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02-04-2020, 10:26 PM | #1 |
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E92 M3 Track / Racecar Project
Hello All!
I recently decided to convert my street / track M3 into a full track / racecar. I have followed build threads for years and have always been inspired by them. I’d like to share the experience so that maybe it can inspire someone else – or at the very least let me keep track of the journey. Hopefully it will create good discussions and encourage others to learn about tracking the best car manufacturer in the world - BMW! I will not claim to be an expert throughout this project. As we move along I will be sharing updates and photos. This car was purchased used from a gentleman in St. Louis in summer of 2018. The car had 58,000 miles and was completely stock except for an Eisemann muffler. The intention was to have a street legal car that could be driven to the track. There were two stages of upgrades after I purchased the car. Stage one was for safety and stage two was focused on performance. For perspective of performance I ran laps at Road America in stage one and stage two. Both stages were on Bridgestone RE71R tires and the car weighed between 3,700-3,800lbs with driver and ½ tank of fuel. -Stage one lap times: 2:36 -Stage two lap times: 2:28 (2:26.1 on used Pirelli Slicks) Stage 1 - 2018 Summer / Fall – Upgrades Performance: -BimmerWorld TE: TA16 Forged Wheel (Gunmetal & Black) 18x10” -BimmerWorld Premium Race Wheel Studs -WPC Treated Rod Bearings -BimmerWorld Performance Engine Mounts -AIM Solo 2 DL w/ M-World PNP and SmartyCam Brakes: -PFC Z54 Front and Rear Kit (PFC 11 Pads) Safety: -Fall-Line Motorsports E92 Bolt-In Cage -Cobra Suzuka Seats -BimmerWorld Aluminum Floor Mount -Schroth Racing Harness Stage 2 - 2019 Winter / Spring – Upgrades Suspension: -MCS E9X 2-Way Damper Set 2.25” Non CO Rear -MCS E9X M3/1M Strut Adapter -BimmerWorld Solid Aluminum Subframe Mount -Powerflex Street Series Diff Mount -BimmerWorld E9X M3 Power Steering Reservoir -GC Race Plates -Eibach Springs 800/1100 lbs -2.25” Hyperco Spring Guide Set / Helper Spring Set -11-12.5” Strut Mounted Front Swaybar End links -Powerflex Track-Series Rear Shock Mounts -GC Rear Articulating Spring Perches -Hotchkis Sport Swaybar Kit -SPL Front Control Arms -SPL Front Tie Rod Ends -SPL Front Adjustable Upper Control Arms -BimmerWorld Trailing Link Bearing Set -BimmeWorld Rear Camber Arm Bearing Kit -BimmerWorld Adjustable Rear Wishbone Set -BimmerWorld Spherical Rear Guiding Link -Fall Line Motorsports Rear Toe Arm -Fall Line Motorsports Rear Sway Bar End Link Power: -BimmerWorld E9X M3 Front X-Pipe With Resonators -Rogue Engineering Power Pulley Kit -Eventuri CF Intake -Evolve Stage 2 ECU Tune Stage 3… To try and build a competitive track/race car I decided to rely on the professionals. For a one-stop shop part supplier I decided BimmerWorld is the best option for me. They are excellent BMW consultants who can provide both high quality street and track/race parts. After deciding on a resource for quality parts it was time to find a shop to build, setup, and if possible provide trackside support. I recently moved to Southeast Michigan and looking for a local shop was very important to me. I felt that Stephen Cramer at Autocore Performance Group (APG) Racing checked all the boxes. He has many years of experience building BMW (and other makes) club racecars and knows how to win a national championship. While I feel this combination will be a race-winning recipe, making the car competitive usually doesn’t happen over night. I expect it to take at least 1-1.5 seasons to really find the necessary speed (and funds lol) to be competitive. The car will be trimmed for NASA GTS and ST. For those who don’t know about club racing I will give you the skinny. Typically when people go club racing in BMWs they participate in BMWCCA, SCCA, and NASA. Every sanctioning body has different car classifications and some clubs favour to specific platforms. I chose NASA because the series is based on power to weight with many open rules. For example, I won't be limited to a specific suspension or brake kit as long as the power to weight is legal. Another positive with power to weight racing is flexibility to chase the class that has the most competitors. To do this, our plan is to have Epic Motorsports set up the car to have a couple different power levels. 2020 Specs: Chassis: 2011 E92 M3 60,000 miles - LeMans Blue Exterior / Porsche Chalk Interior Suspension: Motion Control Suspension 3 way, Hotchkis Swaybars, BimmerWorld / SPL / Fall-Line Arms Brakes: Performance Friction BBK Safety: APG Racing Roll Cage, Safecraft Nets, Lifeline Fire System, Cobra Seats Aero: BimmerWorld GT Wing, Front Splitter, and Canards Power: BimmerWorld Exhaust, Epic Motorsports Tune, Eventuri Intake Data: AIM Data System Cooling: CSF Trans, Engine, Power Steering coolers, APG Racing Brake Duct Kit, APG Racing Diff Cooler Drivetrain: 6 speed H-Pattern, Differential TBD Pictures in the first post are from Stages 1 and 2... Last edited by rTrackM3; 06-06-2020 at 11:04 PM.. |
