My E90 M3 Dedicated Track build (with pix!)

[slcook54]

Just wanted to say thank you, Dogbone. Picked up my M3 at the beginning of this month, but have read your thread two times through. For the data oriented, it’s a total goldmine. Hope to see you out at the track in the future!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by slcook54

Just wanted to say thank you, Dogbone. Picked up my M3 at the beginning of this month, but have read your thread two times through. For the data oriented, it’s a total goldmine. Hope to see you out at the track in the future!

I'm glad you're enjoying it! And congrats on your M3! I hope you enjoy owning your M3 as much as I've enjoyed mine.

I had a whirlwind 4 days in CA dealing with car tech/maintenance stuff and going to two tracks. Just got home a few minutes ago here in CO.

I'll post about it here soon.

[dogbone]

It was 4 days of dealing with a tight schedule around SoCal that involved a big round of maintenance, a music industry trade show, shaking down the car, visiting two different tracks, dealing with some tech issues, having meals with friends, and a bunch of driving, either trailering around or on track. Phew!

First I’d like to thank European Auto Source for their hard work on the car. I landed in LA at 8AM and went straight to EAS to drop off the car by 10AM. They jumped right on it and by 12PM, they had the car fully torn down for the work we were doing. They stayed on it until Friday at 5PM when it was finished. (Side note: I was in the shop for some of the final re-assembly. I appreciate when a senior tech is double/triple/quadruple checking their work as they go. I could see Sammy going through a mental checklist of every bolt in the engine bay—pointing at each thing, making sure it was proper.).

So, what did we accomplish on the car? Everything on my list plus a couple additional items:

-The oil diverter - It’s in. I’ll talk about it in the next post when I talk more about the track days.
-New radiator - we went with a stock radiator since I never heard anything about the CSF one….Boy was it time to replace the radiator. The job could not wait for even one more track event. There was a lot of coolant on the floor of the trailer. We filled it with distilled water and Water Wetter.
-New hoses - all the fluid hoses in the car have now been replaced, including a VF hose that is an upper radiator hose.
-Belts - I’m frustrated that VF sent the wrong belt, so we reused the old belt because we had to keep the work going. The old belt looks fine. But c’mon VF. I’ve since learned that there’s a 2nd generation bracket and they sent a belt for that bracket instead of my 1st gen bracket…..
-New water pump - might as well since the one in there was 10 years old.
-New thermostat
-New air filter
-The oil leak turned out to be all the power steering fluid that vents from the reservoir cap. This is the MOST DAMN frustrating thing on an E9x M3. I have tried a couple solutions to catch the overflow fluid but nothing has worked so far. It is UNREAL how much power steering fluid was in the engine bay and sitting on the splitter. Totally nasty. I’m so sick of that crap flowing everywhere……I’m going to be digging into this more soon. I need a solution that works.
-Supercharger oil replaced.
-Misting system refurbishing - the misting system was in dire need of help as it turns out. A wire to the pump had been cut, so it may not have been functioning at all. I think I was adding water to it because it was simply leaking out…..All the spray nozzles were gunked up even though I exclusively use distilled water. The leak was coming from the second pump that used to spray on the headlight washers, so we removed that.

I packed up and headed to Buttonwillow Friday evening. I’ll write about the track weekend in the next post. (I caught a cold on the trip so I’m moving in slow motion here.)

But, I’m happy to jump ahead and say that their work was solid on track.

[warp10]

Electric power steering conversion will fix that leaking PS problem. It has been great for me som far!

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by dogbone

-The oil leak turned out to be all the power steering fluid that vents from the reservoir cap. This is the MOST DAMN frustrating thing on an E9x M3. I have tried a couple solutions to catch the overflow fluid but nothing has worked so far. It is UNREAL how much power steering fluid was in the engine bay and sitting on the splitter. Totally nasty. I’m so sick of that crap flowing everywhere……I’m going to be digging into this more soon. I need a solution that works.

BW reservoir = no more overflowing. Cheap mod you can install yourself!

[leo95se]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

BW reservoir = no more overflowing. Cheap mod you can install yourself!

Agreed. Easy 10 min mod

[jid2]

Same here on the Bimmerworld part.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

BW reservoir = no more overflowing. Cheap mod you can install yourself!

I'm glad to hear that an easy mod could work. Three guys is good enough for me. I called Bimmerworld today but the part is out of stock until next week. I'll order it next week.

[dogbone]

The car's first shakedown after the tech work was at Buttonwillow 13CW on Saturday. I pulled out the oldest scrub set of tires I had and didn't rotate them all day. I wanted to cord them so I could move on.

