BMW E36 328 Track Car - Advice?

[Humour]

iguana said:

Snett? Ha no that's Thruxton, yes whoosher golf was still NA then, heck it takes a gt3 to keep up now its turbo! Even my M3 is leagues away, let alone that tatty 328.

Oops....FAIL hehe. I mean't Thruxton I remember watching the 155's in 94/95 BTTC running on two wheels round there, but I am terrible with remembering the names of all the tracks and corners

[Humour]

An update on our recent doings.

Clutch overhaul complete, phew that was a bit of a job Rear exhaust manifold snapped two studs. Took hours and various drill bits life's to drill them out. Found the rear exhaust hangers require spend before next MOT.

New lightened flywheel and E36 M3 pressure plate were race balanced for a reasonable price, but the supplied bolts with the flywheel were too short due to 5mm recess in the crank for the threads. Had to scamper late in the day to find longer bolts, found some, but failed on the tensile strength. Plan B, cut the OEM 328 used bolts with a grinder just to gain an extra 5mm lol. Not ideal, but with thread lock in place I hope we don't pay a price later on.

The pilot bearing was amusing to push out with wet paper and a hammer, but it worked, result. The one assembly that didn't cause issues was the home made short shifter, definitely against the norm. lol

Back on subject of pads though, we investigated the pads after our last track day in March. Conversely to Andy's findings we found that our brand new front NDX pads had lost about 50% of their pad material, with one outer pad showing a small chip on the top edge of the pad, despite the cooling upgrade. The rears however whilst having lost some material are nowhere near as worn, perhaps 20-25%, if that. I wonder if its the pad material, or if we were wearing them that hard. At this rate that's a set of fronts in two track days at Bedford GT. We did manage close to 300 miles on track mostly at speed with small breaks between sessions, so perhaps that's a fair consumption of pad?

Hum

[McSam]

That sounds like a right pain in the arse with the clutch and flywheel! An M20 flywheel is on my to do list, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you why I'm not doing it until the clutch needs replacing anyway.. Glad you've got it all sorted now, though.

Interesting findings with the pads, I have the opposite... My Redstuff front pads have done 310 miles in two track daysat Bedford, similar duty to what you describe, and about another 60 on sprints. They're about half worn, but I haven't had them out to look at them, really had no cause to as they seem fine. I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same distance again.

Conversely, the rear Redstuff have been completely wiped out in just the two track days (they went on the car a bit later than the fronts). The lack of cooling at the rear seems to murder them, as mentioned earlier the rears measured much hotter than the fronts after cooldown laps.

Here's where 310 miles on mediocre tyres gets your rear Redstuff:



Keen to see how the M1144 survive in their place.

[brian394]

Looking good Hum. Had a chance to get the rear end changed yet?

[andyiley]

I have in recent years stuck with Pagid RS 29s on the front, which last all year with meat left & 1144 on the rear, which last even better.

Squeal like a bugger, mind, but that doesn't bother me.

[Humour]

brian394 said:

Looking good Hum. Had a chance to get the rear end changed yet?

Hello mate,

no not yet. The subframe has had the ARB ends reinforced. Seats for Solid subframe bushes have been made, but need final bit of grinding and sanding, then the whole thing needs sand blasting and painting. We have sourced a spare Open diff to build our internals into, but apart from the spare diff casing being blasted, we haven't started on that yet. All other parts are still as supplied awaiting sending everything for sand blasting. Interestingly, the two upper (spring pan) arms you provided me with are slightly different lengths, by an estimated 1 inch. Rather confusing how that is possible, given that all E36 variants are listing the same Left hand and Right Hand part numbers, from the 316i up to the M3 :/ Are you sure these came direct from your car?

McSam, very strange indeed about the wear characteristics of the pads on similar cars. In our case, we did the 300 odd miles in one track day, as opposed to 2 track days in your case. I would hazard a guess we built up heat in the system for quite a bit longer doing that mileage in one day. I do suspect however that the EBC pads are just too soft a material. We measured the disk wear with a caliper and were looking at 0.2mm and 0.25mm on the front.

Interestingly with a single mass flywheel that isn't an OEM type, we lost the ability to lock the bottom end with the clutch pin as the new flywheel simply does not have the notch in place that the dual mass has. This could present a problem when working on top or bottom end internals in the future. :/

Hum

[brian394]

Hum, sounds like you're making good progress! What are these seats you speak of? (for the solid mounts).

