BMW Compact Build

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Pete
That's mainly the fault of BMW soft motor mounts and BMW doofus drivers.

Get good motor mounts and don't be a doofus.

I've got UUC poly mounts for the engine and the straight through bolts for the transmission. I've seen some steel mounts out there and I'm thinking I'd like to upgrade to those before the car sees any hang time.

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john vanlandingham
Hey did UPS arrive with anything for you? Huh? Huh? well?.....WELL!!!!????

Nope, tracking info showed it made it to Denver around noon today, but that means they won't be on the delivery truck till tomorrow. Planning to finish off the brakes tomorrow after work which means I won't get a chance to put the suspenders on the car till Wednesday night at the earliest.

Did the shorter rear spring perches make it into the mail?

Dave



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2010 12:11AM by DaveK.

Good looking build Dave. What do you think the car will weigh once complete?

Thanks! I was hoping weight would be around 2600, but my budget for lightweight stuff dried up last summer when a rod exited my evo motor. At this point I'd be happy if its under 2800.

FWIW, some of the euro cars have posted weights near 1000kg, but that's with 4cyl motor and T45 minimalist cages.

Dave

Wow 1000kg would be super light for that car w/ that much power. Thanks for the information. If you budget had not dried up where else were you planning on saving weight?

I am looking forward to seeing it on the stages. I almost bought a street 318ti as a daily a month or so ago.

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Andrew_Frick
Wow 1000kg would be super light for that car w/ that much power. Thanks for the information. If you budget had not dried up where else were you planning on saving weight?

I am looking forward to seeing it on the stages. I almost bought a street 318ti as a daily a month or so ago.

FWIW, the 1000kg ones use 4-cyl motors like the BMW S14, and I've even seen S2000 powered ones. Those motors are an easy 100lbs weight savings over the heavy 6-cyl I'm running. Remember that $500 craigslist car...it had an S14 in it, and when I went searching for one, I was having trouble finding any good ones for under $10k. I simply didn't want to pour money into making a 4-cyl make 200hp when it was easy to just find a stock E36 M3 powerplant. Engine, trans, & wiring harness with ~75,000 miles on them were $3k shipped to my door.

Easy (though not cheap) weight savings would be fiberglass/carbon hood, hatch, bumpers, fenders, then there's lexan windows to do. I think Compact Cup cars may use fiberglass doors as well, but that's a no-go here. Aluminum doors are out there, but they're priced like they're made of unobtanium. A T-45 chromoloy cage would save probably 50-80 lbs over my cage, but would lack some of the common roll cage advancements made in the last 15 years. I could also not run a dash, go to a lightweight heater box unit, make a custom wiring harness, etc. but I wanted the car to get up and running quickly, so I opted to stick with alot of OEM stuff for now. If the car proves to be somewhat competitive (and the driver), I'll probably look at attacking some of the things on that list after the 2011 season.

Dave

Dave. I've got a 4X8 sheet Lexan that we can do some of your windows with. Also going to order a shitload of stainless steel button heads one of these days. I'd recommend that for a spring project though so you don't get snow in during days at the winter driving school.

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NoCoast
Dave. I've got a 4X8 sheet Lexan that we can do some of your windows with. Also going to order a shitload of stainless steel button heads one of these days. I'd recommend that for a spring project though so you don't get snow in during days at the winter driving school.

I'm kinda interested in doing one of those WRC door inserts that one of the Wimpey Bros was talking about a while ago. If I put those in, I'd likely convert to lexan and gut the crap out of the doors. Otherwise, I'm not sure I see myself bothering with lexan. It looks like crap after a few months and only saves about 20 lbs, though maybe a tad more on a hatchback.

Don't want to get ahead of myself though...must focus on getting the car driveable first. With a little luck, there's a chance you might get to go for a ride in it if you're not too hung over on Saturday.

