My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[okusa]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

I recall unlimited is the only one that allows a full slick, and Gabe wants a full slick. If you drop lower you need to use pedestrian tires

Which is makes fsmtnbiker's time that much more impressive.

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by okusa

Which is makes fsmtnbiker's time that much more impressive.

Yeah, that first lap full send was awesome! Surprised he didn't bring 4 sets of stickers. One for each morning plus the final shootout on Sunday. Seems like he wouldn've edged out Amir.

2:17 is insane. Jackie probably still has 200whp on the m3s plus all the aero & weight advantages.

[b4hand]

Originally Posted by DRLane

Yeah, that first lap full send was awesome! Surprised he didn't bring 4 sets of stickers. One for each morning plus the final shootout on Sunday. Seems like he wouldn've edged out Amir.

2:17 is insane. Jackie probably still has 200whp on the m3s plus all the aero & weight advantages.

fsmtnbiker said his car puts down 560, Jackie is around 640 (I think). Chris's car was just way loose entering almost every corner, I feel like that didn't help much. If he wasn't sliding as much on entry that he could've had Amir maybe. It was very close

[Bartledoo]

Originally Posted by b4hand

fsmtnbiker said his car puts down 560, Jackie is around 640 (I think). Chris's car was just way loose entering almost every corner, I feel like that didn't help much. If he wasn't sliding as much on entry that he could've had Amir maybe. It was very close

Hard to keep track of the Supra's hp since he keeps swapping turbos and upping boost.

[Ngilbe36]

Are the results posted anywhere? I cant seem to locate them.

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by Bartledoo

Hard to keep track of the Supra's hp since he keeps swapping turbos and upping boost.

I thought last year it was like 600hp, and Jackie said explicitly in interview that AMS got then 200 more hp, more aero, better suspension, tires, "better everything".

For those curious, 4:27:04 into Day 2 session 1 of the live coverage.

[b4hand]

Originally Posted by DRLane

I thought last year it was like 600hp, and Jackie said explicitly in interview that AMS got then 200 more hp, more aero, better suspension, tires, "better everything".

For those curious, 4:27:04 into Day 2 session 1 of the live coverage.

Oh damn, I missed that. I didn't even go look at the car when it was there. That would make sense then seeing the time. But I also kinda doubt it's making 800 wheel.

Maybe 200 whp from last year at COTA.

[///Mobbin]

Looks like the best time in Enthusiast class this year was a 2:30, seems like a tuned Supra with suspension and light aero could do quite well there.

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by b4hand

Oh damn, I missed that. I didn't even go look at the car when it was there. That would make sense then seeing the time. But I also kinda doubt it's making 800 wheel.

Maybe 200 whp from last year at COTA.

I wouldn't doubt it. And I say that because over in the f8x forums they have solved that riddle over and over again. I would assume the formula to make those kind of power numbers on the Supra is similar.

[e36clubracer]

Originally Posted by Kelse92

I wouldn't doubt it. And I say that because over in the f8x forums they have solved that riddle over and over again. I would assume the formula to make those kind of power numbers on the Supra is similar.

Plus it only has to last a couple laps. You can bump the boost quite high for short periods of time before running into heat issues.

[dogbone]

Let's file this one under: Very tough weekend. But I want to say thanks to everyone who busted their butts to help me.

I'm still on the road journeying back to CO, so this writing isn't complete, but as I sit here in my AirBnB somewhere in Texas, I just wanted to get out some thoughts from the last week.

First, a BUNCH of very passionate motorsport people worked like crazy to get me driving on track at COTA. The Honest Assembly Garage guys worked through the night to swap the E92 engine in. The OG Shark Motorsport tech guys were attacking my car faster than I have ever seen. I am humbled by the amount of intensity and commitment that everyone put into this car to get me on track. But, the car was stubborn. The power steering problem continued to linger despite changing the power steering pump and the steering rack. And I just couldn't get any complete hot laps after my first hot lap of the weekend. I was ACHING to get one decent hot lap in as a way of saying thanks.....to make everyone feel that the effort was worth it. I tried.....but the car just would not get through a complete lap without steering issues.

Also, I wanted to thank everyone who was checking in on the competition and cheering me on.

It's so hard to walk away with a humbling end result like this.

The weekend just had weird stuff all around for me:

-My 2nd set of brand new Yoko slicks had cracks in them. The Yoko rep at the track came to the garage and checked out the tires and told me not to run them because the cracks are on the tread face.

-If you watched the live feed, you may have seen me grid on Saturday's Session 3 in Group 1 after lunch. However, they moved me to Group 2 because I had not been running fast enough. But confusion set in when a videographer asked if he could put a camera in my car. He showed me a text that said I was still in Group 1. I said yes and went out in Group 1 with his camera setup and then they said I was in the wrong group and would not let me on track......

-When I arrived at the track at 9:15AM on Sat, there was a huge crowd of cars trying to get into the COTA facility. COTA had been setup as a vaccine shot facility because of the big parking lots. It took me quite awhile to get through to facility people to allow me into the paddock. Here I was after 18 hours of driving, sitting outside the track and can't get in......


