Albi Blue 200 >> BMW E46 Track Car

[Pav]

spot on Syer..very dedicated..like it a lot Tom..keep them coming..how much was the temp sensor pls??

 

[brunodias]

Great updates, always nice to see. Honestly makes me gain the courage to "start things up".

 

[tombate911]

Little bit of an experiment tonight.

Went and picked the wheels up from the powder coaters yesterday evening, all 8 of them done gloss black look fantastic.



While both sets were done at the same time I thought It would be a great chance to weigh them and compare the two weeks against each other.

200 Cup wheels -9.3kg
197 Standard Wheels -10.4kg

Obviously now the dry tyres are going to get fitted to the 200 wheels with 4kg's saved across the wheel set. However the biggest difference will be made due to the fact it's 4kg off rotational mass so would be like taking a fair bit more weight from else where. Free weight loss.

If you were to buy a spa temp/temp dual gauge, they have the ability to kick a oil pump in via a relay mate if it's something you'd consider.
I was wanting mine kicked in by the gen90, but I split the car after the £2.5k nurburgring fiasco. Lol

I'll have a little look. I think what i'm going to do is set up a little arduino in the glove box and program it to be a little data logger, first of all write a program to output the gearbox oil temp on a screen and log the gearbox temps while out on track to look back at later. Going to start working on this towards the end of the week. Eventually I'm going to look at it talking to the ECU using bluetooth and displaying/logging ECU data. But that's well down the line for now.

 

[tombate911]

So with the wheels back from the powder coaters it was time to get them sealed and tyres mounted back on them so the car can come off the axle stands and back onto the ground


but before that could happen I still had a list of jobs to be getting on with. First was drain the gearbox fluid from the last track day, fit the M16x1.5 to 1/8th NPT adapter and fit the temp sensor to the gearbox and refill with the new Redline MT-90 fluid.



With the sensor fitted there is no way to read the signal/resistance of the sensor with the standard ECU, this would have been dead simple if i was running stand alone. I could have got a cheap sender and gauge but whats the fun in that.
Started mocking up a little circuit to read the temperature using a pull down resistor to make a potential divider and combine that with a Arduino with an LCD screen. Couple of hours doing the maths and writing the code from scratch.

Gearbox temp output on a little LCD screen. Now it's just time to neaten up the wiring and design and 3D print a little box for it to go in with the LCD screen visible.



Slight adjustment to the shims on the rear beam to bring the toe square rather than the excessive amounts of toe in I've been running since it was lowered.

While I was there I took the discs off, skimmed them slightly and ground all the rust off and repainted black.

Also lifted the rear of the car 10mm to give it a little more rake to help with the handling on track combined with the now parallel rear beam.



Once that was done it was time to finish off what I had started with the interior. With all the sound deadening removed and varies things like seatbelts and speakers removed from the rear I put back some of the interior to keep the car looking good, purely for the aesthetic reasons put some of the rear panels back in.
Before doing that spent a little bit of time on the wiring to make sure there was no airbag warning lights left on the dash with the seat belt pretensioners removed.



Gave it a wash while it was on axles stands and did all the brakes, coilovers and under the arches before refitting the wheels.

I'm sure there are so many things I've not written about on here that I've been messing with over the past couple of weeks.

 

[sevenfourate]

Do you know the weights of the Uniroyal Rainsports on your wets - compared to the weight of your dry tyres ? (Just for info)

****Not much you can do about it either. But tyres weights vary hugely. Probably more than the odd KG between the two Renault wheels i'd suspect. I looked before when trying to buy lighter wheels. Often by changing brands of tyres, you could achieve the same thing / save more weight / not need to buy lighter wheels etc etc

And how good do the wheels look BTW . Fabulous job Whats your sealer of choice ? I bet that needs to be pretty hardy with track-useage.

Interior strip out looks really tidy work as ever Tom. And i think it's great how this car is evolving into such an able weapon; but still looks pretty stock from the outside. Road or track; you are going to mortally wound quite a few peoples prides if you continue to stay looking that way....

Enjoy your next outing.

 

[trackspec197]

Great work Tom. Love the work you've put into the gearbox temp set up.

Are those the Pure motorsport shims? which ones have you one for?

 

[tombate911]

Do you know the weights of the Uniroyal Rainsports on your wets - compared to the weight of your dry tyres ? (Just for info)
And how good do the wheels look BTW . Fabulous job Whats your sealer of choice ? I bet that needs to be pretty hardy with track-useage.
Interior strip out looks really tidy work as ever Tom. And i think it's great how this car is evolving into such an able weapon; but still looks pretty stock from the outside. Road or track; you are going to mortally wound quite a few peoples prides if you continue to stay looking that way....
Enjoy your next outing.

