M3 Track Car

[GMballistic]

No electronic valve on mine sadly!

Bummer as that would certainly have solved the noisy exhaust problem.

[Commander]

Well, the weekend has been and gone and I've not actually done anything on my to do list :-(

 

The Mrs did go out for the day though, so I cracked on with tidying the garage so I can properly get the car in. This involved making some brackets to store the wheels on too as I don't have the floor space to waste on just piling them up on top of each other. And they look good on the wall :-)

 

[Commander]

Today I got started on stripping out some more weight - almost all of the carpet was still in the car and I could see it was a good inch thick in places, so should be some good weight saving... And more noise! :-)

 

So, this is what I started with;

 

Seats had to come out, and that's when I noticed the first problem... Whoever fitted the seats / rails had butchered one of the bolts, and now it's barely long enough to thread a nut on to it :-/

 

 

Getting the driver's seat out was easy enough, but the passenger seat was harder. Although it's on rails, there's no handle, so moving the seat involves putting your hands all the way under the seat and manually operating each catch. Pain in the ass!

 

Seats out, but still couldn't get the carpet out - had to remove the fly-by-wire accelerator pedal. Easy when you know how, but I didnt! Gave up and had to refer to YouTube for a quick How To.

 

Pedal out, and the carpet soon followed, along with the under-seat heating and some trim. The carpets are very thick; probably about 15kg pulled out I reckon, and still loads more to do.

 

 

taking the carpet out of the drivers footwell, I also pulled out the left-foot rest, and pulling out a couple inches of polystyrene left my accelerator-foot in a hole, so I need to make up some boxes to put my feet back in the right place.

 

That's all for now...

 

Any suggestions on the seat bolt? And the best way of fabricating some kind of feet boxing?

 

[Commander]

I took the opportunity to take car car out for a drive today - needed a bit of a shake-down before I go to Abingdon on November 14th for a 'limit handling' course with Gary Marsh, especially as I've barely driven in since I bought it! :-(

 

The route I took was one published on Pistonheads recently;

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=31057

 

If anybody lives near this, I'd say it's worth a crack. Not really 'one' route, but several stretches one after the other, interspersed with little villages every now and then. It's nothing compared to the euro trips I've done, but it's as good as any other I've come across around these parts... Took me about 2hours on a Sunday afternoon.

 

I'm not familiar with the car yet, or the route, so in hindsight not the best choice for a shakedown, but the M did well nonetheless. The M's a bit like a Zed on steroids - a bit more powerful, a bit lighter, a bit more planted, and great turn-in behaviour, but all is not rosy. I struggled for feel with the r888s (apparently this is because they have stiffer side walls than MPSS?) so I was at quite a pedestrian pace on the corners. I also found the Traction Control and ABS both kick in quite early, but I should be able to sort this by reprogramming them with the CSL settings if I can get hold of the software. Still not totally happy with the seats either; they're better after I adjusted them, but still room for improvement. Might end up swapping the driver's seat out for something else with more lumbar support and wider shoulders. I also think having taken lots of weight out of the rear upsets the car a bit too, so I need to get more weight out of the front half to balance it up a bit. Still plenty of trim and carpet in the front of the car to rip out so I should be able to balance it up a bit, it's just a question of finding the time.

[Ekona]

R888s sidewalls are quite stiff, but I personally find them really good for feel. Try dropping the pressures massively, I ran them about 10psi less on the Zed and about 8psi less on the MR2. Doesn't take long to get hear into them to get them to expand.

 

Bet it's a blast though!

[Commander]

To be honest I haven't even checked what the pressures are, but dropping them a bit sounds a sensible idea.

 

I can't wait to get it out on the track and see what it can really do; no doubt it's much more capable than I am!

[GMballistic]

Any suggestions on the seat bolt? And the best way of fabricating some kind of feet boxing?

Can you not just cut off the seat bolt if it's welded underneath the car and then re-weld in a new bolt or simply just bolt up a new bolt?

 

..And the foot box thing ~ how about something like this Commander: http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorsport/pedal-extensions-footrests/demon-tweeks-drivers-navigators-universal-floor-plate

Might help level out and bring your feet upwards more inline with where they would have been with the carpet trim in place. Good progress btw.

