My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Ok, I've scrolled through a bunch of videos looking at the DCT temp gauges. On the hot side, the hottest I could find was 245ºF. I only found 1 instance above 240ºF. And I believe that was with the stock DCT cooler. In general, most everything else is under 230ºF, especially with the do88 cooler on there.

Typically, I don't run very long sessions because if I've been going for a fast lap time/personal best/time attack lap, the car can only do 3 of those kinds of hot laps when the weather is cool and 2 hot laps when it's hot out. If I back off and run a few seconds slower, the car can run much longer. Anyway, I mention this because maybe if someone always goes out and runs 30 minutes hot, perhaps they can build up more heat than me. But even in my short sessions, I'm generating some solid heat with a supercharger, slicks, aero, diff, suspension, etc.

Hope that helps.

Thank you.

So the Loctite 574 Slonik is suggesting works fine for our DCT. My brother was double checking the material data sheets. That's good news!

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by dogbone

People have been very gracious and I really appreciate it. When I was at Laguna a couple weeks ago, I was walking past an E90 M3, and the owner looked at me and said, "are you dogbone?" hehe It's always fascinating to hear the name "dogbone" spoken aloud by a stranger. Anyway, he was very nice and knew of this thread and said he learned from it. I love the community aspect of that..

Dogbone you are a famous person! hehe

Every now and then I've been talking with some BMW enthusiast who starts talking about rod bearings and a DIY on the forum hehe.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Dogbone you are a famous person! hehe

Every now and then I've been talking with some BMW enthusiast who starts talking about rod bearings and a DIY on the forum hehe.

hehe that DIY on rod bearings is way above my pay grade. Awhile back, I took one look at that and was like, uh, no. I just don't have the tech chops to pull something like that off. I can do basic things like pull and replace suspensions and brakes, but once it starts getting to the engine/drivetrain, I lose my nerve. I just don't have any technical background for that stuff. Wish I did though!

[admranger]

Originally Posted by dogbone

hehe that DIY on rod bearings is way above my pay grade. Awhile back, I took one look at that and was like, uh, no. I just don't have the tech chops to pull something like that off. I can do basic things like pull and replace suspensions and brakes, but once it starts getting to the engine/drivetrain, I lose my nerve. I just don't have any technical background for that stuff. Wish I did though!

I call BS.

You don't have the confidence. I've seen what you've written here. You can install brakes, you can do rod bearings.

Think about it: Those brakes are life and death if you screw up (on a track car for sure). Rod bearings are wallet killers if done wrong, but you aren't likely to die (self inflicted or spousal causes excluded). It's not rocket surgery. Undo bolts, redo bolts. Easy peasy.

Study SYT's DIY. Wait until August (heh -- that'll be fun) when there isn't a good track weekend for a while, and do it. Don't make me come out there...

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by admranger

I call BS.

You don't have the confidence. I've seen what you've written here. You can install brakes, you can do rod bearings.

Think about it: Those brakes are life and death if you screw up (on a track car for sure). Rod bearings are wallet killers if done wrong, but you aren't likely to die (self inflicted or spousal causes excluded). It's not rocket surgery. Undo bolts, redo bolts. Easy peasy.

Study SYT's DIY. Wait until August (heh -- that'll be fun) when there isn't a good track weekend for a while, and do it. Don't make me come out there...

hehe I don't know....there's a fair amount of disassembly before you can even get to the rod bearing part. I was cringing just looking at all the bolts from the oil pan stuck in the cardboard. haha No thanks!

I was happy to let EAS do it. Plus, they found both engine mounts completely snapped, and then had to figure out how to replace a damaged engine mounting bracket with the engine in place....uh yeah......no thanks!

Brakes are held on with 4 bolts--2 for the bracket, 2 for the caliper....done!.....THAT I can handle.

[dogbone]

I was able to drive the new rear brakes at both Buttonwillow and Big Willow this weekend.

Friday at Buttonwillow was simply a fun day. I wasn't chasing any records. It was hot---87ºF. Took my 15 year-old daughter to the track for the first time. I put my passenger seat in the car, and she went out with me. I have to give her props! She sat there very mellow on some pretty fast laps! It was a good day all-around----joked around with a bunch of guys and had fun driving.

