Alpine e30 progress/build thread

[m42b32]

Had a blast at the Road America autocross today. Did some experimenting with tire pressures to get more grip and see how it affects the handling, smoothed out my driving a bit over the 8 runs too. Getting faster! The car handled it really well and ran great/cool all day, despite it being hot as hell

[B C]

Glad to see you get to be out enjoying your car! If your car handled this weekends heat then its in good shape

Fun fact: I put 2 miles on my e30 this year [emoji16]

I'll get there eventually

[m42b32]

Snap said:

Fun fact: I put 2 miles on my e30 this year

I'll get there eventually

I feel your pain on that one, before this summer I drove it zero miles for nearly two years. You'll have to come out to one next year once you're up and running!

[patsbimmer1]

A co-worker of mine was up there with her son in his mk6 GTI running in SMF.  She was telling me about it this morning and I mentioned you were there and showed her your car and she said "Ohhh I saw that one!  It was such a cute car!"  So you've got that going for you lol.

[m42b32]

patsbimmer1 said:

A co-worker of mine was up there with her son in his mk6 GTI running in SMF.  She was telling me about it this morning and I mentioned you were there and showed her your car and she said "Ohhh I saw that one!  It was such a cute car!"  So you've got that going for you lol.

My mom calls it cute too, I count it as a compliment haha

[Jdesign]

Imagine if you had a convertible. I had a lady insult me twice in one "compliment" once. 

"Thats such a cute car, I like the color! Is it a pontiac too?"

After my simple NO, she sped away in her Pontiac Sunfire. FML.

[patsbimmer1]

Jdesign said:

Imagine if you had a convertible. I had a lady insult me twice in one "compliment" once. 

"Thats such a cute car, I like the color! Is it a pontiac too?"

After my simple NO, she sped away in her Pontiac Sunfire. FML.

Hahaha!  I'm fucking dying over here!  That's wonderful.

[HipMF]

"No." sounds like the correct answer.

However, I have been diagnosed as a man of few words, and an asshole, so...

[KaiserRolls]

Car looked good out there Joe

[Boris3]

I tried to sneak a glance while on the track heading from T7 to T8. Looked like a good crowd.

[m42b32]

Finally all moved into the new garage and organized enough to be somewhat functional. Less space overall but the floor is level, the roof doesn't leak, and most importantly it's a lot cheaper. Finally turned my focus back to the car: I've been running Vogtland lowering springs and the rears were too soft and the front sat too high for my liking. Got my hands on a set of IE3's and started swapping them in over the weekend, rears are done and I should have the fronts in tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing the differences at the USAIR autocross next weekend

[B C]

When do the extra valves and cylinders start happening?

[m42b32]

Snap said:

When do the extra valves and cylinders start happening?

I'll start tearing things apart as soon as it gets put away for the year, probably in a few weeks. Its been too nice to take it off the road just yet! In the mean time I'm going to get started on cleaning things up so I don't have to do it later

[m42b32]

All the new springs are in! 

I'm not a huge fan of the springs being shorter than the fully extended length of the struts, but I figure as long as I don't drive like I'm in Dukes of Hazard it'll be fine. The front sits a little bit lower but it didn't come down enough to totally get rid of the reverse rake look, so I'm going to keep my eyes out for a set of stock spring camber plates that drop the car another 10-12mm. On the bright side, the ride is way stiffer so I'm really looking forward to testing these out this weekend!

I also got rid of the strut brace because it was rubbing on the intake pretty bad, it'll go back on once the m42 isn't in the way. It'll be interesting to see if the handling is affected at all, but it'll probably go unnoticed compared to the stiffer springs

[Jdesign]

m42b32 said:

The front sits a little bit lower but it didn't come down enough to totally get rid of the reverse rake look

You know... a larger engine would fix this 

[m42b32]

Jdesign said:

You know... a larger engine would fix this 

This is true.... I'll probably wait till the new engine is in to do any camber plate swapping. The M54B30 should be minimally different with regards to total weight, but the CG should be farther forward over the axle so it may make the difference I'm looking for.

[Earl]

E90 drophats?

[B C]

The other thing about it is the rear wheel arches are cut lower on the late model e30, giving more of an illusion of reverse rake

[m42b32]

Earl said:

E90 drophats? 

I have a set of the steel aftermarket drop hats sitting on my shelf, unfortunately they don't fit with the fixed camber plates.

Snap said:

The other thing about it is the rear wheel arches are cut lower on the late model e30, giving more of an illusion of reverse rake

Yup, that's definitely part of it. I like the look of a little bit of rake (almost not visible, not looking for 70's muscle car...) on a late model since the rear arches are lower, so all it needs out of the front is another 10mm. I'm not trying to slam the car or anything, just get rid of most of the wheel gap at the front haha. It already handles really well, so if I can achieve that look without messing up anything else that would be ideal

[Jdesign]

I have the same issue with my arches. #foreverraked