BMW 330CI E46 Build thread
Discussion
richardracer said:
Hi,
1:58 is a very good time at Oulton for a BMW330i. Best championship time was 1:57 when I did some analysis. Car looks very smart.
Thanks Rich! I was pleasantly surprised when I looked back over the logs. Plenty more in the car yet in terms of pace with some addition seat time and a couple of small modifications. Hoping not to change too much over winter but we will see.1:58 is a very good time at Oulton for a BMW330i. Best championship time was 1:57 when I did some analysis. Car looks very smart.
Hi Tom, thoroughly been enjoying your write ups and all the knowledge that you freely pass. Currently run an old Datsun 240Z for track days and seeing the prices of them continually going up feel it is time to retire it to a few occasional track outings and not be the primary track car.
Your thread has given me inspiration to find a 330Ci to build based off of your experiences and run over here in the South East US, fingers are crossed that you keep documenting the changes and maintenance that you complete during the off season.
So far I am finding just clapped out 200,000 mile POS cars that aspiring drifters are flogging, hopefully I will be able to find a car that has not been molested and abused at a reasonable price!
Your thread has given me inspiration to find a 330Ci to build based off of your experiences and run over here in the South East US, fingers are crossed that you keep documenting the changes and maintenance that you complete during the off season.
So far I am finding just clapped out 200,000 mile POS cars that aspiring drifters are flogging, hopefully I will be able to find a car that has not been molested and abused at a reasonable price!
rjracin240 said:
Hi Tom, thoroughly been enjoying your write ups and all the knowledge that you freely pass. Currently run an old Datsun 240Z for track days and seeing the prices of them continually going up feel it is time to retire it to a few occasional track outings and not be the primary track car.
Your thread has given me inspiration to find a 330Ci to build based off of your experiences and run over here in the South East US, fingers are crossed that you keep documenting the changes and maintenance that you complete during the off season.
So far I am finding just clapped out 200,000 mile POS cars that aspiring drifters are flogging, hopefully I will be able to find a car that has not been molested and abused at a reasonable price!
Thanks. It's all been very quiet over winter with the car not having moved since December, I've had it on charge over winter but that's about it, As it starts to get a little lighter and a little warmed I'll be giving the car a once over, a few little upgrades and we'll be hopefully ready to go again by April as I've booked a track day for then. Your thread has given me inspiration to find a 330Ci to build based off of your experiences and run over here in the South East US, fingers are crossed that you keep documenting the changes and maintenance that you complete during the off season.
So far I am finding just clapped out 200,000 mile POS cars that aspiring drifters are flogging, hopefully I will be able to find a car that has not been molested and abused at a reasonable price!
Do they run the SpecE46's around that way? I normally see cars built to that spec coming up for sale all the time in some of the E46 groups with members from the states in them.
Hi Tom,
Sorry for the late reply, been doing a lot of reading on some other forums and ordering bits and bobs to get me to the point of tearing into the replacement motor to change out oil pump gear and shaft, install a baffle and then address the regular maintenance items in cooling and CCV, etc as I was able to trade a non-running 93 Miata for a overheated non-running 2001 manual transmission 330CI.
In answer to your question regarding the E46 class over here, do not know too much about it as it would definitely be out of my budget, leaning towards time trials and will be attending an event this Sunday to hopefully learn about it on the local level.
Here are a few links that will hopefully answer your questions more appropriately than I can!
https://drivenasa.com/road-racing/spec-e46/
https://members.drivenasa.com/events
Sorry for the late reply, been doing a lot of reading on some other forums and ordering bits and bobs to get me to the point of tearing into the replacement motor to change out oil pump gear and shaft, install a baffle and then address the regular maintenance items in cooling and CCV, etc as I was able to trade a non-running 93 Miata for a overheated non-running 2001 manual transmission 330CI.
In answer to your question regarding the E46 class over here, do not know too much about it as it would definitely be out of my budget, leaning towards time trials and will be attending an event this Sunday to hopefully learn about it on the local level.
Here are a few links that will hopefully answer your questions more appropriately than I can!
https://drivenasa.com/road-racing/spec-e46/
https://members.drivenasa.com/events
Edited by rjracin240 on Tuesday 22 February 17:31
Spring 2022
About time I did a little update now the clocks have sprung forward and the nights are getting lighter, I've done very little on the car, well absolutely nothing on the car since Oulton Park besides start it once to rearrange the drive way and have it on the trickle charger through the winter months to keep the battery healthy.
Back in July last year I got the key to a old bungalow which required extensive work to make it liveable so I've been working on ever since so that has taken up the majority of my time, but it has been a nice change, however I did rebuild the engine last year in the midst of gutting the house.
So with Anglesey just around on the corner on the 12th April I decided to start a few of the jobs I'd added to the list over the winter of little things I wanted to improve.
Flash back from Anglesey 2021
So one of the things I had considered working on over winter was a new brake set up to replace the standard 330 calipers. With everything else going on it's been put on the back burner but I did decide that I would refresh the front calipers, they were looking extremely tired as I never replaced these when I built the car, the rears had been replaced not long before I bought it.
I also bought some spare brake pads for the track day box as the RC6's I've currently got are down to around 5-6mm so a day or so left in them, I really did rate the RC6 but I also rated the DS1.11's when I had the Clio back in 2018, I found a set at a good discounted price so decided I'd buy a set to put me on for this year at least and we'll see what I do in the long run in terms of updates, will be interesting to compare them on the E46 either way as the performance on the clio was brilliant
Removed the front discs, gave them a quick check over and gave them a quick tidy up
Back in 2018 I made a set of a brass slider pins for the calipers to replace the rubber bushes in the OEM Calipers, testament to the first version they have been perfect for 3-4 years and have kept the pads wearing really evenly and given a much better pedal feel, I removed these from the old calipers and gave them a tidy up
Snapshot of the calipers. You can see why I decided to replace, I should have done these a while ago to be fair as they do let everything else about the car down. Certainly not up to my usual standard.
I measured up the new calipers and the bores the brass bushes was slightly different to the calipers on the car, doesn't really matter with the standard rubber bushes but make a difference with press fit brass bushes so decided just to make up a new set to suit the new calipers
Pressed into the new calipers from the back side so its impossible for them to back out under use as well as being held in by circlips for additional fixing.
Carriers cleaned up and sliding pins fitted with a small amount of loctite
Fitted to the car with the remainder to the RC6 pads in for the time being
Will get them bled up over the next few days with some fresh fluid and have a look at that next few jobs on the list.
Looking forward to getting some seat time in the E46 again!
About time I did a little update now the clocks have sprung forward and the nights are getting lighter, I've done very little on the car, well absolutely nothing on the car since Oulton Park besides start it once to rearrange the drive way and have it on the trickle charger through the winter months to keep the battery healthy.
Back in July last year I got the key to a old bungalow which required extensive work to make it liveable so I've been working on ever since so that has taken up the majority of my time, but it has been a nice change, however I did rebuild the engine last year in the midst of gutting the house.
