Project E36 - Track Day Car

[benny.c]

PART 15

Converted the hubs to suds and nuts to make wheel changes easier (they were previously long bolts) and fitted a front strut brace. You can see the adjustable camber plate on top of the KW 2-way race suspension.

[benny.c]

PART 16

Wheels and tyres have turned up. 17x7.5 Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2’s with ex BTCC slicks. Dropped the car down for the first time since the new suspension has been on and it’s low! The combination of this and the extra offset on the wheels (required for big brakes and suspension) means we’ve had to flare out the wheel arches a little (these need to be tidied up). The suspension needs setting up yet and the ride height will likely be higher than the photos, at the back at least.

[benny.c]

L100NYY said:

That might be the crux of the matter though chap? To find an extra £2000 down the back of the sofa is not always that easy!!

That was it really. We've stretched our budget as it is and the engine swap may not come for a few years. We made the decision that we'd rather have a focused track car built around the best race parts we can afford for a few years, rather than half track/half road car. I think given our brake and suspension set up, slicks and weight loss, we may surprise a few more powerful cars...even with our lowly 325

Thanks to all for all the words of encouragement anyway To be continued.......

Edited by benny.c on Saturday 24th November 15:30

[benny.c]

We've come up with this design for when we get it stickered up. It's based on the Warsteiner touring car but with the German flag colours instead of the Fina red and blue, and Edelweiss sponsorship instead of Warsteiner because that's what we drink at our local

[benny.c]

sniff petrol said:

As far as I know didn't you start building the car pretty much as soon as you bought it Benny? I just thought that if you'd have started with an M3 to begin with, then maybe just wait and upgrade either the suspension or brakes at a later date when the budget allows, rather than the way round you're doing.

It's a fair point and each to their own, but ultimately we wanted a car that would go around corners and stop (and be safe) before we thought about power. One other factor is that when we drop this engine in, we want it built right from the start, and this again means we can save up and build it at our leisure, without taking the car off the road. It was never our intention just to drop a lump in without modifying it for safe, reliable power. Ideally we'd like to get someone like Geoff Steel to build something for us: www.geoffsteelracing.co.uk

Anyhoo, who says we have to drop an M3 engine in. We may do what Georg Plasa did to his 320

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fth3QyRkxes

[benny.c]

sniff petrol said:

Let us know if you're ever going to take it to Oulton Park, would love to see the beast in action. Nice Mustang too.

If all goes OK with the car we should be up there 4 or 5 times next year so I'll let you know. Would be good to meet up with a few PH'ers. We may have a slight advantage up at Oulton as the guy who's building the car with me used to (and I think still does) hold the lap for one of the classes of historic Formula Fords

The Mustang is great fun. Just waiting for my new supercharger to arrive which should take me up to around 500HP

Edited by benny.c on Tuesday 27th November 10:29

[benny.c]

PART 17

Filled, sanded and primed our flared arches to tidy them up a little. Finer filing and sanding to be done.

Edited by benny.c on Friday 30th November 11:34

[benny.c]

r8byb said:

Lovely prject, i may be being totally silly but can i asked why you went for a 5 door ? i thought 3 door would be better for track, lighter etc.

As Swoxy says it was mainly cost, although that looks a little daft now given what we've spent on other parts. I'm glad we've got it now though as most other people have the coup. Plus the old touring cars were all saloons and I'm really starting to love the old school look. I don't think there is much in them weight wise and I have heard that the saloon is supposed to be stiffer, but who knows? We have found that having rear doors makes it easy to work in the back of the car (obviously) and perspex windows are much easier to fit to a saloon (the coup has "frameless" front windows.

briSk said:

i am surprised some bellend hasn't written some twaddle in this thread thus far. keep up the good work. (i wish i could do this stuff..)

Me too mate but I'm glad so far that people seem to like it. If it's any consolation, we're learning as we go. Last time either of us did anything like this, it was 1990 and we were polishing the ports on a Mini cylinder head

Edited by benny.c on Tuesday 11th December 15:45

[benny.c]

RobCrezz said:

Good choice on the Edelweiss, drank loads of that in Austria, awesome stuff

mmmmmm. Drinking Edelweiss in Austria....nothing better Anyhoo, bit of a minor update:

PART 18

More filling, sanding and priming with a view to getting the car spayed next week. Took it outside for the first time in a while to get some snaps.

[benny.c]

Cheers for the comments guys It had better not be cr*p on the track

ih8thisname said:

Thats looking fantastic!

Any ideas how much it wieghs now?

Keep us posted!

I think the standard car is 1370kg and we must have lost 200kg. Then add back say 50kg with the cage & seats? It sounds daft but the car feels like it weighs nothing when we move it around.

[benny.c]

Gravy said:

Wow this is an awesome thread! I love the old school touring car look of the 4 door. This is giving me interesting ideas!

Out of interest, how did you roll the arches out with DIY tools? I can;t work out the easiest and neatest way you would have done it?

All the best!

You can buy arch rollers but ours was done with a lump hammer, a little hammer and some bodywork dollies. The results are good but I wouldn't have it done to my road car As crossie says, there are quite a few places that will do it, but I don't think they would have been able to flare them as much as we have done.