Well thats interesting... Yep, it defiantly came off the car. I took it off, moved it under my bench and the next time i touched any of it, was to bring it to you...

[Humour]

The seats are nothing special. When I burned the old bushes off I noticed that there is a ledge to help locate the ends of the bush (the top cap for a lack of a better expression). Well these only go half way round, so in my wisdom I asked my friends that did the welding for me to build up the other half of the ledge. Not strictly necessary, it just looked like it would help locate the bush better, but in fact it makes little difference. I'll take a picture and show you once I get back to playing with the cradle.

I agree it's odd on the upper arms about the difference in length, as the cradle mounting points are not offset, so it's a bit of a mystery. Apart from buying two additional arms to compare I don't know whether its ok to rebuild with those as they are. I will do some measurements again when I get the arms back after the bushes have been pulled out for me and decide where to go from there. Still have so many parts to buy for the rear end, its not funny but we will get there and it will be done right.

BMW quoted over 500 + vat for the M3 chassis reinforcement plates, full differential rebuild kit and the trailing arms bearings. We are now l looking to source components separately, but really do not want to compromise on the bearings quality, as having to do a job like that twice will be a pita. Our open diff has already started to complain, grumble and shunt a little on aggressive gear changes, but it's not even had an oil change since we bought the car and its now done three track days, so cant complain.

How's your car coming, are you ready for the Kumho championship now? I ought to go look at your build thread to check on progress.....

Hum

[Jim1556]

How I've not come across this thread before I don't know!

I had an E36 328i Coupe as a road/track/weekend car a couple of years ago, it had Eibach Pro Street S coilovers, manifold back custom (TonyBanks.co.uk) stainless decat exhaust (with a cat for MOTs), front & rear polybushed, EBC TGD discs, Yellowstuff pads (redstuff were crap - car too heavy), RBF 600 fluid, braided hoses, strut brace, M52 manifold, K&N panel filter, Evolve remap to 228bhp, seats removed, Cobra Monaco Pro buckets, Momo Jet steering wheel, 4 point harness, 17" Inovit Spin wheels with Federal RSR tyres.



Brilliant car, if a little underpowered and underbraked. Around 2 mins at Cadwell, 8.54 BTG Nurburgring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9aM75kNtsI

Lovely chassis once polybushed with coilovers.

Until, one day, a (suspected) master cylinder failure put me in a field and ruined the bumper, rads, belts, lights etc Anyway, I ripped off the upgrades and sold it for salvage with a view to buying another. Time and money delayed this, but then I changed jobs and got myself an E46 M3.

I still haven't got round to putting my good stuff on ebay - if you need anything, PM me, I might still have it...

[McSam]

Humour said:

McSam, very strange indeed about the wear characteristics of the pads on similar cars. In our case, we did the 300 odd miles in one track day, as opposed to 2 track days in your case. I would hazard a guess we built up heat in the system for quite a bit longer doing that mileage in one day. I do suspect however that the EBC pads are just too soft a material. We measured the disk wear with a caliper and were looking at 0.2mm and 0.25mm on the front.

Quite possibly, though our front/rear balance being so different is still very strange. I haven't measured my disc wear yet but if that's all a whole set of pads have done, I would say they are too soft! My Mintex 1144 didn't get too much of a workout at Curborough temperature-wise, but they felt really good. This was also my first trial of the Nankang NS-2R mediums, and they were excellent. A lot more grip right out of the box and I didn't get them to overheat, still reasonable progressive. Took my best laptime from a 1'10.6 on Kumho KU31s down to a 1'09.4, and it wasn't as tidy a lap either.

Jim, your car looks lovely, shame it ended up scrapped. Did you happen to have an LSD on it? A bit too much of this kind of behaviour has made it my top priority now.

[iguana]

8.54 ring not exactly flying, a sub 8 would take a cracking peddler in a normal mods 328, but are a fair few not far away & done sub 8.10s

[Jim1556]

McSam said:

Jim, your car looks lovely, shame it ended up scrapped. Did you happen to have an LSD on it? A bit too much of this kind of behaviour has made it my top priority now.

