My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[dogbone]

Alright——we are back under 3100 lbs!! The battery swap was a success! I did the install today and it went fine.

I’ll go test it on Thursday at HPR. (You can be sure the stock battery will be in the trailer.)

[roastbeef]

gabe, i know its a silly thing, but please get these.

https://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-3...ght-decal-set/

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

gabe, i know its a silly thing, but please get these.

https://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-3...ght-decal-set/

hahaha I have them! Didn’t install them. I actually quite enjoy the carbon headlight blank look.

Edit: in fact, I got in contact with the company who actually makes the decals and I made them desaturate the orange side markers so they were gray. And I still didn’t install them.

[dogbone]

Couple things to report:

-The front of the car is wrapped with a self-healing clear bra. I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Looks really clean. We decided to stop the wrap at the hood vents. Was going to be tricky to try to wrap the whole hood with the vents in place, and I didn't feeling like dealing with popping the rivets. I've fully reassembled the front end, so the car is ready for action.

-I took the car to HPR last week on Thursday to test the new VoltPhreaks battery install. Worked great. Happy to have that extra weight out.

- fsmtnbiker was at HPR with his Lotus last week. We have talked about car setup quite consistently for a couple years. I was curious to get his feedback on my car's setup. (This was the first time we were at the track together where my car was actually setup properly and working.....crazy.) He did one hot lap in it in the 90ºF+ temps on tires that were cording and still put down a solid lap time. He said he was happy with the overall setup/feel of the car--aero balance, suspension feel, good power, he was able to put power down. He and Ryan from Zebulon gave me some notes about how to route air more directly at the coolant radiator because the car was seriously overheating so quickly. Appreciated that. btw, Congrats to fsmtnbiker for winning the National Auto Cross Championship last week in Nebraska in his Lotus! That's his 5th title with 5 different cars!

Now that the vinyl wrap is done, I'm prepping for doing the NASA TT at HPR on Oct 1&2. I may go to HPR this Friday to practice. I'm still feeling rusty and a bit cautious right now, so I could use the seat time. Part of the problem is that the two days I've gone to HPR, it was super hot and the car could not do many laps. It's hard to build any consistency when the car overheats after one or two laps......high altitude and high heat.....not a great combination for my car.

[DRLane]

Congrats fsmtnbiker!

dogbone You're going to share the radiator airflow tips? 🙏

Happy to hear the car is solid! I'm going to try and make the Oct event but waiting on a new xpipe to get back on the road.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by DRLane

Congrats fsmtnbiker!

dogbone You're going to share the radiator airflow tips? 🙏

Happy to hear the car is solid! I'm going to try and make the Oct event but waiting on a new xpipe to get back on the road.

Didn't you have a custom titanium pipe? Did it not work out for some reason?

The airflow tips were more ideas of things to look for. It was like, "see how you can look right through here? That's bad. Air can escape there instead of being forced to go through the radiator. You need to close that off." But there's several of those. I haven't even begun to delve into that. I'll try to do a couple before NASA in a couple weeks.

[SYT_Shadow]

Finally it's finished and works well! That's great to hear!

Good luck prepping for the next competition!

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Didn't you have a custom titanium pipe? Did it not work out for some reason?

The airflow tips were more ideas of things to look for. It was like, "see how you can look right through here? That's bad. Air can escape there instead of being forced to go through the radiator. You need to close that off." But there's several of those. I haven't even begun to delve into that. I'll try to do a couple before NASA in a couple weeks.

Yes, it was a one off piece purchased used from the forum. Was at HPR in august for evening and it broke apart. Not sure why.

I'm joined Bernstein's project and waiting in a replacement from Nolan. Small batch made in USA > Taiwan…

[fsmtnbiker]

Originally Posted by dogbone

- fsmtnbiker was at HPR with his Lotus last week. We have talked about car setup quite consistently for a couple years. I was curious to get his feedback on my car's setup. (This was the first time we were at the track together where my car was actually setup properly and working.....crazy.) He did one hot lap in it in the 90ºF+ temps on tires that were cording and still put down a solid lap time. He said he was happy with the overall setup/feel of the car--aero balance, suspension feel, good power, he was able to put power down. He and Ryan from Zebulon gave me some notes about how to route air more directly at the coolant radiator because the car was seriously overheating so quickly. Appreciated that. btw, Congrats to fsmtnbiker for winning the National Auto Cross Championship last week in Nebraska in his Lotus! That's his 5th title with 5 different cars!

Thanks Gabe!

It was awesome to finally be at the track together with both of our cars working! Unfortunately it wasn't two E9x this time... But getting to drive your car was fantastic. It works really well and reminded me that my car is the problem, not the platform. One of these days I'll dig into it. Your car is working well and I have no doubt you'll be back up to speed and competitive at the pointy end of TT1 in no time.

[dogbone]

This week, I decided to dig in and see if I could close off some of the escape paths for the air before it gets to the main radiator. I'm no expert on this topic, but here's how fsmtnbiker and Ryan from Zebulon explained it to me: Air will take the path of least resistance, and that path is NOT through the cooling fins of the radiator. You need to force the air through there by giving it no other choice but to go through there, which means closing off all the gaps between the nose of the car and the face of the radiator.