The first session was cold----40ºF. I'm always fascinated when people say there's no grip in the cold. I ran 1:49.5 in 40ºF temps with modest-at-best scrubs. No problems with grip at all once I warmed up. I was quite happy with the car's performance on tires that should not have been fast.

Came in, opened the hood, and the VF upper coolant hose was leaking.....argh. I got on the phone with Steve from EAS. He recommended adjusting the hose clamp. I did that but not much changed. I ran the car a second time for a couple laps. Brought it in, opened up the bay-----still leaking......Because the system was so hot, I was hesitant to touch the hose, so I was trying to use a small mirror to look at the bottom side of the hose, but it was so bright out and there was so much glare, I couldn't see anything.

Someone suggested the 7's-Only Racing shop that was onsite at the track. So, I ran over there. They were nice. But there was a guy who was not an employee of the shop who was VERY nice and jumped right on my car. He immediately put his bare hand on the bottom of the hot hose and he said, "your hose is cracked on the bottom"...........argh!!! Brand new hose with a 2" split. I was very lucky----7's-Only had silicon tubing in the exact diameter I needed. Even though the VF tube had a unique hump in the middle of it, it did not appear that the hump was necessary. We used a straight hose and it seemed to be just fine. Ran it for 2 days without issue. I plan on leaving the blue hose there for the foreseeable future. I was told it was very high quality stuff. Better be----they charge by the inch and it was $96.

So, my transaction with VF was disappointing. Of the three items I ordered---air filter, s/c drive belt and upper radiator hose---the belt was the wrong size and the hose failed on it's first run.......yay, the air filter worked.......yay. Oh---and I'm out the $100 for the silicon hose from 7's-Only.....yay. BUT, on the bright side, the hose is blue! Makes my engine look totally aftermarket! Yay!.....

Engine bay with awesome blue hose----so HAWT: (I hope everyone can feel the sarcasm dripping here. At least the blue hose isn't dripping.....)


I would like to give a shout-out here to the guy in the race shop that jumped on my car because he was awesome and his business is interesting. His name is David Ferguson and he owns VeracityRacingData. He was at Buttonwillow because he was hired to do data setup on a couple cars in the race shop that day. I bought him lunch and had a great conversation with him. He is ALL about data collection, but is also very technical on all aspects of engine building, etc. His shop has a dyno, CNC machining and other cool toys. Very cool guy. If you have data needs, this is a serious guy to go to. And he couldn't be nicer. Before being in the car/data business, he was one of the engineers at Apple that integrated USB into the first iMacs. And he races. Did I mention he was cool?

So, the shakedown day was a true shakedown day. Aside from the leaking hose, the car was SOLID. Really enjoyed driving it.

In my last session of the day, I ran a 1:50.2. The temps were 66ºF and the tires corded that session. I was very happy with that result.

I have another long-standing nagging problem in my car: The VF air intake is not made to run with fat tires. We have been trying certain solutions, but they don't work......EAS ran a new section of hose and by the end of the day Saturday, it already had a hole in it. It's not their fault. The location of the VF air intake stinks. The ESS bracket is much better. I was looking at my friend's ESS intake on Sunday who was running the same tires as me. No issues......

I decided to eat at Willow Ranch BBQ before leaving for Willow Springs. I really do enjoy their food. I was by myself and had just sat down, and Will Wattanawongkiri (who is a local racer that I often chat with---super nice guy) walked by my table and invited me to join his group for dinner. And then one of his buddies picked up the tab for the whole table. It was a very social dinner and I really enjoyed hanging with those guys.

So, it was off to Willow Springs Saturday night to drop off the trailer. They keep the gates open until 10PM. I like to drop off my trailer at tracks if possible for two reasons:

1. I feel like it's safer for the rig to spend the night at a locked/monitored track.
2. It makes it easier to book any hotel you want without worrying where you're going to park a truck/trailer combo that's 45 feet long.

The sunrise on Sunday at Willow Springs was just beautiful. I rolled into the paddock at 6:30AM and my trailer was sitting there by itself with the sunrise behind it. Had to snap a pic of that!


And the car a little while later:


I was eager to visit Willow Springs for two reasons:
-I really wanted to go for a new personal best. I wanted a 1:25. (My previous fastest was 1:26.07.)
-I had not seen Josh at Speed District in a long time because I had been doing Bimmer Challenge.