02-05-2020, 12:50 AM | #3 |
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Very nice! Good to see another cool build underway!
I am confused though----are you ditching the MCS 2-way for a 3-way? And I would recommend moving away from 12mm studs. Several people who push their E9x M3's hard have had stud breakage issue. Moving to 14mm studs (at least in the front) has helped me (so far). You can do this by either drilling existing hubs out with a Rogue Engineering jig kit to 14mm, or buying Future Classic's 14mm hubs. Or you could consider the Core4 press in studs/hubs. They don't have a 14mm solution shipping yet (they're working on it), but the claims are that the 12mm solution is very tough. Anyway, in your build, I would consider some better solution than the 12mm studs.
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02-05-2020, 05:19 AM | #4 | |
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Yes, I am switching to the 3 way. The 2-ways only have 3 track days and only the street driving is to the shop / track. No daily driving. They are currently listed for sale in the suspension thread if anyone is interested. I have heard of this breakage issue, but I am getting mixed messages on why this actually happening. Some say it’s the user over torquing or torquing while the hub is still hot, etc. Then on the flip side I have heard of defective product. Is there any evidence on this?
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02-05-2020, 08:55 AM | #5 | |
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As far as studs, I'm not blaming defective product. And if you know anything about my build thread, I have been on a quest for knowledge over the last 8 years. That learning didn't blindly ignore the topic of studs. In fact quite the opposite. As I kept breaking studs, I kept doing more research, trying different brands of studs, trying different types of steel, trying to use careful technique on installation, trying not to abuse them with an impact gun when they're hot (I don't do long wheel to wheel races), replacing them right at 12 months, trying forged wheels versus flow formed, calling high end race shops to see if they had any advice. Believe me, I have not just played the victim on this topic. I found no 100% reliable solution while on 12mm studs. Strom Motorsports is a very high end race car builder. He puts like $200k into every car he builds. I spoke to him one day and he said that they built two identical E92 M3 race cars with 12mm studs. One never broke studs. The other broke them regularly. He was resigned to the idea that they just need to replace them every 6 months. I believe that this platform---for whatever reason---puts odd stresses on the studs on the front wheels. And once you have enough power and grip, the problem starts to surface. My friend has an E90 M3 setup very similar to me---supercharged, JRZ, AP Racing, full aero, etc. He never broke a stud. Then he moved up to Pirelli DH 305 square. Almost immediately, he broke a stud at Chuckwalla. Chuckwalla has a banked bowl turn that puts enormous stress on the front of the car. I broke two studs there that same weekend. And our broken studs were on the same corner of the car. I mean, c'mon.......this my fault? I'm sorry, but anyone who simply tells you that studs are only taking a simple clamping force and aren't dealing with any other kind of load, and that everyone breaking studs is doing something wrong, are not looking at the whole picture. Something else is coming into play. I used the Rogue Engineering jig kit to drill out E9X M3 front hubs to 14mm. That's been doing really well so far for almost a year. (I didn't drill the rears to 14mm because I'm concerned the rear flanges don't have enough margin to be drilled out, so the rears are 12mm.) I don't like having to change the torque value on my CDI torque wrench for front and rear, so ultimately, I will figure something out that has the same settings all the way around the car. I love the press in stud idea, but on the E9x M3, it's looking like the rear press in studs can't be swapped out while the hub is on the car if you have a parking brake (which I do). So, you may have to remove the rear hub flange to replace the press in studs which is a huuuuuuge pain in the ass. I haven't sorted it out my final ideal solution yet.
