Albi Blue 200 >> BMW E46 Track Car

[tombate911]

As we start to move into spring I've started to look at Trackdays for 2024, I was hoping to get more miles on the car this year, but we'll see how that progresses through the year, noticed a lot of people selling up track cars this year, possibly down to the constant rising of prices and the costs of cars?

Following on from Oulton I'd made the decision that I wanted to go back to giving ABS a try on the E46. In OEM form I never got on with the ABS and brake system as a whole, the main reason for that is the standard braking system run a 52% / 48% brake bias which resulted in constant intervention from the ABS for the rears. I ditched the system and went with ABS delete and have rated that set up with a Wilwood proportioning valve.
Looking at the data from Track days in 2023 on average the bias is between 60% / 40% - 56% / 44%
Going with ABS one option is to go to a M3 Master cylinder which would bring it down to 53% - 47% but it still isn't in the range I would have become accustomed to and isn't adjustable,

Old Bias location - Prior to removing interior and brake lines.

I started using what braided lines I already had on the car for the front lines and refitted the front hard line from the master cylinder to the ABS Pump

Ordered lines for what I didn't have, I reached out to Matt at Brake.Shop.co.uk and ordered some link lines and full lines to go to the rear of the car to join the current braided lines.

Plumbed up the remainder of the ports with braided lines

What I have decided to do is take the Rear master cylinder output and ran it to the proportioning valve and ran this back to the ABS Pump.
This gives me the chance to run the same rear bias as before and still utilise the ABS pump.
The pump im using is the MK60, this is a really commonly fitted pump to a lot of cars and has a bit online following, There are a range of ABS pump controllers available, some which can be reflashed with different software but that is something to look at down the line, The main advantage is this one is set up for the E46 and just works.

Took a bit of a fiddle but managed to get connected to the MK60 ABS using Ista and INPA. Was good to check the live data as well as going through the function of the ABS switch and fire all the pump to bleed the system correctly, this process took me about 3 days using various different techniques, it wasn't made any easier with the additionally lines and loops I've added to the system.

Whilst the seats are out I've removed the driver footplate, I end up replacing the grip tape on this ever two of three trackdays as I tend to dig my left heal into the floor when driving and it pulls the tape off all the time.

At one point over winter I was considering looking for a front carpet, yes I did cut one to bits in 2018 and throw it in the skip, oops, how things change, but the work needed to get one and then refit it I decided i would just carpet the foot plate.

This is one change I am really happy with, it's tidier and just feels nicer.

Last few changes have been to the logger and the screen.
Added a lot more Canbus channels to the logger from the ECU as well as adding some more data to the screens relating to the brakes. Bias viewable on the fly.
I have also been working on a screen which monitors and logs wheel lockups and slip rates when braking in straight line, hope it will be interesting to use as data for dialing in braking and actually seeing what the wheels are doing.
At some point I will update the graphics on this display to something which is a little easier on the eye and 'fancy' but for the time being function!

I am keeping my eye out for a replacement drivers seat too. Looking for a Sparco Circuit to match my current seats but waiting for the right seat at the right price at the moment.

I'm sure there will be more before Cadwell in April. I am looking at some form of graphics and colour being added to the car before then but that is a bit of random idea at the the moment... Watch this space.

 

[tombate911]

Found a replacement for the smaller more club sport seats I've had in the BMW since the Clio prior to 2018, these have been great and are still in perfect condition and were brilliant when driving the cars on the road, but always wanted to try something a little bit different, little more support and slightly different feel.

Been keeping an eye out for this specific seat as it is the same material and design as my Pro2000 seats.

Possibly keep my eye out for a second one for the passenger side.

I thought I was pretty much ready to go for Cadwell Park on Monday, but decided to make some changes to the suspension set up ahead of Cadwell, back on axle stands it goes.