I decided to try something new. I never ever start the day with my best tires. I always drive a session or two on the lamest tires I have and then go for it on better tires later in the day. But I thought, I just drove a solid day at Buttonwillow, why not try going for it at Willow Springs on the first session? uh huh......MISTAKE!!!!!!! Oh man.....I had no chance. Drove like crap. So, I was burning the best tires I had for no reason. Nothing was at stake, so it was no big deal, but man, it was terrible. So, I REALLY stand by my operating procedure of running worn tires first and then put the good stuff on later. The only time I might not do that is when I'm at the same track for 2 days. I can see running good tires at the beginning of day 2. I know it's tempting to run good tires in the cool morning air. But on my end, I really need to get into the groove of a track before a fast lap is possible. If you have more than one set of tires, run the crappy ones first. Then move onto the good tires.

(Amongst all of this, there was an unknown element at Willow Springs-----they put a slurry coating on the track surface to freshen the look of the place. It also looked (and felt) like they filled the cracks in the pavement with tar. The tires were not liking the tar bumps. Made the suspension feel like it was really rough. Some people were saying there was less grip due to the coating. After driving on it, I don't think there's any difference. By the end of the day, some of the new tar in the cracks was lifting out of the cracks as cars drove over it......Willow Springs is in dire of a repave that I'm afraid will never happen......)

Anyway, by the 3rd session, I ran a 1:26.2, so I was getting in the groove, but the tires were suffering. I was jamming into Turn 2 and the tires would not hold the car. I couldn't go any faster. On the 5th session, they corded. In my opinion, Willow Springs is the most brutal track on tires that I have ever seen. I was rotating those tires and it didn't matter. If you're going fast, the left-side tires get punishment like almost nowhere else. You can feel the tires grinding in Turn 2. It's a long high speed (90+mph) uphill rounder and when going fast, the car is almost in a mild drift. It's cringe-worthy for the tires. (Even worse than the right side on the oval at Auto Club.)

So, now I had two corded sets of tires. One set left-----a marginal set of scrubs that were just ok. (I had taken these off at Chuckwalla CCW at Bimmer Challenge to put on better tires.) So, I swapped them on, and was in my car and ready to go out on track at 1PM, and my friend rolls back in the pit and says that a Corvette just blew his engine on the entry to Turn 8.......oil everywhere......ugh.

The track sat silent for quite awhile as they dealt with it. I was sitting there thinking that it was going to be impossible to hit a new best with oil and powder on the entry of Turn 8, and who knows if these tires had anything left in them. I was bummed.

2PM rolls around and the track is active again. Time to give it a shot. Saw the oil spill on the warm up lap on the entry to Turn 8......not great, but I wondered if I could still work around it. So first hot lap, I jumped into Turn 2. Turn 2 is where you learn if your tires are good or not. If they hold, you have a chance. If the car starts washing out in Turn 2, the predictive lights on the AIM Solo 2 DL will punish you immediately and you know there's no chance. So, I dive into Turn 2----and the car is holding! I get all excited and keep driving hard. I just skirted the edge of the white powder going into Turn 8----not ideal, but felt better than going over that crap at 140+mph. As I exit Turn 9, the AIM has 5 green lights on the sides of the display. This means that I'm at least 0.5 seconds faster than my 1:26.2 from earlier in the day, so I knew I had a 1:25-something. But I gotta tell ya, it's a LONNNNNG run from the exit of Turn 9 to the Finish line. I was like 'Come on baby!!!!! Let's goooo!!!!!" And it was a 1:25.85. phew. So, I looked up at my GoPro in the rear view mirror-------and the battery had died! argh.......it died like 10 seconds into the warm up lap......not even a chance. I forgot at a Speed District event that you drive so damn much that you absolutely need to change the battery at lunch. And to be honest, I wasn't that hopeful going into the session, so I wasn't worried about video. So, I came back into the pits and swapped batteries, figuring I could do that lap time again if the tires would hold. I went out and rolled a faster lap going into Turn 9, but got hung up by a Mustang and lost a 1:25.5......I do have that on video. At that point, it was time to get packed up and get to the airport. I am now convinced that the car can do 1:24 on good tires (once I'm in the groove.) But honestly, I have no plans on showing up at Willow Springs with fresh slicks. They'd be corded in a single day.....

The AIM Solo 2 DL continues to prove it's accuracy. At times, it was exactly the same as the transponder. Pretty cool:


So that was the track weekend/shakedown. The car is back running very solid. I was able to get into the 1:25's at Big Willow which was a goal I've had for almost a year. My two main items to deal with are the power steering venting everywhere, and I need to find a permanent solution to the VF air intake.

What about the oil diverter? Next post!

[admranger]

Goodness. 1:25.8? That's just evil fast at Big Willow.

Nice pics at BW.

I agree with your assessment of Willow Ranch food. It's the best part of BW. Their homemade pies can be good too. I used to love a lot of their food but if I wanted to feel like I was eating healthy, I'd have the chicken salad...ummm, that's the FRIED chicken salad. Damn good on a summer evening after a day at the track. And a slice of pie please. Their tri tip is excellent too.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by admranger

Goodness. 1:25.8? That's just evil fast at Big Willow.

