BMW E36 Compact Budget Build

Dave and Grant,
Thanks for the info!

Update
Cage is almost ready to be dropped down have the tops welded and then fully welded. Here are some picture of the progress. Speak now or forever hold your peace!



Currently working on the door "X". Those low angle cuts are so annoying. Not to mention try notching them at 1:00 am without waking the kids/wife up.





It's all held together with a couple tacks and hose clamps.

Personally I'd lower the doorbar down a few more inches...Getting in and out of the car with the seats and HANS and intercom still hooked up (and getting jerked back into the car!) etc is probably better when its easier...and its still do whatever job it has to when its lower...

And If you are planning on 10" shortened coilovers, why not just make the towers accommodate the things without the dis-assembly and shortening of the shocks?
I do that on Xratties but the tower is already in it. You have more design freedom since you can do what you want..

What did I supply Kern? Normal or -1"? Been so long can't recall.


Also on your diff suport maybe some additional bars coming off main hoop about where you have the door bars running down and back (remember the diff wants to go forward so making it compress the tubes sorta is better-er-er than tubes in bend..
Kinda like this:




kinda

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

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john vanlandingham
What did I supply Kern? Normal or -1"? Been so long can't recall.

What we talking about? I was supplied negative parts? Does that mean you should pay me to run them? Where's my refund?

On rears, I remember you supplied a spacer that was run on top at first. But, with that setup I lost bump travel and would bottom out too easily. I removed the spacers and that improved things, also added longer more progressive bumpstops. Only negative is that I lost an inch of droop travel, so it catches air sooner.

Dave

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DaveK

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john vanlandingham
What did I supply Kern? Normal or -1"? Been so long can't recall.

What we talking about? I was supplied negative parts? Does that mean you should pay me to run them? Where's my refund?

On rears, I remember you supplied a spacer that was run on top at first. But, with that setup I lost bump travel and would bottom out too easily. I removed the spacers and that improved things, also added longer more progressive bumpstops. Only negative is that I lost an inch of droop travel, so it catches air sooner.

Dave

Yeah your check was sent out, I'm sure you must have gotten it. ya know kinda like whas'is duff's check that arrived here 'cept it didn't ever...

So you got the full 10.4" stroke Billies but used the "normal" non-extended eyelet.

OK.. Maybe this guy will call and I can do the same for him, I have plenty--like 40+ "normal" eyelets

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham
Yeah your check was sent out, I'm sure you must have gotten it. ya know kinda like whas'is duff's check that arrived here 'cept it didn't ever...

Still waiting on that guy? Fer f$%&s sake.

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john vanlandingham
So you got the full 10.4" stroke Billies but used the "normal" non-extended eyelet.

Nope, pretty sure we were talking about 8" stuff...210mm rings a bell?

Dave

Nice car, the thread really sets a good example on how to start building.

It's been a while.

Here is some progress. The main section of the cage is fully welded but not gusseted. The door bars are done but not welded in.

The front strut towers are tied in and I have spare towers that I will use to double skin the tops. I tried to triangulate the towers as much as possible without going crazy. It made sense to to me to have the lower bar tie in across from the sill bar to distribute the load. The top bar ties in across from the upper front portion of the door for the same reason. I could have gone higher with the top bar and make the whole thing a little stronger (stronger against the moment of the strut moving up or twisting back) but it would require lots of cutting of the firewall and cowl. I think this was the best compromise. I had to allow the bar to cross over a little or come out of plane. If I didn't the bottom bar would have to merge into the top bar and I would only have one bar tying into the strut tower. Here are the pictures...













Hopefully with the warmer weather on the way I should get this cage finished and start in on the fun stuff.

Here are the door bars and A-pillar bars. I was able to keep the A-pillar bar complete and gusset it to the door bar with a WRC style gusset. It seems to fit FIA spec. Let me know if I missed anything.


Adjustable steering column... cheap circle track parts.




Cut out for extended rear turret.


Other side... need to box the frame back in and give more room for a true coilover.


Got these used/new and didn't have to pay shipping. John, any valving specs would be appreciated.


And these... but they need to be redrilled to fit e36 strut bolt pattern.

Here is the rear turret and shock mocked up.

Your A pillar support bars should terminate at the foot of the cage, not half way up.

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Doivi Clarkinen
Your A pillar support bars should terminate at the foot of the cage, not half way up.

This is one of my concerns too. It's been one of the bigger struggles building this thing cause frankly RA's sill bar doesn't fit well with the basic FIA appendix J spec. When you have a car with massive rockers (BMW e36: I swear the things are 10" x 10" ) if you push the sill bars down you loose room for seating and it become nearly impossible to weld.

My solution at this point is to build a large mounting platform and shorten up the main hoop. Similar to what was done to the rear footing. This will allow the A-pillar bar to be within the 100mm to mounting prescribed by FIA. Something like this...


Or gusset with mounting plate like this...Not sure how the rules apply here but from a strength perspective I would think they are about equal.


Thoughts?

Build the box. That's what we typically do.

Used BMW JVABs? Nice find, hard to tell from pic but looks like might be non-BMW. If so, you may have to make some major modifications to them. The overall length of the BMW stuff is generally longer than most so you might have to find some chromo tubes to weld on the bottom, lop off whatever ears are there and fab up new BMW ones. If that is the case, it is probably going to be easiest and cheapest to send them to John and work it out with him to buy the proper lowers. He's also done some nice top mounts that he and Dave worked on together to move the top pin inwards to get you some more camber without needing to shim the lower bolts.

What's travel on your Bilstein shock in rear? We were looking at using 10" travel in rear with turrets. Reason I ask is it seems that the tower height is a little shorter than I recall our measurements putting it, but it's also been a few months since I looked at it. Basically make sure you are into the bump stops before the arms run out of room and start beating themselves up/bending and adding camber.

Speaking of, are you planning a stock location spring or coilover? I found a set of e30 convertible springs and planning to start with those with a shock to try to reduce the bending load there. We've discussed a hydraulic bump stop sitting inside the spring instead of on the shock too in order to keep that load in the strong part of the arm and reduce the aforementioned bending. Kern's Compact is getting some nice rear camber now after a few hill climb events.

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Grant Hughes

It's late and I just got inside from working on the car, so I will be brief.

I started the passenger side rear shock turret. Here are the pictures of the progress so far.

Boxing the frame rail back in after sectioning some out for clearance.
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Okay. I need some opinions and know what they say...

I need to tie the rear uprights and cross bar for the cage into the car. I would like this to be a close to the loading point on the suspension as possible. That said, Because I have built the towers myself I am worried a scrutineer may have an issue with going directly to them. Ideally I would like to weld a 1/8" plate to the front side of the towers. Then have the two shock mounting plates extend further on the front and tie into the upright bar. Do you this this would be Okay or should I just weld a plate to the wheel arch (not as strong) and do it the way I know it will pass?

Here is a sketch of what I'm thinking.



For reference this is the idea I'm going for. Group A E30 M3 stuff. The same that all the prodrive rally cars had.



Here are some more pictures.

With that design I'd bring the tubes right to the top corner kinda notching them half on the front, half on the top..Nothing you cannae do with grinder..
As for genius scrutineers, make note of thinkness of steel for towers and for stock sheetmetal in car, add to make it thickness you need.. Grab the fawker and cuff him or if you're carrying pistolwhip the goomba and splain how thich you stuff is total.. He'll get the message..

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.