Thanks, indeed it was a shame - I still miss its pops and crackles, lovely steering feel. It didn't have an LSD, but with the Federal RSRs, it rarely spun the inside wheel unless properly on it round second gear corners, any faster and it didn't have the power to light up... Thankfully, my M3 does - regularly!

iguana said:

8.54 ring not exactly flying, a sub 8 would take a cracking peddler in a normal mods 328, but are a fair few not far away & done sub 8.10s

True, but with only mild upgrades (and definately needing better brakes), 8.54 (8.35 best sectors) was plenty fast enough considering I've only done about 30 odd laps, half of which in slower cars... I know a lad with a 328ti compact, stripped, caged and a few other choice mods that regularly does sub 8.20s.

But, unless you're racing or have oodles of money, it's not all about time, the only prize at the Ring is going home in one piece with brilliant memories, sharing stories in the bar and meeting new friends!

I'm happy with a few sub 9s in the E36 and I'm not even thinking about sub 8s in the M3! Yet!

[TroubledSoul]

Enjoying following this still.

We just got hold of an M3 Evo and will now be focusing our attentions on that. I hope I can join some of you fellow E36 owners at at least a couple of days this year. It all depends if I decide to drop the subframe and refurb it before using the car or not to be honest. I have noticed some flaky rust up around were it bolts to the chassis

The Evo is still in miles better condition than the 3.0 I bought previously.

Making lots of notes on which brake pads you guys are using for my own reference....

[Humour]

iguana said:

8.54 ring not exactly flying, a sub 8 would take a cracking peddler in a normal mods 328, but are a fair few not far away & done sub 8.10s

Iguana whilst I appreciate that the times you are stating are indicative of fast or mediocre laps around the ring, relative to the car in question, without an unobstructed track, similar prepped cars, doing laps on the same day with the same conditions, track knowledge, etc. there are too many variables at play to be able to judge car/driver performance imo. Almost every video I have seen of the ring, the car in question has lost time due to being slowed down by slower cars during a lap. In best cases only 1-2 seconds and in worst cases 30+ seconds can be lost.

The question is, have you ever had a completely unobstructed lap in your experience of driving the ring which was in reasonable weather in your 328, and was that lap timed? If yes, was that your fastest lap ever in that car and if yes, roughly how many laps had you done aounrd the ring prior to that point?

I do agree with Jim about the experience being the primary win doing something like that, especially if everything comes back in one piece

Sam, yeah the open diff is a bit entertaining if nothing else, I just look at it from the point of view....."it'll keep the tyre warm for the next corner" hehe. I find it particularly entertaining when having fun in the car accelerating hard out of a turn and getting a shove of torque up in the 5/6Krpm, telling me the spinning wheel is finally helping drive the car forward, obviously not the fastest way round a lap, but entertaining nonetheless. Our LSD is waiting patiently to be installed, but until then we will enjoy burning cheap rubber

When you say our F&R balance being different, can you elaborate please? Do you mean between a Coupe and Saloon, or Stripped vs. Non Stripped?

Humour

Edited by Humour on Tuesday 26th May 17:12

[Humour]

@ TroubledSoul, congrats on the new toy. with regards to whether to recondition or not really depends on the depth of your wallet, timescales or both.

I'm an advocate for maximising time on track and to achieve that, the car has to be tip top. You should ask yourself, is a 15+ years old road car in tip top condition for track use.....the answer to that is probably not. Equally though, if you are just starting out and are unlikely to push the car to it's limits, or do more than 2-3 track days per year, it's quite reasonable to do the must jobs first that take care of safety and reliability. Then move onto re-con and performance as you go on over a longer time line.

Alternatively, take the car to a race prep. company, drop 20 large in their hands and say, I want it done within 30 working days.

I would check the car on a ramp from play in bushes, arms, ball joints, but beyond that I wouldn't worry too much about surface rust on suspension components/subframes.

Hum

[McSam]

Humour said:

Sam, yeah the open diff is a bit entertaining if nothing else, I just look at it from the point of view....."it'll keep the tyre warm for the next corner" hehe. I find it particularly entertaining when having fun in the car accelerating hard out of a turn and getting a shove of torque up in the 5/6Krpm, telling me the spinning wheel is finally helping drive the car forward, obviously not the fastest way round a lap, but entertaining nonetheless. Our LSD is waiting patiently to be installed, but until then we will enjoy burning cheap rubber

It was quite funny for about two laps when the car was completely standard, just another area in which it was completely inappropriate, but since then it's been deeply annoying. I'm used to driving properly prepared cars so it feels wrong and pretty hopeless, and it's worse in sprints where there's simply no way round it! You can still drift the car, but it's a lot more effort and nice small little slip angles don't exist - either inside spinning, or a big slide, nothing in between.

