Well, I finally got my E30, and took her on her virgin run at the Streets of Willow. What a blast. I have driven E36 M3’s, VW GTI, Neon’s, Mustangs, and a porsche at the track before, but this thing was great! BONE Stock, not a single thing done to it with the exception of my tow hook I made off the front bumper bolt and a hardware store made Clutch stop. Running stock suspension and 185/65/14 Michelin X tires which are NOT a good track tire haha, I still had fun taking the car through the turns. Even swaying like a caddy and tires folding like a guy holding a 2-6 off suit in a poker game I have to say I was impressed. I did experience a couple times on the hard right hand turns, my oil light came on. I check oil before/after each run and it always remained full. I am guessing its just a matter of where the sensor is? (ie on the right, right hand turn sends oil to left?) I also heard that some people say to add .5 qt of oil when at the track just for that fact? Either way, it only happened 2/3 runs and ONLY on the hard right handers. So I am going to try to extra oil next time unless I hear differently or solution. Just wanted to share, I can see why you guys love these cars so much. Cant wait to get my suspension/15"w/good tires. Lots of work ahead, gutting, cutting, installing, crawling (under) cussing, fussing, but once on the track, its ALL worth it!
Remember your first time.....
With the pump/pickup of the left side of the sump and the engine leaning to the right (as viewed from the driver’s seat) oil starvation should only be likely in left hand turns. But if engine oil pressure is running a bit on the low side (worn pump or bottom end, too thin an oil) you could see a momentary drop in a right hand turn.
You might want to throw an oil pressure gauge on and see what it is running. If it is a bit on the low side a thicker oil may help. I happen to have a rather tired engine and found that using a 20w50 oil and modifying the oil cooler for full time operation brought the pressure up to a bit over 13psi/1000rpm on a fully hot engine. Before that I’d see around 8-9psi/1000rpm, which is too low. The real solution would be a refresh of the bottom end, but this buys a bit of time. And over filling by 1/2-1qt won’t hurt.
In my experience, the make of the oil filter matters. As compared to an OE filter, all of the generics I’ve tried yield a bit lower oil pressure. Not much lower, but enough to notice.
A crank scraper is a good thing and helps to prevent starvation in left handers.
An E30 325 is just a whole lot of fun. In my opinion it may be the best car (from the driver’s perspective) that BMW ever made, with the obvious exception of the the E30 M3. It sounds like you had a lot of fun in the car and I suspect you’ll be beyond ecstatic once you do the suspension.
I am ordering it tomorrow. I am going with the TMS Package. It seems like the best package deal? What do you guys think? 1342 plus 90 shipping?
I like the Turner folks and the show they put on in racing, but they aren’t spece30 supporting vendors:
http://spece30.com/component/option,com_weblinks/catid,70/Itemid,4/