My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by RobE92M3

The Snow controller definitely sounds like the way to go. Thanks. Couldn't find the kit on EAS website. Will try and give them a call.

Yeah, you gotta call them. It's a kit they put together upon request. It's worked well for me over the years. As long as you run distilled water, the nozzles last a long time. I was lazy at first and just ran tap water-----big mistake. Clogged really fast. Since running distilled, I never had an issue.

The pressure switch I use broke once. They're cheap. Now, I keep spares around if it ever goes down again. I could switch that out in a couple minutes. The Snow controller is definitely a nice solution. I'm not sure if EAS sells those.

[RobE92M3]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Yeah, you gotta call them. It's a kit they put together upon request. It's worked well for me over the years. As long as you run distilled water, the nozzles last a long time. I was lazy at first and just ran tap water-----big mistake. Clogged really fast. Since running distilled, I never had an issue.

The pressure switch I use broke once. They're cheap. Now, I keep spares around if it ever goes down again. I could switch that out in a couple minutes. The Snow controller is definitely a nice solution. I'm not sure if EAS sells those.

Awesome, thanks for the info.

BTW - couple photos of my track car at WGI. Probably one of the only 240's properly used and not drifted!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by RobE92M3

BTW - couple photos of my track car at WGI. Probably one of the only 240's properly used and not drifted!

Looks good. You got some crazy aero going on the front there!

There's a dude out here in SoCal that has a crazy 240 built for time attack. He's a very good driver, and the car is very fast. Super nice guy too: Will Wattanawongkiri. Check out his racing page:

https://www.facebook.com/teamwwr/

[dogbone]

I wanted to give an initial update on the do88 DCT cooler.

I've been able to drive the new do88 DCT cooler a few times at Buttonwillow.

From looking at the temp gauge data, I can say that the do88 cooler is sending significantly cooler oil back to the transmission than the stock DCT cooler. It's coming back from the cooler in some cases 30+ degrees cooler than the stock cooler. As a result, the hot oil is leaving the transmission around 5-10º cooler than with the stock cooling unit.

In the image below, I've comped together three images. The top image is simply so you can clearly see the gauge numbers. The lower two images use the GoPro recordings inside my car to compare the stock cooler to the do88 on two different days at Buttonwillow during mid-60ºF winter air. The ambient air of both sessions was virtually the same temperature both days---only 1º different according to the AIM. And I ran decently quick hot laps in both sessions so the car had a chance to heat up in both cases. The images I captured were the max temps of the cooled oil in both sessions while running hard on track. (It's easy to quickly scroll through a GoPro video and see how the temp gauge needles move. I ignored temp readings when I wasn't running hard or was coming back into the pits because the cooled oil could get hotter since not as much air was flowing in and those temps don't matter.)

Results:

Stock OEM DCT cooling:
Hot oil leaving: 218ºF
Cooled oil returning: 185ºF

do88 cooler:
Hot oil leaving: 210ºF
Cooled Oil returning: 153ºF

Hot oil 218-210 = 8º cooler
Cooled oil 185-153 = 32º cooler than stock cooling



During this winter time driving, I'd say the do88 cooler seems to give you on average around 25ºF cooler oil returning from the cooler than the stock unit.

It will be some time before the air temps get hot again. I'll be curious how it performs when it's hot out.

As far as the vehicle's performance--I haven't noticed any changes in the car's driving yet. Honestly, it's only been a couple days. I'll drive it more soon, but I wanted to give everyone a head's up that I am satisfied that the do88 cooler seems to be having a positive effect.

[roastbeef]

awesome!

[redpriest]

Thanks for the hard data dogbone - I'm convinced you will be just as happy as I was in 110 degree weather at Buttonwillow when there is absolutely zero shift lag. I'm glad we have positive empirical evidence to back it up!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by redpriest

Thanks for the hard data dogbone - I'm convinced you will be just as happy as I was in 110 degree weather at Buttonwillow when there is absolutely zero shift lag. I'm glad we have positive empirical evidence to back it up!

hehe there's nothing happy about hitting the track when the air temps are 110ºF. I stay home!

[SYT_Shadow]

Thanks for the info on do88

I went full retard and got their full kit for the DCT E90. Can't wait to install it

[macdude357]

Originally Posted by dogbone

I wanted to give an initial update on the do88 DCT cooler.

Good to hear. I was at Chuckwalla earlier this month and had the DCT act up (slow shifts and queuing shifts) on my on the second day (it was about 10 degrees hotter than the first). I had purchased one of these on the classified forums and I was going to wait until summer to install it but after my issues at Chuckwalla I went ahead and put it in for the 3/4 Buttonwillow date. Hopefully my DCT woes are behind me.

[dogbone]

hehe let's file this latest installment under Analysis, but really, we should put it in the crying-in-my-spilled-milk folder.....

I hate to be the guy blaming the hardware, buuuuut.......I gotta blame the hardware on this one.......

On Friday, I was driving with Speed District at Buttonwillow 13CW, and I exited Sweeper 0.5 seconds faster than my fastest 1:48.07 lap from February. I was on a 1:47.6 pace with less than 3000 feet left. I exited Sweeper, started heading up the Esses in 3rd gear, shifted to 4th----and the DCT double upshifted to 5th. Argh! The acceleration was killed off. I battled the car back into 4th gear and kept going as quick as I could, but it was a mess. In all that stupidness, I lost about 0.6 seconds. The lap ended up as a 1:48.3. Up until that shift, I was on the fastest single lap of my life.

I took a screenshot from the AIM software to illustrate the mess. In the picture below, the lap in question is colored Red. For comparison, I included 5 other laps, colored Black. Some of the laps were done on slower tires just to illustrate how lame this moment was. The AIM software cursor is set at the exit of Sweeper at 11100 feet down the track.