[Commander]

I spent my time yesterday at Abingdon Airfield with Gary Marsh (ARDS Grade S Instructor, Racing Driver & multiple-championship winner) and 5 members of the Porsche owners club in their 2x c2s, a c4s, a gts and Cayman S motors, with me in the M.

 

The day started very wet and though I've not driven the car much yet, you can tell straight away that R888s and standing water don't go well together at high speed... Or anything about 70 really! The MPSS I have on the Z definitely win here.

 

We got the day started with a few 'simple' exercises (I won't go in to the specifics - it'll spoil the surprise for you if you do a day yourself) so Gary can assess us and get a feel for the group. After agreeing that we're all shite, he spent time talking about how we should be doing it, why, the physics of it, etc. I knew all of the theory already, but I clearly wasn't putting it in to practise at all. After a few more cracks at the exercise with Gary in the car, everybody is improving and importantly, we know WHY we're improving and how to translate our new found skills on to a track.

 

A Sprint or 'Time Attack' style setup was used to create a benchmark for us, a combination of different corners, speeds and obstacles to get round as fast as possible. Times were measured, but not disclosed yet.

 

Lessons continued with high speed sweeping corners on a runway (where I managed to drop it and spun off at a fair old speed, left the runway and gauged four nice swirly marks 50m or so across the grass - love airfields - nothing to hit!), braking exercises, changes of technique, things to think about, ways to be analytical, and so on... We always reviewed every exercise, learned from each other's mistakes and kept the day really positive. Almost everybody spun off at some point but nobody did any damage, not even to egos, just lots of learning.

 

Towards the end of the day the track had dried up a lot and we got to re-run the Sprint a couple of times to see how we'd improved... Suffice to say, we all improved a lot.

 

I left the day with an increased awareness of what the car can do, an improved appreciation of what 'theory in practise' is really like, and a wish to learn more! If you've ever thought about driving faster, safer, better - go on a day like this - you WILL improve.

 

Oh, I forgot, the sprint times... I did 43.8seconds, first place and a full 1.1s ahead of the next car. I won the morning's round as well. It's hard to say why I was so far ahead of the rest of the pack, but I think it was more to do with me as the driver than the car its self - down on power compared to the 400bhp GTS, but running R888s instead of MPSS / MPSS Cup II on the Porsches evened things up on the handling front, so after that I'd like to think it was 'just' driver skill that won it, but I'll never really know, and winning wasn't the aim of the day... Just a nice bonus.

 

[GMballistic]

^^ Sounds like you had a great day out.

 

No video though?

 

Got a GoPro on my Christmas list, ..think you should add one to yours.

[Commander]

No video :-( I do have a HD Camera, but I couldn't get it in to a decent mounting point... Guess I'll have to add 'roll cage' to my Xmas list! :-)

[GMballistic]

No video :-( I do have a HD Camera, but I couldn't get it in to a decent mounting point... Guess I'll have to add 'roll cage' to my Xmas list! :-)

If you don't get the roll cage you could always consider a suction cup mount for the windows or a magnetic mount for the body or possibly even a tow eye mount depending on whether you specifically need the tow eye mount or not, ...which you probably will if it's for at a track day.

Edited November 16, 2014 by GMballistic

[Commander]

Managed to get Friday off work, so I'm going to the Hullavington Track Day (http://www.motorsport-events.co.uk/hullavington.php). Anybody else going?

[Commander]

It was the M's first proper outing today, at Hullavington (j17 of the m4).

 

Firstly, there was one Z there, a grey DE - sorry I didn't get to say hello.

 

It was the M's first real outing with me, and it proved to be an interesting session. Ditching the R888s and using some Michelin Racing Full Wet tyres (off a Ginetta G50, apparently) was a good move - there was a LOT of standing water. So much in fact that the TCS was still flashing at 100mph in a straight line, and even the wets I had on were aqua planing at some points of the track, and in one of the braking zones. I'm not going to lie - I didn't turn the TCS off even once. I wanted to, but couldn't justify the risk in the conditions... Extremely wet! At some points you couldn't see anything at all, but spray, and trying to hit the braking point at about 115mph was getting tricky, though I managed it most of the time!

