Albi Blue 200 >> BMW E46 Track Car

[tombate911]

Little bit more progress being made this week in the evenings.

Lots of parcels still arriving.
Firstly being a change of brake pads. Normally you know I've been a big advocate of the DS1.11 and a number of you lot run them on my recommendations but for the e46 I thought i'd try something new.



Tyres started to turn up by the truck load. 4 RSR's and 4 Rainsports
Keeping the staggered set up so running
Rear - 255/35/18
Front - 225/40/18



Up the car went onto axles stands and the work can begin on the undersides of the car


First job was to start with the difficult end and drop the rear subframe, suspension and diff off in one go.


Started stripping it all down into individual parts. Cutting, pressing and burning out all the old bushes and ball joints. Total of 15 in the rear subframe alone.



Rear suspension set up all ready to go for powdercoating, wheel bearings removed and a few repaired threads. Just got to get the front sorted this weekend.



Big exciting news. Took delivery of a 330 Challenge Cage 16 Point bolt and weld in cage. Will mean the car is at least built to the correct specifcation for the 330 Challenge series. Which may be one less thing to worry about in the future. Going to be a big job to fit though. Also bought the weld in strut brace to as the strut tops needed strengthening front and rear to run coilovers.





More to come this weekend as I'm hoping to spend Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday working on it, trying to keep the updates regular so it doesn't take too long to update the thread.

 

[trackspec197]

You will never ever go back to Ferodo after fitting CL Tom

 

[Pav]

ohh how pleased i am to see this going the right direction...always very excited to see what you have in store for us Tom...
having seen/heard the car in the flesh im sure you cant wait to get in on track...
hope all goes well for you

 

[Yiannis197]

Handy with the spanner eh Tom? Really nice mate, I'm liking that a lot!

 

[tombate911]

Another small update and also request for some colour opinions.

With all the Sub frames and suspension removed and ready for powder coating I am stuck between having it done in anthracite, nice and simple and clean, or whether to go ballsy and go for something like red. Unsure which to go for yet? Wondering if the anthracite wont stand out enough or whether to continue with the stealth theme...

Anyway back to the update and photos.
The weekend started off with a Cambelt fitting to a Clio 200 and a driveshaft swap before I could get on with my own work. Picked up the engine crane on the Saturday evening and cracked on with some jobs
First up was to get the front subframe off. Supported the engine on the engine crane as the lower subframe also holds the engine mounts on the e46. Dropped it all off in one go ready to be stripped down.



Over 20 bushes pressed, cut or burnt out
6 repaired threads with helicoils
2 hub bolts ground off and drilled out
Many grinding discs later...
It was time to do a few strengthening jobs before powder coating.
Cut some plates to go around where the engine mounts sit to prevent the mount being pulled through the subframe or tearing the single skin
Will get these welded on over the weekend and then take the lot off to powder coaters with all 8 wheels.

Common theme on this car is that anything that's not solid mounted is being replaced. Here's a little example. Rubber bush in the steering column replaced with an aluminium spacer turned on the lathe and drilled to suit.


Sunday was time to spend a bit more time working inside the car. Dash removed, all the centre console, steering wheel and everything associated in that area. Including stipping back a lot of wiring and removing the last of the floor mat.



The 330 was specced with a through bulkhead and a split seat but there's still a lot of metal work in the rear section and wouldn't be right to keep all that in with the cage I am planning on running and the welding that needs to be done in the boot for the strut brace and strut strengthening.


So tonight out came the grinder and started to cut it all away. The majority of it has been cut away now. Tomorrow I'm going to get in there and cut off some remaining brackets and then start grinding the remaining areas back flush.

Just a small amount of metal work removed from the rear of the car to make some space for whats to come... Will be hard at it for the next 3 days hopefully if nothing else comes up. Keep your eyes pealed for the next update or check out the social media links at the bottom of my Signature!

 

[tombate911]

So the weekend got off to a productive start.
Saturday morning I was out shopping at 7am to replace the grinder I had set on fire Friday night after 2 hours of grinding with a flap disc without stopping. Overheated and set the motor on fire.