On Sat, I participated in the Bimmer Challenge at Big Willow. Interesting day. I was hoping for a new personal best, but I fell short....I had a couple chances---I had two laps in the 1:26.x range going into Turn 8/9, which would have been good for a new best, but I caught another car on one lap in Turn 8, and I did a little landscaping work in Turn 9 on the other.....ah well. By the time I could get a clean lap in, it was around 80ºF and my best of the day was a 1:27.7. It was enough to take 1st place in the B1 Class of Bimmer Challenge (by .08 sec). The biggest bummer of the day occurred when I was putting my car back in the trailer. The spot in the paddock where I had to park was sloped downward (the paddock was crammed with people that showed up the night before....), and with the nose of the car pointed down more than usual, the splitter didn't raise high enough on the ramps, and the front of the splitter crunched into the end of the trailer door.....so frustrating. The splitter has some ugly marks on it. I'll have to get it checked out. Not sure if I have to replace it.

Anyway, the rear brakes worked well. I wasn't thinking much about them as I was driving, which I think is good. They seemed to work within the bounds of what I'm comfortable with.

This was my first time with the Essex front kit at Big Willow. Again, I feel like it is easier to bring the slicks to a howl with the Essex kit. My top GPS speeds on the front straight were 147 mph and the brakes easily brought that down for Turn 1.

I compared braking G's at Buttonwillow and they look similar to before. Again, I wasn't expecting a huge change from the rears, but you never know. I was wrong about the fronts (in that I didn't expect much change there either). Anyway, I'm happy to have all 4 corners set with AP Radi-Cals now!

I'm not sure when my next outing will be. It was a bummer to see almost 90ºF already at Buttonwillow. I guess the cool season is just about over....dang. This winter was a fun track season due to less rain this year. I am looking forward to Bimmerfest/Bimmer Challenge at Auto Club. That should be fun.

[dogbone]

The Group Buy of the Slon-Workshop DCT oil pan was a success. I have it in-hand. (There was a mixup in shipping, but the vendor was very proactive in helping to solve it, and SYT_Shadow made a generous offer to help solve it even quicker. SYT_Shadow offered to send me his pan because he didn't need it until June. Thanks for all the help! (A new pan is already on it's way to SYT_Shadow).)

Ok, this thing is a beauty! It really is a piece of CNC art. I mean c'mon, look at the inside of this thing! It looks like something from Star Wars. I sorta feel bad about slamming it on the bottom of my car.......only sorta bad though...



And they have nice packaging!!







The internal baffles looks great.



This spacer/suction extender is the thing that I REALLY hope helps solve the oil starvation issues. This will sit on the oil intake and make the system suck oil from lower in the pan. In my opinion, a deeper pan is only part of the solution. You have to do something about the suction coming from all the way at the top. I really hope this has a chance of solving the issue.





Due to the shipping issue, I ended up Skype-texting with the vendor. He fabricates quite a lot of custom one-off parts for their customers. Many of them are not sold to the public because they don't market them out, but they make all kinds of things---DCT oil line brackets, caliper brackets to make brakes fit that don't have any other way of fitting, rotor hats....very cool. I only heard of Slon-Workshop when I came across their DCT pan, but they have a pretty cool operation and seem to thrive on making creative solutions. (Slon means elephant in Russian.)

The pan is being installed on Thursday at minicorsa. (I'll try to get a couple pix.) I'll be on track with it Friday at Willow Springs. I don't really have shifting issues at Big Willow, but it will be a good place to shakedown the car. Buttonwillow, where I've been having the most issues, may have to wait until May.

[kyippee]

Great to see that you got one in hand! Mine is being installed Saturday. Would love to hear any thoughts you have from your install, so I can learn ahead of my appointment at a local shop. (Saturday install)

[rhyary]

Mine is still in custom.
it is being shipped to Autocouture which is 2 hours away from me.

So.... anyone doing the install, I will need your help with anything you find to make the install predictable so I can drive home same day.

Many times a day delay is no big deal, but for me it is a logistical nightmare if the job is held by a stupid unavailable washer.

I will be also installing the rebuilt actuators from Abdul at the same time.

My first track day for 2018 season is April 28th. I am already not sleeping at night from excitement.

Thanks in advance.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by kpewpew

Great to see that you got one in hand! Mine is being installed Saturday. Would love to hear any thoughts you have from your install, so I can learn ahead of my appointment at a local shop. (Saturday install)

Here are the tips I've gotten from slonik for the install:

-You need to buy Loctite 574 (Gasket Maker) - a single 50mL tube is capable of doing several pans. It looks very liquidy....more than you'd think. Takes an hour to set. (The first time I looked for it, Amazon didn't have it on Prime, but then a couple days later I looked again, and it was available via Prime. Got it next day.)
-The torque spec for the 14 pan bolts is 9 Nm (6.6 ft/lbs)
-Fill the trans normally until the fluid starts backing up. Then, lower the car to the floor. Jack it up as high as you can on the right side and add 1 more liter of trans fluid with the car sitting at an angle.

