My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

ninekrpm wrote

There is no journey without the stories...glad you had a successful weekend. What combination of tyres did you end up using to get the blazing fast 147?

Thanks!

The original plan was to buy new Michelin S8M and run them once or twice at 13CW, and then have them fairly fresh for Chuckwalla. But I ruined the rears at 13CW on the first run, so I had to compromise. I had Pirelli DH that had been bought new that had about 10 runs on them. So I ran the undamaged S8M on the front and DH in the rear.

The newer S8M’s were faster than the older DH. No surprise there. So I had to manage the rear of the car while the front was sticking to the ground quite nicely.

Not an ideal setup, but I was working with what I had.

Btw, I did run the damaged S8M on Sat in the rear to see if raising the car helped. They were fine. But I didn’t want to risk it on Sunday in competition.
Looking back, I should have tried them 2nd session since I had a banker lap. Ah whatever. It’s fine. I was distracted by a bunch of things on Sunday. Had some friends from my neighborhood in CO visit the track, was trying to help okusa with his car. So I wasn’t super focused.

Good to see ya, Gabe!

I'm really hoping I have a handle on my ABS/DSC/electrical thing going on. Ironically enough I think it has zero to do with thinning the harness. I should know by today when the new column and clock spring assembly arrive.

Noted on the fuses though... I'll bring some to COTA. Any other must-haves to bring with, in your experience?

berns wrote

Good to see ya, Gabe!

I'm really hoping I have a handle on my ABS/DSC/electrical thing going on. Ironically enough I think it has zero to do with thinning the harness. I should know by today when the new column and clock spring assembly arrive.

Noted on the fuses though... I'll bring some to COTA. Any other must-haves to bring with, in your experience?

Hey Alex. Great to see ya back out there. Car looks insane---a huge commitment to the E9x M3 platform. I'm glad people are doing awesome builds with this platform. All you guys building these fantastic light builds are making me nostalgic to when I did my build----10 fricking years ago hahahaha Sigh---my car is looking like a dinosaur now with all the full wiring harness crap hanging around like the gallows. All you guys have such clean looking builds! I would love to update my build to keep up with you guys, but it seems like all my money just goes to keeping it running at this point.... (In my last post, I was just talking about how several things need to be pulled off and rebuilt.)

Hope you can get stuff sorted quickly. Given that you can only make the ABS issue happen on track, how will you know in the shop if the column and clock spring assembly fix it?

As far as what to bring to COTA, call me some time. We can go over what you have and might need. Basically, you need everything. I don't think about it too much because everything I use is already in my trailer, and it has to be somewhat self sufficient since it's my home away from home. Hopefully with SDC Racing Team, you guys can share a bunch of resources/equipment. Obviously, a garage is a must. Hopefully the SDC team rented garage spots that are together? At COTA, a single garage can hold four cars.

I feel like it's worth repeating here what I said to you over the weekend, so everyone hears it. Do not go to COTA with a car that is not sorted out. I made that mistake in 2021, and it sucked. COTA will expose every weakness in your car. It's a very demanding track. If there are suspension setup shortcomings, the challenging course will expose those weaknesses. Fuel delivery problems are exacerbated by the turns and elevation changes. Brakes better be tip-top. Your engine/tune/power delivery better be in a happy place and running solid. Don't drop in that supercharger last second and assume everything is cool. Tires better be up to the task---best to show up with at least two sets, and more if you do a practice day. Usually, there is a mobile tire service at COTA, but they aren't super quick.

What I've done the last two trips to COTA for SLB was to hire a local tech team to support me. Usually, I do my own general support/tech, but when I'm so far away from home in a competition where I've committed a lot of resources, it is nice to have someone to help if there are problems. At the 2021 SLB, when I had the power steering issues, the tech team worked their asses off to fix it---replaced the power steering pump and the steering rack in the COTA garage----stuff I could never do on my own. Ultimately, it didn't get me back on the track, but with them replacing that stuff, my weekend wasn't over right from the beginning. I kept taking it out and testing it throughout the event. If SDC Racing Team wants some local tech support muscle, let me know. I can make some calls.

And go get some Texas BBQ while down there! Pre-order Franklin BBQ today for pickup while you're there. You need to do it many weeks in advance because the pre-order sells out. Order a bunch and have someone pick it up and bring it to the track. (There's a 5 lbs minimum for online pre-order.) It's 20 minutes away. Franklin always has a multi-hour line that forms at 6AM and they run out of food, but you can pre-order today for a date and time of your choosing and skip the line. Also, try Terry Black's BBQ. You can walk in there for dinner and still get brisket.

