1987 BMW 325 NASA GT2 refresh, from a dust collector to a runner.

I have the ability, of finding projects.  Over the years my timing has not been great for acquiring, storing and then working on them in any sort of responsible time frame.  But this has not stopped my stock piling an inventory of projects.     

Now I have come to grips with and I'm learning to be at peace with the following, as to race cars: You can acquire them, you can work on them, you can drive them and yes, you can race them.

This leads to the BMW, purchased in December of 2013.  That sat in a dusty sort of statics until the timing, the funds and the most important thing, finding someone that could do the thing I have no skill at completing, had been found.  I now have grown comfortable with the title of project instigator and parts chaser.  That pays the bills.  So what does the car look like, in the beginning?

This is it, a 1987 BMW 325 built to the 2010 NASA GT2 rules. The car has a 1991 non vanos M50 under the hood and per the rules of the day it has a 180hp or 190hp chip.

The picture was taken the day I picked it up in La Quinta.  The story of how I ended up with it, that's the part that started 18 months before the date of picking it up.  When you are trying to distract your self at work and you are happily married with a great family,  you might have as your morning routine checking on, lets call it "..... . list" under race cars in the up scale area that is within 100 miles of your office.  Just because, well you never know.

When you find the above.  The first day of it's posting early in the week, for $8500.  So as I am the captain of my ship, being self employed, I made the call to see the car and call it a day working in what we call the "low desert".  At 11:00 the day I first found the listing, giving me less than two hours to drive the 90 plus miles on the Highway 10 East that is patrolled by California's most efficient fine collectors.  Again, the stars were in my favor. 

What I found at the given address was, as it turned out a glimpse of the owners collection.  This car had been purchased as his "desire to drive a race car and go racing with his friends" at that private track not far from his home in Valley.  The car was sourced on the East coast, freshened and after a twenty minute session, parked.  Racing a race car did not do it for him.  So I did the only thing that I could to make this deal happen.  As I am the first person that has made it to the garage from the listing going live, in the less than two hours of my drive, his phone is on fire.  I went full asking price, $1500 down and at least $500 a month until it was paid off.  Stored at his garage.  He said yes..

As they say, be very careful what you ask for.  It can be lots of fun!

David

After getting the car into my storage location, a quick wash and now for a plan. 

That’s not a 1987 ... both the tail lights and the rear wheel arches are of the newer ‘88+ cars. Unless they cut the car in half and welded a whole rear of a new car ...

What are the last 7 digits of the VIN?

Cool car though. 

According to the Vin, it's a '87.   I have been down the BMW rabbit hole of parts required based on build date.

The builder spent volumes of time and money on the construction of the car.

Its probably an ‘88 built in ‘87. 

I will admit that during the next faze of the refresh, I did not create a photo journal.  But, I can confirm that the following was done:

1. The half shafts were replaced.  On the passenger side there was play of the shaft between the universal joints, it felt like one of the clips on the shaft had gone missing.  Yes,  I used new ones from an eastern manufacture.  I will be keeping an eye on these going forward. 

2. The diff in the car, a 4.10 LSD was of unknown condition so as luck would have it I was able to acquire a low mileage 3.73 LSD from a car with an automatic.  Side by side, the pre-load on the 4.10 confirmed it needs to be refreshed and will be reinstalled at a later date.

Moving to the front end of the car,  why do people think the radiator shell on these cars is a jacking point.  Or the oil pan.  That when you have a M50 transplant, the oil pan has to be from an E34 so that you have a front sump.  But when you start looking for a replacement you might not know that there are an early and late pan.  The difference being a windage tray that is, or is not attached to the oil pan.  Having them siting side by side confirms the difference.  Paying for the learning experience, is only money.  But the oil pan gaskets on these M50's all leak,  so that during the replacement of yet again one more potential of a vacuum leak you can confirm that the oil pump nut is safety wired in place,  or not.