Going back to the softer rear springs 350lbs and refitting the rear anti roll bar, this is the set up I've ran for the past couple of years and it's the best feeling setting up I've had but I don't think it's quite optimum.
I'd experimented with a firmer rear spring which caused even more wheel lifting and inside wheel slip under power. I then kept the stiffer rear springs and dropped the ARB when worked well at Oulton in the wet allowing the inside wheel to remain in contact with the floor helped drive out of corners. But overall I think a stiffer front anti roll bar is a better direction to go, more on this when it turns up.

Springs and dampers swapped back to the original set up.

Wheels washed and cleaned while off the car,

There's always something else going on in the background too, modifications to output flanges for a Porsche gearbox...

 

[tombate911]

Little bit of free time over easter has given me the opportunity to make some changes to a few bits. Had a little bit of time yesterday on CAD to look at the design of the rear wing, it's a little bit bigger than I ever thought I'd have on the car, the end plates I originally designed and cut were more of a mock up and they ended up staying,

Version 2 - Cut outs in the up rights and smaller end plates with a less square design

I have already laser cut some end plates from this to mock up and will get the uprights cut out of 10mm aluminium soon.

Mock test of the uprights

Ordered a new front ARB, this one being 30mm compared with the OEM which is around 23/24mm. This carries on from the previous post where I've refitted the rear ARB and gone back to the softer springs which was always my preferred set up, I'm hoping this should remove some of the front roll out of the car and help keep the car from pitching and lifting the inside rear when loading the opposite side front. We'll see what effect it has in practise.

Fitted with polybush to suit and the ARB came with some 'lovely' rose jointed adjustable drop links...

However they are no good really, the drop links aren't supplied with spacers to space the drop link away from the ARB and the shock tab and there isn't enough room for the rose joint/shock to articulate through it's full steering angle without it binding up at some point. I did mock it up with some washers but it's just a poor solution, Maybe at some point I'll make some much longer aluminium spacers to get the spacing better and look at the articulation a little more, but given the standard drop links a quick clean and they've gone back on.
Did a quick google and this appears to be a common thing amongst this style drop links, most people going with a standard ball joint style.

Quite a considerable difference, one thing to consider is it's not just the diameter of the roll bar, also the material it's made from, but this should be quite noticeable, thicker than what is normally fitted to an E46 M3, more in line with what was fitted to the E46 CSL

Last job for today, fitted a new battery, the Odyssey has been on the car since 2018, I've always done my best to keep it charged, however I think it's slowly start to die over the past 6 months but I generally keep it on the trickle charger. with the car not being ran or moved over winter I hadn't noticed anything but when I was sorting out the ABS I let the battery completely die by clearing the OBD lead plugged in for a few days and when I came to it the battery was completely flat. Tried to recondition it with a couple of different chargers but it just isn't holding charge for more than 2 days dropping down to 11v and below. A replacement is now £140 so looked at some alternatives that are the same dimensions and comparable spec,
Ended up with the Lucas LSLC22-12G 22Ah vs 16Ah.
We'll see how it goes but for £45 replacement,

 

[rSilva]

How do the batteries compare in weight? Sounds like a good alternative for a reasonable price

 

[rSilva]

Are you sure it's a good choice of battery? The rated max discharge current of 220A seems too low for starting the car.
I have a Genesis (sister brand to Odissey) and the rated max discharge is over the triple at 675A.

 

[rSilva]

Doing some more research, since I'll need to change my battery sometime in the near future, this one seems to have a decent price and bit more starting current capability at 320A,

https://bateriasweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ficha-t%C3%A9cnica-EVH-12240.pdf

 

[tombate911]

How do the batteries compare in weight? Sounds like a good alternative for a reasonable price

It weighed at 6.5kg which is the same if not slightly lighter than the Odyssey. They claim the Odyssey has a weight of 7kg from the data sheet.
In terms of the CCA. It’s a bit of a gamble but so far it’s been no problem, e46 takes a good 5/6 seconds of cranking for the first start of the day as the cold start isn’t 100%, still doing bits of tuning in that, did get it pretty close but I appear to have knocked something out of wack with it recently and it takes a bit more cranking.
Will see how I get on with the battery. Plan is to leave it on the trickle charger constantly now in the garage, used the car at Cadwell Park yesterday. The battery was on the button every time for starting.