So with Anglesey just around on the corner on the 12th April I decided to start a few of the jobs I'd added to the list over the winter of little things I wanted to improve.
Flash back from Anglesey 2021
So one of the things I had considered working on over winter was a new brake set up to replace the standard 330 calipers. With everything else going on it's been put on the back burner but I did decide that I would refresh the front calipers, they were looking extremely tired as I never replaced these when I built the car, the rears had been replaced not long before I bought it.
I also bought some spare brake pads for the track day box as the RC6's I've currently got are down to around 5-6mm so a day or so left in them, I really did rate the RC6 but I also rated the DS1.11's when I had the Clio back in 2018, I found a set at a good discounted price so decided I'd buy a set to put me on for this year at least and we'll see what I do in the long run in terms of updates, will be interesting to compare them on the E46 either way as the performance on the clio was brilliant
Removed the front discs, gave them a quick check over and gave them a quick tidy up
Back in 2018 I made a set of a brass slider pins for the calipers to replace the rubber bushes in the OEM Calipers, testament to the first version they have been perfect for 3-4 years and have kept the pads wearing really evenly and given a much better pedal feel, I removed these from the old calipers and gave them a tidy up
Snapshot of the calipers. You can see why I decided to replace, I should have done these a while ago to be fair as they do let everything else about the car down. Certainly not up to my usual standard.
I measured up the new calipers and the bores the brass bushes was slightly different to the calipers on the car, doesn't really matter with the standard rubber bushes but make a difference with press fit brass bushes so decided just to make up a new set to suit the new calipers
Pressed into the new calipers from the back side so its impossible for them to back out under use as well as being held in by circlips for additional fixing.
Carriers cleaned up and sliding pins fitted with a small amount of loctite
Fitted to the car with the remainder to the RC6 pads in for the time being
Will get them bled up over the next few days with some fresh fluid and have a look at that next few jobs on the list.
Looking forward to getting some seat time in the E46 again!
Edited by tombate911 on Wednesday 30th March 22:32
Excellent thread...what a job you're making of this track car!
With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
Watchthis said:
Excellent thread...what a job you're making of this track car!
With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
Agreed, you've done a lovely job there but Porsche 996 calipers are pretty cheap and lighter too. Also means you can use E46 M3 discs with an alloy bell which again are much lighter. I fitted 996 brakes to me E46 M3 and they were mighty even with road pads when used on track.With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
There is value in keeping things simple though!
shalmaneser said:
Watchthis said:
Excellent thread...what a job you're making of this track car!
With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
Agreed, you've done a lovely job there but Porsche 996 calipers are pretty cheap and lighter too. Also means you can use E46 M3 discs with an alloy bell which again are much lighter. I fitted 996 brakes to me E46 M3 and they were mighty even with road pads when used on track.With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
There is value in keeping things simple though!
What's the kerbweight on yours though OP?
Given the car's been well gutted, I suspect the weight of the car brung it down some towards an E36, which the E46 330i calipers are an bolt on upgrade for that car and don't suffer from over heating on track.
Watchthis said:
Excellent thread...what a job you're making of this track car!
With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
With regards the brakes, how come you've not opted for some fancy conversion to multipot calipers and huge discs? This seems to be the first thing most trackday cars get. In any case, you are getting very respectable lap times and have built a very reliable machine. Kudos
shalmaneser said:
Agreed, you've done a lovely job there but Porsche 996 calipers are pretty cheap and lighter too. Also means you can use E46 M3 discs with an alloy bell which again are much lighter. I fitted 996 brakes to me E46 M3 and they were mighty even with road pads when used on track.
There is value in keeping things simple though!
I was planning on doing a 4 pot conversion over winter either with the 996 calipers with the off the shelf brackets or I was going to do something a little bit different and make up my own brackets. I just didn't have time to get it sorted over winter due to one thing or another, so for the cost of the replacement calipers a simple refresh will keep me going this year and I can work on deciding on a brake upgrade when I get a minute.There is value in keeping things simple though!
Sf_Manta said:
I did the brass sliders recently on my rear brakes, which did improve things back there, but agreed on the front brakes, went with the Brembos from the 986 Boxster myself with CSL discs using HEL lines and Creative design's mounts. Given i'm running a full weight touring (around 1450kg) the stock calipers suffer a lot from heat soak and tend to bind up as a result.
What's the kerbweight on yours though OP?
Given the car's been well gutted, I suspect the weight of the car brung it down some towards an E36, which the E46 330i calipers are an bolt on upgrade for that car and don't suffer from over heating on track.
So the E46 is around 1250kg or slightly less in it's current trim now. So not too bad considering it has two seats and full glass. Never had an issue with brake fade or overheating with the current set up with the cooling ducting and plates and the brakes have always been reliable since I got rid of the ABS and got a working proportioning valve with miss matched front to rear pads, only in the last hand full of a track days have I started to gain confidence in the brakes so happy to stick with the current set up and keep the car in the same guise as last year and we'll see where this year takes us.What's the kerbweight on yours though OP?
Given the car's been well gutted, I suspect the weight of the car brung it down some towards an E36, which the E46 330i calipers are an bolt on upgrade for that car and don't suffer from over heating on track.
Small update on fuel rail mounting, when I swapped to the Bosch injectors I ran into the small issue that the injectors I am using a much more compact than the standard pink top injectors I was using so I came up with a quick solution which was some deeper aluminium mounts which moved the fuel rail down lower, the issue with this was it started to move towards the engine as it went lower and as a result of this started to lean over. I made it solid and used it for mapping and Oulton Park but it wasn't a long term solution. I also found the injectors sat further into the manifold causing the o-ring to be clost to popping inside the manifold.
Original set up with crude aluminium mounts
O-ring depth
Injector height comparison
First step to solving the issue was some top hat spacers for the top of the injectors
These brought the injectors very similar to the standard injector length.
You can see though that the silver part of the injector is the mounting seat which is much further up the injector than standard.
On the lathe I have made up some push over collars to fit on the injectors to space them up out of the manifold by 5mm.
I've seen some terrible solutions to this issue with some people placing washers under the injectors to space them up! Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
I've made these with the lighted of interference fit on the injector and they wont come off without removing the o ring from the injector too.
I have moved back to an M50 rail now I have been able to set the height of the injectors correctly rather than using a M52 rail. I swapped over my modified pressure regulator into the M50 rail and bolted down.
Happy with how this little job turned out, something I wanted to come up with a proper solution for, peace of mind knowing the fuel rail is mounted correctly.
Original set up with crude aluminium mounts
O-ring depth
Injector height comparison
First step to solving the issue was some top hat spacers for the top of the injectors
These brought the injectors very similar to the standard injector length.
You can see though that the silver part of the injector is the mounting seat which is much further up the injector than standard.
On the lathe I have made up some push over collars to fit on the injectors to space them up out of the manifold by 5mm.
I've seen some terrible solutions to this issue with some people placing washers under the injectors to space them up! Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
I've made these with the lighted of interference fit on the injector and they wont come off without removing the o ring from the injector too.