But to remove the oil pan from your M50 trans plant using the E30 5 speed gear box, you have to drill two holes in the bell housing to get to those last two bolts.  But then you get to make the holes larger when you remember that the motor is at an angle to the ground. 

Replacing that pretzeled radiator shell, on a race car, is as easy as cutting of the lower section of factory tin and welding on a rectangular box section that now is the front mounting point for the " Red 46" sump guard.  Now, there is no room to to put a jack under the oil pan and I can suppress the though of having to locate one more from the dwindling supplies of E34's.  I can only hope.

More welding was done on the cage to move the lower cross bar that would have been the end of both knee caps in the event of a front hit.  The bar was moved up under the dash out of harms way and as luck would have it allowed me to lower the steering wheel by just over two inches.  As the seat is fixed to the floor I am looking just over the dash and have that view that enhances your focusing on where you are going.  That and I will never need to add that extended shifter I see in other peoples E30's.

Then adding back a radiator fan on the car that is driven in Southern California, a must for those seven months of the year called summer, you have to have one.  Once again, as luck would have it, the wiring is still in place as to make it work.   Making it work just required putting a fresh thermostat in the radiator.  All to the fact that running with NASA is a factor of points, weight of the car, power of the motor and size of the tires.  Meaning that with the wiring harness in place the car was legal.

Then with fresh fluids, front rotors and break pads it was ready to drive.  And tires.  The car had been built to run on Toyo RA-1's, 225/45-15's.  I have a supply of Bridgestone RE-71R's that are 205/50-15 that when used on a SCCA ES Miata using the legal 15x6 rims grind the outside 10% of the tire.  That when flipped leaves you a tire that still has 80% of the good stuff, in the middle, that your race car with over 2 degrees of negative camber will melt with no issues.

So with the help of a friend, attached are four runs from a BMWCCA auto cross held at Qualcom Stadium in San Diego this last September.  Seat time, that's what I need next.  And lot's of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmd39lqGhcY

David 

The picture above is from the Lone Pine Time Trials held at the Manzanar air strip earlier this year..

One of the never ending lessens of race car ownership is getting your car on to your trailer.  A lowered car sitting on low profile tires being driven on to the trailer you have worked with in the past might require a fresh approach.  Other wise you might snag the slip fit clamps that were bolted to the low'ish hanging headers of your new car.  Thank goodness they were just bolted on as a coupling to the side exit system that would have never passed a sound meter check at any event.

But now that you have waited for it to cool off enough to grab, then try to get it off the one hanger that did not get mangled, that has it still hung up on the underside of the car and has left you unable to reverse your first attempt completely back to all four wheels on the ground.

My solution, to the loading, a set of 205/70-15 tires for the rear.  

Next time it's going to an event I will have to get a series of pictures show it on the transition up the ramps.  One unintended consequence of the dry lake stance, I can open the driver's door to get into and out of the car.   

Then you might notice the rear exit of the new exhaust.   What you can not see is the high flow cat that might not be CA legal but does a great job and will allow running at the more sensitive tracks.

Yes, the stickers are gone. I can always add new ones. Or not.  The paint, is now a real 20 footer that will be as good as it gets.

The SCCA has posted the November Fastrack, their monthly publication of all things that are under their control, and my car is now legal in "FP".

 I had requested a review of the rules for the class not long after purchasing the car and asked if the 24 valve motor could run in "FP".  it was pointed out that "XP" would be my option if I was going to run the car at a Nationals level event.  Not that I would be up against cars with more of everything I did not have or was likely to spend money or time to fix on my car.  That Lotus'ish car from Arizona was going to be safe from my efforts.

But I run in a region that has people, that know people, that get involved with  the people that volunteer on the comities that make the rules that I have to live with.  So I started bringing my car to the Saturday Practices that might have some of these individuals in attendance.  Leaving the hood open when the car was not running, using the Bridgstone RE71's, 205/60-15's from my E Street Miata after having burned the out side 10% of both sides of the tire mounted onto the 15x6 rims I have to run on the car.