 

[rSilva]

Thanks for the feedback!
I was afraid of the penny wise, pound fool, but it seems I will be fine

 

[tombate911]

Cadwell Park April 2024.


Fresh off the trailer at 7:30, always find the morning of a trackday a little bit worrying, hoping everything is right with the car and that it's going to work, this would probably be made easier if I didn't change so many things between each day, but where is the fun in that?

The weather was totally unexpected, traveling over to Louth the previous day was shocking with torrential wind and rain, but following it was the lovely calm and sunny weather we were blessed with on Monday. Was good to see so many people from the forum in attendance. I did manage to chat with a few. Had a wander around all the Clios are lunchtime but I think most people had disappeared for some food so didn't get to chat to a few people I'd hoped to.

Went out for sighting laps and discovered a missfire above 3000rpm. Did a few checks thinking back over things I had changed prior to Cadwell, pulled out the laptop and checked the vanos was working correctly as I'd taken some time to change the base cam timing for the vanos cam position numbers were all positive to help with logging the cam timing for the inlet and exhaust, all seemed to work in the paddock but I had a suspicion it was related to this, popped on a older map with the same cam set up and tables as last time, low and behold the first session out it was running as normal, i'll get rid of the minus numbers in the logger code instead.

Suspension set up
Straight out of the box it was obvious how much of a difference the front antiroll bar change to the 30mm had on the handling of the car. It was so much flatter through the corners, there was much more grip on the front end and as a result of the flatter front end the drive out of the corners from increased rear grip was much improved. Finally felt like I'd gotten somewhere with it.

ABS - Refitting the MK60 with the addition of the bias valve between the MC and the ABS pump for the rear circuit.
This was the main change for the day which I wanted to do some work on figuring out, with a hope in the long run it will make the car faster.

First two morning sessions I ran the ABS as it is, nothing turned off and let the system do it's job to see what happened.

ABS/ASC/DSC completely on:

Above you can see the ABS working, detecting slip on the rear wheels and the line pressure to the rear circuit decreases. Only problem was you can see a little further along as the throttle position increases when wheel slip is detected under power it is applying the front and rear brakes. Less than ideal.

ABS still on ASC/DSC turned off using the switch - This could be short press or long press - forgot to make a note

ABS working as it should, upon detecting wheel slip it drops the rear line pressure everything working as it should.

However during one of the morning sessions I had two instances where the brake pedal went straight to the floor, once at the end of Park Straight and the second at Mansfield which resulted in a detour to the marshals hut up the hill. Both instances where two laps apart. Once it happened a second time I came in and gave the car a once over, checked for leaks, any warning lights or codes, checked fluid level. Couldn't find anything a miss at this point. Thought it was possibly down to the deceleration rate of the car using the onboard Yaw sensor and the brake pressures so went out for a session with the Yaw Sensor unplugged which disables the ASC/DSC completely.
Another reason for trying this was that I had noticed coming out of hall bends in 3rd gear, normally I drop into 2nd as it gets out the corner better there was a slightly bogging down, I thought it was still some form of intervention from the ASC/DSC, didn't really have time to sit at the laptop and go through all the logs on a trackday so decided to go with the yaw sensor unplugged and see how it felt.

ABS working as expected but noticed a drop in the maximum brake pressure I was able to get from the system, at the time I described it as though the ABS was holding me back and I had to push much harder to get the same braking effort. Notice the maximum braking pressure for this session was around 800psi rather than the 1000-1100psi I'd seen on previous sessions.

The car still bogged coming out of hall bends - Looked at the logs and found a rich spot on the map at 3500rpm and full throttle - Changes the fueling table and it started to clean up, needs a little more adjustment but can do that before going out again.

Just before lunch I gave the car another once over while there was a red flag. Jacked the car up and popped the wheels off.
What I did find explained the loss of brake pedal...

