My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[///Mobbin]

Congrats on all the progress!! I'm signing up for my first 2016 track day tomorrow and this just got me back into it, can't wait to get out there again. Very good decision to keep upping the safety also! Can't wait to hear the next report.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by ///Mobbin

Congrats on all the progress!! I'm signing up for my first 2016 track day tomorrow and this just got me back into it, can't wait to get out there again. Very good decision to keep upping the safety also! Can't wait to hear the next report.

Thanks! Yeah I like the Halo seat. I wish I had just started with it, instead of the non-Halo SPG. It does make getting in and out a bit more of a chore than it was, but it's nice once you're sitting in it. I've only driven it two days, but I'm getting used to it.

Hope you have a great time out there!

I've actually just given the car back to Racewerkz. They are going to do a bunch of minor revisions to the car---things that will make the car a little more convenient. I'll post about them once they're done sometime this week.

[Jive]

Great thread and amazing build. I would love to follow your methodology of slowly changing the car one piece at a time to understand how the car would react!

I was actually at Buttonwillow on 1/24 and took notice of your car. Had i known you were a forum member, i would of stopped by to chat. It was my very first track event but surely not my last, perhaps ill catch you next time.

You may enjoy these:

View post on imgur.com

[okusa]

Originally Posted by Jive

Great thread and amazing build. I would love to follow your methodology of slowly changing the car one piece at a time to understand how the car would react!

I was actually at Buttonwillow on 1/24 and took notice of your car. Had i known you were a forum member, i would of stopped by to chat. It was my very first track event but surely not my last, perhaps ill catch you next time.

You may enjoy these:

View post on imgur.com

Ha! That's me next to him in your first shot. You should have come over.

[Jive]

Originally Posted by okusa

Ha! That's me next to him in your first shot. You should have come over.

Nice! We actually chatted at the end of the day. I just came off the track and you were about to get back on for a final run. I came by and asked you about your car. Would love a ride next time .

[okusa]

Originally Posted by Jive

Nice! We actually chatted at the end of the day. I just came off the track and you were about to get back on for a final run. I came by and asked you about your car. Would love a ride next time .

Ah. I remember you. I'm shooting for 2/21 if you will be there too.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by Jive

Great thread and amazing build. I would love to follow your methodology of slowly changing the car one piece at a time to understand how the car would react!

I was actually at Buttonwillow on 1/24 and took notice of your car. Had i known you were a forum member, i would of stopped by to chat. It was my very first track event but surely not my last, perhaps ill catch you next time.

You may enjoy these:

View post on imgur.com

Thanks! I have enjoyed taking my time changing the car. It's been going on steadily for 4 years. Sometimes there are big changes, like when it was gutted and the cage went in…..geez….it was like driving a different car after that mod. Anyway, this is the first car I've ever modded, so I wanted to feel the net result of each change. I've learned a lot from that.

Hey, those are cool pix! Thanks for the link!

Yeah, you should have come over and said hi. We always have fun talking tech and shooting the breeze with everyone. Four years ago, I went to the track not knowing anybody. Now, there's a whole crew of us that all know each other simply from hanging at track days.

As okusa mentioned, we're looking forward to Speed District's Feb. 21 event at Buttonwillow. Should be fun! Hopefully my exhaust won't fall off this time….

Do you mind if I post the pictures directly in my thread here?

[redpriest]

Originally Posted by okusa

Ha! That's me next to him in your first shot. You should have come over.

Oh nice, I didn't realize that was you. Both of you have beast cars.

[Jive]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Thanks! I have enjoyed taking my time changing the car. It's been going on steadily for 4 years. Sometimes there are big changes, like when it was gutted and the cage went in…..geez….it was like driving a different car after that mod. Anyway, this is the first car I've ever modded, so I wanted to feel the net result of each change. I've learned a lot from that.

Hey, those are cool pix! Thanks for the link!

Yeah, you should have come over and said hi. We always have fun talking tech and shooting the breeze with everyone. Four years ago, I went to the track not knowing anybody. Now, there's a whole crew of us that all know each other simply from hanging at track days.

As okusa mentioned, we're looking forward to Speed District's Feb. 21 event at Buttonwillow. Should be fun! Hopefully my exhaust won't fall off this time….

Do you mind if I post the pictures directly in my thread here?

