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E30 track/race build

So I've had the E30 track car for a while. You may have seen the super charger build page which I have been working on for the past 3 years but I recently decided that I wanted to go a different route.

The car is a 318iS and I am keeping the M42 in it for the time being. During the super charger build I fitted a 4.1 LSD and 280mm front discs with 4 pot Wilwood calipers. Now as the M42 is a twin cam and I have the large brakes and LSD it isn't eligible for the PBMWC. It is however eligible for championships such as TTRS and a few other 80's and 90's based championships. On top of wanting to race it I will also carry on doing track days and also maybe a trip or two to europe.

Now that winter has arrived, it seems like the perfect time for a refresh!

The first thing I changed was the location of the external pull cables for the fire extinguisher and the battery kill switch located inside the car. I previously had them fitted to the plastic scuttle panel but I was confident that it was a particularly strong place for them. I made a bracket from 3mm aluminium painted brilliant red to match the car, with M5 rivnuts in the scuttle and M5 cap heads holding it in place. The cables loop around and through the bulkhead and off to their respective locations.

Next up was the dash panel I have my battery kill switch and internal extinguisher pull attached to. I made the panel from some 1.2mm aluminium and sprayed it black so it blends in more. I also made a panel for the radio slot to go next to my spare switches and fitted a 12v socket for satnav; phone charger etc. and I have enough space next to it to fit a 52mm gauge which I hope to get in the near future.

I have purchased a bolt on quick release steering boss. This is to aid getting in and out of the car (although I'm fairly small so isn't a huge problem) and for security, as it's hard to nick a car with no steering wheel. It adds about 55mm to the length of the column so the steering wheel is closer but it makes it more comfortable as my arms aren't stretched out. With this though, it has meant the steering wheel is higher up so I needed to lower the column. I lowered the column around 10mm which put the wheel pretty much exactly where I wanted it.

The steel bonnet and boot panels are very heavy units. The combined bonnet and hinge mechanism weighs in the region of 20kg and the boot lid and hinge mechanism weighs in the region of 12kg. These glass fibre panels from ABS motorsport weigh 3kg for the boot and 6kg for the bonnet. This gives a weight saving of roughly 23kg! I fixed them down with Aerocatches and then wrapped them in red carbon effect vinyl which looks very subtle.

I ordered some poly bushes from Powerflex for the front and rear anti roll bars and for the front drop links. I also bought new shackles for the bushes from BMW and fitted it all together. The front ARB was looking a little tired so I gave it a fresh coat of paint and built it up with the bushes, brackets and drop links ready to be refitted later. The rear bar didn't looks so bad so I left it on and just changed the bushes and linkages.

The brake servo and master cylinder were looking a bit aged. I removed them, cleaned them up and gave them a couple of coats of paint to freshen them up. I also have the brake fluid reservoir a thorough clean.

I previously had a standard battery mounted in the spare wheel well in the boot. This meant running a long cable to the rear and although it worked fine, I wanted a better system. I bought an Odyssey 25 gel racing battery that I could mount in the cabin and fixed it down with an aluminium bracket. I mounted it on the passenger side as far back as possible to allow the fitment of a passenger seat.

To stop the 4pot Wilwood calipers from rubbing against the back of the standard BBS cross spoke wheels, I had to fit a 5mm spacer. This isn't ideal and with potential tyre rubbing problems with the coil overs which I have on order (a common problem on E30's with coil overs) I ordered some wheels with a larger offset. I went for Team Dynamics pro race 1.2's 15inch diameter, 7J wide and an offset of ET15 (standard bbs is ET24). There is now much more room for the 4 pots and this will also help with cooling as more air is able to get to, and around the brakes. There is also a small weight saving of around a kilo per wheel.

The head gasket let go on the engine I had fitted so I decided to pull the engine and gearbox out and give the engine bay a good clean and inspection. While the engine was out I also removed the sub frame to give it a clean and paint ready for the new suspension to go on.

To reduce the amount of turns on the steering wheel required to haul the car round tight corners I bought an E46 steering rack. The rack I bought has a purple tag with part number ending 067 and is 3 turns lock to lock (instead of the 4+ of the E30 rack). Being a modern rack it will also be tighter. I then bought a set of custom fit pipes from a chap on E30zone.net.

The sub frame had 20+ years of grime and oil clinging to it not to mention the odd scuff so I cleaned it up and painted it with some hammerite. I also gave the wishbones a coat of paint. Once they had dried I built up the sub frame with the steering rack, pipes and ARB and fitted it to the car with all new bolts. The wishbones then followed and I connected up the ARB drop links. I've left the ball joint which goes through the sub frame lose to make fitting the new suspension easier later on. I also sprayed the insides of the arches black to tidy them up.

The rear sub frame required an equal amount of attention as the front so I decided to drop it down to clean and paint it. I had upgraded the wisbhone and diff bushes in the past but had never done the sub frame bushes so I decided it needed doing. While the subframe was down I took the opportunity to replace the flexi rubber brake lines with some braided ones I bought as part of a kit nearly 2 years go. The connecting hard lines put up a fight so I made up some new ones to replace them as well.