Rear pads disintegrating

Not just breaking down into little pieces, breaking away in big chunks, however these pads are quite old, I bought them in 2018, didn't run them during 2019 and refitted again in 2020. I have periodically checked them and they have looked ok but age, heat cycles and being exposed to moisture has taken it's toll.

Pads from the over side still looking good, luckily I had a spare set of rear pads in the van, popped these in and off I went again for a session before lunch.

Had manged to good 60miles on circuit in the morning, gathered a lot of information by this point and set about doing some decent sessions in the car in the afternoon, most of them being 25 minute plus.

Noticed a big difference in being strapped into the Sparco Circuit seat and the additional support it provides being a much deeper seat. There is more support under the thighs so you're sat further down deeper into the seat and don't move forward under braking and finally the additional shoulder support.

Covered in flies at the end of the day, 140+ miles later

Near Side Front slick took a beating even with the 3.6-3.8 degrees of camber. Going to do some work on this as really I need to be over 4 degrees of camber to get the most from them with this set up, watch this space...

Packed up and loaded at the end of the day, ready to go again with some tweaks.

Still not 100% happy with the ABS set up but this wasn't helped by the disintegrated rear pads and having to go back to standard rears. I did take it easy on the brakes in the afternoon and increase the braking distances which you'll probably notice in the videos.
Will order some new pads all around and continue with the Mk60 with the Yaw sensor plugged back in and DSC/ASC disabled, reading the manual this is also possible to do by unplugging the brake fluid level sensor - this will lead the ABS working fully with the Yaw sensor.

Video - Smoothest lap of the day - Happy to finally get down to a 1:40 lap time, Car will easily go into the 1:39's or less with new brake pads and start to get used to them again driving with ABS, took me a good number of back to back laps to get used to not completely lifting for Coppice.

One of the afternoon sessions, I ended up lapping with a very equally paced Megane. Interesting to see the different areas both cars pick up pace on.

Still got a few bits to edit and look at but for now...

 

[RSRowe]

Awesome laps!

Looks so slow/boring/uneventful when you’re following

 

[tombate911]

Awesome laps!

Looks so slow/boring/uneventful when you’re following

Cheers @RSRowe ! Looks so different when going back editing footage. Like a little cruise to the shops till you look at the speedo and you're going through Gooseneck at 80mph.

 

[tombate911]

Wouldn't it be great just to park up the car after a track day? Maybe give it a wash and leave it at that?

Started with washing wheels and giving everything a check over...

NSF tyre didn't fair that well at Cadwell even with approx 3.5 degrees of camber - I've ordered a digital level which I'm going to make/mount into a camber gauge to take some more accurate measurements this week.

OSF not as bad but still not wearing level - These tyres only had 2.6mm of material on them anyway. Cadwell was going to be a bit of a test to see how I got on with the tyres with my current alignment settings.

Also signs of the OSF delaminating at the edge.

Also found a bent ARB mount, all well and good making the car stiffer but the force has to go somewhere, found a weak link. Spoken to Gaz already and the dampers are going to go back to them for some new different designed ARB mounts and a service while they are there. This wasn't something I had planned, was going to double up the thickness of it myself but might as well get it sorted before it tears the bracket off the shock.

None bent one for reference. The bent side is the drivers side shock so will be getting maximum load around left hand corners - Possibly damaged around coppice?

Popped the splitter, front bumper and wings off the car to start to look at increasing the camber on the front

Top mounts are at their max in their current setting, and depending on what I find with the alignment this week I probably need to find about 0.5-0.7 degree extra

Taken some measurements and crunched some numbers. By my maths I need 11mm worth of additional movement on the top mounts to get up to an extra 1 degrees of camber. Drilled some additional holes so I can build it back up and measure the camber change

The plan is going to be to cut some of the strut top away and plate over the top with some 5mm steel. Have already ordered some 150mm discs which I can machine with the following cut out. Planning to weld this over the strut top to strengthen it.