Probably won't be able to make Feb. 21 but hopefully our schedules line up later in the year. There should be a community Google Doc where people can write in which events they are going to.

Feel free to use the photos as you wish, thats why i posted them. Sorry for sub-par quality, they are iPhone photos.

Originally Posted by redpriest

Oh nice, I didn't realize that was you. Both of you have beast cars.

Yes they do.

[xchosun1x]

I'll also be at button on the 21st. I'll be sure to say hi. I'm in a e92 light grey with canards.

[dogbone]

Forum member Jive took these photos in January at Speed District's Buttonwillow day. Nice pix!

I'm 881, okusa is the SSII M3 and the 991 GT3 is Josh, the organizer of Speed District events.

[dogbone]

I've got three new small usability tweaks to share. Casey at Racewerkz took care of them. These are things that only come up after driving the car and realizing that there are better solutions than what's currently being implemented:

1. Hood Latches: Oooh I love these things! First, they just look cool. But most importantly, they are going to make life easier. Ever since the cage went in, popping the hood has been less than ideal. (Casey suggested them when he built the cage, but I held off----mistake.) I have to pop the hood before every session because I need to add water to the misting system. One of the cage tubes in the driver footwell gets in the way of the Hood Release Lever. So, we tried to modify it to help it get past the cage tube, but it was always a hassle to actuate it. And then one day, the cable that's connected to the lever partially came out of it's mount, so you couldn't create enough tension in the line to actually release the latches……So, then I resorted to leaving the pull-cable dangling and using a laniard to grab onto the "T" at the end of the cable so I could pull on the cable. If all of this sounds silly, you're right!!-----I should have just done hood latches right from the beginning. But, I'm not smart enough to realize that. I needed to limp along with this situation for 8 months like an idiot. But now it's done and it looks and works great!



2. New Power Switch on Carbon panel for Misting System: A couple years ago, EAS created the misting system for my car when it was still a street driven vehicle. I asked them to include a power switch. They thought it would be a good idea for it to be placed inside the cabin, but I couldn't decide where I would want such a thing when the interior was still stock. Drilling some part of the dash seemed unattractive at the time. So the power switch lived in the engine bay, which of course meant it could only be accessed when the car was parked. My thought originally about the power switch was that I would turn the misting system off while driving on the street. However, it turns out a misting system power button could be very useful during the middle of a long track session. During a long session, the water can run out since there's only 1 gallon. It's really not ideal for the pump to keep activating if there's no water left. My misting system activates at a certain boost pressure coming from the supercharger, so if the system is on and there's enough pressure, the pump activates regardless of whether there's water available or not. So if you drive mellow, it doesn't activate. But if you're jamming hard during a session, you can go through water fairly quickly. So, I wanted to be able to turn the system off in the middle of a session. Now I can.



3. Harness suspenders: This is the mod I am most looking forward to using. The new Recaro Halo Seat is narrower and has taller sides than my original SPG. As a result, the lap belt straps of the Sparco harness would ALWAYS be trapped down at the bottom of the seat when you got in the car. There was no way to keep them propped up on the edges by themselves. And the seat is so tight, that you were forced to go on the most miserable fishing expedition to get those damn straps back up so you could strap in. I have video of me digging around for those damn things. And because the seat is narrow on the upper part, it's difficult to turn and grab the shoulder straps if they're behind you. Enter surgical tubing! A modern miracle! They keep the harness straps in places that are easy to reach once you're in the seat. Awesome! Casey had volunteered to install these tubing suspenders when he built the cage, but they weren't really necessary with a regular SPG---you could prop the straps up on the side while getting in. With the Halo seat, it's absolutely necessary. It's a simple mod, but boy does it make your life easier. I was warned that you should loosen the shoulder harnesses before releasing the Harness buckle because the shoulder straps could pop up into your face. I realized yesterday that the head restraint part of the Halo seat could make a good spot to hang the shoulder straps when getting in, so I might take the shoulder ones off, but for sure, the lap belt suspenders are essential.



Again, none of these are massive mods, but sometimes it's the small ones that make things more convenient.

[xaappx]

Love your build. About 5 E92 M3 guys from NorCal are going to be at Buttonwillow on 4/9 with Speed Ventures. Would love to check out your car.