The reference lap in this picture is a 1:48.07. The first thing to note is the Yellow circle in the bottom right corner. You can see that where the cursor is, the Red lap is 0.499 seconds faster than the 1:48.07. So, it would be fair to say that I am on a 1:47.58 at this point.

The next thing to look at is the small Yellow circle in the middle of the picture. This chart shows the gear that the car is in. To the left of the yellow circle, you can see that ALL laps are in 3rd gear as I finish Sweeper. Then at slightly different times on all the laps in the Yellow circle, I shift to 4th gear. But then on the Red lap, you can see the DCT shifts again to 5th gear. ARGH! It does this on it's own sometimes. I am QUITE certain that I am not pulling the shifter twice. You just never know when it will happen. It is quite maddening. So then you see I try to get it back into 4th, and then I finally go up to 5th.

The last thing to look at is how the speed was affected. The large Yellow oval at the top of the picture shows the comparison of the speeds going up the Esses. You can see that at the moment of the double upshift, the speed line flattens out and doesn't keep up at all with any of the other lines----even the speed profiles of 1:50 and 1:53 laps on slower tires......



This lap was the second 1:48 lap in a row, so the car had been under a fair amount of stress already. The DCT double upshifted earlier in this same lap while exiting Off-Ramp. I was able to get it back into 3rd gear quickly. I definitely lost a little time there too, but not like after Sweeper. I am finding that when I push the car very hard for a couple laps in a row, I get some unpredictability in the gear shifts. I don't know whether to blame the VF tune on the supercharger, or blame the GTS-DCT software......whatever it is, it's damned annoying. Does this happen to anyone else?

I actually really enjoyed the afternoon time with Speed District on Friday. They went to an Open Track format (with point-by required) at 3PM and I ran a ton of laps (on slower tires). I think I stayed out there for almost 40 minutes during one of my open track sessions. I don't think I've ever stayed out there that long before. The weather made it possible for the engine to keep going, so I stayed out there. I learned quite a few things by doing so many laps at one time. I like how you get into a flow lap after lap. This is the one thing that bums me out about my car---it's really good for a couple hot laps and that's it. Sometimes I wish I had a car that could do 10 full-on hot laps in a row at any air temp.

[roastbeef]

that is kinda weird... i wonder if the cooler, tune, and hard use is messing with it. doesn't it do something like skip gears when it goes into limp mode?

[redpriest]

I've only had my car autoshift up several gears when the transmission was crying uncle in the middle of summer - it shifted all the way up into 7th.

Maybe something wrong with your gear lever switches?

[M3 Number 86]

can you bring in various temp readings into your graph? maybe there is a big change there?

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by M3 Number 86

can you bring in various temp readings into your graph? maybe there is a big change there?

Here's the chart with the ambient air temps included. I've highlighted on the left side not only the ambient air temps for the March 31 laps, but you can also see the oil temps and coolant temps. There's no smoking gun there.

The offending lap was 58ºF which is the lowest temp shown from March 31. The 1:48.1 was also 58ºF since it was the same session. (The lap from February was 51ºF, so on the graph you can see one more black temp line below the Red line.) And the oil and water temps were not outrageous.

On my DCT oil temp gauges, the hottest the hot DCT oil leaving the transmission got was right at the end of the second hot lap, which was 210ºF and the hottest the returning cooled oil got was also right at the end of the second hot lap, which was around 160ºF. These are also not high temps. They can easily be 225ºF-hot/190ºF-cooled on a warm day.

[///Mobbin]

I've never had my DCT auto-upshift on me but will certainly be watching for it now, very interesting.

[joe@trinityautosport]

Gabe....do tell your new setup. Pirelli slicks?

[roastbeef]

why the different front/rear brake pads? i'm particularly curious as to how you wound up with what you keep running.
race pads are expensive, and it is dissuading me from experimenting with different compounds.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

why the different front/rear brake pads? i'm particularly curious as to how you wound up with what you keep running.
race pads are expensive, and it is dissuading me from experimenting with different compounds.

Several years ago, I was given advice from someone who races a lot: try Cobalt Friction pads---great stopping power and easier on rotors than some others. I decided to try a set. The set I received ended up having some mixup. So, I contacted Cobalt Friction. And immediately, the owner of Cobalt responded and he jumped on it to take of care of the error. He let me keep what I had mistakenly gotten and fixed it and sent me hats and a t-shirt. GREAT service. And nice guy. As a result of this error, we ended up talking on the phone and I started asking questions. The owner of Cobalt is actually the one mixing the compounds, so he's super knowledgable. And he was now giving me direct advice based on my car and my setup. He is the one who recommended the XR2/XR3 combo.

So, as far as I can tell, I'm getting the best advice anyone could ask for when it comes to brake pads.

If you're curious about Cobalt Friction, PM me and I can send you details on how to contact them.

[dogbone]

OK, let's file this one under "Badge of Honor".........

While I was at Auto Club on Sunday, I---uhhhh----lost something while I was on track. You have EXACTLY one guess to tell me what's missing.... (It was on there at the beginning of the day!)



Start of the day pic: It's on there! hehe----so does this give me some sort of bragging rights? Damn, now I need a new one.....

[roastbeef]

fender latches look much better painted. when are you going to get some headlight blanks?

[warp10]

Why the fender latches?

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by warp10

Why the fender latches?

The bumper was pulling away from the fender due to the downforce. At Auto Club Speedway in 2016, the bumper pulled that flat metal hanger between the bumper and fender so far down that the sharp tip of the hanger was poking into the edge of the tire and grinding it like a cheese grater. Yuck. So we took all that stuff out and put the latches in. Problem solved. I drove at Auto Club this weekend and last weekend going 156mph (GPS) on the Oval and no issues.