I have moved back to an M50 rail now I have been able to set the height of the injectors correctly rather than using a M52 rail. I swapped over my modified pressure regulator into the M50 rail and bolted down.
Happy with how this little job turned out, something I wanted to come up with a proper solution for, peace of mind knowing the fuel rail is mounted correctly.
First track day of 2022.
Turned out to be the wettest track day I've ever done, which upon reflection makes me appreciate the amazing conditions I have had since I started doing track days in 2016 and have only really had the odd wet day here and there with the majority of the ones that started wet ended up having a dry afternoon anyway.
Talking of track days in 2016... April 2016 was the first track day I did in the Clio at Oulton Park. The Clio and track days was only supposed to be a stop gap at the time before getting a motorbike but here we are 6 years later!
Couple of photos from the first track day.
Back to Anglesey.. I had ticked off pretty much everything on the to do list before Anglesey so it was only a case of loading up the van, car and trailer and heading over to Anglesey the day before. Only downside to the E46 is the time it takes sorting out trailers and everything I end up taking with me to run the E46
Still towing with the transporter, 4 years old in May and still on less than 40,000 miles. A sure sign that I haven't been using it and going away enough recently!
It has been a while since we've done a proper camp over at a circuit due to all the Covid restrictions but I decided to break up the drive and head to Anglesey the evening before to save a 5am start the following morning. The weather was dry in the evening and looking at the forecast I was hoping it would remain dry
Safe to say Anglesey had different plans for us in the morning when persistent rain was forecast for the majority of the day.
It was certainly Rainsport weather out there!
I got out pretty early in the morning and the circuit was really quiet. The car felt good in the first couple of sessions, I kept an eye on the usual basics, fuel pressure, oil pressure and temps, building back up the confidence in the car and decided to make the most of the seat time in these conditions. They were prime for practicing driving skill and technique. Especially in the E46 with no ABS or traction control it certainly isn't easy to drive but I was certainly rewarding in those conditions, I never got caught up in the morning which I was pretty happy about!
I gave the car a quick check over during lunch, oil level is exactly the same as it was when I did an oil change after running the engine in, so at the moment I am happy (touch wood) with the new engine considering it's done two days and not required any oil yet. I thought due to the engine being a little higher on the clearances when I put it together reusing the block that it might burn a little oil but at the moment everything seems to be good.
Only thing I did suffer with during the day was some brake judder. An issue I have chased on and off when I first built the car but I thought I had seen the last of it until the end of last year when it started again ever so slightly. End of last year I popped on a set of rear discs and a near rear hub flange as they were due replacement and nothing seemed to change and it was only very minor but it's starting to make an appearance again. I've checked over the front discs and found a tight spot on one of the rotors, so will take this into work and spin it up on the lathe and check it out and report back.
As the afternoon went on the track was starting to dry out a little. I made a change over to Ar1's mid afternoon with the hope I would be able to find a little more grip but I have made the switch a little too early and it was like driving on Ice, I drifted around for a 20 minute session on the AR1's before returning to the pits.
In the later part of the afternoon I managed to get a couple of good sessions on a drying track with the AR1's but it was always trying to rain, this combined with the blowing wind off the sea at Anglesey the track never really dried out. I did however have some really good sessions in the afternoon with other cars out doing similar things despite the conditions.
I managed to take out a couple of passengers in the E46 which is always a good laugh and great to share the experience with other people. Really hard to explain to people what it's like until they've been in the car to experience it!
I do have a lot of footage to try and get sorted but for the time being here's a video from one of my favourite afternoon sessions. Bearing in mind this is the first laps this passenger has every done on a racing circuit before!
Short session trying my best to catch/keep up with an E46 M3 on Direzzas and Renault Mk1 K20 Conversion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yP1kcQsc38
The final job for the day was to spent the last 30 minutes of the day data logging a few laps on the laptop. I have got the logger under the dash which logs the key parameters but for the final session I strapped the laptop into the passenger seat and the beauty of the ECU Master software is that it logs every ECU parameter, I used this session to check the knock settings and be able to then collect enough data to set up the back ground knock noise levels to set up knock control in the real world. I'll be able to turn this on on the next track day and log the fields in the ECU before fully activities knock control.
I've also been able to check all the EGT/AFR's and fueling corrections in the ECU and the fueling in the real world is spot on in the map with the ECU only making a few minor close loop corrections, less than 2% during full load. Peace of mind to be able to look back through this and check everything is looking good!
Turned out to be the wettest track day I've ever done, which upon reflection makes me appreciate the amazing conditions I have had since I started doing track days in 2016 and have only really had the odd wet day here and there with the majority of the ones that started wet ended up having a dry afternoon anyway.
Talking of track days in 2016... April 2016 was the first track day I did in the Clio at Oulton Park. The Clio and track days was only supposed to be a stop gap at the time before getting a motorbike but here we are 6 years later!
Couple of photos from the first track day.
Back to Anglesey.. I had ticked off pretty much everything on the to do list before Anglesey so it was only a case of loading up the van, car and trailer and heading over to Anglesey the day before. Only downside to the E46 is the time it takes sorting out trailers and everything I end up taking with me to run the E46
Still towing with the transporter, 4 years old in May and still on less than 40,000 miles. A sure sign that I haven't been using it and going away enough recently!
It has been a while since we've done a proper camp over at a circuit due to all the Covid restrictions but I decided to break up the drive and head to Anglesey the evening before to save a 5am start the following morning. The weather was dry in the evening and looking at the forecast I was hoping it would remain dry
Safe to say Anglesey had different plans for us in the morning when persistent rain was forecast for the majority of the day.
It was certainly Rainsport weather out there!
I got out pretty early in the morning and the circuit was really quiet. The car felt good in the first couple of sessions, I kept an eye on the usual basics, fuel pressure, oil pressure and temps, building back up the confidence in the car and decided to make the most of the seat time in these conditions. They were prime for practicing driving skill and technique. Especially in the E46 with no ABS or traction control it certainly isn't easy to drive but I was certainly rewarding in those conditions, I never got caught up in the morning which I was pretty happy about!
I gave the car a quick check over during lunch, oil level is exactly the same as it was when I did an oil change after running the engine in, so at the moment I am happy (touch wood) with the new engine considering it's done two days and not required any oil yet. I thought due to the engine being a little higher on the clearances when I put it together reusing the block that it might burn a little oil but at the moment everything seems to be good.
Only thing I did suffer with during the day was some brake judder. An issue I have chased on and off when I first built the car but I thought I had seen the last of it until the end of last year when it started again ever so slightly. End of last year I popped on a set of rear discs and a near rear hub flange as they were due replacement and nothing seemed to change and it was only very minor but it's starting to make an appearance again. I've checked over the front discs and found a tight spot on one of the rotors, so will take this into work and spin it up on the lathe and check it out and report back.
As the afternoon went on the track was starting to dry out a little. I made a change over to Ar1's mid afternoon with the hope I would be able to find a little more grip but I have made the switch a little too early and it was like driving on Ice, I drifted around for a 20 minute session on the AR1's before returning to the pits.