Search for us on Facebook "NorCal BMW M", would love to have you in the group!

Hope to see you on the track

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by xaappx

Love your build. About 5 E92 M3 guys from NorCal are going to be at Buttonwillow on 4/9 with Speed Ventures. Would love to check out your car.

Search for us on Facebook "NorCal BMW M", would love to have you in the group!

Hope to see you on the track

Thanks! Speed Ventures on 4/9----there's a chance I could be out there. I've run with Speed Ventures many times.

You NorCal guys have some fun tracks up there. A group of us goes up there each year to get a taste of that awesome NorCal pavement. I don't have anything on the calendar yet, but summer is a fun time to be up there…..helps get us SoCal boys out of the crazy desert heat on our local tracks.

I haven't driven any of the NorCal tracks with full aero yet or BFG R1S's. I think that will be interesting. I'm quite looking forward to that.

[duvinclunk]

Love the build and am quite jealous of a caged E90.

[dogbone]

Few more things to report:

-I had a sneaky small part failure that ended a track day early, and ruined a second one before I finally figured out what the heck was going on.

I know when it happened, but I couldn't figure out what had happened. I had crested Phil Hill at Buttonwillow fairly aggressively, and I bottomed out fairly hard near the berm on the left at the bottom. (It really wasn't harder than any other landing there.) Right after that landing, the car wasn't acting proper. Something happened. When I turned the wheel to the left, the car started shaking quite a bit. But braking was totally fine and turning right was pretty much ok. It happened near the end of Speed District's event, so I didn't lose much track time. And I only drove one lap slowly with it feeling like that trying to get a sense of what might be wrong. Went to my shop, we checked for anything loose, bent or broken---all bolts on the underside, control arms, hubs, wheel bearings, looked at suspension while up on the lift----nothing looked out of place, and the car's stance/height looked normal. I took the wheel set to the tire shop. Two of the rims had hops in them. So, I took them out of circulation and replaced them with some spares. In the absence of finding anything else, I chalked it up to bending two rims.

So, the next weekend, I go back to Buttonwillow on a Test and Tune day. First warm up lap------same shaking…..!! ARGH! I brought the car in. I figured something had to be wrong with the suspension because everything else had been checked. I started with the assumption that maybe I had blown out the nitrogen from an external canister and it was causing the damper to act funny. I have my own nitrogen rig, so I started checking the nitrogen pressures. All four nitrogen pressures were totally fine. But as I was checking the fourth corner, I'm in the trunk with the car jacked up from the passenger side, so all the vehicle weight is on the driver side. I look at the rear driver damper top and it looks like this….! I was like uhhhhhhhhhhh------wtf.



The support cup pictured below had failed and the JRZ damper piston pushed through it. So I basically had NO rear-driver side damper action at all. The spring was supporting the car and when it would unweight as I turned the steering wheel to the left, the wheel was not being damped so the car was shaking. Most of my attention had been on parts in the front even though I kept reminding myself that the car would brake smoothly…..now it made sense.



So, what I have learned from this is that when an M3 has EDC (like mine did), the stock rear damper piston is thicker at the top than a non-EDC damper piston. BMW makes two different support cups to accommodate the two different widths. The JRZ damper piston matches the narrower non-EDC damper piston's width. So, my EDC supporting cup holes were too wide for the thinner JRZ piston. The shop that installed the suspension 4 years ago tried to make a custom collar piece to fill the extra gap. What they should have done was buy me new smaller-holed non-EDC support cups because that was the correct way to go. Their solution failed….it took awhile, but it did fail.

Ironically, when the car is unweighted on a lift, you can't see the problem in the trunk because the suspension droops down…..To really catch a visual of this problem, the car had to be on the ground…...this one was sneaky. Perhaps we should have seen the support cup having slid down lower on the piston than normal, but c'mon, that is just not something you check right away. How often do these go bad? I'm guessing basically never.


-AP Racing calipers are out for a piston seal rebuild. I sent out my calipers to Stillen for the main seals and dust seals to be swapped for new ones. Boy was it time for this to be done. Note to self: 2 years and 40 track days is too long between piston seal swaps. The calipers were leaking brake fluid. I think 18 months and 25-30 track days is a better maintenance interval for these seals. btw, if you don't have banjo bolt clips to stop the brake fluid from leaking, I highly recommend these. I've hardly lost any fluid at all with these in place while I wait a week for my calipers get new seals.