Just got word today from fsmtnbiker that they’re tearing down the curved Turn 1 wall at The Circuit at Buttonwillow.

Wow. I wonder how they’ll blend cars onto the track now during an active track session.

Check this out:

Let’s file this one under: ah maintenance cycles….the most fun part of motorsport.

Yesterday, I removed my suspension to send to MCS for rebuild/refresh. It’s been on the car for just under 4 1/2 years, and MCS recommends a rebuild at 5 years (if you’re not logging the hours or mileage which I don’t). When I released the nitrogen pressure from both rear canisters, there was a cloud of damper oil that was released along with the nitrogen. Argh. I’m going to assume a failure in the bladder between the oil and nitrogen was the cause of the car sitting lower and rubbing tires so badly. Who knows how much the damping was affected…..

So let’s recap—-while trying for a new PB at 13CW on new Michelins, I had two broken rear hubs, rear rotor hats not sitting flush against the hub flanges, and two rear canisters with compromised bladders. Definitely a recipe for success. Oh wait—I smell diff fluid all the time now, so I suspect the diff is probably aging out as well. It’s getting pulled soon and getting rebuilt after 10 years in the car.

And I was still on 1:46 pace on 13CW with all this nonsense?! (before being blocked in the final turn.) Makes me wonder what could I have done if the car was actually working!!!?? Geez, the only thing not broken in the rear are the axles. (Please don’t break!)

Anyway, now I’m quite curious to hear what MCS reports back when they open everything up.

So, all this to say—- stay on top of your maintenance boys and girls!

Dang man, sounds like the entire rear end decided it had enough

Hey Dogbone, maybe I missed it somewhere in this long thread, but you mentioned you have a water sprayer to keep your IATs down from the supercharger. I did not see a detailed post on this but can you describe it a little more? Does it spray the supercharger heat exchanger at a certain boost pressure or its on a switch and you spray at will? Any idea how it affects your IATs? Where is the water reservoir? Appreciate any input! Thank you!

SalimM3 wrote

Hey Dogbone, maybe I missed it somewhere in this long thread, but you mentioned you have a water sprayer to keep your IATs down from the supercharger. I did not see a detailed post on this but can you describe it a little more? Does it spray the supercharger heat exchanger at a certain boost pressure or its on a switch and you spray at will? Any idea how it affects your IATs? Where is the water reservoir? Appreciate any input! Thank you!

It’s no longer installed. The main reason it’s not installed anymore is that I’m on my 3rd motor and it just didn’t get swapped over again and again.

EAS created it. My version of it activated via a Hobbs switch at a certain boost level. (You can get a Snow controller that activates at certain gas pedal input.)

There were 5 spray nozzles—2 on the main coolant radiator, two on the oil cooler and 1 on the DCT cooler.

The reservoir was the windshield washer reservoir diverted to this task. It held about a gallon, which was good for about a session. You HAD to use distilled water or the nozzles would clog immediately.

I found that when running flat out full blast max TT pace, it would give me one more hot lap versus when it was not running, which is not bad since I only get two hot laps without it. In TT, the tires get heated up and don’t do more than 2 top speed laps anyway.

I don’t have data on the temp difference with and without.

dogbone wrote

It’s no longer installed. The main reason it’s not installed anymore is that I’m on my 3rd motor and it just didn’t get swapped over again and again.

EAS created it. My version of it activated via a Hobbs switch at a certain boost level. (You can get a Snow controller that activates at certain gas pedal input.)

There were 5 spray nozzles—2 on the main coolant radiator, two on the oil cooler and 1 on the DCT cooler.

The reservoir was the windshield washer reservoir diverted to this task. It held about a gallon, which was good for about a session. You HAD to use distilled water or the nozzles would clog immediately.

I found that when running flat out full blast max TT pace, it would give me one more hot lap versus when it was not running, which is not bad since I only get two hot laps without it. In TT, the tires get heated up and don’t do more than 2 top speed laps anyway.

I don’t have data on the temp difference with and without.

any issues with water going through the dct cooler and wetting the passenger front tire, or does the water pretty much vaporize when it hits the cooler?

roastbeef wrote

any issues with water going through the dct cooler and wetting the passenger front tire, or does the water pretty much vaporize when it hits the cooler?