In the later part of the afternoon I managed to get a couple of good sessions on a drying track with the AR1's but it was always trying to rain, this combined with the blowing wind off the sea at Anglesey the track never really dried out. I did however have some really good sessions in the afternoon with other cars out doing similar things despite the conditions.
I managed to take out a couple of passengers in the E46 which is always a good laugh and great to share the experience with other people. Really hard to explain to people what it's like until they've been in the car to experience it!
I do have a lot of footage to try and get sorted but for the time being here's a video from one of my favourite afternoon sessions. Bearing in mind this is the first laps this passenger has every done on a racing circuit before!
Short session trying my best to catch/keep up with an E46 M3 on Direzzas and Renault Mk1 K20 Conversion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yP1kcQsc38
The final job for the day was to spent the last 30 minutes of the day data logging a few laps on the laptop. I have got the logger under the dash which logs the key parameters but for the final session I strapped the laptop into the passenger seat and the beauty of the ECU Master software is that it logs every ECU parameter, I used this session to check the knock settings and be able to then collect enough data to set up the back ground knock noise levels to set up knock control in the real world. I'll be able to turn this on on the next track day and log the fields in the ECU before fully activities knock control.
I've also been able to check all the EGT/AFR's and fueling corrections in the ECU and the fueling in the real world is spot on in the map with the ECU only making a few minor close loop corrections, less than 2% during full load. Peace of mind to be able to look back through this and check everything is looking good!
2022 has been probably the slowest year I've had with the E46 since building it with everything going on in the world as well as renovating a house upgrades and working on the car has been a little bit towards the bottom of the priority list.
Shortly after Anglesey I did book a summer track day to give me something to work towards. The car was pretty much perfect at Anglesey but I was getting some vibrations through the car under light braking. Something to look into for Cadwell.
First approach to looking for issues was checking all the suspensions and wheel bearings, nothing to report there so moved onto taking some measurements of the brakes. Checked the discs with the DTI and noticed a little bit more run out on the front discs, I'm not sure what are expected standards or specifications for disc run and and thickness but investigated it. Removed both front discs, checked the mating surface with the hub and refitted, no improvement, I did notice that the DTI was swinging backwards and forwards multiple times during a rotation.
I bought a set of discs to replace them with anyway but took some measurements of the disc thickness for comparison.
For discussion purposes I've quickly just noted down the measurements of the disc thickness variation. Is it enough to make a difference and cause a vibration? We'll see!
I've fitted new discs and pads, this time going for the Ferodo DS1.11, I was running the RC6 front pads for two years but I used to run the DS1.11 in the Clio and rated them for track work so going to give them a go on the E46 and compare.
Little bit of development I've wanted to do for a while. When I fitted the M50 inlet, I did a quick 3D print of a pipe to adapt the maf sensor to the throttle body but the shape was less than ideal, but it worked so I ran with it.
When mapping the car I change to a MAP sensor so was able to log manifold air pressure, I noticed above 6500 the MAP sensor starting to show a reduction of around 3-4kPa so slightly below atmosphere, possibly some room for improvement with the inlet prior to the manifold.
Quick pipe 3d printed on standard ECU
No longer running the Maf on the standalone ECU It was a good chance to remove it to make some space. Quick test print with a PVA support around the base of the design
One key thing I wanted to retain with the car is the standard filter housing so designed the pipe to use the standard O ring and clips to hold it to the airbox
Quick test fit, it was pretty close but I wanted to change the length of the adaptor and it's location slightly
Final printed version, ready for testing at Cadwell park. Will it make a difference? I should help it breath a tad easier at the top end but unlikely to notice a difference but either way it's tidied up the engine bay and got rid of the Maf sensor which is no longer needed.
Few more things to work on this week but we should be good to go for Cadwell Park on the 8th.
Shortly after Anglesey I did book a summer track day to give me something to work towards. The car was pretty much perfect at Anglesey but I was getting some vibrations through the car under light braking. Something to look into for Cadwell.
First approach to looking for issues was checking all the suspensions and wheel bearings, nothing to report there so moved onto taking some measurements of the brakes. Checked the discs with the DTI and noticed a little bit more run out on the front discs, I'm not sure what are expected standards or specifications for disc run and and thickness but investigated it. Removed both front discs, checked the mating surface with the hub and refitted, no improvement, I did notice that the DTI was swinging backwards and forwards multiple times during a rotation.
I bought a set of discs to replace them with anyway but took some measurements of the disc thickness for comparison.
For discussion purposes I've quickly just noted down the measurements of the disc thickness variation. Is it enough to make a difference and cause a vibration? We'll see!
I've fitted new discs and pads, this time going for the Ferodo DS1.11, I was running the RC6 front pads for two years but I used to run the DS1.11 in the Clio and rated them for track work so going to give them a go on the E46 and compare.
Little bit of development I've wanted to do for a while. When I fitted the M50 inlet, I did a quick 3D print of a pipe to adapt the maf sensor to the throttle body but the shape was less than ideal, but it worked so I ran with it.
When mapping the car I change to a MAP sensor so was able to log manifold air pressure, I noticed above 6500 the MAP sensor starting to show a reduction of around 3-4kPa so slightly below atmosphere, possibly some room for improvement with the inlet prior to the manifold.
Quick pipe 3d printed on standard ECU
No longer running the Maf on the standalone ECU It was a good chance to remove it to make some space. Quick test print with a PVA support around the base of the design
One key thing I wanted to retain with the car is the standard filter housing so designed the pipe to use the standard O ring and clips to hold it to the airbox
Quick test fit, it was pretty close but I wanted to change the length of the adaptor and it's location slightly
Final printed version, ready for testing at Cadwell park. Will it make a difference? I should help it breath a tad easier at the top end but unlikely to notice a difference but either way it's tidied up the engine bay and got rid of the Maf sensor which is no longer needed.
Few more things to work on this week but we should be good to go for Cadwell Park on the 8th.
Cadwell Aug 2022.
Only the second track day of the year but I was looking forward to this one, Cadwell has always been a favourite but it's a nemesis of mine! More on this later.
Cadwell is a good 2.5 hours from me so we always try to make a few days holiday of it either side of the Trackday. With fuel prices high, the cost of hotels through the roof and it being the beginning of August we decided to camp over at the circuit for a couple of days.
Loaded up a bunch of us met at Birch services mid day on the Sunday.
Camping was great for me, it was good to get away in the campervan again and get some use out of it, rather than just using it to tow the trailers.
The weather was perfect so once the racing was finished on the Sunday we set up camp and went for a walk around the circuit.
It's always great to see the circuit from a different perspective rather than just inside the car, you can really appreciated the elevation changes and cambers, I made some mental notes of the cambers in some sections of the track to give myself some more confidence the following day.
Unloaded the trailer and did a little lap of the circuit carpark, one downside of the car being off the road totally is the inability to drive it when changes are made and give it a shake down before a track day. You just have to be confident in your spannering skills and your knowledge of the workings of the car
The morning soon rolled around and it was a 7am start, my view for the majority of the day. Pretty simple as far as interiors go, I'm still using the standard E46 clocks being driven by the standalone ECU Via Canbus. Still running the innovate oil temp and pressure gauge for simplicity.
