring the subframe right up to the boot floor to get some roll centre correction.
Quick test of the subframe on the car to check for clearance. Looking good so far but we will be 100% sure when all the driveline is connected back together with diff, prop and drive shafts. Little bit of mud still lurking around the rear end of the car from my off last year at Oulton, will be getting the jet wash out to clean all the rear end up, wire wheeling back some of the boot floor and repainting/stone chipping some areas while it's all off again. The original spring seats are looking a bit untidy and want to clean up and paint the trailing arms pockets.
Last job this week has been fitting the VAC Bearings into the inner of the upper spring arms. Nice simple design which was pressed in easily with the hydraulic press and secured with a circlip on the other side to prevent any movement.
Once I've finished tidying up the rear end with some paint I will start to build it back up and have some more photos from that soon. Will come back with another update soon.
Finishing off the rear end - Cadwell Park Prep
At the end of the last update I was waiting on the rear trailing arm bearings to arrive. Millway had to manufacture them so it took 4 weeks for them to arrive but worth the wait for them
Pressed into the rear arms
The final rubber bushing that I wanted to replace was for the inner camber arms but there wasn't anything available off the shelf to go into the camber arms I was running, I could have bought some expensive off the shelf replacement arms with spherical bearings in them but opted to modify the inner of the arms to run a standard ball joint which I use in the upper and lower trailing arm bushes.
I machined some CDS tubing to the correct inner diameter to be able to press in one of the OEM BMW M3 ball joints. welded it to the camber arm with some triangulation material
This obviously removed the left hand thread from the camber arm so something was needed to be able to give fine adjustment of the camber.
So I got a set of these made up with M18 threaded bar so the length of the camber arm can be adjusted and also slots made to use the standard camber bolts for fine adjustment when doing alignment.
Subframe all built up with solid bushes
When bolting the rear end back together I gave the centre prop bearing a once over and the rubber was tearing, luckily I checked this as it was very close to failing. Destroyed it removing it from the prop
Replaced with a brand new bearing and reassembled the prop after marking it before disassembly
Onto then bolting the whole of the rear end back together. Rear arms all fitted with camber bolts in the camber arms
Diff and drive shafts all put back together. Photo shows the solid bushes in the subframe and the diff mounting
Small test of the rear end, the rear wheels moving through their travel without binding up from stiction from the polybushes. This was the aim for rebuilding the rear end to enable to suspension to be able to work as effectively as possible and keep the tyres on the floor as much as possible and let the wheels follow the contours of the ground more efficiently. Cadwell Park will be a great test for this next week. Eagle eyed readers will probably notice the NSR tyre is mounted on the OSR. After doing two days on track I'm going to rotate the tyres from left to right side of the car to keep the tyre wear as uniform as possible across the tyres.
And finally to bring it all together it was back out with the string kit and alignment tables and did the rear alignment back to the same specification as Anglesey when it drove perfectly
Few things to finish off over the next few days, clearing cameras, setting up the data logger and loading the van and trailer but we're ready to go to Cadwell Park on Wednesday and then Snetterton the following week. Looking forward to getting behind the wheel of it again.
At the end of the last update I was waiting on the rear trailing arm bearings to arrive. Millway had to manufacture them so it took 4 weeks for them to arrive but worth the wait for them
Pressed into the rear arms
The final rubber bushing that I wanted to replace was for the inner camber arms but there wasn't anything available off the shelf to go into the camber arms I was running, I could have bought some expensive off the shelf replacement arms with spherical bearings in them but opted to modify the inner of the arms to run a standard ball joint which I use in the upper and lower trailing arm bushes.
I machined some CDS tubing to the correct inner diameter to be able to press in one of the OEM BMW M3 ball joints. welded it to the camber arm with some triangulation material
This obviously removed the left hand thread from the camber arm so something was needed to be able to give fine adjustment of the camber.
So I got a set of these made up with M18 threaded bar so the length of the camber arm can be adjusted and also slots made to use the standard camber bolts for fine adjustment when doing alignment.
Subframe all built up with solid bushes
When bolting the rear end back together I gave the centre prop bearing a once over and the rubber was tearing, luckily I checked this as it was very close to failing. Destroyed it removing it from the prop
Replaced with a brand new bearing and reassembled the prop after marking it before disassembly
Onto then bolting the whole of the rear end back together. Rear arms all fitted with camber bolts in the camber arms
Diff and drive shafts all put back together. Photo shows the solid bushes in the subframe and the diff mounting
Small test of the rear end, the rear wheels moving through their travel without binding up from stiction from the polybushes. This was the aim for rebuilding the rear end to enable to suspension to be able to work as effectively as possible and keep the tyres on the floor as much as possible and let the wheels follow the contours of the ground more efficiently. Cadwell Park will be a great test for this next week. Eagle eyed readers will probably notice the NSR tyre is mounted on the OSR. After doing two days on track I'm going to rotate the tyres from left to right side of the car to keep the tyre wear as uniform as possible across the tyres.
And finally to bring it all together it was back out with the string kit and alignment tables and did the rear alignment back to the same specification as Anglesey when it drove perfectly
Few things to finish off over the next few days, clearing cameras, setting up the data logger and loading the van and trailer but we're ready to go to Cadwell Park on Wednesday and then Snetterton the following week. Looking forward to getting behind the wheel of it again.
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