-finish brake system
-tighten & clock power steering lines
-hook up headlights
-mount washer tank
-have driveshaft fabricated
-make rear diff mounting ear (d'oh, shouldn't have cut that off quite yet)
-mount JVAB front suspenders
-raise rear suspenders to clear brake lines (or if new shorter perches arrive tomorrow, swap those in)
-figure out how to get instrument cluster to work (BMWs are notorious for warping heads)
-finish exhaust fabrication (or buy bulk pack of ear plugs)
-fabricate new mounting for shifter
-fabricate mount for hydraulic handbrake
-install windshield
-sunroof plug (hefty bag and gorilla tape?)
-steal belts & seats from the Evo
-fill transmission
-run battery cable and figure out where to mount one
-get WS-70s mounted on Compomotives

Crap, that sounds like a big list! I get booted from the shop on Friday as the guys are moving, so the last week has been crazy. Work for 8 hours then over to my 2nd job as an absent minded mechanic/fabricator for another 6 or so. The car's near 64th & Washington, c'mon over Grant.

Dave

Another late night in the garage. Grant stopped by with some key parts (hood pins & trunk springs) and got to hear it run for a little bit. The list is getting smaller.

-finish brake system
-tighten & clock power steering lines
-mount washer tank
-have driveshaft fabricated
-make rear diff mounting ear (d'oh, shouldn't have cut that off quite yet)
-raise rear suspenders to clear brake lines (or if new shorter perches arrive tomorrow, swap those in)
-figure out how to get instrument cluster to work (BMWs are notorious for warping heads)
-finish exhaust fabrication (or buy bulk pack of ear plugs)
-install windshield
-sunroof plug (hefty bag and gorilla tape?)
-steal belts & seats from the Evo
-fill transmission
-get WS-70s mounted on Compomotives

The list continues to get smaller, but not at a fast enough rate for my liking.

-finish brake system
-mount washer tank
-have driveshaft fabricated
-make rear diff mounting ear (d'oh, shouldn't have cut that off quite yet)
-raise rear suspenders to clear brake lines (or if new shorter perches arrive tomorrow, swap those in)
-figure out how to get instrument cluster to work (BMWs are notorious for warping heads)
-finish exhaust fabrication (or buy bulk pack of ear plugs)
-install windshield
-sunroof plug (hefty bag and gorilla tape?)
-mount belts & seats
-fill transmission

I'll be back at it tonight.

On the plus side, I finally got my snow driving fix taken care of. Over two hours of beating the snot out of our A6 up on the BWDS ice tracks and also got to watch a redneck version of 24 minutes of LeMons on Ice. LOL

Dave

We have a 2.5 minute video from the redneck roundup. I also have your BWDS beanie.

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NoCoast
We have a 2.5 minute video from the redneck roundup. I also have your BWDS beanie.

Any chance of you swinging by the shop tonight with the seat belt hardware? I s/b over there by 6:30 or so.

Dvae

Had my buddy Tommy come over to help troubleshoot some things last night. Turns out the factory wiring diagram isn't quite right at the fuse box and when I pulled the A/C wiring, I removed switched power to the instrument cluster swingy gauges. Got that all sorted out so now I've got tach, fuel level, & temp. Also seems to run smoother now...but I can't imagine how the cluster should have anything to do with that. Bit of a bummer, b/c I really liked that 'cammed-out' sound it was making before. LOL

Tommy also managed to solve the mystery of the key stuck in the ignition. There was an interlock cable from the auto-trans up into the ignition column, and when removed, it locks the key in there. Going to take a little bit of planning to engineer a fix, but for now, a screwdriver poked into the hole will release the key. I'll also look into what the manual transmission cars have, maybe there's an easy fix.

Made good progress on some other stuff too. Got the terry springs installed, and after welding in some reinforcements on the hood pin mounts I got that re-painted. Should be a quick 10 minute job to assemble the pins and adjust height tonight. Finished welding and smoothing out the modifications for the new shifter and hydraulic e-brake and got those areas painted too.

Dave

Nice Dave. Moving along. You working this weekend? I got a few small things done on Merkur last night. Bolted something back on under the hood. Sure it was just the wiper motors, but it was a start! Depending upon which car I buy this weekend I may start tearing into the engine. If the $500 Legacy is decent I'm buying that one. Otherwise it'll probably be the $1200 Impreza. Emailed the guy with the $500 318ti as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2011 01:31PM by NoCoast.

Up in Steamboat every weekend this month, so won't have too much time to work on the car.

I'm assuming the new car is a replacement for the saturn? Didn't that $500 ti get sold and was back on the market for $1500?


Dave

The car looks great but I really hate this thread....It makes me want to build a new shell for the XR and do it ALL right.