The logger screen offers a few pages of information:
Oil pressure
Fuel Pressure
Oil Temp
Coolant Temp
Front brake pressure
Read brake pressure
Brake bias - I like to see it changing and how I've got the bias valve set.
Two EGT's from the exhaust
Air Fuel Ratio
EGO - Closed loop fuel trim applied by the ECU at achieve perfect AFR's
Max Speed
Max RPM
Min Oil Pressure
Min Fuel Pressure
A whole host of other data is available on the Canbus which is all logged to an SD card. Currently only logging at 10hz but it's starting to suffer with processing speeds considering it's all based of an Arduino Uno and an Arduino Mega. So I will be starting to develop a new and improved logger as we go through Autumn, I'll write a bit more about this as I start to work on it, but already have decided on the hardware and set up.
I'd changed a couple of additional things on the run up to the Track day. A ECU Software update a bit of faffing around I have now got the ABS controller and the ECU talking on CANBUS. I now have the ability to view all 4 wheel speed sensors in the ECU which has opened up the ability to start to set up some traction control within the ECU. Currently I only have an enable switch on the dash but Cadwell was a good test to get the basic set up working. I'd took a guess at the wheel slip map and roughed in some traction control ignition cut and timing adjustments when a % of wheel slip was detected so it was good to give this a test in the afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome when trying to get the car to slide in the afternoon, I'll be doing some wiring modifications to go with the new logger so I'm planning on adding some rotary switched to adjust the thresholds and effects of the traction control.
The car was flawless all day despite the temperature of the current heat wave. Really surprised at the cars engine and coolant temperatures, I've noticed a big reduction of temperatures since going standalone, must more accurate control over the electronic thermostat on the M54's.
I'm happily able to report that the braking vibration was completely gone, I bedded the DS1.11s in during sighting laps and the first session, now I used to run this prior to 2018 in the Clio so sort of knew the pad, initial impressions are that they bite from a much cooler temperature than the RC6, generally braking power was the same, the RC6 seemed to get better the hotter they hot but the DS1.11s tend to flatline at a certain point, they never faded but I did twice find the limit of stopping of the car down the hill with a passenger in, I'd got used to being in the car all day on my own and the additional 90+ kg weight of the passenger down the hill to Mansfield reminded me that I'm still using standard brakes as I ran slightly deeper into the corner than usual. I did notice that I knocked the braking bias more rearward so was able to use the rear brakes slightly more which would indicate that the fronts did have slightly more bite, probably down to being new pads!
As usual Cadwell Park has always caused me to suffer with terrible sickness, this year was no different, I'd already dropped the drivers window down 2 inches before sighting laps knowing the cabin temps were going to be terrible later on in the day considering it was forecast 30 degree temperatures. Come 11:30 I was really sick, only just making it in off the circuit after just about holding it together for a cool down lap, it's a long way from Hall Bends back to the pits when you're on the verge of being sick! I took an early lunch, grabbed something to eat and a flat can of coke. In the afternoon I went for the spare open face helmet as well as removing my custom ear plugs and was fine all afternoon, whether the ear plugs were causing issues or the full face helmet in the heat, either way I was glad to get on with the rest of the day without issue!
I didn't take many photos throughout the day, it was either spent lapping i the E46 of sat under the awning trying to catch a little bit of shade, but the E46 was flawlessly all day which is a great feeling! I finished the afternoon taking out a couple of passengers who were driving minis on the day, just to show them the difference between the hot hatch and the E46, I do sometimes miss having a hot a hatch, lots of 200bhp cars on trackdays all lapping at similar paces having a great time!
Video of a couple of clear laps
https://youtu.be/rGLjxcz_3_4
Also managed to get some outside footage of the car, quality of the video isn't great as it's taken on an phone, had a few comments about the induction noise and how the car can be heard from the other side of the circuit at times on full load.
https://youtu.be/ds1b-UJwnOs
I will give the car a once over in the next week or so, possibly a grumbling wheel bearing to investigate and then start to spend some time deciding on what I want to do with the inside wiring, likely a rewire of the interior loom to add in some extra switches and a new logger.
Only the second track day of the year but I was looking forward to this one, Cadwell has always been a favourite but it's a nemesis of mine! More on this later.
Cadwell is a good 2.5 hours from me so we always try to make a few days holiday of it either side of the Trackday. With fuel prices high, the cost of hotels through the roof and it being the beginning of August we decided to camp over at the circuit for a couple of days.
Loaded up a bunch of us met at Birch services mid day on the Sunday.
Camping was great for me, it was good to get away in the campervan again and get some use out of it, rather than just using it to tow the trailers.
The weather was perfect so once the racing was finished on the Sunday we set up camp and went for a walk around the circuit.
It's always great to see the circuit from a different perspective rather than just inside the car, you can really appreciated the elevation changes and cambers, I made some mental notes of the cambers in some sections of the track to give myself some more confidence the following day.
Unloaded the trailer and did a little lap of the circuit carpark, one downside of the car being off the road totally is the inability to drive it when changes are made and give it a shake down before a track day. You just have to be confident in your spannering skills and your knowledge of the workings of the car
The morning soon rolled around and it was a 7am start, my view for the majority of the day. Pretty simple as far as interiors go, I'm still using the standard E46 clocks being driven by the standalone ECU Via Canbus. Still running the innovate oil temp and pressure gauge for simplicity.
The logger screen offers a few pages of information:
Oil pressure
Fuel Pressure
Oil Temp
Coolant Temp
Front brake pressure
Read brake pressure
Brake bias - I like to see it changing and how I've got the bias valve set.
Two EGT's from the exhaust
Air Fuel Ratio
EGO - Closed loop fuel trim applied by the ECU at achieve perfect AFR's
Max Speed
Max RPM
Min Oil Pressure
Min Fuel Pressure
A whole host of other data is available on the Canbus which is all logged to an SD card. Currently only logging at 10hz but it's starting to suffer with processing speeds considering it's all based of an Arduino Uno and an Arduino Mega. So I will be starting to develop a new and improved logger as we go through Autumn, I'll write a bit more about this as I start to work on it, but already have decided on the hardware and set up.
I'd changed a couple of additional things on the run up to the Track day. A ECU Software update a bit of faffing around I have now got the ABS controller and the ECU talking on CANBUS. I now have the ability to view all 4 wheel speed sensors in the ECU which has opened up the ability to start to set up some traction control within the ECU. Currently I only have an enable switch on the dash but Cadwell was a good test to get the basic set up working. I'd took a guess at the wheel slip map and roughed in some traction control ignition cut and timing adjustments when a % of wheel slip was detected so it was good to give this a test in the afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome when trying to get the car to slide in the afternoon, I'll be doing some wiring modifications to go with the new logger so I'm planning on adding some rotary switched to adjust the thresholds and effects of the traction control.
The car was flawless all day despite the temperature of the current heat wave. Really surprised at the cars engine and coolant temperatures, I've noticed a big reduction of temperatures since going standalone, must more accurate control over the electronic thermostat on the M54's.