 

Last week's session with Gary Marsh was put to good use and trail braking in to corners combined with a slow and incremental approach to each corner definitely works. I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself having only an e90 m3 being faster, and having just overtaken an Elise and a 911 (no idea what type, they all look the same to me) but then, about 30 laps in, disaster :-(

 

E46 M3s have two flaws, rear sub-frame cracks and SMG pump failures. I looked down at the dash to see a bright orange warning light - oh **** - SMG - please let it keep working so I can finish the lap! I crawled back and finished the lap ok, parked up and called my brother - he's got an e46 too and has had SMG problems in the past so I was hoping he could help. Tried a few things but couldn't fix the system, so day over, time to drive home before it gets worse. On the way back, while contemplating how I'm gonna tell the g/f I need to spend £900 on a new SMG pump, I realised it wasn't an SMG error at all! lol. Knob! In my panic at seeing errors on the dash I hadn't spotted that really it was the brake-pad wear indicator light - the two lights are annoyingly similar! :-( Thank god for that - much easier to fix, and leaving early was still the right thing to have done... Phew!

 

Brake-wear problems aside, still some good seat time and I learnt a lot about the car, and myself. It's still much better than I am, but mastery will come with practice I'm sure (or at least, I hope!)

 

To do list now includes:

 

Read the owners manual

BRAKE PADS!

Oil & Filter change.

Bigger man bits (there was one fast and slightly off-camber left corner which scared me more than it should)

More wet tyres

Strip out more weight

More track days! :-)

 

 

 

[GT4 Zed]

Nice mateðŸ‘ðŸ‘.

Since you mentioned is there any reason you were tempted to turn off TC? I hardly need to do it and it really interrupts. Over the years I've found out that if you are smooth and the car is set up properly and has good mechanical grip then TC leaves you alone. If conditions are poor or your inputs are heavy then TC chimes in and actually it's your friend.

However if you were not grip driving then it should be off to allow full play😎.

 

NB I would agree with better pads and possibly bigger front brakes at least.

Braided lines and RBF

Oil cooler

Get more adjustability to the suspect ion for a more track spec geo

Weight loss

Roll cage

Reinforce that rear subframe.

I'm surprised you went with the SMG instead of the MT for track. Don't get me ring it's fun and keeps you focused on other tasks but the reliability is an issue. Reason I got the MT M3 V8.

 

I'm local to a BMW race specialist and they are very competitively priced. Pm if you need details

Edited November 21, 2014 by GT4 Zed

[Commander]

TCS - Fancied turning it off for the challenge really - it seldom interrupted, but I knew it was there. That and I wanted to get the arse out round a corner or two and it was definitely interrupting there. Guess it's just my personality - I go rock climbing without ropes on occasion and ride horses (which are inherently dangerous) - driving with the TCS on at a track day seems like I'm cheating myself a bit, iyswim.

 

The car's already got a decent set of brakes, springs, shocks, adjustable top-mounts, bucket seats, etc.. along with a geo setup that seems plenty good enough for me. I only struggled because I'm not good enough really, not consistent enough... and the conditions were atrocious.

 

Regards SMG - I've always had manual cars before so fancied a change as much as anything - and if you get an Auto there's no chance a former owner has accidentally over-revved it at some point. The particular car I bought has already had the rear sub-frame repaired and reinforced and the SMG pump is still under warranty as that was repaired recently too.

 

I'm considering chopping in the Z for an e90 m3 Saloon - how do you find it compared to a Z? Hopefully more practical, refined, civilised? Any drawbacks?

[GT4 Zed]

Ah I see👠you are a thrill junkie!

Can't compare to a zed really as they are different cars and my zed is highly modified to out handle and out brake almost all std road cars and with more power to boot.

But as a std road car the V8 is very accomplished. More spacious than the E46, more refined, practical and quick enough and likes revs to get the best out of that glorious engine The handling is better than most cars but understeers in the wet and if you push it hard oversteers easily. Dry grip is much better and the electronic diff is so smooth and competent. The car still has the probably original MPS 2 which still have about 4mm of thread but they are too old.

The EDC and M button are a nice touch and gives the car two personalities.

 

Drawbacks: small tank, too soft for my liking and std pads will wilt under heavy use.

 

I think a tweak on the geometry and harder springs, good pads and MPSS rubber will sort it but I really don't want to go further than that. The zed is my baby and is in the garage while the M3 is park in communal parking.

 

I had the E30 M3, E36 328ci, E46 SMG 1 and the alpina B3.3 convertible in my BM history and the V8 had moved the game fowards a lot.