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Last edited by dogbone; 02-05-2020 at 11:26 AM.. |
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02-05-2020, 09:20 AM | #6 | |
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Dang, I for sure thought the doors and headlight blanks would get more for your money. Good to know! So you have me sold on the preventive larger studs or at minimum replace the current ones often. The future classic retrofit looks really slick. Would you recommend this. Costly, but so is putting a car into the wall... Guage cluster delete - do you know of any carbon delete for this? I plan to remove the OE cluster and replace with AIM MXL dash entirely.
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IG: RyanTrackM3 Last edited by rTrackM3; 02-05-2020 at 09:37 AM.. |
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02-05-2020, 09:49 AM | #7 | |
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Future Classic is the only shipping 14mm solution available that’s a direct install right now if you want 14mm all the way around. I think it’s a very solid solution. Racewerkz Engineering can make carbon panel blanks quite easily. When I need stuff like that, I just go to them and they make it quickly. I don’t know any off the shelf solutions for carbon dash blank panels. |
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02-05-2020, 10:31 AM | #8 | |
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02-05-2020, 10:34 AM | #9 | |
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Porsche uses 14mm, now BMW uses 14mm. I mean, I'm not really going out on a limb here.....
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02-05-2020, 03:01 PM | #10 |
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Edit: whoops, I thought this was dogbone's thread. ryanosiecki, let me know if you want me to delete if it's too much of a tangent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- ryanosiecki , In an effort to save some time and not write too much in this thread, I've gone into some detail about thread-in studs and why they're more prone to failure in this thread here (goes over some thermal effects also): https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1690683 And they most certainly are more prone to failure, as much as people may want to deny that they aren't. They literally have a fundamental design flaw for fasteners that undergo the varied loads that wheels studs do. There's even a 14mm thread-in failure from a Porsche that I shared in there as well. dogbone, I know we've talked about this on the phone a few months ago, but I figured I'd ramble in here also. Let me know if you want me to delete. So clamping force is the single most important parameter in a bolted joint, especially one that sees many directions of force application like a wheel joint. People tend to think that the studs themselves is what is taking most of the load being transmitted through the tire to the hub, then suspension etc. In the case of braking forces, engine torque, and corner weight forces, it is the frictional force at the interface of the components that are being clamped by the stud that resists what are shear & bending forces (forces acting perpendicular to the studs). We all know basic friction physics; the higher the normal force/force acting perpendicular to the surface that an object rests on, the more frictional force you get. This phenomenon of frictional force in a bolted joint is the working foundation of structural bolts that keep buildings and bridges from falling down. A stud/bolt size is chosen based on its clamping capability to resist tension forces (lateral load when turning in the case of cars) and to create sufficient frictional forces to resist shear forces. As soon as the friction interface is overcome/slips due to external forces, the studs take on all the perpendicular forces directly. When this happens, thread-in studs will and do go bye-bye much more rapidly than a press-in stud. And no one can deny that they are far more prone to failure. The frequency of this topic only persists in BMW and Porsche communities. Does anyone truly believe that people with cars that use press-in studs from the factory are doing anything different? So the frictional interface of the components being clamped does resist most of the perpendicular loads (90+% when tightened correctly), but some portion of it still does go through the stud even if there's no slipping of the clamped components. And this portion increases as clamping force decreases to the point when it's 100% if the friction interface is overcome. That means that they are always undergoing some form of cyclical bending stress, and thread-in studs are inherently flawed to handle bending stress. And no brand thread-in stud is impervious to this, including MSI, which you can see 4 of nicely broken from an E9x M3 here on my website. ARP doesn't make thread-in studs (surprise?), so no documented cases of them I'm pretty confident that super high strength 12mm press-in studs from ARP and MSI when tightened to what they're capable of, are sufficient. A Nissan GTR