That's all I know at the moment. I'll let you know how it goes after I visit minicorsa.

[dogbone]

The Slon-Workshop DCT oil pan is on the car.



It went smoothly from what I can tell. The main thing is----don't be in a rush when you do it. Make sure you have plenty of time. You'll have to sit around for some time while the DCT fluid drains because you'll really need to be able to clean up the edges for the Loctite Gasket Maker. And then once the Loctite is on there, you should wait an hour for the Loctite to set. Just those two things will take awhile.

A couple of notes from the install:

-Be gentle when removing the white flat suction intake tube.
-When re-installing the suction intake with the red spacer attached to it, it takes a bit of a tap to get that thing to set on the vehicle's suction port. You'll find yourself trying to press it on and it's resisting going on there.
-Jacking the car up on the right side and slamming more fluid in there is....interesting. You really gotta get under the car to reach the filler hole, so MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SAFETY IN PLACE.

I didn't document with pictures at the DIY level of detail, but I took a few pictures for you guys to check out.

The white intake suction tube in it's original position. Sorry I didn't get it from the same angle as the next two pix.....:


White suction tube removed:


Suction tube reinstalled with the red Slon spacer in there. You can see it sits lower as a result.


Moved the magnet from the OEM to the Slon pan:


Comparison showing the depth of the two pans side-by-side:


General shot to show the baffles of the two pans:


We put the felt DCT cover back on there because it does fit over the pan, but it touches the pan. I'm not really sure what was the right thing to do there.....Obviously, we are reducing the pan's ability to cool with the cover on there. But I think I would rather have stuff from the track hit that felt cover instead of the pan itself. The felt cover does have vents in the front so air can get in there.....who knows.

The pan obviously sits lower than stock (duh). It's just a bit lower than both the x-pipe tubes and the front-center jack point. I believe it's a new low spot on the bottom of the car. I'm not worried about it; just thought I'd mention it.

[kyippee]

Slonik did suggest to me to get Banjo bolts and a cap, so we wouldn't have to jack up the car on one side to add extra fluid. Was there a specific reason you didn't go this route? I have the parts sitting here for my install Saturday.

[rcracin]

Jacking up the car on once side to get more fluid in there is pretty slick. You should still follow the fill instructions per bmw nevertheless. I think it involves starting the car and revving to 2 or 2.5k for a bit to get the pump going and cycle fluid through. Gotta do that a few times if I recall correctly.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by rcracin

Jacking up the car on once side to get more fluid in there is pretty slick. You should still follow the fill instructions per bmw nevertheless. I think it involves starting the car and revving to 2 or 2.5k for a bit to get the pump going and cycle fluid through. Gotta do that a few times if I recall correctly.

Yup I was in the car holding the revs at 2k while it was being filled.

[dogbone]

I went to Big Willow today and, while I had a good lap time result, it was tough from a technical standpoint. (The Slon DCT pan was fine.)

Willow Springs has always been a tough track for me. Tracks like Auto Club Speedway and Willow Springs are about sheer will power. If you can tune out the wall at ACS, and you can tune out the craziness of Turn 8/9 at Big Willow, you can achieve very good times. Historically, I have not been good at tuning those things out. Building speed at ACS and Big Willow has been a verrrrrry gradual process for me over several years.

Also, I don't go to Big Willow that often. My previous personal best of 1:27.5 at Big Willow has been around since April 2016 and that was with MDM on. I only went twice in 2017, and I concentrated on learning how to drive the track with DSC off. DSC-off was a mental leap for me at that track, and I wasn't fast there in 2017.

A few weeks ago at Bimmer Challenge, I was really hoping I could bust out a new best, and I had some 1:26.x laps going but I couldn't get a full lap in due to catching a car and going 4-off in Turn 9, so the hunt continued. After looking at my performance in the data, I decided that I have been doing a terrible job in Turns 3/4/5 (the Omega). I just never knew what to do in that spot. I talked to a bunch of people, watched some tutorial videos and came up with a strategy on how to attack that part of the track.

Speed District had a day at Big Willow today. With my new DCT pan, I figured this would be a good track to do some shakedown, and also take one more crack at the track. The Pirelli DH were the same ones from Bimmer Challenge. They had 15+ heat cycles now, but I figured they still had something left in them.

First session, I went out and caught someone in Turn 8 on the first hot lap. Then I was sliding around in the Omega on the second hot lap. The third hot lap was ok and I drove 1:27.02....I backed off, took a cool down lap, and then gave it one more try, and I put down a 1:26.07. Phew. In that 1:26 lap, I was really clean in Turns 3/4/5 and that was the spot where I really gained solid time on ALL my previous laps.