Cheers for all the comments mate! The sealer I've been using was just a small sample pot of a basic wheel sealer. Nothing too crazy or expensive but does the trick. Best thing I've found is to make sure the wheels are washed the day after the track day and keep on top of the car.

Not too sure on the weights between tyres. didn't think to weigh them, I can however just weigh one of the wheels with the tyre on it next time it's off as I know the weight of those wheels, The RSR's are a bit heavier as they're a much beefier stronger sidewall semi slick but at least the tyres have remained constant and the wheels changed to reduce some weight. Not really sure what to do with the outside really, I kind of like it the way it is, I can still just about get away with driving it to and from work if i fancy it.

@trackspec197

Cheers, the little arduino logger is something I'm going to keep working on over time and try to add more features to it.
The shims are 1 degree camber shim and 30' toe out shim. Which equates to 2.5 degress of camber and parallel toe on a lowered car. Obviously every set up is different but it gives you a good starting point.

 

[trackspec197]

Any ideas what camber and toe they run standard?

 

[tombate911]

Any ideas what camber and toe they run standard?

Standard car 197/200 at standard height

Camber 1.5 degrees
Toe 0.5 degree toe in (Total)

When my car was lowered it changed to 1 degree total toe in due to how the camber effects the toe as the car is lowered.

 

[tombate911]

Sorry. Yet again another update. This time a totally unplanned move sadly adding more weight to the car but I think it's a step in the right direction. Either way it looks amazing. I can't stop looking at it!
Set off for Reading from the Warrington area on Thursday afternoon at 3pm and returned home at midnight, 9.5 hours driving in the VW Van but totally worth it!






I was always going to put a cage in the car at some point but I did think it was going to be further in the future as it's quite a large purchase, however when this came up with the double crosses and the harness bar I decided It wouldn't be a bad move considering it was well priced.

And the money shot...

 

[Pav]

whats this for Tom?..has it got any safety features or will the car feel more solid with it in??

 

[BenAG200]

Glad it's gone to a good home, looks great with the blue bodywork.

 

[tombate911]

whats this for Tom?..has it got any safety features or will the car feel more solid with it in??

It's a safety devices roll cage. Adds protection to the occupants should there every be a roll over as well as more strength for side impacts with the additional cross behind the seats. Also ensures the harnesses are mounted at the correct angle and this would prevent any damage to the spine should there ever be an accident as harnesses mounted too low will compress the spine. Finally with 6 point harnesses it is impossible to submarine under the belt should the top of the car every get crushed which means you would be crushed in your bucket seat compared with a traditional seat belt. It should make the car a little stiffer but it's not exactly running throughout the car and mounted to all the suspension pick up points which would make a greater difference to the stiffness of the shell. Mainly a safety thing, but it looks amazing in yellow.

 

[Pav]

copy and paste??
nice anyway...

 

[kevlar]

Looks mint and the right colour to - I bought some bits from Ben top guy!

 

[tombate911]

copy and paste??
nice anyway...

Nope I wrote all that my self. Plenty information around on the net about the points I made there. Worth a read if you ever find time.

 

[trackspec197]

It's a safety devices roll cage. Adds protection to the occupants should there every be a roll over as well as more strength for side impacts with the additional cross behind the seats. Also ensures the harnesses are mounted at the correct angle and this would prevent any damage to the spine should there ever be an accident as harnesses mounted too low will compress the spine. Finally with 6 point harnesses it is impossible to submarine under the belt should the top of the car every get crushed which means you would be crushed in your bucket seat compared with a traditional seat belt. It should make the car a little stiffer but it's not exactly running throughout the car and mounted to all the suspension pick up points which would make a greater difference to the stiffness of the shell. Mainly a safety thing, but it looks amazing in yellow.

spot on

 

[///M]

Missed a load of this progress Tom.

Car looks absolutely fantastic. You've put together a very nice one indeed.

 

[brunodias]

I wish I had those skills to plug a sensor, throw some wires into a small lcd and making it work. haha

 

[tombate911]

Not a lot been going on lately, just a few small tweaks along the way.

Still had issues with the alternator after refitting a replacement so had mine rebuilt fully and then refitted it this weekend, hopefully that's the end of that problem.

I've sourced a braided line for the clutch line to remove the expansion chamber and and the rubber hose, still waiting to find time to get that fitted. Maybe one evening this week.

Picked up a set of 197 wheels which makes it 3 sets of wheels now... need to get the old tyre's removed from them and probably powder coated, either put a spare set of dry tyre's on two of them as spares or pick up a set of slicks.

Also booked Oulton Park for the 18th November if anyone is interested, I've made a thread about it in the track days/meet section.

I'll get some photos this week posted up