It is somewhat better on the Nankangs, but I don't want to solve it by just having too much grip for the car, I want it to be able to move around properly!

Humour said:

When you say our F&R balance being different, can you elaborate please? Do you mean between a Coupe and Saloon, or Stripped vs. Non Stripped?

I meant in terms of how the pads are wearing, rather than any difference in our actual brake bias

[Humour]

I don't disagree with you Sam, however I have read reports of other people with 328's running an Open differential setup to good effect. So I guess allot depends on overall setup. Imagine your car was cornering totally flat as a result of your suspension and geo setup allowing that to happen. In this case then it's much less likely for the inside wheel to unload and spin up.

In my experience using an LSD it has always paid most dividend when driving in wet conditions, but this is mostly based on dirving on the road, which is different all together.

Ok on the brake balance. I thought you had something else in mind. Is your car still running full interior, rear seats, etc.?

[TroubledSoul]

Cheers, no you are right. But the rust I found it was hard to tell if it was just flaky because it's under the paint and that has all puffed up and disintegrated or whether the metal that the subframe is bolted to is rotting. I like to think though that if the latter, I'd know about it after driving 80 miles home.

Got a hell of a result this afternoon BTW; a set of 2.5k miles old HSD Monopros for £450!

I actually had to read the ad three times to make sure I wasn't missing something

Hoping to get to a state where I can get a track day in by the end of July. Fingers crossed.

[McSam]

Great find with those Monopros, TroubledSoul - keep us posted on your progress!

Humour said:

I don't disagree with you Sam, however I have read reports of other people with 328's running an Open differential setup to good effect. So I guess allot depends on overall setup. Imagine your car was cornering totally flat as a result of your suspension and geo setup allowing that to happen. In this case then it's much less likely for the inside wheel to unload and spin up.

In my experience using an LSD it has always paid most dividend when driving in wet conditions, but this is mostly based on dirving on the road, which is different all together.

Honestly, from both the engineering point of view and my experience in this car, an open diff would only be acceptable if it had an enormous amount of grip or it wasn't being driven very hard. As you say, on the road you're unlikely to notice except for in the wet, but on track the problem is always there. The gentle, smooth driver may not notice but as you approach the limit it becomes obvious.

It doesn't actually matter how little body roll you have, this makes only a small contribution to your total lateral load transfer. I don't know the roll centre heights for these cars so couldn't tell you exactly how much, but typically over 75% of load transfer is unaffected by body roll. So no matter what you do with springs, dampers and geometry, you're always going to be unloading your inside wheel and always going to suffer for having an open diff.

It's not such an issue above second gear, but even with the NS-2Rs on there is substantial inside slip in second-gear corners. It's especially bad for me as I trailbrake quite a bit and like a car that moves around - it feels a bit crippled in that respect!

Humour said:

Is your car still running full interior, rear seats, etc.?

Yep, at the moment the only thing missing when on track is the spare wheel. I do want to get a lot of weight out, but the biggest hit is the front seats - so then I need buckets, harnesses, somewhere to mount them, it adds up to a considerable expense in the end! I'll get there eventually

[Humour]

McSam said:

Yep, at the moment the only thing missing when on track is the spare wheel. I do want to get a lot of weight out, but the biggest hit is the front seats - so then I need buckets, harnesses, somewhere to mount them, it adds up to a considerable expense in the end! I'll get there eventually

The reason I asked is because that would explain the difference in pad wear between the cars. In your case you are carrying more weight on the rear axle than we are, so to some degree it makes sense that you are wearing the rear pads more quickly than we are.

With respect to the LSD, as I said, I don't disagree with your logic, however there are those who do run an open diff setup 'on track' quite successfully with the E36 chassis, so there are ways to mitigate beyond locking with an LSD. Yes you could argue that with 9J wide wheels and 245 tyres front and rear the levels of grip probably will exceed the 328's power delivery and it's ability to spin up. Equally, you could argue that with smoother throttle application the same behaviour can also be mitigated in the lower gears. Personally, I have found the behaviour in dry conditions is only apparent when being very aggressive with the throttle to the point where I am intentionally provoking the car to slide (e.g. having fun). When trying to maximise lap time I'm usually much smoother and the behaviour is much less apparent in my experience.