I'm happily able to report that the braking vibration was completely gone, I bedded the DS1.11s in during sighting laps and the first session, now I used to run this prior to 2018 in the Clio so sort of knew the pad, initial impressions are that they bite from a much cooler temperature than the RC6, generally braking power was the same, the RC6 seemed to get better the hotter they hot but the DS1.11s tend to flatline at a certain point, they never faded but I did twice find the limit of stopping of the car down the hill with a passenger in, I'd got used to being in the car all day on my own and the additional 90+ kg weight of the passenger down the hill to Mansfield reminded me that I'm still using standard brakes as I ran slightly deeper into the corner than usual. I did notice that I knocked the braking bias more rearward so was able to use the rear brakes slightly more which would indicate that the fronts did have slightly more bite, probably down to being new pads!
As usual Cadwell Park has always caused me to suffer with terrible sickness, this year was no different, I'd already dropped the drivers window down 2 inches before sighting laps knowing the cabin temps were going to be terrible later on in the day considering it was forecast 30 degree temperatures. Come 11:30 I was really sick, only just making it in off the circuit after just about holding it together for a cool down lap, it's a long way from Hall Bends back to the pits when you're on the verge of being sick! I took an early lunch, grabbed something to eat and a flat can of coke. In the afternoon I went for the spare open face helmet as well as removing my custom ear plugs and was fine all afternoon, whether the ear plugs were causing issues or the full face helmet in the heat, either way I was glad to get on with the rest of the day without issue!
I didn't take many photos throughout the day, it was either spent lapping i the E46 of sat under the awning trying to catch a little bit of shade, but the E46 was flawlessly all day which is a great feeling! I finished the afternoon taking out a couple of passengers who were driving minis on the day, just to show them the difference between the hot hatch and the E46, I do sometimes miss having a hot a hatch, lots of 200bhp cars on trackdays all lapping at similar paces having a great time!
Video of a couple of clear laps
https://youtu.be/rGLjxcz_3_4
Also managed to get some outside footage of the car, quality of the video isn't great as it's taken on an phone, had a few comments about the induction noise and how the car can be heard from the other side of the circuit at times on full load.
https://youtu.be/ds1b-UJwnOs
I will give the car a once over in the next week or so, possibly a grumbling wheel bearing to investigate and then start to spend some time deciding on what I want to do with the inside wiring, likely a rewire of the interior loom to add in some extra switches and a new logger.
Nearly 3 months to the day since the last update but some interesting bits on this one which I've been taking my time with over previous months.
Back when I first built the E46 I made a Arduino logger based off the back off an Uno, at the time it was only supposed to be basic thing that would log some basic Canbus parameters and some GPS data at around 10hz.
Version 2 was used to log a number of analog channels such as fuel pressure.
Version 3 the analog channels were moved over to a Analog to canbus board under the dash and the amount of information being logged double.
Version 4 was developed to work with an addtional Arduino Mega which was running a TFT Screen in the dash.
Screen
Version 5 started the log all the information from the ECU Master black, this is where I started to hit the limits of the the Arduino Uno when trying to log the knock from the ECU primarily the loggings wasn't fast enough and there wasn't enough memory to be able to handle the size of the code and the processing of some of the data. Also the GPS was only logging at approx 1hz which was the limit of the hardware being used.
It was time to work on something new...
First thing was the order a suitable micro controller which would be the base of the data logger. The obviously choice for me was a Teensy 4.1 with more capabilities built in than I could ever need, multiple serial ports, canbus, onboard SD card slot etc.
The Teensy on it's own does make the data logger there was much more to it...
I started with a NEO6M GPS Module to handle the GPS data.
CANBUS transceiver - SN65HVD230 - This will handle the sending and receiving of information to the Can network in the car as well as having the built in termination resistor.
I then started with some breadboard and started to prototype the circuit and start to develop the code which would run on the Teensy to handle the logging.
After many days and hours of time spent working through developing a new code for the logger I was happy to be able to log all the canbus information that was available from the ECU, all the analog information from the Canbus board as well as GPS being logged at a much faster rate. With some more testing I will confirm what speeds are achievable but at the moment I've set the logging to 20hz for a total of approx 40 channels of data.
With the code working and bench tested it was time to start to work on a schematic of the wiring I had produced on the bench and produce a printed circuit board to hold all the components.
Layout of the PCB
Preview of the PCB, I sent these files off to china for manufacturing...
Two weeks later I received the batch of boards from China
Time to build up the first version of the board
Pretty tidy solution to hold everything together on one board, I had added two digital inputs for switches as well as terminations for the canbus, the power for the board comes from the USB from a 5v regulator from an ignition source, the advantage of this is that the the logger is always running and holding GPS data ready to start logging and now only logs when the logging switch is turned on rather than logging on power on.
All built up on a 3d printer base for testing.
I took a delivery of a number of good quality Deutsch as I was planning on changing some of the interior wiring, making full use of the logger as well as using some more capabilities of the ECU.
Combined with some high quality 10 position rotary switches...
Little bit of mocking up some paper prototypes with the steering wheel
I cut out some 3mm acrylic on the laser cutter while in work and engraved on some labels, the left rotary switch will be doing 9 positions of traction control and 0 being deactivated.
The right rotary switch I haven't labelled as I might use that for different functions yet. Dash and hazards going to the relevant places and the bottom switches going to the ECU
All built up and wired
Rather than going for the usual coiled cable route I decided to use the built in clock spring of the standard clocks
I finished this evening putting it all together and setting up and testing the dash, logger and ECU settings, nice to see it all back together, the logger is tucked under the dash on the exhaust tunnel.
The true test for it will be at Oulton Park on Saturday, looking forward to testing the logger and running the traction control with the 9 different positions of intervention, I did have an experiment with it at Cadwell but was only able to run one fixed setting which I did take a guess at but they did work pretty well considering it was fixed...
I wouldn't be a track day without having to swap a wheel bearing on the car...
I've been running Fag wheel bearings on the car for the last couple of years but they are only lasting around 12 months, however much better than other manufacturers which were only lasting a day or so, probably down to the grip levels now with the 255 AR1's and solid mounted suspension as it was never an issues for the first 2/3 years of driving the car
Hopefully more of this on Saturday
Back when I first built the E46 I made a Arduino logger based off the back off an Uno, at the time it was only supposed to be basic thing that would log some basic Canbus parameters and some GPS data at around 10hz.
Version 2 was used to log a number of analog channels such as fuel pressure.
Version 3 the analog channels were moved over to a Analog to canbus board under the dash and the amount of information being logged double.
Version 4 was developed to work with an addtional Arduino Mega which was running a TFT Screen in the dash.
Screen
Version 5 started the log all the information from the ECU Master black, this is where I started to hit the limits of the the Arduino Uno when trying to log the knock from the ECU primarily the loggings wasn't fast enough and there wasn't enough memory to be able to handle the size of the code and the processing of some of the data. Also the GPS was only logging at approx 1hz which was the limit of the hardware being used.