Nice pics at BW.

I agree with your assessment of Willow Ranch food. It's the best part of BW. Their homemade pies can be good too. I used to love a lot of their food but if I wanted to feel like I was eating healthy, I'd have the chicken salad...ummm, that's the FRIED chicken salad. Damn good on a summer evening after a day at the track. And a slice of pie please. Their tri tip is excellent too.

hehe thanks!

I'm a sucker for Willow Ranch's brisket and kielbasa sausage. And their Beef Ribs are a guilty pleasure! And their BBQ sauce is excellent! Dang it....now I want to go back there.......

[admranger]

Leland is a nice guy to top it off (if I'm remembering his name right. it's been years and years since I've been there.)

[redpriest]

Originally Posted by dogbone

I'm glad to hear that an easy mod could work. Three guys is good enough for me. I called Bimmerworld today but the part is out of stock until next week. I'll order it next week.

I don't think the BW power steering mod works... I seem to recall having a discussion with someone at Buttonwillow in the summer that it still overflowed for them.

[SYT_Shadow]

Good work Mir Bone!

For the GoPro: buy a USB adapter to charge it permanently and never worry about the damn batteries again
If you have the 5 or newer you need a USBc cable. If you have an older one you can get a battery-shaped device that plugs into 12v

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Good work Mir Bone!

For the GoPro: buy a USB adapter to charge it permanently and never worry about the damn batteries again
If you have the 5 or newer you need a USBc cable. If you have an older one you can get a battery-shaped device that plugs into 12v

Unfortunately, I plug a microphone into the GoPro4, and that has to go in the USB port. The older GoPro had a dedicated microphone port, but they ditched that and made you use the USB port for external audio......

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Unfortunately, I plug a microphone into the GoPro4, and that has to go in the USB port. The older GoPro had a dedicated microphone port, but they ditched that and made you use the USB port for external audio......

I have a gopro 4 and a 5 (use both with the remote) and they have external mikes as well

On the 4 I use a naked skeleton type case that allows a battery shaped 12v charger. Then I use USB for audio

I have these three parts:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/JINHEZO-Black...+skeleton+case


On the 5 you need an official BS accessory that takes you to a power outlet + a microphone input

[leo95se]

Buy a(nother?) smartycam. Well worth it!

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by leo95se

Buy a(nother?) smartycam. Well worth it!

I'm thinking of the GoPro Hero7 to record in 4k60fps. It looks way better in youtube

[leo95se]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

I'm thinking of the GoPro Hero7 to record in 4k60fps. It looks way better in youtube

Data overlay is important for me, and I haven’t found a program (or the time) to putz around with migrating non native video and data. Same with Harry’s! Torture!

[ThunderMoose]

Originally Posted by leo95se

Data overlay is important for me, and I haven’t found a program (or the time) to putz around with migrating non native video and data. Same with Harry’s! Torture!

Smartycam ftw. It was awesome when I was getting coach to pull out card right after session and view video with data. Plus I have never in 3 years missed a video because I forgot to turn camera on or because battery was dead. Did forget once to put card back in when I set track record at LRP.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

I have a gopro 4 and a 5 (use both with the remote) and they have external mikes as well

On the 4 I use a naked skeleton type case that allows a battery shaped 12v charger. Then I use USB for audio

I have these three parts:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/JINHEZO-Black...+skeleton+case


On the 5 you need an official BS accessory that takes you to a power outlet + a microphone input

Battery Eliminator!!? Wuuuut! What rock have I been hiding under?

Your Amazon link was for a GoPro3, but I found the one for GoPro4: https://www.amazon.com/Switronix-DVG...minator+hero+4

So, what do you plug the USB into? Does the USB port underneath the elbow rest in the center console provide power?

Man, if I can get this all working, the only thing I would have to charge before a track day would be the AIM Solo........no GoPro4, no spare batteries. I already stopped using my bumper cam, so no GoPro2 or spare batteries for that......that would be awesome! I used to be a charging fool the night before a track event.

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by leo95se

Data overlay is important for me, and I haven’t found a program (or the time) to putz around with migrating non native video and data. Same with Harry’s! Torture!

Originally Posted by ThunderMoose

Smartycam ftw. It was awesome when I was getting coach to pull out card right after session and view video with data. Plus I have never in 3 years missed a video because I forgot to turn camera on or because battery was dead. Did forget once to put card back in when I set track record at LRP.

yeah for data overlay I feel it's smartycam or go home. But smartycam has image quality of like a gopro 1!