[benny.c]

Hi all. Bit of an interim report. We've replaced the front brake lines with braided hoses, and fitted a rear strut brace to stiffen up the rear shock towers due to those new coilovers. The brakes have been bled and seem to work fine with no leaks. The car has been rubbed down some more and our paint guy is coming to see it this week, with a view to painting next week. Can't wait to see it all one colour again.

Final jobs are fitting the poly bushes (not looking forward to that one) which we should have done when all the suspension was off We've also got a leak in the power steering somewhere so we'll probably get a recon rack off eBay. Then it's re-fitting our perspex windows and doing all the nice tidying up jobs. Finally, we've got to save up for another set of rims with wets on, which is one of the disadvantages of running slicks.

sniff petrol said:

andygtt said:

Any reason why you didn't go with M3 wheels as they are very light, or was it cost and looks?

I'd imagine his wheels are even lighter and may allow for even bigger brakes.

Yeah, Team Dynamics wheels are very light and I'm sure you can't go much lighter without spending a lot of cash. I'm also pretty sure they lighter than the stock M3 alloys, but at Sniff Petrol says, the main reason is for clearance and cooling of the AP brakes.

http://www.teamdynamicsracing.com/

andygtt - just had a look at your profile. Haven't you got enough to be getting on with in the garage, without building a track car too!

Edited by benny.c on Monday 21st January 13:31

[benny.c]

sniff petrol said:

Benny, I'm loving this project and can't wait to see her in the flesh or even have a passenger ride when you next take it to Oulton Park!

No problem. I'd like to have a look around your Pug. Is that Oulton in your profile pic BTW?

jezrider said:

Mate, i love the e36 and a friend of mine has 3 track/race cars, so i read this thread with interest.
I saw the first few pics and smirked, saw the cage going in and took more notice, 20 minutes of intense reading and dribbling later and i am in love with your old skool touring car !!
Good work my friend

Cheers mate. We smirked when we picked it up In fact we're still smirking because we can't quite believe we've nearly finished and it looks rather nice. We've surprised ourselves

[benny.c]

Windymiller said:

You've inspired me to go down a similar route now! I've got hold of a 325i Coupe which I'm taking drifting at Oulton on 23rd. Was going to leave it 'standard', but fancy doing a few track days too

Exactly what we were going to do before we got carried away

Windymiller said:

- what steering wheel have you gone for? And where from? Cost?
- did you get E36-specific seat mounts, or make your own? Any pics?

The wheel is a deep dished Sparco one, from Demon Tweeks. Similar to this:

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/products/ProductDeta...

Seat mounts we made ourselves. Basically just 2 lengths of angle bolted into the existing holes. The Sparco subframe then bolted to this. I'll take a quick pic next time I'm in the garage.

The car is booked in on 18th Feb for it's re-spray

[benny.c]

PART 19

Took the wash/wipe water tanks out, masked the engine up and gave the engine bay a bit of a tidy up. Sprayed as much of the bay as we could, and messed about with the engine cover. More importantly we took the car up to be sprayed. Spent a couple of hours masking up and left it with the painter. Pick it up tomorrow morning

Edited by benny.c on Monday 18th February 15:24

[benny.c]

Scott328i said:

DONT STAND ON THE CAR!!!!!!

LOL! Well spotted

PART 20

Picked the car up from paint and unmasked it. There’s a few ripples and bits of overspray but we’ll sort that out, and you can’t really complain when it only cost £300! It’s so nice to see the car all one colour again. In the afternoon we went up to Demon Tweeks to have the suspension geometry set up. The suspension’s now all “square” and ready for us to tinker with on track. Just the nice bits to do now - windows back in, general tidying up and stickers.

[benny.c]

Andy_sx said:

bloody hell, that looks sodding fantastic all sprayed up and deck'd!!!

I'm going to need a lottery win to get my alfa done anywhere near that, cos otherwise i just wont have the money spare

absolutely love it mate, congratulations

out of interest, where did you get the cage from?

Cheers mate. We've been like a couple of kids at Christmas today

The cage is from Custom Cages. http://www.customcages.co.uk/ Bit of a pig to fit but worth it in end.

[benny.c]

briSk said:

..so have we lost the wing for good?

'Fraid not It's going straight back on as soon as we've done the stickers

snotrag said:

This the paint scheme your going for then with the chequers?

Yep....but we are going with German flag colours instead of the Fina colours.

Thanks for all the kind words guys It's spurring us on to finish so we don't have to keep you waiting

[benny.c]

Adom said:

Awesome project - I love the e36. Congrats on the car, its looking quality. muchos respect.

I remember seeing an ex-works car at Autobahn in Hexham, N'land about a year ago....except it had a 2.5 six with a supercharger....

Think they were looking for about £22k for it...I was very tempted.

Nice I haven't seen that site before. It's still up for sale

Needs white wheels though eh?

Edited by benny.c on Thursday 21st February 18:55

[benny.c]

PART 21

It’s amazing how much fun you can have with £30 worth of sticky vinyl We also fitted a twin air scoop to the rear window which initially will form part of our driver cooling system. Perspex windows and no more air vents means it could get pretty hot otherwise.

I think we’ve settled on a Jagermeister theme for the final design.