It was time to work on something new...
First thing was the order a suitable micro controller which would be the base of the data logger. The obviously choice for me was a Teensy 4.1 with more capabilities built in than I could ever need, multiple serial ports, canbus, onboard SD card slot etc.
The Teensy on it's own does make the data logger there was much more to it...
I started with a NEO6M GPS Module to handle the GPS data.
CANBUS transceiver - SN65HVD230 - This will handle the sending and receiving of information to the Can network in the car as well as having the built in termination resistor.
I then started with some breadboard and started to prototype the circuit and start to develop the code which would run on the Teensy to handle the logging.
After many days and hours of time spent working through developing a new code for the logger I was happy to be able to log all the canbus information that was available from the ECU, all the analog information from the Canbus board as well as GPS being logged at a much faster rate. With some more testing I will confirm what speeds are achievable but at the moment I've set the logging to 20hz for a total of approx 40 channels of data.
With the code working and bench tested it was time to start to work on a schematic of the wiring I had produced on the bench and produce a printed circuit board to hold all the components.
Layout of the PCB
Preview of the PCB, I sent these files off to china for manufacturing...
Two weeks later I received the batch of boards from China
Time to build up the first version of the board
Pretty tidy solution to hold everything together on one board, I had added two digital inputs for switches as well as terminations for the canbus, the power for the board comes from the USB from a 5v regulator from an ignition source, the advantage of this is that the the logger is always running and holding GPS data ready to start logging and now only logs when the logging switch is turned on rather than logging on power on.
All built up on a 3d printer base for testing.
I took a delivery of a number of good quality Deutsch as I was planning on changing some of the interior wiring, making full use of the logger as well as using some more capabilities of the ECU.
Combined with some high quality 10 position rotary switches...
Little bit of mocking up some paper prototypes with the steering wheel
I cut out some 3mm acrylic on the laser cutter while in work and engraved on some labels, the left rotary switch will be doing 9 positions of traction control and 0 being deactivated.
The right rotary switch I haven't labelled as I might use that for different functions yet. Dash and hazards going to the relevant places and the bottom switches going to the ECU
All built up and wired
Rather than going for the usual coiled cable route I decided to use the built in clock spring of the standard clocks
I finished this evening putting it all together and setting up and testing the dash, logger and ECU settings, nice to see it all back together, the logger is tucked under the dash on the exhaust tunnel.
The true test for it will be at Oulton Park on Saturday, looking forward to testing the logger and running the traction control with the 9 different positions of intervention, I did have an experiment with it at Cadwell but was only able to run one fixed setting which I did take a guess at but they did work pretty well considering it was fixed...
I wouldn't be a track day without having to swap a wheel bearing on the car...
I've been running Fag wheel bearings on the car for the last couple of years but they are only lasting around 12 months, however much better than other manufacturers which were only lasting a day or so, probably down to the grip levels now with the 255 AR1's and solid mounted suspension as it was never an issues for the first 2/3 years of driving the car
Hopefully more of this on Saturday
12th November 2022 - Oulton Park
Was looking forward to the annual winter track day at Oulton Park, this year the turn out was fantastic, over 20 friends from all over turned out for this one with as many other people popping down to say for a catch up. Always a really good social side of track days not just about the cars.
Unloaded off the trailer ready to go for sighting laps. Noise tested at 98db, Not bad, keeping an eye on the noise to see if the exhaust is deteriorating over time. Not much change so far.
Sighting laps well under way and the car was working well, always a little bit anxious for sighting laps when the car hasn't been used for a while as it's not longer able to be tested on the road, but the car felt great, everything working as expected including the new steering wheel inputs and traction control settings. Only issue early morning was the car didn't want to start after sighting laps and was just cranking, 30 seconds thinking about what I'd changed... It was a simple table in the ECU I was adjusting for cold start fueling, small adjustment turn reduce the prime pulse to 0 when the coolant temp was above 30 degrees and back to perfect hot start with a much better winter cold initial starting too!
Car ran well for the morning, I got really good sessions in as the conditions were absolutely perfect, the circuit was slippy during slighting laps but the grip was perfect on the first session. During one of the morning sessions there was a loud bag from the rear as I was going through cascades. I'd been out for a while before the bang so decided to bring the car in and check it over. Jacked the car up and got under it but couldn't find anything visibly wrong or loose no sign of missing bolts from the rear end and the car felt fine driving back to the pits so made a mental note to keep and eye out but put it down to debris on track
Video from the morning sessions:
https://youtu.be/hZFZOXbwomY
Shortly before lunch I did however run into an issue, turns out the bang that I had heard earlier in the morning was a slider pin from the front left caliper and later on in the morning the caliper had moved out and caught on the front wheel during braking, it has probably stayed in position for a while as the caliper also have the retention spring holding it in place. Very strange item to come loose but the old thing I can put it down to is possibly driving through a knackered front left brake disc at Anglesey earlier in the year which has stressed/vibrated the pin loose as they were removed and refitted by me earlier in the year with new calipers and I've got the photos of assembling them together on the bench.
First trackday the E46 hasn't finished since I built the car in 2018, I've had a few issues with fuel pressure and coolant tank exploding but I've always managed to source or carry enough spares and tools to be able to fix it, but sadly this time I lost the afternoon on circuit. At least it's a simple fix and I managed to get a good morning session in. Was happy doing 2:00 laps with a passenger in with a full tank of fuel in the morning.
Already got replacement front pins for both sides as well as new caliper springs, replace the missing parts on the front left and refresh the front right just in case. I'll give it a good once over again over winter but I'm already thinking of a few things I want to change before going out again. The first one being a possible change to a longer final drive, I'm finding I'm preferring to short shift to 5th a lot with the 3.73 final drive which is a lot of down changes between 5-4-3. Going back to the 3.36 would bring it back to mostly 3-4 gears. As well as that possibly going to a stiffer spring all around to reduce some of the body roll as we're still lifting the inside wheel slightly on tighter corners and loosing a small amount of grip from that inside tyre with the Quaife. Most noticeable at the left hand section of the Hislops chicane.
Currently working on building a garage at the new house, in the process of putting in the garage foundation at the moment but in the long run I'm looking forward to getting the car stored inside and using it to tidy up a little more things on the car to improve it's appearance and function.
No doubt there will be more to follow soon...
Was looking forward to the annual winter track day at Oulton Park, this year the turn out was fantastic, over 20 friends from all over turned out for this one with as many other people popping down to say for a catch up. Always a really good social side of track days not just about the cars.
Unloaded off the trailer ready to go for sighting laps. Noise tested at 98db, Not bad, keeping an eye on the noise to see if the exhaust is deteriorating over time. Not much change so far.
Sighting laps well under way and the car was working well, always a little bit anxious for sighting laps when the car hasn't been used for a while as it's not longer able to be tested on the road, but the car felt great, everything working as expected including the new steering wheel inputs and traction control settings. Only issue early morning was the car didn't want to start after sighting laps and was just cranking, 30 seconds thinking about what I'd changed... It was a simple table in the ECU I was adjusting for cold start fueling, small adjustment turn reduce the prime pulse to 0 when the coolant temp was above 30 degrees and back to perfect hot start with a much better winter cold initial starting too!