Started with the easier/smaller job in the rear of the car, offered up the 4 plates for the rear strut brace, two to the strut tops and two to the boot floor. Wire wheel of any paint and under seal in the area ready to tack the plates into position.



Once that was tacked into place the strut brace could be removed and then started to work forward though the car. Very long day 13 hours total fitting the cage. Lots of taking it in and out, marking the plate locations, drilling holes for the captive nuts on the back of the foot plates, building the cage up inside the car and then tack welding the plates into position



This shows a little more detail into how it's fitted. strengthening plates tacked in firstly to the corner/floor to mount the main hoop. Box section then tacked into position on top of it and when finally the plate with the captive nuts was tacked onto the top of the box section for the foot plates but that's not shown in the photo.
Due to the amount of work I kind of forgot to take lots of photos so tried to make do with the ones I did take.
The front section was fitted and tacked into position. Tied the cage into the shell in 4 locations around the windscreen, above the doors and into the b pillars giving the shell plenty additional strength.

Final welding - Once the shell is back rolling again I'll be taking it on a trailer to a very good welder who's done work on a few friends cars and he will finish off welding the cage in now all the prep work is done and everything is located correctly.



After that I managed to get my hands on a friends set of E36 M3 Manifolds to test fit. No one makes a decent manifold set up for RHD 330 Engines so I've decided to get a little creative and make a set of E36 M3 Manifolds to fit even though the bolting set up on the flanges are a little different I've got a solution

Little bit of time thinking and I've drawn up an adaptor plate I'm going to get made to mount the S50 Manifold to the M54 block



In other news while collecting a number of parts ready to start to build it back up again I've started to clean up and paint a number of parts now. Much better seeing everything looking like this on a self now ready to be built back up.


Monday saw a van load of parts being taken the powdercoater, 8 wheels, front and back subframes, anti roll bars, wishbones, trailing arms and a number of small brackets. All should be back to me next week ready for new bushes and assembly.

In the time being I'm waiting for some engine parts to turn up from America as well as a shifter. Wrote myself a to do list last night which consisted of 2 pages of jobs so plenty to keep me going.

 

[Pav]

bloody hell Tom..you dont mess around,do you? everything is coming together nicely..really looking forward to seeing it on the road/track..kudos to you for doing all this yourself..
hats off to you buddy

 

[Big Ben]

Brilliant update. Love seeing how quickly this is progressing mate

 

[Markmec]

Looks easier to deal with than an old clio.

 

[jamesgw200]

great update mate

 

[Micah]

Amazing progress Tom, glad you've chosen to keep the thread on this forum - very interesting reading!

 

[Antti O]

Btw. are you losing oil with that engine?
Maybe good idea to install new set of piston rings.
M54 oil control rings are so sad story, most of engines use oil. And when you drive hard you lose even more.

 

[tombate911]

Looks easier to deal with than an old clio.

Haha trust me the Clio is a doddle to work on compared to this. Everything is more complicated, bigger and has more wires. Basically more of everything.

Amazing progress Tom, glad you've chosen to keep the thread on this forum - very interesting reading!

Glad to see you say that Micah. Will keep the updates going then but try to keep them interesting for everyone out there reading them.

Btw. are you losing oil with that engine?
Maybe good idea to install new set of piston rings.
M54 oil control rings are so sad story, most of engines use oil. And when you drive hard you lose even more.

Tested it on the road for a while without noticeable oil consumption. May be different on track. At the moment all I'm replacing is the rod bolts, rod bearings and oil pump shaft, if it requires rings in the future I'll be engine out and sort it. Until then I'll focus on the rest of the chassis.

 

[trackspec197]

You’ll have good fun with it Tom. If I didn’t have the Clio I go down the same route. Fancied an E46 track car for ages haha.

 

[tombate911]

Starting off with a little bit of mid week progress this week by reproducing a set of Detent tools for BMW gearboxes. Found the drawings online for the tools and set about making them up. I've got all the parts from BMW to replace the detent springs for the gates on the gears just needed the tools do it it myself which aren't common to find people with due to their costs.