Over the last year I have answered lots of questions.  And it has paid off.  My car is now in "FP".  The penalty for the 1991 M50 is 249.5 pounds.

I how get to add the Colin Chapman cost of adding lightness to my car, 200 lbs is gong to be expensive.

David  

What a fantastic car! Great deal to boot! 

jr02518 said:

The SCCA has posted the November Fastrack, their monthly publication of all things that are under their control, and my car is now legal in "FP".

 I had requested a review of the rules for the class not long after purchasing the car and asked if the 24 valve motor could run in "FP".  it was pointed out that "XP" would be my option if I was going to run the car at a Nationals level event.  Not that i would be up against cars with more of everything I did not have or was likely to spend money or time to fix on my car.  That Lotus'ish car from Arizona was going to be safe from my efforts.

But I run in a region that has people, that know people, that get involved with  the people that volunteer on the comities that make the rules that I have to live with.  So I started bringing my car to the Saturday Practices that might have some of these individuals in attendance.  Leaving the hood open when the car was not running, using the Bridgstone RE71's, 205/60-15's from my E Street Miata after having burned the out side 10% of both sides of the tire mounted onto the 15x6 rims I have to run on the car.

Over the last year I have answered lots of questions.  And it has paid off.  My car is now in "FP".  The penalty for the 1991 M50 is 249.5 pounds.

I how get to add the Colin Chapman cost of adding lightness to my car, 200 lbs is gong to be expensive.

David  

Is that official yet? I read it as not in effect yet, but under review and if allowed, not in the rule book until January 2020. I want it to be a real thing for 2019 though as I have a swap going that pushed me into XP as well.

There is more to the coming changes for "DP", "EP" as well as "FP".

A series of new car and engine combinations could be coming back to the events with this rules update, I hope!

David 

The November Fastrack has been posted. To get your copy follow the links below.

Full

Autocross

Road Racing 

Rally

Links

Looking for a previous copy? Click the link below to be taken there. 

https://www.scca.com/pages/fastrack-news

Sports Car Club of America, Inc. 
6620 SE Dwight St 
Topeka, KS 66619

jr02518 said:

There is more to the coming changes for "DP", "EP" as well as "FP".

A series of new car and engine combinations could be coming back to the events with this rules update, I hope!

David

Yeah I've read over that so many times crossing fingers it will all pass, so when I saw your post I thought it had been officially passed and good to go for 2019. I'll be into DP if this all goes through, but at a hefty 2063.96 pounds, so ballast will have to be thrown in the trunk.

Just in case your older BMW, when backing up, is making noises like the exhaust is banging around on something and your otherwise normal clutch feels like the pressure plate is failing, it's the drive shaft.  Specifically, the rear u-joint.  Now that you have the thing out of the car, the center u-joint is not much better.  I am hoping that I can have the fittings installed to lube these "new" u-joints when this is rebuilt.  But it's German, and they might not want me to make it serviceable. 

As to the transmission mounts, both are being added to the replacement list.  Once again, 10 year old "race car" urethane mount have exceed their working life.  Just as a heads up, if you find your self looking at an older race car just be prepared to replace all the things that have made it into a race car.  You know the parts that turn a normally quite daily driver into a beast that lets you hear and feel everything when you tip into the throttle.

Yes, to reinforce why you bought the thing in the first place.  I am so glad I am spending the time auto crossing the car before I get it on a track.  Finding all it's "got to fix stuff" in second gear is not reeking the havoc of finding it in forth gear.

David  

Next on the list of things to return to stock'ish. The passenger floor.  Someone thought the car should have a side exhaust.  What they created was a mess.  Then I created a larger mess when I snagged the low hanging exhaust system on my trailer getting to an event. The original tin was installed with pop rivets and sealed with silicone.  This time, plan "B".

