It's been a long time since I made this thread. Lots of stuff has happened - starting my tracking journey, talking more with people in the E9X community, buying loads of stuff I can't rationally justify but hey, makes me happy, right? It's always fun to talk over DM about other peoples' visions for their cars, and pick up a bit of influence along the way.
Tracking
I started out my year with a track event over at Thunderhill East with Hooked on Driving. Had an amazing time - went back shortly after a month later for another day. I'm obsessed - I went from spending my time watching videos on E9X exhausts and people's street builds to watching time trial videos, figuring out how I'm going to go faster, what I need to go faster, wondering if I have a future in real racing of some sort... and of course, trying to figure out where I'm taking my career to be able to afford "motorsport" before I have to think about real responsibilities. More likely than not, this build thread will become more akin to a track journal that I hope to update over future years.
In the same vein, this exposed me to a wealth of information on these forums. Dogbone's thread, threads on how clutch-type differentials work, general pestering of
M3SQRD and
OG Shark about car suspension setups... it's a rabbit hole I've enjoyed pursuing. I just hope to balance all of this theory with real-life track time so I can apply it. The E9X track discord (and people I've met at the track) has been brilliant as well, and I've really been grateful for the friends I've made there - more on this later. It's a real community I'm glad to be part of, and funnily enough, I've even met "coworkers" at the company I work at through this as well. It feels strange to say that this rabbit hole has given an odd sense of purpose of future planning, but hey - I'm just along for the ride.
Car Changes
I'm sure that if you ask anyone at the track what a novice needs to get faster, they'll say "stock car, seat time". Yet, consumerism really bugs us all - surely no one is immune from the desire to buy the newest and shiniest things, right?
Months of accumulating parts resulted in:
- AP Racing CP9668 kit in ENP, from OG Shark
- DS1.11 pads up front
- Hotchkis sway bars (apparently out of stock in places with delayed production, but was able to source them from Bimmerworld)
- CMP roll center and bump steer correction shims
- CMP monoball rear lower camber arm bush
- CMP subframe raising bushes
- BBS RI-A in 18x10.5 ET22 (which fit without a hitch on the Nitrons)
- Continental ECF, 275/35/18
- Euro MDM
I had the chance to take these out onto the track, and everything felt perfect. At -2.8 and 34 PSI hot, I was getting perfect tire contact (as far as sidewall rollover, etc). I began to understand what people meant when they said the ECF liked a bit of slip angle, and the square setup really did increase playfulness of the car. By the second session, I was getting the hang of it a bit - turn 8 on Thunderhill East felt a bit scary with that much rotation at speed, but entering turn 9 and turn 10 felt like a revelation. Maybe there's still more to figure out how to dial in the car with the adjustable sways, but I should also spend more time with the setup as is to figure out what exactly I'm looking for. Session 2 today was probably my favorite session so far, and I'm excited to move up to intermediate.
Kerplunk
So, more time with the car would've been great, but that got cut short with a DCT malfunction. The car got the gear icon warning towards the end of session 2, I took my last lap as a cooldown and headed into the paddock. The car never moved again after that - it would instantly snap back into neutral if I tried to move it out. Guess that's it for the weekend, but maybe I'll be back in November after sorting all of this out. Real pity, too, as I was really looking forward to spending a whole weekend out on track instead of just a single day.
With that said, I can't thank the people that've helped me enough. From my instructor who helped me hunt down a 10mm wrench to try and reset the battery, the HoD host/guy in charge that managed to find an ISTA reader off a guy with a M2 CSR, the passerby that helped keep me company as I sat around trying to figure out what to do, and of course the guys at Vt Motorworks who stayed on the phone with me a fair bit trying to troubleshoot remotely. I've had the vast majority of the work done to my car there, and I can't appreciate or recommend them enough if anyone is looking for a shop in the Bay Area.
And of course, everyone in the E9X track discord -
derbo ,
omgzirra_exe ,
RugbyBro ,
Ximian . This was probably my most stressful experience with the car yet, being stranded pretty far from home with a dead car and a $1900 quote to tow back. Being able to rationalize the issue, and find faith that it might be an electrical issue - or rather, anything resolvable - does a lot to take the threat of a DCT replacement repair bill off the mind. It's still there... but at least I have a reasonable prayer that it won't be.
At least the car looks pretty, sitting motionless (still in the paddock until I can extract it tomorrow).