Anyway, on the bright side----I consider the engine swap to be successful. The motor felt really good when I pushed it. In fact, the car overall felt great---the suspension, aero, brakes, new tires.....all of it felt SO GOOD on the first hot lap of the weekend. I was REALLY excited to see what the car could do with all this new stuff. The first hot lap was simply a shakedown lap to see if the engine was good. A 2:24 that was getting me in the groove. The second lap was faster-----until the power steering issue hit. And that was it. Could never get a clean lap after that.

The OG Shark Motorsport guys were----well let me say this---If you decide to go to COTA and you have an E9x M3, don't ask any questions----just hire these guys to do support for you. They know the platform. And they worked incredibly hard for two straight days. When they arrived with the new steering rack that came from OG Shark's shop an hour away, they had it installed in 25 minutes!!! They arrived at 1:15 and had me on track at 1:40!! When they were replacing the power steering pump, they had the entire front part of the car in front of the engine off in 10 minutes!!!! This is like F1 speed tech stuff!

The weekend was very social. Enjoyed sharing a garage with Chris, who was able to secure 3rd place in Street Class! OG Shark was there to support his crew. Brought a trailer FULL of tools and parts and stuff. b4hand came out again to hang out. Good to see him.

The Titan 7 guys brought in 25 lbs of Franklin BBQ (which many claim is Austin's best BBQ). I was curious about what the brisket would be like.......It was INCREDIBLE!!!! So tender. Perfectly salted. I was hooked.

Of course, from a driving standpoint, the weekend was very very frustrating. When I would first go out, the steering was normal. But then once a little heat got going, the steering would become impossible. The power assist just disappeared. Now that we've replaced the rack and pump, the lines will need to be replaced. Chris talked about how older rubber tubes and pipes can suffer layer separation which can cause the fluid to stop flowing. We did twist and turn those lines to get them out of the way when swapping engines.

And I'm still having a limp mode in the paddock that seems to be a "vacuum plausibility" code.....

So much to do....not to mention deal with the E92 that has no engine now.....

---sigh---we tried SO HARD to get that car running hot laps......sometimes things just don't work out I guess.....

Anyway, for now, I'm just looking forward to getting back home. Let's start with that.

[b4hand]

Glad you aren't too bummed. It was great to see you and the car there again!

[derbo]

Crazy update. Get home safe Gabe!

[Kelse92]

So sorry for your struggles Gabe! Safe travels back and hopefully you can take some time and find the culprits of your issues when you get back and have some time to recoup. It was a valiant effort to watch and we were all cheering for you!
Also, note to self I totally need to go try this Franklin's BBQ place when I go to COTA in July lol

[PrimeBMW]

I applaud you for pushing through and trying to make something happen at the SLB. My gut reaction would have been to do the same. Things tend to work out for me in those last minute situations. However I think everyone should understand that these things can happen when you are not able to test the car prior to an event. Ideally you would have had a shake down/test day to address any issues.
Now hopefully I get in some good testing before the Global Time Attack at The Ridge Motorsports park 😃

[fsmtnbiker]

Originally Posted by DRLane

Yeah, that first lap full send was awesome! Surprised he didn't bring 4 sets of stickers. One for each morning plus the final shootout on Sunday. Seems like he wouldn've edged out Amir.

2:17 is insane. Jackie probably still has 200whp on the m3s plus all the aero & weight advantages.

Yeah, 2 sets of fresh yokos for this event was already $3k+.... along with all the other expenses associated with the event, and going in knowing I was going to be overweight and underpowered with an untested car, I knew the chances of catching Amir and Jackie was not super good. I burned up one set at Chuck and Friday at COTA, and used the freshies Saturday morning, then put the old tires back on, and ran the 'fresh' set again sunday morning. Botched T18 on my flyer Sunday morning which killed my chances of catching Amir.

Originally Posted by b4hand

fsmtnbiker said his car puts down 560, Jackie is around 640 (I think). Chris's car was just way loose entering almost every corner, I feel like that didn't help much. If he wasn't sliding as much on entry that he could've had Amir maybe. It was very close

Yeah, the car is not 100% yet for sure. I've been fighting with some issues and slowly getting to the bottom of it, but it all takes time on track to dial in and I just haven't had much of that yet. COTA was an amazing opportunity to dial some things in and also just the experience of being on the track instead of in the stands!

My car made 540whp peak. But it is pretty much all peak (only 400whp at 6000rpm) whereas Jackie's car basically makes 600+whp from 4000-redline. That's a huge advantage in thrust curve and I'll have to do something drastic to get anywhere close. The supercharger was the easy-button for adding some power but it's not the ideal solution overall - just a stepping stone. I'm happy to have run all weekend without a single hiccup from the car, even after 5-6 laps of 10/10ths driving in 80 degree weather.

The bigger problem is weight. My car weighs ~3500lbs with me in it, and 55% of that is on the front wheels. Jackie's car is about 200 lbs lighter. Amir's car is 1000+ lbs lighter. If I can find a way to get 200 lbs off the front wheels, I think I can resolve the rest of the handling issues and get the car working pretty well - well enough to at least put some pressure on them.