Nothing that dropping the gas tank to weld in a section of floor pan that I have to have cut from a donor, will not fix. 

Not that a really clean E30 should not be driven in the rain, it should not be driven by someone in Southern California in the rain.  But then again, I would not have my patch panel for my car.

The location of car from my office was only 15 miles, the time to get it excised was less than 45 minutes and the shop that it was sitting at, only charged me $20 to do the labor. 

Now I only need to get it trimmed to size and blended into it's new home.   

As a review, this is a picture of the two possible E34 oil pans you might end up with putting on your M50 swap into your E30.

One has the windage tray riveted in place, the other has you bolt the tray to the bottom of the block.  The motor in my car is a non vanos M50, only imported for one year, 1991.  This keeps things simpler and has potential that might be explored at at a later date  

The only way this motor fits in the chassis is with the front sump setup  provided by the 5 Series, E34 oil pan.  Having the front sump in a lowered race car focuses you on where you are going to hit first,  when things might not go to your plan when exiting the track.

So when you are replacing the oil pan gasket because they somehow they are a ware item and all leak, by lifting up the engine and lowering the front cross member, you might find a pleasant surprise.

Someone has already safety wired the oil pump nut in place.  

As far as I can tell this might be the third motor the car has had during its racing carrier.  Starting off with 2 M20's before it's current configuration.  I did make contact with the owner/builder, he did confirm the current engine was stock, a very low mileage item when sourced and installed.  The wiring of the nut was a lesson learned from M20 number two.

Next, sump guard.  First, why do people think the radiator shell is a jacking point? Not that they might have tried that low spot under the car called the oil pan, but it can all be corrected.  

Now, the next project.

It starts with more disassembly and a saw's all.

As this is a race car, no attempt was made to source and pay for stock replacement parts.  It all works out, as per the attached.

Yes, I am no longer going to put the future oil cooler in the stock location of the E30.

Looking at the next picture reminds me that I need to add something to the new section of metal that reminds people not to use this as a jacking point. 

This is now a better than "no solution" of having the sump be the first thing making contact with solid objects, doing their best to drain the motor of it's oil.   

The "Red 46" sump guard can be ordered for the M50 motor in a E30, and it's an optical elution that the guard is lower than the rims on my car.  Now that I have raised the suspension on my coilovers.

Normally the sump guard is a bolt in affair, with the replacement of the radiator shell sheet metal on my car the front attachment point was welded in place. 

One less thing to think about, or was that four things?

The update from this weekend , time to fix the floor.  As a refresher, someone attempted to raise the floor for a side exhaust.  It did not work as intended. 

Getting the car back over to the friends that are doing the work reopens a number of issues.  I have a trailer, getting it set up for this car offers the challenge. 

To start, like most of my acquisitions the trailer happened by "dumb luck" and "perfect timing".  I found my self at a Super Bowl gathering a couple of years ago and one of the guys at the event was a contractor that I knew had an aluminum trailer of some sort that was used to move construction stuff more than cars.  It spent most of it's down time parked in the lot next to his shop.  He was always getting asked if it was for sale.

During the game I added my name to the list of those who would like to buy it "if" it needed a new home.  Then after more than a few months, I got a call out of the blue.  Someone had made an offer on his lot/shop and the trailer needed to be gone.  He even let me use his work truck to tow it home.  That turned out to be just one more of those, it was not going to happen easily, if not for the "luck" thing.  The trailer wiring was unique to the truck pig tail.  So in addition to the set of tires that all trailers need when they trade owners I was going to get to rewire my new car hauler.   I did have a wood deck Carson trailer that was adequate. But it who would not want to step it up to a shinny alterative. The seller knew it had issues and the tires were toast.  My Carson also needed tires and it found a buyer in very short order.  In fact the first person who looked at it took it home.

So swapping trailers that both needed fresh tires, cost $500. Of new money.  To start.

