BMW BTCC Inspired Track car

[911hillclimber]

Good grief! You love electrics don't you!

That would drive me mad just thinking about it let alone fitting it as well as you do.
Great up-date, looking forward to the report on the First Outing.

[smallspeed]

I hate it! but it has to be done

[smallspeed]

Right, this story kind of ran cold, for reasons I'll explain!..
There was not a lot of activity during the middle part of 2017 - after missing Rockingham I kind of lost interest a bit, did a few things to the car at odd times, but really just got on with life. Then in the autumn we decided to move house - huge amount of building work going on near our old place, and so we looked to go elsewhere. Still s.leicestershire, but dear god moving house takes a lot of time and effort! The car went into early hibernation in the mother-in-laws garage..

We found our ideal house completely out of the blue
Rushed to put ours up for sale
The house we wanted sold between the estate agent taking pictures and actually listing ours
Then we sold our house
Then the house we wanted fell through and we were able to snap it up!

Lots of stress and pain, and THEN WE MOVED! Lots more stress and pain, but we got in 2wk before xmas, which meant suddenly instead of doing my project in a single garage crammed at the end of a narrow driveway, I had one of these.. :D



Work started again at some pace right after xmas -

First up, install the car properly, and stick the z4 out the way somewhere safe..lovely to actually have some room to work!




Mirrors installed..


Dash wired in properly..


Switch box made and wired in - this is to control the basics for me when I can't reach with the harnesses done up tight!! ABS / DSC, LOG, and the two buttons on the dash which can be remotely activated


Back light for the dash, oil warning light, and a battery charge light all wired in and working


Cockpit suitable for a co.. you get the idea


Mounted a gopro up front - this was connected to a 5v motorbike USB charger point meant for a motorbike, so its powered from the car. Its also connected to the racecapture datalogger via wifi so is turned on/off, and syncronised with any data logging



Door cards fitted on driver and passenger side..



Had some nice bolts made to mount tow straps to the standard towing holes - these use a weird thread, so were machined by CNC by someone with far better kit than me! Turned out (no pun intended) really nice.. ..extra surprise, they were made in titanium - TOTAL overkill!!


Few stickers here and there..




MOT and alignment done..


And then off to the track!

[smallspeed]

OK, OK.. It didn't go that smoothly! Things never do..
About 10 days before the rockingham trackaddict track day (2018) I put the car in for an MOT in the next village - proper villagey garage (bruntingthorpe motor engineers) and it failed! That wouldn't be so bad, but the next day i flew off to the states for a week with work..

Armed with a long list, when I got back to the UK I got stuck in - 3hrs sleep, then heavily jet lagged I started working through it. Nothing major, just lots of things like labeling random switches, fixing an exhaust hangar, some proper clips for brake lines, etc. There was one bigger issue whcih is one of the exhaust manifolds is leaking around the boss where it joins the centre of the exhaust system. Real bugger to do on the car - bad enough to do it off the car! I decided to gun-gum this (OH, THE SHAME!! ) and will repair properly over the winter

I then headed back to the MOT centre the day before the track day - Friday AM.. PASSED!
Friday PM, went to get the alignment done in Market Harborough - DONE..

Headed home, I decided to give it a few revs for the first time - I'd literally not taken it above about 2750rpm until this point.. Theres a 1/2 mile long straight road about 1 mile from my house, so I decided to give it some beans - took it to about 5000rpm along the straight in 3rd and it pulled like a train!.. then, I kind of coasted down to a sharp 90-degree corner, big smile on face. HORRENDOUS noise, and the power steering died! I just about muscled it around the corner, then insinctively cut the engine and coasted down the hill most of the way home. I then started it, drove about 200yds onto the drive and killed it immediately and hopped out.. The damn water pump pulley had literally exploded! Took the fan belt out, fortunately everything else looked ok

I sat watching some BS on the telly for about 20mins feeling sorry for myself, then I thought "F*** this" and got back on it.. I pulled everything to bits, managed to get a new belt and a pulley ordered for Sat morning 9AM, everything else looked ok
Sat morning - lie in, headed to parkers for 9 on the dot (got there at 8:50 - parts were already in) home for about 9:20, parts on the car by 10 and everything checked over again..

Test drive? NOPE! Packed my crap into the car, headed to Rockingham - about 40mins from me. Got there, got signed on, about 1/2hr - 40mins before the lunch break at 12. Decided to let the car cool down, and check it over at the end of lunch and try a few sessions during the afternoon

Start of the day the weather was GRIM! Nothing like 2017, but over lunch it started drying out. I had a few tentative laps, a few checks, a few tentative laps, etc., etc. - car appeared to be ok. I kept the revs under about 3750 as the engine had done hardly any miles since the rebuild and so wanted to get it a bit run-in. Despite my best efforts I'd just not had time to do this before the track day..
Car felt great; without the revs it wasn't particularly quick, but around the corners the chassis felt great!
Towards the end of the day, the heavens opened again, and most people disappeared - I spent the last 45mins or so on track slithering around chasing a ginetta g40. My lack of revs and his lack of power, combined with both of our lack of grip made it very entertaining! Eventually the fun being brought to an end by the marshalls "chequered flagging" us off the track at 5pm!

So a tough run to get to the track day, but a huge amount of fun!
Still a lot left to do, but the car is now trackable and looks close to finished (even though in all honesty it will prob never BE finished )

Thanks for reading this far - I will continue to update as-and-when, but for the time being, a few photos from Rockingham including a few snaps with "Calsy Motorsport" and his e36 B&H STW tribute - he was a huge help with decals for my car and did a fantastic job particularly "clifford" (the dragon)
Unfortunately no onboard footage or action shots, but will rectify this another time..

[hot66]

Car looks great Ben are you keeping it de-spoilered or are you tempted with a big wing

[smallspeed]

I’ll keep it as is - it’s far more capable than me anyway
They were really the last BTCC cars I really loved as they didn’t have all the aero stuff on them and I kind of like that “race on a Sunday / sell on a Monday” attitude from back then
There will be more fiddling (watch this space) but overall the concept will remain as-is

[King_Jut]

Looks superb Ben, well done!

[KS]

Fabulous!

[smallspeed]

Thanks guys, really glad people have enjoyed reading along.. Almost embarrassing that something I've put together in my spare time in a single garage (mostly) has gained a following in different corners of t'internet

[jjeffries]

Good for you, I've followed this thread of your lovely car and admire the serious efforts as shown in all the hardcore details. Seems like yesterday that E36's were being sold new. John.