So, I sat down on Thursday and stared at it for awhile, and there are a number of ways air can escape before ever getting to the radiator. So, I slowly started figuring out how to close the gaps on-by-one. I used aluminum 1x1" edging and taped it in there. I used plexiglass to cover the two gaping holes above the kidneys. After awhile, I thought I was done. But then I got on the phone with DRLane and he was mentioning that that there's a gap at the top of the radiator. But that's obviously a high temperature zone so you can't just stick anything on the top of the radiator. He had ordered some high temp silicone rubber material from ebay that he jammed on top of the radiator in the gap. He had some left over and offered it to me. So, I jumped in the car like any good junkie would do and ran up to his house in rush hour traffic over an hour away. (I was in a hurry to do all this on Thursday because HPR had an open lapping day on Friday.)

The piece he had leftover wasn't the proper thickness to really jam tightly in the gap above the radiator, so I folded it in half and wrapped it in HVAC tape to make it thicker. It jammed in there pretty good.

Friday, I went to HPR to see if my efforts had any effect on the massive overheating I've been experiencing since I got the car back. I mean in 90ºF air temps, I could barely get one lap. It's never been that bad before.

I'm happy to say that it worked! It is noticeably better now. I can get more laps in.

Interestingly, the piece that was jammed in at the top of the radiator was being pushed back while on track. I was talking to fsmtnbiker about it today, and he was saying that for that piece to push back was an indicator that there was good positive pressure building in front of the radiator, which is good for air flow through it. (I'm going to have to order the proper thickness for the high temp silicone stuff, but the vendor DRLane used isn't taking orders at the moment. They're on vacation.......hahaha)

Anyway, I left the track today satisfied that this initial effort of this project has been a success. There are more places at the bottom to close off, but I may have a shop look at that later. I'm not sure closing off the bottom is going to be as easy. We'll see.

I think my next track day will be the NASA TT at HPR at the beginning of October.

[SYT_Shadow]

Haha what a great story. Track junkies are one of a kind!!

[rhyary]

Do take pictures so we can do the same.
I have 3 days at WGI coming up and the esses overheat my car every time

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by rhyary

Do take pictures so we can do the same.
I have 3 days at WGI coming up and the esses overheat my car every time

Here's the Silicone rubber I used, 20mm x 30mm 1 meter strip. You'll need to find an alternative given the seller is unavailable until Sep 25 and it takes 3-4 weeks to get this from China.

Probably find something similar on Alibaba, just not sure about the MOQ.

Goes in the gap circled.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184394406370

[Richbot]

that's a big gap

haven't checked this thread in a while, great to see this car alive and kicking again

[dogbone]

The nose of the car is fully ready for battle thanks to Bernard at servo ppf! Many of the vinyl stickers on the car these days have been made by him.

I decided to try putting an Epic Score logo on the nose. Let's see how long it survives up there. I'm betting it will see some serious punishment. We'll see.

Anyway, the vinyl numbers on the front were the last thing needed for the NASA TT this weekend.



I don't remember if I ever mentioned this, but when my car was pulled away from the tire wall at VIR, they hooked on to the rear cheap garbage eBay tow hook I had back there. Annnnnd it snapped as they were pulling the car. There was some surprised yelling, but everyone was fine. Ah yes, one more embarrassing thing to heap on all the other fantastic stuff that day. So, I committed to a Rennline steel tow hook this time for the rear. And I have a new stock hook on the front. The Rennline tow hook is quite sexy, but my only comment is that it doesn't engage many threads....not sure what's going on there. I bought the one that said it was for the E90 M3 rear bumper.....Anyway, I hope I never need it.





As far as the event this weekend----not really sure what to expect. There may be a bit of rain on Saturday, but Sunday looks fine. However, there's almost 35 cars signed up, and I'm guessing we will get slammed into one run group. So....that's not super ideal. I've mounted some old Hoosier A7's, so I can properly run in TT1. There's only one other competitor signed up in TT1---a Corvette that's 350 lbs lighter than me, but it doesn't seem to have the full power that the 6:1 ratio would allow. I don't know.....will be interesting. I'll have to get my act together to put down some decent laps [on old tires]. Right now, for some reason, I'm braking early. Gotta get over that.

Anyway, I'm not really worried about the competition. I just like to do my homework on other cars. It's just part of my process to motivate myself. Ultimately, I'm participating in the event to get myself back up to speed.

[SYT_Shadow]

Exactly, keep that in mind as you're going out there: this event is for you to stretch the card legs as well as your own

[fsmtnbiker]

Wish I could make it this weekend! Good luck out there. Hopefully you can crank in a few laps now that the coolers are working a little better and continue to build up your confidence.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by fsmtnbiker

Wish I could make it this weekend! Good luck out there. Hopefully you can crank in a few laps now that the coolers are working a little better and continue to build up your confidence.

We'll miss ya out there this weekend! Yup, these next couple days will be about getting into the groove in the braking zones.

[fsmtnbiker]

Originally Posted by dogbone

We'll miss ya out there this weekend! Yup, these next couple days will be about getting into the groove in the braking zones.

All brakes do is slow you down, use them as little as possible!

[dogbone]

How’s the NASA event going? I got two words for ya: Throttle Actuators.

Weekend over.

[slcook54]

Originally Posted by dogbone

How's the NASA event going? I got two words for ya: Throttle Actuators.

Weekend over.

Sorry man. I just got fresh ones last night. You need them, I can overnight them if helpful. I'm not in a rush to get them on.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by slcook54

Sorry man. I just got fresh ones last night. You need them, I can overnight them. I'm not in a rush.

That is very nice of you. But I’m just gonna be patient and get it fixed on a more relaxed schedule. Just gotta get it fixed before going to CA in three weeks.

Are you gonna do the job yourself? I hear they’re buried.