Open testing at Thunderhill

#1

I got the car put back together in an almost SpecE30 form and took it out to an open test day at Thunderhill. On the car are newly installed spec springs, shocks, swaybars, and camber plates. I also swapped in the 3.73LSD so basically I had something "close enough" to do testing on.

The suspension performed better than I expected. Mostly the swaybars and a nice stiff cage were the cause. During my first run, I was doing some slow installation laps just to make sure stuff wouldn’t fall apart. During the second run, I picked up the pace and put up a few laps in the 2:15’s. For the third run, I was getting the car warmed up to do some laps at a qualifying pace, but I started noticing some weird vibration and road-speed-sensitive tap-tap-tap sound from the front and decided to call it a day. I’m not sure what the cause of the noise is. I looked around and checked the bearings, control arms, and tie rods for play, but nothing. I need to put in new bearings and c/a’s before my first race anyway so I hope that fixes it. I think BMWCCA KP cars are in the 2:12’s so this is going to be fun.

I installed a crankscraper as well and hot damn I never saw my O/P warning go off.

So, for the rest of you west coasters, get off your butts and get your cars done already.

#2

Congrats on getting the car running. So what caused no oil pressure problem?

igor

#3

Lance, thanks for posting the update. Sorry I didn’t join you. I don’t know if it’s just the crank scraper, but I’m very optimistic about oil pressure in left handers. So far I haven’t noticed much (if any) pressure drop in long lefthanders (T6 Sears, T2 Thill, etc.). Fingers remain crossed though.

I’m trying to make the SCCA race next weekend at Thill and will report back on lap times. Qualifying for an E30 in ITS trim is a blistering 2:07:x. I’m planning to at least run KP at Sears in September and possibly SpecE30, though perhaps not 100% legal. I think Cole will be joining the fun and maybe we can convince Steve Dais to make the long tow up.

-Joe

P.S. Igor, any chance you’ll be joining us soon?

#4

jschmid wrote:

[quote]

P.S. Igor, any chance you’ll be joining us soon?[/quote]

I am working on it – I got bunch of parts recently (but not everything I need) and am currently putting them on. I still need to get licensed though… (I’ll be ‘practicing’ at T-Hill GGC HPDE on Aug 26 and 27 with my daily driver ‘eta’)

Igor

Post edited by: igor, at: 2006/07/29 04:10

#5

Yeah everyone just get their cars ready. I’m not sure I’ll be 100% legal by the October Infineon race either so we can just all promise not to protest each other unless it is something blatant like a supercharger! I am definitely planning to run 2 BMWCCA races in September (Infineon and Laguna Seca).

Igor, I’m not sure what happened with my 0 oil pressure last week. I ended up pulling the pan off again, taking the pump out and testing it. It worked fine, so I reinstalled it and bam it worked. Everything appeared to be installed correctly so I’m not really sure what happened.

#6

Lance, one other thing – how were your oil temps? I know that’s been an issue in the past at Thill so I’m curious what you were seeing this time.

#7

Ambient temps were around 98F. About 15 minutes into the session, I was seeing oil temps up at 270F and water temps at 210F. I’m going to upgrade the oil cooler this winter.

#8

Lance, one other thing – how were your oil temps? I know that’s been an issue in the past at Thill so I’m curious what you were seeing this time.

#9

It’s good to see some activity on the West coast. Keep us all updated.

Also, regarding the not-too-illegal part; we have kept it simple. If someone isn’t Spec E30 legal, they race as "E30 Fun" and still get to race with the legal Spec E30 cars in the same run group, but are classed differently.

We were concerned about the "let’s all agree" situation because it provides an easy way to not be legal, and then it lowers the enthusiasm to get legal because "we can all just agree" again and again. Plus, "we’ll all just agree" on other aspects of the cars and then we’re running differently prepared cars in different parts of the country.

If everyone knows they have to be legal to race as a "Spec E30" car, it will work out better for everyone in the long-run. And to be successful, these things must be thought out, long-term. We had to bite the bullet on a few items and we have a much better group because of it. I wanted "those two other cars" to help get our numbers up for that particular weekend but we resisted it, knowing that it’s better for the group if we hold the line.

"Agreeing" might work ok for you guys but consider the E30 Fun class (or something like that), or at least talk about it when you guys get together at the track.

But again, keep posting about your individual and group progress.

Carter

#10

Is this E30 fun class legitimate? So when we go to register, we can put that down? If so, that’s the route we’ll take and then eventually trickle into fully legal.

#11

it is easy to run in GTS or the new NASA PT class if your car isn’t fully prepared yet for spec e30.
cheers,
bruce

#12

Our local NASA regions were very good about helping us with this when we were getting started. They want the entries, you guys want to race in the same run-group, and it’s easy to put something like "E30 Fun" on the results page.

And since everyone still gets to race together, you’ll have just as much fun and you’ll keep the classes cleaner too.

Carter