My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[roastbeef]

i'm a fan of electric cars, but i don't look at them as performance cars or try to pretend electric cars can replace a car like the m3 for all around usability and performance.

i think SYT_Shadow is more voicing his disdain for misinformation and ignorance of people rather than for hate of the electric cars themselves. if you daily drove one and didn't try to pretend it is going to replace the feeling of the e9x m3, you'd love it. very usable cars for every day driving.

[//steve\\]

I'm fine with electric cars so long as the agenda isn't to eventually make it impossible (or absurdly expensive) for me to drive my gas powered car on the road. Unfortunately I think the way of the world is pushing so that some point in the future, and likely a long time from now, it will be illegal or cost prohibitive for 99.9% of people to actually enjoy their ancient technology.

At the end of the day this is truly my only real gripe.

[admranger]

With the phasing out of nuclear power and renewables being an intermittent source of power until better storage tech comes out, I’m struggling to see how we get the quads (quadrillion BTU’s) to provide the electricity needed to power electric vehicles. I have solar on my house in Vegas and I love it. It provides power to the grid when it needs it most. However, I’m not naive enough to think I could go off grid with my solar and some old i3 battery packs (though I’d love to). Something has to spin that generator and until we come up with something better at a price point that can compete with natural gas and coal, that’s going to come down to boiling water to produce steam. Without nuclear, that means your burning something.

I think the current sweet spot in vehicles is plug in hybrid tech. Had it in my X5 40e and I loved it. It was great in town on battery and great on the highway (as long as you put it in save battery mode so it kept 50% battery to provide a boost up hills). For all a
Electric, look at the Audi etron. You can swing lease deals for $450/month on a nearly $80k car because of tax breaks and incentives, but the damn thing can only go 200 miles. Not convenient when I want to go from Santa Fe to Vegas. One new etron owner lamented on leasehackr about his trip from SoCal to Phoenix. Chargers in Yuma were only putting out 10% of capacity so his 6 hour drive with the wife and kids became a 12 hour shitshow. Waiting in 112 deg f heat for the car to charge did not endear him to his family.

So when will you be adding a hybrid drive system to the E90?

[dogbone]

Let's file this one under: Duh. Finally.

I've been renting AMB timers for over 8 years from almost every event organizer I've ever run with. In truth, I've probably spent enough on AMB rentals to buy two or three of them. I have no idea why I never bought one before. Anyway, I went onto ebay and found a fairly fresh looking used one. I figured I'd go with an older one that doesn't need a subscription.

It came with the mounting bracket. Where do people put the AMB bracket on this chassis?

Yay!


Since my car is back in CA, I've signed up for SuperLap Battle at Buttonwillow in November. I put it on the calendar to force me to figure out the logistics of traveling to CA in a coronavirus world along with getting the car sorted out.

[OG Shark]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Let's file this one under: Duh. Finally.

I've been renting AMB timers for over 8 years from almost every event organizer I've ever run with. In truth, I've probably spent enough on AMB rentals to buy two or three of them. I have no idea why I never bought one before. Anyway, I went onto ebay and found a fairly fresh looking used one. I figured I'd go with an older one that doesn't need a subscription.

It came with the mounting bracket. Where do people put the AMB bracket on this chassis?

Yay!


Since my car is back in CA, I've signed up for SuperLap Battle at Buttonwillow in November. I put it on the calendar to force me to figure out the logistics of traveling to CA in a coronavirus world along with getting the car sorted out.

Ha bout time! Can that one be hard wired or do you have to take it out to charge?

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by OG Shark

Ha bout time! Can that one be hard wired or do you have to take it out to charge?

Take it out and charge. I just wanted to be able to easily move the device around between the CA track car and the CO street car.

[OG Shark]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Take it out and charge. I just wanted to be able to easily move the device around between the CA track car and the CO street car.

Just sew a pocket for it in your race suit then?

[dparm]

Just zip tie it to the front grille somewhere. There are recommendations for height off the ground, so check the manual. You can't just stick it somewhere in the cockpit, it needs to be a few feet off the ground and not surrounded by a ton of stuff.

They sell little brackets (mine came with one). I can take a close up if you want.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by OG Shark

Just sew a pocket for it in your race suit then?

haha! Wonderful. My mom is a seamstress. I’ll get her right on it.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by dparm

Just zip tie it to the front grille somewhere. There are recommendations for height off the ground, so check the manual. You can't just stick it somewhere in the cockpit, it needs to be a few feet off the ground and not surrounded by a ton of stuff.

They sell little brackets (mine came with one). I can take a close up if you want.

Yeah, the instructions say up to two feet off the ground with no metal or carbon in the way. The package came with the bracket. Figured I’d ask if there was a magical spot to put it.

[PrimeBMW]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Let's file this one under: Duh. Finally.

I've been renting AMB timers for over 8 years from almost every event organizer I've ever run with. In truth, I've probably spent enough on AMB rentals to buy two or three of them. I have no idea why I never bought one before. Anyway, I went onto ebay and found a fairly fresh looking used one. I figured I'd go with an older one that doesn't need a subscription.

It came with the mounting bracket. Where do people put the AMB bracket on this chassis?

Yay!


Since my car is back in CA, I've signed up for SuperLap Battle at Buttonwillow in November. I put it on the calendar to force me to figure out the logistics of traveling to CA in a coronavirus world along with getting the car sorted out.