-Hood latches turned out to be as awesome as I had hoped! Man I love those things! HIGHLY recommended.

-Surgical tubing turned out great too! The tubing really does make it SOOOOO much easier to get in. I did end up removing the tubes holding the shoulder straps. I really didn't need them now that I have the halo wings to prop the shoulder straps up on. Plus the tubing for the right shoulder harness was going to hang down right in the middle of my in-car video. So, I'm just going with the lap belt tubing and it works great.

[///Mobbin]

Lot's of good tips in here, thanks for the update and glad you got things sorted!

Is the rear support cup sizing something anyone with an EDC car should check when they convert to coilovers?

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by ///Mobbin

Lot's of good tips in here, thanks for the update and glad you got things sorted!

Is the rear support cup sizing something anyone with an EDC car should check when they convert to coilovers?

Thanks! This thread seems to be turning into my running log of motorsport experiences. I'm just trying to share my experiences in case they can help other people make decisions in their motorsport journey. I know my car is a bit out in Crazy-land now, and I understand others may not go as far with their cars, but I hope there's still bits and pieces of info here that can be useful to anyone modding for track. I started out as a complete novice with a bone-stock car 4 years ago, and step by step I've been learning.

Regarding your question: I'm not an expert on the topic, but if I had to guess, I'd say yes, people should make sure it's a snug fit with that piece around the damper piston. The hole size on my original cups was noticeably larger than the new ones that we put on. The smaller hole size on the new ones fits PERFECTLY around the JRZ piston, whereas the originals on the car did NOT fit snugly.

Both are stock BMW pieces. The original ones as you can see were black. The new ones with the smaller holes are silver. In the picture below, I've tried to get the two pieces as close to the same size as possible. The holes are DEFINITELY not the same size.

[roastbeef]

does JRZ offer a rear coilover conversion? would there be a significant enough difference to do such a thing? i think i remember seeing that as an option from JRZ, but i can't remember where (i didn't see it on EAS' site).

we appreciate the updates! i'm sure i'm not the only one that enjoys reading your posts and experiences.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

does JRZ offer a rear coilover conversion? would there be a significant enough difference to do such a thing? i think i remember seeing that as an option from JRZ, but i can't remember where (i didn't see it on EAS' site).

we appreciate the updates! i'm sure i'm not the only one that enjoys reading your posts and experiences.

Yes, JRZ does offer a rear true coilover for the E9x platform. I've seen them firsthand because they shipped rear coilovers to me accidentally 4 years ago.

Two things to keep in mind with coilovers in the rear:

1. On the E9x platform, JRZ does not recommend using rear coilivers unless you have strengthened/reinforced the top mount point in the trunk. For example, tying it in with a cage. JRZ claims the stock top mounting point is not strong enough to deal with the combined stress of the spring and the damper.

2. The way the rear coilover is designed, there is no convenient/easy-to-grab rebound knob in the trunk. The rebound dial sits hidden and tucked away at the bottom of the damper near the hub. And you have to stick a pin in there to adjust rebound. It's quite inconvenient when compared to the divorced setup.

My understanding is that a true coilover in the rear would perform better than a divorced setup because the spring has much better leverage and can work directly with the damper. In a divorced setup, putting the spring inside the lower control arm closer to the center of the vehicle gives it much worse leverage than when the spring wraps around the damper at the edge of the car where it has much more control and where it's right alongside the wheel. This is evidenced by the fact that you use much lower spring rates with a coilover----almost half if I recall correctly.

Now that I have a cage, I may consider coilovers in the rear in the future.

Here's a few pix of what I received (and sent back):

[Dartanium]

Learned quite a bit after reading through the entire thread. Honestly I wish I have read it sooner. Why? Because I also took the same path and it has been a much less pleasant experience than yours.

Long story short, the car has been fully gutted inside and out, removed AC and all the interior pieces including the dash, which was big mistake number one, it looks hideous. Hindsight. Mistake number two was I moved everything(steering wheel, brake and gas pedals, seat) rearward about 15cm, to help balance the weight since the rear end is now even lighter. Well the balance is better now that you sit a bit behind the b-pillar but the shift paddles are gone since I am no longer using the oem steering wheel. But the worst downside is that the car's nose feel super long because you sit so far back. And only be able to shift dct with the stick instead of the paddles. It just feels awkward due to seat placement. Mistake three, I installed a wing because the rear is lighter and feels nervous but it induces understeer too much.



