ILC's 1991 318 S50 track rat
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Any accessories with the trailer? Winch? Electric? Lights? Toolbox?
i paid $4250 for the trailer. it has interior lights but no other amenities except an oversize service door (48"). It needs some work. I ordered 3 new door latches today and there was a small bit of water in there this morning after the rain last night. 2 nails at the top were dripping and left like super tiny 1x1" puddles. So I went to work today caulking all the nails from the inside, then went up top on the roof and layered in a bunch of new caulk lines where the original stuff was cracking/splitting/had holes.
We'll see how she does on the maiden voyage to Blackhawk.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
All loaded up for Monday.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
Well i'm back to the drawing board. I woke up on Sunday after heavy rain on Saturday to find my trailer leaking from like 6 spots on the roof. The guy I bought it from clearly lied to me and would not return my text messages. So I fire-saled it on Sunday and had it sold for cash by 10 p.m. - luckily I made back almost all my money by being honest and telling people the roof needs to be stripped and re-sealed. I just don't want to deal with it. For now I have friends with trailers that I can borrow for track events this year. Next season I will look into getting a brand new trailer - my buddy got a real nice 20' enclosed by traveling down to the manufacturer in Georgia. He paid $4k for something that retails at like $7k.
Anyways Blackhawk yesterday was a great success. I'm really starting to get more familiar with the E30 now on the track and was putting down lap times around 1:22 which is pretty fast I think for my 2nd track day with this car. It is incredibly fast and I think it is capable of 1:18 or 1:19 in the hands of a better driver than I. The pedal position at first was making it hard for me to heel-toe it 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I was able to match the revs perfectly except 2 times when I got sideways, and with the new solid bushings/shifter and the engine mount properly secured now, no grinding of the gears occurred.
I probably was leaving 1 second per lap on the table because on my downshifts I wasn't getting out of the clutch fast enough and so the car gets just a wee bit unsettled when trail-braking into the corners. So that's the next thing I am going to be working on.
I took 3 full sessions of GoPro video from the side of the car - not sure how it's going to turn out when I view it on the big screen but I will try to get something edited and posted soon. It's not very eventful because I only got passed once the entire day. All the footage is basically my car doing all the work to pass a ton of other cars.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
Footage from Blackhawk. I need to pick up a couple additional bits for the GoPro - i used to have an array of them so I could make all kinds of angled arms but i lost some so I had to record this with the camera rotated 90 degrees and then rotated the video to get it upright. I will have a wider angle and probably top-mount the camera for Road America in July.
First 6-7 minutes interesting, 12 minutes or so I find more cars, and 15 minutes is cooldown lap.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
Requesting in car footage please
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yep i have the suction cup for the gopro so i will definitely be putting it inside the car for some future events
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
I got back from 2 days at Road America last night and have a better camera angle this time because I mounted my GoPro on the rollbar. Unfortunately I forgot to bring proper tape to strap down the audio cable for the external mic to the engine bay - I will be at Blackhawk in 1 week and will make sure I bring it so the engine sound is a bit better.
All in all the weekend was good. MVP Tracktime has a fantastic group of cars in all run groups, and this weekend they were also hosting CCR race trials for like 15 Ferraris. Unfortunately one of them money shifted after the carousel and threw a rod through the block leaving oil for about 800 yards of track on Friday and starting a fire under his hood, and even worse on Saturday we had a major crash where one of them dropped a wheel over the rumbles before the kink and hit the wall at god knows what speed. Red flag on track for total blockage shut down. No one was seriously injured.
I took my instructor from last summer with me and he was very pleased with my progression. He said at this point I really just need to continue to get seat time. My awareness is good, I'm willing to burn corners when I know I fucked up and every time I made a mistake I knew what it was before he even had to say anything and was correcting appropriately. You can certainly see in the video below that I had some corners that I came in too hot for and had to hold steady on brake in a straight line for longer and burn the corner. But he enjoyed riding along so much he wanted me to sign him up for all sessions the following day and do some lead-follow chasing each other (he drives an E92 M3).