[slcook54]

Originally Posted by fsmtnbiker

The bigger problem is weight. My car weighs ~3500lbs with me in it, and 55% of that is on the front wheels. Jackie's car is about 200 lbs lighter. Amir's car is 1000+ lbs lighter. If I can find a way to get 200 lbs off the front wheels, I think I can resolve the rest of the handling issues and get the car working pretty well - well enough to at least put some pressure on them.

Great job! Curious how you're thinking about approaching 200lbs of weight loss in the front?

[tsk94]

Originally Posted by fsmtnbiker

The bigger problem is weight. My car weighs ~3500lbs with me in it, and 55% of that is on the front wheels. Jackie's car is about 200 lbs lighter. Amir's car is 1000+ lbs lighter. If I can find a way to get 200 lbs off the front wheels, I think I can resolve the rest of the handling issues and get the car working pretty well - well enough to at least put some pressure on them.

You could get fairly easily get 200lbs lighter, but to remove 200lbs just from the front axle is almost impossible. There's simply not many things to remove or replace with lighter weight components up front.

I'd think you'd have better luck getting the M24 front fenders (or something similar) to run bigger tires all around, like 315's or 325's, and adding more boost. Obviously reducing the weight up front would be beneficial as well, but I'd love to know how you plan to remove ~200lbs from the firewall forward - cause I just don't see it.

[rhyary]

Originally Posted by slcook54

Great job! Curious how you're thinking about approaching 200lbs of weight loss in the front?

Moving the engine to where Porsche puts it is one good way

[fsmtnbiker]

Originally Posted by slcook54

Great job! Curious how you're thinking about approaching 200lbs of weight loss in the front?

Originally Posted by tsk94

You could get fairly easily get 200lbs lighter, but to remove 200lbs just from the front axle is almost impossible. There's simply not many things to remove or replace with lighter weight components up front.

I'd think you'd have better luck getting the M24 front fenders (or something similar) to run bigger tires all around, like 315's or 325's, and adding more boost. Obviously reducing the weight up front would be beneficial as well, but I'd love to know how you plan to remove ~200lbs from the firewall forward - cause I just don't see it.

Unfortunately class limits for Street are 295mm so I'm already there on tire width. I'd like to run 295/35 square but fitting the taller tires up front is probably not possible without some pretty invasive work.

Weight savings, there is some low hanging fruit:

-A/C, condensor, lines, etc (30 lbs)
-Gut hood structure (5 lbs)
-Single hump dash, infotainment 'upgrade' (10 lbs)
-Gut door panels (10 lbs)
-Driver/Passenger seats are not super light (20 lbs)
-T45 rollbar instead of steel (30 lbs)

Not all of that on the front axle, but a decent chunk is. From there it becomes a more focused approach - take things apart, put them back together with less/no fasteners and brackets where you can. Lighten individual parts as much as possible. Supercharger bracket could probably be optimized to lose a little weight. Supercharger aftercooler system could move to the trunk for probably a small net weight gain but better distribution... Or convert to air-to-air intercooler and try to use the stock plenum. I think I can get the car to 3400 comp weight relatively easily... But getting to less than that and getting it off the front wheels is rough.

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by fsmtnbiker

Not all of that on the front axle, but a decent chunk is. From there it becomes a more focused approach - take things apart, put them back together with less/no fasteners and brackets where you can. Lighten individual parts as much as possible. Supercharger bracket could probably be optimized to lose a little weight. Supercharger aftercooler system could move to the trunk for probably a small net weight gain but better distribution... Or convert to air-to-air intercooler and try to use the stock plenum. I think I can get the car to 3400 comp weight relatively easily... But getting to less than that and getting it off the front wheels is rough.

Sounds like roastbeef may need to offer his consulting services on adding lightness

[tsk94]

Originally Posted by fsmtnbiker

Unfortunately class limits for Street are 295mm so I'm already there on tire width. I'd like to run 295/35 square but fitting the taller tires up front is probably not possible without some pretty invasive work.

Weight savings, there is some low hanging fruit:

-A/C, condensor, lines, etc (30 lbs)
-Gut hood structure (5 lbs)
-Single hump dash, infotainment 'upgrade' (10 lbs)
-Gut door panels (10 lbs)
-Driver/Passenger seats are not super light (20 lbs)
-T45 rollbar instead of steel (30 lbs)

Not all of that on the front axle, but a decent chunk is. From there it becomes a more focused approach - take things apart, put them back together with less/no fasteners and brackets where you can. Lighten individual parts as much as possible. Supercharger bracket could probably be optimized to lose a little weight. Supercharger aftercooler system could move to the trunk for probably a small net weight gain but better distribution... Or convert to air-to-air intercooler and try to use the stock plenum. I think I can get the car to 3400 comp weight relatively easily... But getting to less than that and getting it off the front wheels is rough.

Ah yes, silly GTA rules on tires lol.

3400 is definitely possible. I just wasn't sure how specific you were when you mentioned getting it off the front axle. Like you said removing just front axle weight is tough... but you still have some options to drop your overall weight and a bit up front relatively easily.