I was not aware of any issues of water on the front tire. It’s not a lot of water. A gallon of water spread across 5 nozzles—only one that is near a tire—that takes 10-15 minutes to be sprayed in a pretty fine mist. And it’s not spraying in corners because it only sprays when boost is high which would be on straights. And as you mentioned the cooler is pretty hot, so a fine mist is probably evaporating to some extent.

I will say that in the many years I ran it, I never saw any residual water anywhere on my car. But that reservoir was empty after every session.

Anyway, if that one nozzle made someone uncomfortable, they could just eliminate it from the setup.

dogbone wrote

It’s no longer installed. The main reason it’s not installed anymore is that I’m on my 3rd motor and it just didn’t get swapped over again and again.

EAS created it. My version of it activated via a Hobbs switch at a certain boost level. (You can get a Snow controller that activates at certain gas pedal input.)

There were 5 spray nozzles—2 on the main coolant radiator, two on the oil cooler and 1 on the DCT cooler.

The reservoir was the windshield washer reservoir diverted to this task. It held about a gallon, which was good for about a session. You HAD to use distilled water or the nozzles would clog immediately.

I found that when running flat out full blast max TT pace, it would give me one more hot lap versus when it was not running, which is not bad since I only get two hot laps without it. In TT, the tires get heated up and don’t do more than 2 top speed laps anyway.

I don’t have data on the temp difference with and without.

Active Autowerkes made an alcohol injection system that sounds like it is a similar design with a hobbs switch to activate a nozzle. This system injected into the intake air stream. It was a mix of iso alcohol and distilled water. It worked ok and kept the MAF and intake tubing clean!

But I was always at Walgreens buying iso alcohol. I became a regular and I'm sure the employees were thinking "WTF is wrong with this guy?"

bigjae1976 wrote

Active Autowerkes made an alcohol injection system that sounds like it is a similar design with a hobbs switch to activate a nozzle. This system injected into the intake air stream. It was a mix of iso alcohol and distilled water. It worked ok and kept the MAF and intake tubing clean!

But I was always at Walgreens buying iso alcohol. I became a regular and I'm sure the employees were thinking "WTF is wrong with this guy?"

haha they’re like, who wants to tell this guy he’s not supposed to drink the iso alcohol?

off topic, but i came across a video of you at road atlanta... how much fun was that track? i've been obsessed with the track and it is where i tune all of my cars in gran turismo. i just fell in love with the layout and flow of the corners.

Going to Hyperfest this year?

Gmark958 wrote

Going to Hyperfest this year?

Ahhhh no….the car is in California right now. That is a very cool event though. It was fun to be jammed in that paddock with a zillion other people. So much fun social time.

That was the event where I crashed during practice in T3. Would like to go back someday and actually participate in the event.

Are you going?

roastbeef wrote

off topic, but i came across a video of you at road atlanta... how much fun was that track? i've been obsessed with the track and it is where i tune all of my cars in gran turismo. i just fell in love with the layout and flow of the corners.

I just saw this post yesterday. Don’t know how I missed it a year ago. Figured I’d still answer it:

Over time, I’ve learned that, for me, judging my love or disdain for a track is a combination of several factors: the course layout/technical challenges, the quality/condition of the pavement, the facilities, the town surrounding the track along with the amenities. You know, it’s kind of a bummer to drive thousands of miles to end up 50 miles from any real services (Hello Chuckwalla!)

It seems everyone has a different priority/recipe for what makes a ‘great’ track. I will tell you for me personally, if I perceive a track to be very unforgiving if you put a wheel off, my enjoyment goes down. For instance, everyone I talk to LOVES Sonoma Raceway. Well, I just can’t get over how unforgiving that place is if you go off track.

Similarly, I find Road Atlanta to be quite unforgiving if you go off track. So, while I do find the flow of the track interesting, I did find myself wary of what seemed to be waiting to eat my car if things got out of hand. The pavement was ok. The facility was cool. And you can get great food in Atlanta. I went out and sought the best BBQ I could find.