I had a X2/my laps transponder installed in my race car. The type where you can move just the little fob from car to car. We couldn't figure out how to get it to register last year. So I just rented transponders last minute. We were looking for the old style hard wired type without the my laps subscription. No go. Didn't want the chargeable type you have. In the end we finally got ahold of someone that mentioned there was a recall with my version of transponder and we would have to get an updated version 🙄. Finally it works but what a pain to get good info out of them.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by PrimeBMW

I had a X2/my laps transponder installed in my race car. The type where you can move just the little fob from car to car. We couldn't figure out how to get it to register last year. So I just rented transponders last minute. We were looking for the old style hard wired type without the my laps subscription. No go. Didn't want the chargeable type you have. In the end we finally got ahold of someone that mentioned there was a recall with my version of transponder and we would have to get an updated version 🙄. Finally it works but what a pain to get good info out of them.

I always charge an AIM Solo, GoPro batteries and a crappy netbook laptop before each track day. Charging one more device is not a problem. I have a wall charger that is able to accommodate all the devices at once. I take it to all track days. This thing has made it so easy. I just leave all the charging adapters hooked up to it and in one shot I can charge everything.

In this pic, you can see I'm charging the laptop, AIM, GoPro batteries, the AMB transponder, a portable USB battery charger and there's still an unused USB-A port, an unused USB-C port and two unused regular wall plugs. So, I could still attach 4 more devices to it like phones and whatever. (Found it on Amazon.)



I didn't have a super strong reason for going with a used non-subscription AMB unit. I'm just used to those rechargeable red ones. It's basically all I've ever used. And since it needs to bounce between two cars, I didn't see getting two hardwired setups. Also, I guess subscription things can get annoying sometimes. The irony is that the used one was $400 which is around the same price as a new one with 5-year subscription. hehe who knows if I'll be doing this in 5 years! My understanding is that it's not hard to sell the older red ones.

AMB's tech support was very nice. I couldn't register the device to my AMB account because the unit was registered to the original owner. I emailed them and the next day, they removed the unit from the original account and I was able to register it.

Anyway, if there's no magical place to attach it to the E9x M3 chassis, I guess I can just keep zip tying it on. roastbeef will be most displeased!

[kyippee]

I like it in the rear end 👀 less blocking of cooling

Might be a good spot to try?

[fsmtnbiker]

Mounting it on the back is fine if you aren’t racing W2W. If you are, you want it as far forward as possible since when your transponder crosses the line is when you cross the line! As far as timing and scoring are concerned anyways...

I mount mine on the front frame rail in wheel well usually. They seem to “see” through Carbon okay but metal not so much.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by kyippee

I like it in the rear end 👀 less blocking of cooling

Might be a good spot to try?

hehe your choice of words is interesting. My problem with the back of the car is that I know it is very hot back there. A few years ago, I put on a plastic license-plate-surround. It melted and warped in less than one track day. We had to take it off because it looked so bad. I am afraid to put the device through that much heat.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by fsmtnbiker

Mounting it on the back is fine if you aren’t racing W2W. If you are, you want it as far forward as possible since when your transponder crosses the line is when you cross the line! As far as timing and scoring are concerned anyways...

I mount mine on the front frame rail in wheel well usually. They seem to “see” through Carbon okay but metal not so much.

Interesting. Could you be more specific about where this is and/or how/where it's installed? Do you access this spot from the engine bay? Or from the wheel well? Do you need to take off the wheel to install it?

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Anyway, if there's no magical place to attach it to the E9x M3 chassis, I guess I can just keep zip tying it on. roastbeef will be most displeased!

zip ties are ok, just keep it off the cooler. lol heres an idea... get one of those tow hook mounts that has a gopro mount integrated into it. then secure the the transponder to the other half of a gopro mount and you'll have a secure, removable solution without the hassle of zip ties- and the transponder is on the most forward area of the car.

[Kelse92]

I just zip-tie to the front lower grill too. Works just fine. There's the little pouches though you can just permanently attach to the car to put it in too if you swap it back/forth which will probably be easiest. I think they're like $10-20 each?
Pick your poison red or black
http://www.tsracing.com/Transponder-...hoCyv0QAvD_BwE

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/RACEc...RoCH7MQAvD_BwE

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by Kelse92

I just zip-tie to the front lower grill too. Works just fine. There's the little pouches though you can just permanently attach to the car to put it in too if you swap it back/forth which will probably be easiest. I think they're like $10-20 each?
Pick your poison red or black
http://www.tsracing.com/Transponder-...hoCyv0QAvD_BwE

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/RACEc...RoCH7MQAvD_BwE

Thanks for reminding me about the pouches. I have used those many times with Speed District, an event organizer in SoCal. Maybe I’ll start with that. Thanks for the links!

[kyippee]

dogbone Yes.. I bet your car is running a bit hotter than mine. For my NA car and less grippy tires, it's been o.k. Your car is a beast though!

Does mounting it somewhere behind the windshield not work? Always thought that might be a good spot, but maybe the glass blocks the signal.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by kyippee

dogbone Yes.. I bet your car is running a bit hotter than mine. For my NA car and less grippy tires, it's been o.k. Your car is a beast though!

Does mounting it somewhere behind the windshield not work? Always thought that might be a good spot, but maybe the glass blocks the signal.

I’ve actually seen people attach a transponder to their wiper blades. That seems too high to me. The instructions say to keep the unit with 2 feet of the ground.

I ordered one of those pouches tonight. Seems like a decent way to go. And the unit is protected.

[ThunderMoose]

Originally Posted by kyippee

dogbone Yes.. I bet your car is running a bit hotter than mine. For my NA car and less grippy tires, it's been o.k. Your car is a beast though!

Does mounting it somewhere behind the windshield not work? Always thought that might be a good spot, but maybe the glass blocks the signal.

The transponder communicates with a wire (I.e. antenna) that is cut into the tarmac that runs across S/F. It needs to be close to the ground with no metal between it and the wire.