On the never ending list of things I want to do with the E46, I have had rusty wings written on there for a while. Decided to do something about it. Where this is going to end I don't know!!
While I had them off I've ground away all the signs of surface rust, treated the surface and painted them with etch primer to start with

I have also cut away any tabs on the edge of the arch where the liners normally mount and wire wheeled all the inside of the arch for painting too to stop moisture starting to rust through from the back side,

Got as far as a skim of filler around the edge just to flatten out any of the low spots and marks from grinding.
Body work isn't something I would say I am amazing at, so far I've painted inside a few track cars and the quality is improving, painted wheels, mountain bikes and forks and the all spoiler, splitter and body kit for vans. Whether I decide to paint the wings we will see. Watch this space!

 

[Helpimonfire]

You seem to do well at other car related things so I'm sure you can paint the wings!

 

[tombate911]

You seem to do well at other car related things so I'm sure you can paint the wings!

I think this level of confidence!
Will see how it goes. Waiting for a new bumper to turn up then I will make a decision about how to go forwards with it.

 

[tombate911]

No post since April makes this quite a large update.

Carrying on with the strut tops I got some laser cut 5mm steel discs and used the template to mark out the new plates for the strut tops

Little bit of time with a grinder and a file and I got a profile I was happy with which would give me good access to the top mounts for adjustment,

Prepped for welding

Borrowed a mig welder of a friend and got them welded in position, I do enjoy welding and fabricating things when I've got the opportunity to do so.

Primer and under seal to keep everything from rusting

Obviously I had to return the engine bay to the previous condition, I'd only painted it last year when the engine was out

Finished ready for suspension to go back on.

Work continued ton the rusty wings, getting any marks filled and then in primer

Also ordered a new bumber to replace the standard, this is an after market bumper which is a little chunkier and much flatter at the bottom which will marry up with the splitter a lot more cleanly

Quick test fit before painting

Next job was to start ordering replacment parts and new parts before putting everything back together
Picked up a set of slicks for the front to replace the ones I killed at Cadwell with the 3.6 degrees of camber.

New brake pads all around. Something a little different this time with the EBC
RPX front
RP1 rear - These are a little less aggressive and should help with the brake balance as I used to run the RS29/RC6 and Rear RC5 for the same reason.

Coiled cable...

With the new seat fitted in the car, from a driving point of view it is a much better feel and experience, but getting in and out of the car is a pain in the backside so opted for a removeable wheel and boss. Only issue was previously wiring for the steering wheel was ran through the OEM clock spring wiring so I've removed that and ran everything through the coiled cable

Refitted with the removeable boss - Also ordered some bolts to replace the ones I was short of

New brake pads fitted, but noticed the spring retaining clips fitted to it where the wrong ones for the calipers, which did work find withthe RS29 pads but no good with the EBC's

Brand new set including pins - Genuine Porsche parts

 

[tombate911]

Onto the painting. I got some quotes for the painting, I had planned to do all the pre, filling and primer so the panels were ready for base coat. Quotes were in the region of £500 cash to £570+vat. Nothing against paying that if it was my daily but for the track car decided it was too much...
Decided to commit to painting them myself. Base coat and lacquer £60. I did already have the compressor, guns, thinners and general consumables so they aren't factored into the price.
Over the past few years I've painted the inside of the E46 twice, engine bay a couple of times, the odd set of wheels, small panels, splitters and spoilers of the Volkeswagen vans, and a few more insides of track cars but nothing to the extent of the wings and bumpers.

With all the prep work done the wings and bumper started with two coats of base.

Followed by a mist coat of clear, followed by another two coats of clear with 5 minutes between each coat

Really happy with the final result, Maybe in the future it'll get a wet sand and polish but for the time being i'm more than happy, it's exactly what the E46 needed, but it was waiting for the right time and opportunity to tidy it up.

Last big job on the list was getting the alignment sorted on the car, Id set the front camber to 4.2 degrees from the 3.6 it had at Cadwell.
When I checked the rear I noticed rear left was 2 degrees, good tyre wear, Rear left was a fair bit less and you could see the difference in the tyre wear from Cadwell. Put this back to 2 degrees but needed to set the toe.
In the past I've been lucky to borrow friends unit with a ramp, alignment kit and scales etc but decided I would look at investing in my own kit, However Tegiwa string alignment kit was out of stock for 4-8 weeks...