[Zeezeebaba]

Nothing wrong with an E90/E92. The V8 is a superb engine,refined and relaxed when on a cruise and an animal when pressing on. Also the DCT is light years ahead of the SMG.

[Commander]

Today I'm supposed to be going to Bruntingthorpe's 2 mile runway! I'm taking my track M3 and I'm going with my Brother in his SC'd (549bhp!) e46 m3 and some GPS data loggers so we can see the performance difference - vMax, 0-60, 0-100, 0-150, 30-130, braking performance with cold/hot pads, etc. it should be a good day, but..

 

I finally got round to changing the brakes yesterday after the wear alarm came on at Hullavington, and it didn't entirely go to plan! It turns out that one of the OS rear pads intermittently gets stuck on a bit, which wore the old pad excessively (all the way down to the metal!). The two sliders in the caliper are both fine (copper greased them anyway) its the piston - stuff as, er, a stiff thing! Tried exercising it a few times to no avail and even popping the piston out, cleaning it all up, re-seating the piston and bleeding the brakes doesn't seem to have helped.

 

I'm going to go for another test drive this morning to see if it has magically fixed its self over night, fingers crossed!

 

If it hasn't then it's either time for a BBK upgrade on all corners and sell on my front calipers to cover some of the costs, or I could see about getting another set of used OEM rears (only about £30 delivered, lol) and refurb them via that brake caliper specialist trader on here (sorry, can't remember their name).

 

Either way that leaves me a problem for today... Passenger in the SC'd e46, take the Z, take the M anyway, or don't go at all... :-/

[Commander]

Well... The plot thickens. The sticky piston is now definately unstick, hooray!, but there's still a rubbing noise - gets quicker with speed and louder on cornering, so I think it's either a wheel bearing, or there's something rubbing... most likely a rear bearing starting to go I reckon.

[Ekona]

Almost definitely a rear bearing I would imagine.

 

For a track car, you'll 100% want bigger brakes than OEM, BMW had them criminally undersized.

[Commander]

Fronts are already updated, it's just the rears that are still OEM. Pretty sure the noise is just a pad rattling in the caliper a bit, so I'm not gonna worry about it.

 

Took the M and we had the place to ourselves - got some interesting logs, stats and videos that I'll post up tomorrow... Brilliant day.

[Commander]

Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground

 

2miles of dead straight runway and another 2+ miles of taxiway - all to ourselves!

 

Damp in places, but no puddles.

 

Car on the left - E46 M3, MPSS, K-sport BBK, SC'd to ~550bhp, full factory interior still fitted as it's a daily driver

Car on the right - E46 M3, R888, 6-pot PBMW fronts, remapped to ~350bhp, interior largely stripped out, bucket seats, etc. Track day car.

 

 

 

Acceleration Results (Track day car, on the right)

Distance() Time(s) @Speed(mph)

0-60' 02.6 33.2

0-1320' 13.9 106.5 (quarter mile - got some work to do before it's a 10second car! )

0-2640' 21.4 130.9 (half mile)

0-5280' 33.9 153.6 (1 mile)

 

Braking results (Track day car, on the right)

Speed(mph) Time(s) Distance(ft)

60-0 02.9 108.3

100-0 04.5 303.5

 

G-force Min/Max (Track day car, on the right)

Accel 0.68G

Brake 1.20G

 

Runway entry to flat out comparison

Try clicking this - http://s567.photobucket.com/user/gsr4c/media/vmax-comparison-2.png.html

 

 

 

165mph to 0 chart

Try clicking this... http://s567.photobuc...zero-1.png.html

 

Edit: Sorry, Not sure what's going on with the graphs - forum/photobucket seems to be compressing them - the originals are readable I promise! Tried using JPG / PNG / BMP but it doesn't make any difference... Any tips?

Edited December 23, 2014 by Commander

[Ekona]

Very impressive stuff, nicely done

 

Don't worry too much about the entry speed onto the straight from round the corner, it makes no difference whether you take the corner normally (higher speed, less tarmac) or do a standing start from the bottom (lower speed, more tarmac) as the terminal speed is the same regardless.

 

 

SMG or manuals?

[GMballistic]

Very cool. Would love to have a go on an empty strip of tarmac like that.

[Ekona]

http://vmax200.co.uk/index_h.php

 

Give Craig an email and see if you can get onto the next one, whilst he wouldn't go for standard Zeds I reckon a supercharged one would be right up his street