Car ran well for the morning, I got really good sessions in as the conditions were absolutely perfect, the circuit was slippy during slighting laps but the grip was perfect on the first session. During one of the morning sessions there was a loud bag from the rear as I was going through cascades. I'd been out for a while before the bang so decided to bring the car in and check it over. Jacked the car up and got under it but couldn't find anything visibly wrong or loose no sign of missing bolts from the rear end and the car felt fine driving back to the pits so made a mental note to keep and eye out but put it down to debris on track
Video from the morning sessions:
https://youtu.be/hZFZOXbwomY
Shortly before lunch I did however run into an issue, turns out the bang that I had heard earlier in the morning was a slider pin from the front left caliper and later on in the morning the caliper had moved out and caught on the front wheel during braking, it has probably stayed in position for a while as the caliper also have the retention spring holding it in place. Very strange item to come loose but the old thing I can put it down to is possibly driving through a knackered front left brake disc at Anglesey earlier in the year which has stressed/vibrated the pin loose as they were removed and refitted by me earlier in the year with new calipers and I've got the photos of assembling them together on the bench.
First trackday the E46 hasn't finished since I built the car in 2018, I've had a few issues with fuel pressure and coolant tank exploding but I've always managed to source or carry enough spares and tools to be able to fix it, but sadly this time I lost the afternoon on circuit. At least it's a simple fix and I managed to get a good morning session in. Was happy doing 2:00 laps with a passenger in with a full tank of fuel in the morning.
Already got replacement front pins for both sides as well as new caliper springs, replace the missing parts on the front left and refresh the front right just in case. I'll give it a good once over again over winter but I'm already thinking of a few things I want to change before going out again. The first one being a possible change to a longer final drive, I'm finding I'm preferring to short shift to 5th a lot with the 3.73 final drive which is a lot of down changes between 5-4-3. Going back to the 3.36 would bring it back to mostly 3-4 gears. As well as that possibly going to a stiffer spring all around to reduce some of the body roll as we're still lifting the inside wheel slightly on tighter corners and loosing a small amount of grip from that inside tyre with the Quaife. Most noticeable at the left hand section of the Hislops chicane.
Currently working on building a garage at the new house, in the process of putting in the garage foundation at the moment but in the long run I'm looking forward to getting the car stored inside and using it to tidy up a little more things on the car to improve it's appearance and function.
No doubt there will be more to follow soon...
So the new year brings more car content as well as the plans for some more track days. Since parking the car up in December it's had very little attention, just before the cold snap I ran it up to temperature and made sure it was topped up with antifreeze considering I normally only run water in the coolant system.
Fast forward to the new year I had collected all the parts to replace the slide pins on the front calipers after Oulton but a friend was replacing a set of Porsche brake calipers with a bigger set of AP. Perfect timing for me really so decided to upgrade.
Porsche 996 brake calipers
Complete with adaptors to suite the E36/E46 non M hubs, in standard form these calipers and adaptors are designed to work with a 345mm disc but the calipers have been machined now to accept a 325x28mm disc, for the time being I am going to run these with my current 325x25mm standard E46 discs and as the pads wear down replace them with the wider 28mm M3 disc
Couple of things I wanted to sort out, one of the lines had a slide dint it it from previous use, it drew my attention to it, knowing it wasn't 100% I've made up a new hard line to replace the link pipe whilst I had the copper, fittings and the tools on the shelf to make it
Replacement line fitted
Ordered some paint to touch up a couple of the marks on them, before fitting, looking much fresher and ready to go on when we get some warmer dry weather
These calipers came with a set of RS29 pads which I'm looking forward to trying as I've tried a few different pads of the years from RC6, RC5 and DS1.11.
The last interesting part of the post is I have been asked a few times about the cams and how they made a difference to the engine. I had a look through some dyno graphs and found a back to back print out of the old standardengine with the M50 manifold vs the latest engine with the Schrick 272/256 cams fitted.
One job I am planning on doing before the next track day is retiming the engine back to standard timing now I have the specific values in the standalone ECU for known cam positions by timing the engine up to a known cam position when I fitted the ECU. This will enable me to turn back on the exhaust vanos and then I can use the exhaust cam timing to bring up the mid range torque a little, luckily I have the tested values from the standard ECU from a couple of years ago which I can put into the ECU which gives the best mid range torque and adjust fueling to suit.
Hoping for some warmer dryer weather over the next few weeks to spend a little time on the car...
Fast forward to the new year I had collected all the parts to replace the slide pins on the front calipers after Oulton but a friend was replacing a set of Porsche brake calipers with a bigger set of AP. Perfect timing for me really so decided to upgrade.
Porsche 996 brake calipers
Complete with adaptors to suite the E36/E46 non M hubs, in standard form these calipers and adaptors are designed to work with a 345mm disc but the calipers have been machined now to accept a 325x28mm disc, for the time being I am going to run these with my current 325x25mm standard E46 discs and as the pads wear down replace them with the wider 28mm M3 disc
Couple of things I wanted to sort out, one of the lines had a slide dint it it from previous use, it drew my attention to it, knowing it wasn't 100% I've made up a new hard line to replace the link pipe whilst I had the copper, fittings and the tools on the shelf to make it
Replacement line fitted
Ordered some paint to touch up a couple of the marks on them, before fitting, looking much fresher and ready to go on when we get some warmer dry weather
These calipers came with a set of RS29 pads which I'm looking forward to trying as I've tried a few different pads of the years from RC6, RC5 and DS1.11.
The last interesting part of the post is I have been asked a few times about the cams and how they made a difference to the engine. I had a look through some dyno graphs and found a back to back print out of the old standardengine with the M50 manifold vs the latest engine with the Schrick 272/256 cams fitted.
One job I am planning on doing before the next track day is retiming the engine back to standard timing now I have the specific values in the standalone ECU for known cam positions by timing the engine up to a known cam position when I fitted the ECU. This will enable me to turn back on the exhaust vanos and then I can use the exhaust cam timing to bring up the mid range torque a little, luckily I have the tested values from the standard ECU from a couple of years ago which I can put into the ECU which gives the best mid range torque and adjust fueling to suit.
Hoping for some warmer dryer weather over the next few weeks to spend a little time on the car...
I was under the impression it was tweaking the intake cam gave the best midrange gain, the exhaust cam changes are mainly for emissions? Certainly my 996 only has advance on the intake cam...
I think you will get on great with the 996 calipers, I fitted them to my E46 M3 and they were mega on track, along with CSL discs (~345?) they were totally fade free even on standard pads, and they look great. Funnily enough, they're not great on the 996 and need some fancy track day pads to avoid fade...
I think you will get on great with the 996 calipers, I fitted them to my E46 M3 and they were mega on track, along with CSL discs (~345?) they were totally fade free even on standard pads, and they look great. Funnily enough, they're not great on the 996 and need some fancy track day pads to avoid fade...
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