Hello all - (and questions)

#1

Hello everyone!

Just joined NASA out of interest in this class. My name is J and I live in SC. Glad to see someone out there has taken the time to put up a pretty darn nice website for this class.

We are building a car from scratch and want as much info, advice, and help as any of you guys are willing to throw at us. This is going to be my car, and my teammate is doing a Spec Miata build to race in SCCA (after racing for a while in ITA). We will be the ones primarily doing this build and would like to do it correctly (and cheaply!)

I have posted pictures of what we have (the car and a seperate IS engine that we sourced) in the Photo Galleries section under Kong Motorsports. Please look at what we’ve got and fire away.

My first question is about the engine swap. The one on the trailer (IS motor) is a low milage unit and I was wondering how far I should tear it down on the rebuild. Would also like recommendations on a rebuild kit source. I’ve used BavAuto in the past.

Also figured that dropping that engine in this car (originally a 325e) would bump it up to the faster class (as per the rules) but wanted to make sure I was going about all this the right way. Seems like my main concerns would be getting a differential and the suspension kit.

Well - just wanted to say hello and throw out my first questions. Thanks for the site and looking forward to hearing responses.

#2

Kong wrote:

yes the is engine will put you in SO instead of SU (which apparently won’t exist next season). As for the differential, if you want to save alot of money you can get your open diff welded together essentially making a spool. I don’t personally know anyone that has done this in spec e30 but i do know of people that have done it in similar race cars. As far as the suspension as you know you will have to run H&R race springs with bilstein shocks. The popular choice for bushings seems to be delrin. As far as adjustable camber plates there seems to be a couple of different choices. Someone help me out with all of the other suspension mods…

glad to see your building a spec e30, this is a great class with great people.

Post edited by: MikeD, at: 2006/03/22 15:08

#3

For the motor swap from e to i, it isn’t just plug and play. For one, you either need the wiring harness and ECU that came with the i and totally swap it out, or splice (I payed someone to do the swap) the e wiring harness and use the i ECU. There are some other differences that I am a little fuzzy on, like the radiator return may be on the opposite side, and on our car had to relocate the catch tank to the other side. Of course you will need an instrument cluster
from a 325i or 318.

Last couple years the H&R springs have been hard to get, so you probably want to order those early.

The exhuast is a little different e vs. i. Since now we don’t have to have dual pipes all the way back anymore, you can use one single pipe like the e configuration, but you’ll want to use the i motor downpipes.