All done, the grooves on the bottom denote the number for the tool as per the BMW Manual


So another weekend done. Spent Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday on the car again and achieved this...

Started off by removing the last bits of sound deadening and then all traces of the horrible residue left behind, removed the last bits of wiring and any trim clips, or bungs or anything I wont want there when it's painted.
Also got the final eyelets all drilled and wire wheeled ready for welding.



Sunday morning I decided to start to do some of the other jobs on the too do list.
Started off chasing an oil leak in the engine bay. Started by replacing the oil filter housing gasket and cleaning all the engine block down that side while it was off.

New Gasket fitted and cleaned up.


Then onto the preparation for being able to rev this engine higher than standard 6.5k to 7k and over potentially if it makes power. More on this to follow...

While I was in the engine bay perfect time to remove the old spring tensioner for the chain and replace it with a new spring and crush washer. The Springs start to loose their pressure over a period of the time and I doubt this has been changed, chains on these aren't replaced unlike cambelts.



With the rear subframe down, the next job on the list was to get the fuel tank down so I can run all new brake lines from the engine back to the rear calipers. While I'd taken it down I decided to tackle a few bits of surface rust with the wire wheel.



Good job I did too as when grinding back the areas where the subframe bolts to the rear of the chassis I have found 3 cracks starting to form where the car is ripping it's own subframe off from where it's mounted.



It's not on heard of on these chassis for them to do this, not something I'm worried about. Going to start to make up some plates in the evenings this week and plate over the whole area making it stronger. Glad I found it now though while waiting for the rest of the bits to come back from powdercoating as I've still got some chassis welding jobs to do.


More to come soon as I've going all guns blazing at this build at the moment. Kind of wish I'd gone to these details and efforts with the Clio though as I'd be interested to see what I could have made it into if I'd have put this amount of effort in!

 

[Pav]

this car Tom...im always amazed by your passion and attention to detail..this,when its finished will be absolutely spot on...the weather has been nice so you can get on with all this..looking forward to another brill update...

 

[suj]

Great work Tom, so quickly too!

Also I can't remember if I mentioned, but on the E36 I put an Z3M shifter on, it's much quicker and a quick google says it also does the same for the E46

Part numbers for you:
Z3M Shifter: 25117527254
Bushing: 25111220600
Circlip: 25117571899
(don't need the circlip, but I got it as it was cheap).

I was on this forum BMWforums.info, Harry Fairbairn BMW on there gives great discount with delivery:
http://www.bmwforums.info/harry-fairbairn-bmw/

 

[AmosMoses]

Nice to see the progress!

I drove a friend's modded E36 328 yesterday, had coilovers, semi slicks and a m3 cam. Absolutely wonderful car! Its got me tempted to sell the Clio and hunt one down...

 

[Pav]

Nice to see the progress!

I drove a friend's modded E36 328 yesterday, had coilovers, semi slicks and a m3 cam. Absolutely wonderful car! Its got me tempted to sell the Clio and hunt one down...

Would be awesome but get ready to enter a diff money league

 

[suj]

Nice to see the progress!

I drove a friend's modded E36 328 yesterday, had coilovers, semi slicks and a m3 cam. Absolutely wonderful car! Its got me tempted to sell the Clio and hunt one down...

It's not a UK M3 cam, they don't fit, it's the US M3 cam (S52B32 engine, basically they got a modded 328i, so it was 3.2 litre instead of 2.8, had fruitier cams, but not ITB'd like the S50B30/S50B32 engine Europe got, so made 240bhp, compared to 282bhp (3.0) and 321bhp (3.2)).

I had a track 328i and I miss it so much! They have sky rocketed now for a manual 6cylinder, back in the day they were pennies.

The straight 6 is so smooth, torque all over it, makes a great noise, it literally ticks so many boxes.

Now you got me looking at them again! DAMMIT haha.


EDIT: so my old car is up for sale
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E36-...419683?hash=item33ee3eb763:g:QbgAAOSwGSRbONzF

I sold it quite bare (broke for all the nice bits), you might have all seen it on DannyDC2 on youtube when he was drifting it. Best colour too!