Here's video with data:

After two sessions, the day was cut short by tech issues. Heard some clicking in the pits while going slow. Found two broken studs and upon further investigation, some cracking in the front driver hub. Day was over. Need to investigate that further.

The Slon-Workshop DCT pan worked well during the two sessions. The car was shifting fine. But, as I said before, I never really had shifting issues at Big Willow. I wish I could have driven it more, but it just wasn't in the cards today.

Anyway, after today's lap time result, I do believe that with fresh tires and some more intelligent braking that a 1:24.x is possible. But I have no plans to go to Big Willow with fresh tires any time soon....

[SYT_Shadow]

I didn't know the hubs could crack

Glad the day went fine, now for the next time! Too bad you don't do Big Willow often

[Richbot]

Quicker than Sabine in the ZL1LE! Huzzah!

They can if you have 8 billion horsepower and no air blowing on stuff to cool the hubs #ductevalengism

Sorry can’t resist pushing my religion on here

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

I didn't know the hubs could crack

Glad the day went fine, now for the next time! Too bad you don't do Big Willow often

I have a feeling that going off in Turn 9 a month ago had something to do with it. Maybe the hub/wheel took an impact, although the rims appear to be ok. Perhaps I may consider retiring this set of rims. They're one of my original sets.

I could go to Big Willow more. It's not far away from me (85 miles). But it is SO brutal on tires, and the track surface is not very pleasant, the berms are a sad sight----so beat up, and going off there exacts a high price to car parts and paint jobs. So, while I know I could continue to improve there, yesterday's lap is enough for me for now.

I would like to get up to Sonoma and Thunderhill with slicks. Haven't gone to either of those places with slicks yet. I think I could drop a decent amount of time at both of those places with decent tires and weather and a bit more practice.

That's what I love about motorsport----there's ALWAYS something to improve on. hehe do you think I'm turning over in my head if I gave away a 1:25.x yesterday because I was lazy and left my 30 lbs passenger seat in? You bet I am!!! Is 30 lbs worth .08 sec on a high speed 2.5 mile course? Maybe!!! Or did it give the car a bit of ballast? hahaha Maybe!!!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by Richbot

Quicker than Sabine in the ZL1LE! Huzzah!

They can if you have 8 billion horsepower and no air blowing on stuff to cool the hubs #ductevalengism

Sorry can’t resist pushing my religion on here

hehe in fairness to Sabine, she did a standing start!

I'll look into ducting. Thanks for the thought!

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by dogbone

I have a feeling that going off in Turn 9 a month ago had something to do with it. Maybe the hub/wheel took an impact, although the rims appear to be ok. Perhaps I may consider retiring this set of rims. They're one of my original sets.

I could go to Big Willow more. It's not far away from me (85 miles). But it is SO brutal on tires, and the track surface is not very pleasant, the berms are a sad sight----so beat up, and going off there exacts a high price to car parts and paint jobs. So, while I know I could continue to improve there, yesterday's lap is enough for me for now.

I would like to get up to Sonoma and Thunderhill with slicks. Haven't gone to either of those places with slicks yet. I think I could drop a decent amount of time at both of those places with decent tires and weather and a bit more practice.

That's what I love about motorsport----there's ALWAYS something to improve on. hehe do you think I'm turning over in my head if I gave away a 1:25.x yesterday because I was lazy and left my 30 lbs passenger seat in? You bet I am!!! Is 30 lbs worth .08 sec on a high speed 2.5 mile course? Maybe!!! Or did it give the car a bit of ballast? hahaha Maybe!!!

I would retire those rims for sure. Maybe move onto something like the BW TE:AL

I know what you mean about ballast. Sometimes I consider draining the windshield wiper reservoir

[rhyary]

I agree about the passenger or passenger seat.
When I take a passenger for a session at NYST it costs me 2 sec.

I got rid of 120 lbs for 2018 season by replacing the front OEM seats with Recaro. This and moving to front 275/30/19 from 265/30/19 should help with dropping laptime.

My best is 1:37.2 and I hope to get to the 1:35 range. will see

[admranger]

Originally Posted by dogbone

hehe in fairness to Sabine, she did a standing start!

I'll look into ducting. Thanks for the thought!

Ducting will extend the life of brake rotors and pads. Just have to be careful on colder days to block off some of the cooling to avoid over cooling them.

When was the last time you changed your wheel studs? They are a service item on a regular interval.