uses 12mm press-in studs. STi's and EVO's use 12mm press-in studs. All corvettes up until the new C8 use 12mm press-in studs. Ford was using 1/2" studs on their Mustangs until the latest generation. Porsches only track variant model that isn't a centerlock moved to 14mm press-ins (Cayman GT4). All Porsches pre 996 generation were 14mm press-in studs before their move to bolts, which by the way, are more robust than thread-in studs. What the 14mm buys you is some margin to handle bending stress as well as provides increased clamping capacity. What I question based on my testing is if people actually are achieving the extra clamping that 14mm can provide. My intuition is that most probably aren't to the level that they think they are. As for changing press-in studs on the rear, it can be done with the hub still on the car with shorter length studs. Also, I'm fairly certain that you can remove the parking brake shoes and such without pulling the hub off. If BMW engineers overlooked servicing of the parking brake without taking the hub off, they should be executed Sending you an email shortly on the 14mm press-in stuff.
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Last edited by gills; 02-06-2020 at 08:35 AM.. |
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02-05-2020, 03:12 PM | #11 |
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(gills, your input is always welcome in my book!!)
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02-05-2020, 03:37 PM | #12 | |
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Side note - BMW uses M12 studs and nuts on their M4 GT4. The stud for that car threads into the hub as an M14 but outside the hub it's M12. I found that interesting. Additionally the IMSA cars are using threaded studs. At least according to MSI as they are supplying Turner, Bimmerworld, etc. Note that Bimmerworld doesn't sell MSI but uses MSI on their own M4 GT4. Something to think about... Another side-note is that the M4 GT4 uses a 32mm front spacer. The IMSA guys are ditching the BMW motorsport M14/M12 stud for an M14/M14 (both thread-in) stud made by MSI. To be clear, I'm all for the strongest stud option available given the catastrophic potential of a failure. Based on everything I'm reading, It seems that a press-in M14 MSI stud is the ultimate option. However I do think that there's some install error and sub-par product at play in some instances. I have been in touch with Core4 about their press-in options and really respect what they are doing. I am strongly considering going that route as I'm starting to use Pirelli DH this year.
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02-05-2020, 06:35 PM | #14 |
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Absolutely not! I encourage the discussions as I mentioned in my first post. It is educational for me and I would assume a lot of other members. Keep em comin!
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02-05-2020, 11:05 PM | #15 |
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Brett Strom is a very skilled driver as well as race car builder. I used to get my ass kicked regularly by Brett.
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02-06-2020, 12:34 PM | #16 |
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Looking forward to seeing you back out there Ryan! Glad there is going to be a fast E92 to watch race! Very talented driver with a well built car!.
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02-06-2020, 10:26 PM | #17 |
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ryanosiecki Great start, lets call this the comeback 2.0 build. Look forward to following it and seeing where it goes. Wonder if it will be as fast as the E46, LOL.
Samo6556 Good to see you...hope all is well. |
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02-10-2020, 09:22 PM | #18 | |
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Thanks Samo!
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02-10-2020, 09:51 PM | #19 |
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Update with Pics! Over the last couple months I removed the entire interior. It was very tedious, but helped me learn more about the vehicle. The amount of wiring was incredible and you really understand why there is such a premium for one of these cars. APG Racing will be thinning out the wiring and I will report back with specific weight savings.
Sound Deadening - I couldn't resist trying the dry ice removal technique... Twice. Some people claim it works like magic, but I never found the magic. I ended up using the ole heat gun and scraper. It did not take that long and all together it removed 13lbs.
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02-10-2020, 10:17 PM | #21 |
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hmmm looks like a couple parts are missing.....is this what happens when you park the car out on the street overnight?
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02-10-2020, 10:32 PM | #22 |
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They got all the important stuff... LOL
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