First time out!

#1

Well the Spec E30 project car saw the track this weekend! NASA was at Buttonwillow running 13 CCW, and I was in HPDE3. After an uneventful drive up Friday afternoon we sorted a few gremlins (spring perch noise/IE camber plates). I did an easy first track session (my first time at this track so took it easy to learn the line) and decided to park it and bleed the brakes at the end of the day. It turns out that the only tool I failed to bring was the powerbleeder, a mistake I won’t make again!

Sunday morning topped off the fluid, tested the setup and ran only 3 sessions. I let the HPDE3 instructor take me for a ride to show me his line. We were running street tires and he was very complimentary on how neutral and predictable the car is. Throttle steers through the sweepers, does not upset easily. No "excursions" or spins. No heating problems, indicators, stalls, or slow starts. Pulls through every gear smoothly. Drove it back last night and the car ran like a champ.

I’m going to flush the brake fluid one more time, but everytime I work on one of these I’m amazed what great cars they are. However, we need the cash we have in this car inorder to do some off-season upgrades to our BMW CCA car so this car is now for sale. I’ll have pics and a listing in the classified section soon.

#2

Cool - the cars look like twins!

#3

Man, great looking car, the standards being set for car appearance is pretty high…I guees I better call Maaco.

Al

#4

I saw these two cars and talked to Rob and Paul. Nice guys! I don’t know if Rob mentioned this in a previous post but the SpecE30 project car (red with black stripes) has the Spec E30 suspension. The interior looked pretty stock and does not yet have a cage installed. As such, this would be a great street-driven track day car that one could start driving HPDE events in and add the cage and race seat/harness when the time is right.

Buttonwillow is quite a nice track. Very challenging and, quite frankly, intimidating in some spots. I’ll be back there in November for the next NASA SoCal event.

Mike

#5

Thanks for the kind words, Mike. It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope you had a good time at the track.

The car turned out great and considering that 6 weeks ago it was a complete basket case I’m proud of how well it came together and ran. There are some minor things to sort out (like some instrument cluster lights).

I posted some pics in the gallery, for those of you who would like to see a few more. Look under Rob’s Spec E30 Candidate.