Had the new decals delivered and put on in time for the 2009 E30 picnic!

Race day! Need I say more?

following images were provided by Curtis Creager of Creager Images
     

I am excited to announce that BimmerWorld has decided to step onboard as a sponsor for my racing efforts for 2009. Many thanks to James Clay (CEO) who made this possible.

About BimmerWorld
BimmerWorld is a racer-owned, racer-staffed BMW performance center, providing technical expertise and race proven products to make anyone's racing program a front-runner. Staff expertise ranges from street upgrades to full professional racing and covers BMW platforms from 1984 through new models.

The 3.5 hours of driving time that you get at the ProFormance lapping days are a great opportunity to review your past material and push yourself slowly and steadily. I was still on stock tires and brake pads as I didn't have the budget to upgrade these critical parts but plans are in progress.

I started with reviewing the lessons I learned from the race school and found that I was consistently on line.  My instructor wanted me to focus more on being smooth and linking the throttle, brakes, and steering so that they add up to 100%. On a more personal side, I also focused on being smooth with the shifting and found that I had definitely improved quite a bit from the last session.

As the day progressed and I gained more speed through the corners, and unfortunately ran into a little incident at T5a. As I was letting go off the clutch while adding throttle and steering, I realized that the clutch hadn't fully engaged yet. I felt the chirp in the rear and braced myself for trouble. Looking straight far ahead, I keep the throttle down while the car tank slapped around a bit. Unfortunately, the turn in the road combined with my  proximity to the edge to start with led me into the gravel where jumped on the clutch and the brake before hitting the tire wall. I was lucky and managed to get out with just a dent in the rear quarter pannel (which I bent back into shape by kicking from the inside). It may have been a lot worse if I hadn't started taking evasive action right when I felt the glitch.

After taking a break and calming myself down, I was out on track again to see what I had done wrong and how to fix it. Folks were saying that it may have been because of the tires but since I was stuck with them, I changed my brake and shift zone to be a bit littler earlier than before for T5a and that seemed to do the trick. 2 more hours of practice later, it was time to quit and recall the days events to plan for the next event.  Despite the little incident, I learned a lot from the process and looking forward to the lapping session next month.

Wow, what an amazing weekend! The ground school on Friday evening covered the basics and we reviewed the safety information as well as the flags. Then I drove back up to Seattle only to get 6 hours of sleep before heading right back to Pacific Raceways early next morning.

It was overcast so I wasn't sure how adventurous we would be getting but putting that aside, we headed out for a track walk led by the Hill brothers. Lot of useful dos and donts but the one thing that stuck in my mind was how steep it was from T2 to T3a and T3b. The videos online don't reveal the real horror awaiting you when you see it in person.  But don't worry, when you are in your car it goes by so fast, your fear of heights is replaced by fear of fading brakes.

With street tires and stock Mintex brake pads, it wasn't long before I was pushing the car beyond its limits. Though glad that these were the only problems that surfaced as this was the first time ever the Red Beast made an appearance at a track.  Luckily, there were several items on the agenda that I could practice at slower speeds as coincidentally this was also my first time on track with a manual car. I was put in Group 2 and we ran about 4 sessions of which the first one was in rain, second one in light snow, and sessions 3 and 4 under a beautiful sunny sky. The changes in weather along with a great instructor, taught me a lot of valuable lessons and I used every opportunity I got to improve myself.  Result: my speed steadily increased approaching T2 from session to session and being lapped by fewer and fewer cars and starting to lap others.

 ... the build is complete! I will let the pictures do the talking ...

No one should be in race car without a HANS device and if you do some basic research you find out pretty quickly why its such a good idea. So I went ahead and ordered mine esp. b/c my 2" inch shoulder harness requires the HANS to be present.

After a month and half worth of delays, UPS finally delivered the Sparco 383 Steering Wheel, Sparco Hub Adapter and the NRG Thin Quick Release to my door! Installation was easy once I figured out how the quick release adapter worked. This one is a bit different than the normal non-slim versions in that the lock stays in place on the steering column instead of coming apart with the steering wheel. Not bad though, it saves over 1.5 inches compared to its fatter siblings.

The seat was looking rather dull sitting in my living room by itself so I decided to go buy a 6 point Sparco Harness (HANS) for it. They are both now living in holy matrimony..

For the past couple months I (along with help from my brother over Christmas) have been busy getting the car finished up and I am glad to say I am getting very very close. All engine, suspension, and brake work is now complete. The car has trouble getting the auxillary fan to come on when the coolant temperature is past its ideal operating temperature. After several bleeding attempts and circuit checks, I have decided to wire in a manual fan switch for the time being and will retry diagnosing the system again at a later time. Apart from that, everything else was smooth sailing. All that is left now is scraping the rest of the mats from the interior, removing the sunroof tray, and re-connecting the dashboard and off to TC Motorsports for the roll cage installation.

 picked up a Sparco seat today from Eric B. for a very darn good price. Much thanks to him for helping me out in such tough times :)