Another question, how are you keeping your supercharger and oil temps at accepted levels. I always thought it would overheat too much with a kit similar to ESS or VF. So do you have extra oil coolers and dct cooler to keep everything in check.

Again, awesome build and looking forward to read more.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by Dartanium

Learned quite a bit after reading through the entire thread. Honestly I wish I have read it sooner. Why? Because I also took the same path and it has been a much less pleasant experience than yours.

Long story short, the car has been fully gutted inside and out, removed AC and all the interior pieces including the dash, which was big mistake number one, it looks hideous. Hindsight. Mistake number two was I moved everything(steering wheel, brake and gas pedals, seat) rearward about 15cm, to help balance the weight since the rear end is now even lighter. Well the balance is better now that you sit a bit behind the b-pillar but the shift paddles are gone since I am no longer using the oem steering wheel. But the worst downside is that the car's nose feel super long because you sit so far back. And only be able to shift dct with the stick instead of the paddles. It just feels awkward due to seat placement. Mistake three, I installed a wing because the rear is lighter and feels nervous but it induces understeer too much.



Another question, how are you keeping your supercharger and oil temps at accepted levels. I always thought it would overheat too much with a kit similar to ESS or VF. So do you have extra oil coolers and dct cooler to keep everything in check.

Again, awesome build and looking forward to read more.

Thanks! Yeah, it's been a long road of learning; that's for sure. Most of it has been pleasant, but there have definitely been bumps along the way.

1. I kept the dash for two reasons---A. I like it. It's a throwback to what the car was like when it was stock. I kept the two carbon leather dash trim pieces and gave the door trim pieces away when I sold the interior. I could have made some nice bucks with the whole carbon leather trim package, but I enjoy seeing those two pieces there. B. For Time Attack, you need to have some kind of dash in place---and even a center console in most cases. It didn't seem worth throwing all this out and still have to create a rough dash and center console. How much lighter would it really be? The race shop gutted everything behind them.

2. There is an aftermarket solution for paddles if you get rid of the stock steering wheel. Check this out if you haven't seen it: http://www.tunersgroup.com/Online_St...ifter_NEO.html I was told that you should use a steering wheel with 0 dish, otherwise your hands will be too far from the paddles.

3. Yes, I did the wing first too. And you're right, in high speed rounders, the understeer is---uhhh----yucky. The good news is that a front splitter makes virtually all of it go away. My car feels GREAT now with the front splitter on there. Highly recommended.

Regarding the oil temps with a supercharger, EAS made a misting system that helps. I have stock coolers in stock locations. It sprays water via 5 nozzles----two on the supercharger intercooler, two on the main radiator and one on the DCT cooler. It activates at a certain psi of boost coming from the blow-off valve. It's not a miracle, but it helps. But when ambient temps go over 85º, the car overheats quickly.

Now, to be clear, I cannot hot-lap this car 10 laps in a row at 1:50 pace at Buttonwillow. That is just not ever going to happen. And quite honestly, how many cars could really do that anyway. Man, I was at Buttonwillow a couple weekends ago, and a full on race Lambo was out there hot lapping----lap after lap after lap after lap…….he was flying too. I hand timed him in the middle of a long session at 1:44 on 13 CW. And then a few laps later, his wheel fell off at Riverside!!!! Ack!! I guess everyone has their issues…..

Anyway, the Hankook TD tires can't take that constant abuse anyway. They like one lap hot, and one lap cool down. That's great for the engine.

But you know what is rearing it's ugly head now----the DCT overheating after just a couple top-speed laps. I am going to have to do something about that. Basically, now that the car has full aero, sticky R1S and DSC-off, the transmission is quickly overheating from the stress. To be fair, I could probably do lots of laps at 1:55 and be fine. But when trying to go 1:48…… the car only gives me a few cracks at that before the gear icon flashes up on the dash and the car only shifts in even numbered gears due to overheating. I may have what I think is a plan to attack it. I'll write more about that later if I implement it.