Ok, the track itself—-Turn 1, if you have aero you can hold quite a bit of speed, but you need to build up to it. The front straight isn’t super fast or long, so you don’t want to give up all your speed in T1, and then you’re going uphill. So you want to maintain as much speed as you can, but it’s not easy. As you go up the hill, you need to learn where to place the car to go over the hump and the tight kink at the top of the hill. Then the Esses. There’s a lot of grip there and you need to build speed there. But you really need to be careful as you exit the Esses. There’s a dip or something as you finish the flat-ish berm on the right as you exit the Esses. If you go too hard on the gas too quickly as the tires unweight on the dip, your rear tires can spin, and then the car can spin. It’s a weird moment…..and there’s a wall waiting for you. As you approach T6, there’s trees hanging near the track, and different light conditions—sunny/cloudy/time of day, make it look different. I was new to the place, and felt it was hard to keep the same visual markers as the day wore on due to the different looks. T7 onto the back straight—you just need to keep everything tidy there because again, there are walls waiting for you if you get too aggressive. The back straight is fine. Nothing overly interesting. Then 10A-10B arrive and that’s a big downhill braking zone from very high speed. You need good brakes for that moment. Then into the 2 tight corners, followed by a big punch uphill. You crest that hill, which is another one of those spots where you just need to learn where to place the car before you crest. Then it’s off to the races downhill to the final turn. It’s a pretty wild turn onto the front straight. The pavement has a dip in it before the turn, the wall is right up against the track. hehe it’s quite a moment accelerating like a maniac down that hill and dealing with the final turn when you’re trying to finish a fast lap.

I enjoyed my time there, but I can’t say it’s a must-return for me any time soon. I had quite a bit of technical problems there that I don’t blame on the track—-loose rear wheel bearing (huge pain), and power steering issues. Luckily, there was a shop right next door to the track that handled both issues. But I lost 3 track days there due to the issues.

Ironically, the East Coast track that I would most want to return to is the track I crashed at—-VIR. Sometimes logic goes out the window…..

dogbone wrote

I just saw this post yesterday. Don’t know how I missed it a year ago. Figured I’d still answer it:

Over time, I’ve learned that, for me, judging my love or disdain for a track is a combination of several factors: the course layout/technical challenges, the quality/condition of the pavement, the facilities, the town surrounding the track along with the amenities. You know, it’s kind of a bummer to drive thousands of miles to end up 50 miles from any real services (Hello Chuckwalla!)

It seems everyone has a different priority/recipe for what makes a ‘great’ track. I will tell you for me personally, if I perceive a track to be very unforgiving if you put a wheel off, my enjoyment goes down. For instance, everyone I talk to LOVES Sonoma Raceway. Well, I just can’t get over how unforgiving that place is if you go off track.

Similarly, I find Road Atlanta to be quite unforgiving if you go off track. So, while I do find the flow of the track interesting, I did find myself wary of what seemed to be waiting to eat my car if things got out of hand. The pavement was ok. The facility was cool. And you can get great food in Atlanta. I went out and sought the best BBQ I could find.

Ok, the track itself—-Turn 1, if you have aero you can hold quite a bit of speed, but you need to build up to it. The front straight isn’t super fast or long, so you don’t want to give up all your speed in T1, and then you’re going uphill. So you want to maintain as much speed as you can, but it’s not easy. As you go up the hill, you need to learn where to place the car to go [...]

I really enjoyed RA but I agree it’s super unforgiving. Walls everywhere, watched a car go into the inside wall on the front straight halfway through the first day. And that blind hill is terrifying.

kolosy wrote

I really enjoyed RA but I agree it’s super unforgiving. Walls everywhere, watched a car go into the inside wall on the front straight halfway through the first day. And that blind hill is terrifying.

that's how i felt about TMP when i visited my gf in canada.

Turn 13 into the front straight is just pure WALL. lmao.

omgzirra_exe wrote

that's how i felt about TMP when i visited my gf in canada.

Turn 13 into the front straight is just pure WALL. lmao.

haha yeah—Sonoma’s final turn onto the front straight is like that—exits straight at a wall that is at the edge of the track. I’m sure I’ve told this story, but it’s worth telling it again. Early on in my track days, like 2014, I was in the Sonoma garage watching the cars turn onto the front straight. And a Miata plows the front/driver corner into the wall. I was like, oooooh well that guy’s day is done. WRONNNNG!!! That dude brings the Miata into the garage where I was hanging out, pulls out these massive metal shears. He quickly cuts off the mangled metal and GOES BACK OUT DURING THE SAME SESSION!!! I was gobsmacked. Never seen anything like that.

I was like, I will never be that hardcore……hahahahaha

dogbone wrote

Ahhhh no….the car is in California right now. That is a very cool event though. It was fun to be jammed in that paddock with a zillion other people. So much fun social time.

That was the event where I crashed during practice in T3. Would like to go back someday and actually participate in the event.

Are you going?

I was going to, but my truck was down for some work and my buddy, who's truck I was borrowing, needed it back.