Really good news is he has a spare set of Kosei K-1 wheels identical to mine and 10 hoosier r6 slicks he doesn't need any more because he has an E30 M3 that is pristine that he stopped tracking and is going to sell me the wheels and slicks for dirt cheap.
One of my biggest challenges was being that I am so new to this car, downshifting from 5th to 3rd was a bit tricky. At BHF I almost always downshift from 4th to 3rd. At RA there are quite a few corners that require 5th to 3rd so I had to figure out where to start braking to effectively have enough time to downshift to 4th while holding the clutch in, then rev-matching a second time on heel-toe to go from 4th to 3rd and letting the clutch out. I am continuing to work on that.
My best lap time of the day using Harry's Lap Timer was 2:47 which I was very happy with for my first time with the E30 at RA. I'll be back for Oktoberfast in September and hope to be able to get down to the 2:43-2:44 area. I know the car has a lot more in it but I need more seat time with it to really make it shine.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
Out of curiosity (maybe I missed it in the thread somewhere) is the 5-lug on your car E30 M3 or E36/Z3 parts? If its E30 M3, are you running stock M3 brakes?
E30 M3 5-lug and i'm running the E30 M3 Massive BBK with Wilwood SLR6 aluminum calipers in front, and E30 M3 calipers in the rear.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
E30 M3 5-lug and i'm running the E30 M3 Massive BBK with Wilwood SLR6 aluminum calipers in front, and E30 M3 calipers in the rear.
Thanks for the info!
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So the E30 had a rough day today at BHF. I went off coming out of Turn 7 and ate the tire wall on the inner side of the track at about 50 mph. I blame Stuart as bad luck because today was his first day back at the track with the E46 since he last crashed 2 years ago at BHF, and he rode along with me for the first session and this shit happened like 7 laps in LOL.
It rained all night and everyone was going slow today because the track was wet with no real sun in the sky to dry it and temps in the low 70's. I waited for 5 other sessions before I went on track because slicks + rain don't mix well. I was 90% of the way through Turn 7, nearly straightened fully for the main straightaway, and at the last second getting on throttle just shot the car sideways. The east side of turn 7 has a bunch of trees in front of it, so even if we had sun at 10:20 a.m. when this happened it was still going to be damp.
Unfortunately my tires were just a bit too cold still even on lap 7 because of track conditions. The day cleared up as time went on and in retrospect I should have waited another full round of sessions before going on track i.e. after lunchtime.
as you can see the engine bay is mint other than the radiator being slightly pushed upwards because the support for it got pushed in a bit. The car runs and drives just fine other than the passenger side front wheel is fucked but I have a spare set of Kosei wheels anyway so whatever. I dropped the car off at Big Bear to have them align it and check for bent suspension, and as long as that all checks out, I'm just gonna source some new quarter panels, a valance, and driver door and then replace the brake ducts and be on my merry way.
No leaks, no smoking, no odd noises when moving under its own power, steering wheel is straight as can be so I think the tire wall did its job today.
Even the fiberglass hood didn't crack - just has some chipped paint at the front.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
post updated with photo of where the car ended up. It was just a weeeeee bit wet out there
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
The race seat and harness really did their job well. I woke up today with no soreness or pain, just the same mild tension in my shoulders that I had yesterday. I thought for sure once I slept and blood flow slowed down that I'd wake up with sore muscles and/or neck.
2011 E92 M3 6MT ZCP - ESS 625 supercharged
2007 Z4MR
2003 E39 M5
2002 E46 M3
2021 X5 40i -
Good to hear man. Cars can be replaced.
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Good to hear! If you're going four wheels off, tire walls are a much better end point than concrete or trees.
As you start working on repairs be sure to take your seat out and remove the seat mounts (don't remember if you've got side or bottom) and check the seat and mounts for cracks, bends, other damage. Speaking from experience with post-crash damage this can be hard to see with the seat still in the car.
Also be sure to replace your harnesses with new ones so you can be sure they can do the job next time.
Can't have enough safety gear. You wearing a HANS or other h&n device? If not get one. Should be mandatory in any car with fixed back race seats and a roll bar or cage.
In the bad stuff happens and walking away from it category this is from a recent Trans Am race at Mid Ohio but stupid track reentry happens in DE events. Why a H&N matters:
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