It turns out this is a very early Alumatrails carrier.  On a trip to Mexico caring sand toys the front end of the trailer went flexible, the fix only need steel and they did not scrimp.  I do not have to worry about towing an empty trailer and a lack of tongue weight.  The challenge, setting the load to make everything as it should to tow correctly.

But time, towing and the flexible nature of the material this is made from, insures that it will require maintenance.  

The issue, the seams are dirty. Finding someone to weld on this is in the works.  

Having confirmed that this car will not go up the ramps on the event tires without again scrapping the exhaust system from where it belongs, I have a compromise.   I am looking at adding a "dove tail" drop.  But the combination of what I have, when loaded, is already making contact when driving on the transitions out of the current storage yard.  So for now, this is what it takes.

One benefit of the 205/70 15 tires on the rear of the car is how high the tail end sits and that allows the doors to open on the trailer.  I was looking at having the driver side tire fender cut loose and allowed to fold out of the way. But in this configuration it is not needed and I can save the expense.

Tying down your car on your trailer, is like may things. It's personal and if you make, involved and complicated.  As I am still working out the details, I choose to not have pictures of it tied down.

Nuff said. 

Back to reversing the side exhaust floor mess.  If you ever find your self at the dermatologist and they use the expression, looking for "clean margins", it might look like this.  

Now, we create the patch.

At the last event the car was running really well.  The event was held in San Diego at what was called Qualcom Stadium.  The site has a combination of elevation changes, surface degrading and bumps that worked the car.  Especially, the brakes.  

As a reminder of what this project is always doing to me, if you buy a used race car you might get to rebuild it.   Pulling the rear rotors, we found that on the driver side the e-brake shoes were cooked.

And the leading shoe on the driver side was missing lots of the friction material.

I understand that having a working e-brake on a race car is an option, I will be exercising that option and will also put fresh wheel studs on the car.  The condition of the studs reminded me that this car, built near Chicago was raced in Virginia, before it ended up in California. 

Next, at the front of the car I will admit that what looks good might not be, that good.  The combination of drilled rotors and Hawk Blue pads did not work on the car.  Now they did stop the car. But as time passed they started to really stop the passenger front tire first.  Flat spots on race tires are not any fun.  Just expensive.

The lip on the outer edge of the rotor reflect how well the pads are reducing the rotor to dust. That sticks to the wheels.

So, to just to be overly consumed with creating a baseline that should make sense, I am replacing all four calipers at the same time.  Ireland Engineering is just down the road and Jeff has a source for rebuilding them at a very reasonable rate.  I know, BMW and reasonable in the same breath might not pass that test. 

To review, the attempt at a side exhaust that was not being used and the aftermath of having the sheet metal the covered the whole looked like this;

As it turned out nothing more than pop rivets and silicone held it in place.

What the removal of the patch leaves behind.

The donar, If I had known what I know now I would have take more of the floor.  As they say, hind sight.

It turns out that there are two layers of metal glued in place on the overlap of seams.

This picture shows the sheet metal glue sandwich, if you look closely.  Welding on this to put it in the car is not looking like an option.

This is the transmission tunnel portion of the patch.  To get this to fit in the car we need to remove the shinny metal part.

All of the needed supports are still in the car, on what is left from creating the muffler side exhaust.  The patch we are creating will drop into the car, as apposed to being installed from the bottom of the car. 

And the patch is in place.  The attached pictures attest to being lucky with trimming the panel, the factory recesses almost line up.

And once again, if you are working with the glue doing it on a race car is the best place to start.

No more "Flintstones Car"! 

After rereading the instructions on the body glue I confirmed that when fully cured you can sand and make it look presentable.  But during it's application it is not in any way like bondo.

It set up in three minutes and cures in 45.  There were three options at the time of purchase and I went with the recommended product.  When you can't resist messing with it after your application is not quite rite, know this stuff sticks to everything.  The lille bits that find the floor will remove the cement covering that you know needs to be replaced anyway. 

The first time you use this, plan for a mess.