In order to take full advantage of the Ground Control camber plates in the E30 series, you need to cut parts of the strut tower. Though it was a bit nerve wrecking at first to think about, the task was very easy to accomplish with the Dremel tools. As far as the paint goes, I chose to cover a thin strip around the cut with matching paint. This makes it look as if the paint job was done for the reason of modifying the strut tower. I have no intention of making it look as if that’s how it came stock. It’s a race car after all :) Thanks to Zach and Mike who helped me out on this. Here are some photos from the op:

I have the flu and to keep my mind from going nuts I decided to spend quality time in the garage over the past 2 days. After hours of slow but steady work the engine harness is in and most of the things are now hooked up in the hood. Need to get the oil coolor connected and all the wires under the dash. Many thanks to Wes Hill and Steve Schafer for letting me bug them about random things and take reference pictures of their setup. Thanks guys, it definitely made things a lot easier. Here are some pictures again, I specially like the before and after shots of the hood :)

After weeks of procrastination, we finally got back together to get the new engine and the transmission back in the car. A total of 5 hours and several minor incidents later we finally managed to secure the last of the sub-frame bolts before calling it quits for the night.

A quick update on the state of affairs. Transmission was cleaned and all the seals were replaced, so hopefully no more leaks. Also added a high pressure fuel hose to the vent tube to catch any overflowing fluid when the transmission gets hot. This should help alleviate the mess around the transmission body or dropping fluid on track. The engine has been re-fitted with all its gadgets and awaiting clutch alignment tool before the new clutch and pressure plate gets put on. And as a last step, I went ahead and cleaned the hood area of years of oil and grime! Parts from Pelican Parts will be here shortly and then on to putting the shiny engine in its new body.

After several weeks…wait…months, the engine and the transmission have finally been hoisted out of the car! Much thanks to my friend Matt for helping me with this (and countless other times) over the weekend. We got it done in under 5 hours and that’s pretty good given that we were completely new to this…

As March rolls on by, I decided to put back the parts on my engine and get it ready for replacement with the engine thats already in the car. In the next few weekends when my buddies can help me out, I will get the engine swapped in and the transmission seals replaced. Then onto suspension, the differential and lastly the brakes and tires.

With much excitement I stopped by TC Motorsports this morning to pick up my suspension and steering upgrades. The sight of the new Koni coilover racing suspension (assembled by TrueChoice) along with the sway bars and strut/shock tower braces left a grin that spanned the width of my face. It’s hard to believe that even as adults, you sometimes get to go back down memory lane and experience once again what it is like to be a kid on Christmas morning. Thanks to Carlo at TC Motorsports for “hooking” me up.

… and here I have a M20 B25 motor from a ‘88 325is!  Found it off the all-amazing craigslist and the seller was nice enough to drop it off at my garage. Till all the suspension and body work is taken care of, I will be slowly taking care of the all maintenance upgrades on this baby… as always here are a few pictures to drool on:

I am a city slicker who wants to go racing…go figure! Living in apartments is not the ideal lifestyle for a wanna-be racer, esp. if you don’t have a garage. And to make matters worse, they are pretty hard to come by around here (Seattle). Well let me clarify: the ones with electricity and the landlord allowing you to work on your car kinda garage. Anyhoo, after months of searching craigslist, I have landed myself in a sweet double car garage not too far from my place of habitat and best of all…it comes with free electricity! Yay! Time to get cracking on all the work that I have been too lazy to bother starting.

On a whim, my friend Matt and I decided it’s about time to strip the interior of the 325i after I wanted to relocate the sub and amps from the 3-series to my 5-series. From what was supposed to take 15 mins ended up taking a day and a half and we ended up with a mostly stripped 325i exposing its bare red skin to all those who dare to glance.  All that are left are the A/C components, roof liner and noise reducing pads…but that’s for another weekend. As always, here are some pictures from the event…Matt’s dog seems to like the new interior quite a bit :)

After what seems like an eternity, I have finally found what I am looking for! Its a beautiful red 1989 325i that has been babied by the previous three owners. As arranged, the cute little beast was parked in the middle of the Macy’s parking lot and it clearly stood out from the rest of the pack. As I drove towards it, the smile on my face couldn’t be lifted for any sum of money and right then and there I knew that this is it.

After a thorough look-over by my friend Mike, we confirmed what we already knew. Very well taken care of E30 325i. Sure the engine needed a bit of work, brakes needed some attention and the windshield replaced but when you get a rust free body, new transmission and clutch, new tires, and an interior that will leave you second guessing if this car was really manufactured in 1988, the bad points melt away like butter. Surprisingly the engine was responsive despite having low compression issues.

Zipping through the price discussion, cash trading hands for the title, the usual handshakes and we have ourselves a beautiful 325i ready to be converted into a race car. Here’s a teaser of the Red Best:

Starting off a blog is perhaps more challenging than I thought it would be. How do you begin to describe what it feels to get started in the world of racing…you simply can’t. You have set plans on how you would like to execute but you have no idea what might obstruct them in the future. If you ask any racer today, they will all unanimously say that choosing to be a part of the world of motorsports was one of the best decisions they made in their lives. So with high hopes and optimism I am putting together my words, my experiences as they happen…good or bad, for the rest of the world to get a glimpse into the life of an amateur racer. Welcome aboard!