Did some research into materials, costs, found out what sized material was the most cost effective, smaller isn't always cheepest.
Opted for buying:

19mm x 1.6mm Aluminium Tube
30mm x 30mm x 2mm mild steel
Plastic thumb turns from Ebay

Total spend £65.

I then drew up some of the most complicated pieces like the hooks for the end of the tubes and the end pieces for the vertical sections which the alignment poles go through and 3D printed them.

Welded some nuts onto the steel box for the thumb turns which haven't turned up yet, used some left over pipe insulation to protect the body work and some large heat shrink on the tubing.
Bought two cheap steel rules which are exactly the same to make measuring a set up as accurate as possible when setting it up with two people.

2024 Alignment

Front
Camber - 4.2degrees
Toe - 1mm Toe out total

Rear
Camber - 2 degrees
Toe - 1mm Toe in total

Last bits of prep to finish now before Snetterton on Thursday.

 

[tombate911]

Snetterton May 2024

Dropping a video in, tried the go pro mounted on the cage on the passenger side for a change.
Might get around to a proper post at some point... For now I'm planning what to change next

 

[RSRowe]

Car seems well suited to Snett

 

[tombate911]

Car seems well suited to Snett

Yeah. It certainly feels it. Got the grip for the fast corners as well as little more power than smaller hatches on the straights making them a little more bareable but the M2 type cars just walk away from me in a straight line. Shame it was wet in the afternoon and only got half a day running in the dry. Will have to go back and do it again, but it's a fair slog for me, took 5 hours to get there and 6 hours back.

 

[tombate911]

I was going to swerve this one and leave it at just posting the two videos but I am sure everyone is desperate to read about the car that's not a Clio....

Snetterton Prep

Last few jobs before setting off for Snetterton.

After killing the last set of front slicks at Cadwell Park I got a 'brand new' set of scrubs to run at Snett. These have got 2.6mm new and these measured 2.6mm, hoping this would give a nice fresh start for looking at how the alignment is working the tyres. Hoping to get much better tyre wear and temps across the tyre rather than folding the outside edge. 4.2 degrees of camber should work right?

Went to fit the splitter to the front of the car. It fits as you would expect but with the shape of the bumper there appears to be a gap between the bumper of about 10/15mm. I wasn't happy with it so decided not to run it. I had lifted up the front of the car after adding more camber to the front but think I've gone about 5/10mm too far, will drop it down a little more so it looks a little more aggressive and adjust the splitter mounts so they sit higher for the next track day.

The drive down to Snetterton was a good 4.5 hours with a trailer but I always think it's worth the trip once a year.

The morning was brilliant conditions, mild temperatures, slightly overcast and dry. Car was running fantastic. It feels so much more planted and the grip in the corners is taking some adjusting to again.

Just before lunch I took a friend out for a few laps who had never been to Snetterton before, was giving some pointers I've learnt about the circuit over the years and generally enjoying sharing the laps with friends, something I really enjoy about doing laps with passengers.
However coming out of Agostini, the car went flat as I went full throttle, I knew that feeling. Fuel starvation....
Can easily lap the E46 with the fuel light on using the fuel in the swirl pot so it's not something I normally have issues with, drive it around to the back straight and checked the data screen. Swirl pot pressure reading -4psi... Interesting, the fuel rail was still making 55psi but something was a miss and decided to dive into the pits and call it a day for the E46 for the morning and jumped in a friends car for a last 30 minute session before the chequered flag came out for lunch.

Video of the Session before the fuel pressure issue

Over lunch I checked the data log. Part way through the session the swirl pot drops pressure but the rail pressure is maintained for about half a lap, eventually I do get a drop in fuel pressure at the rail coming out of Agostini. Ran the fuel pumps off the ECU and couldn't hear fuel cycling from the in tank pump.
Popped off the fuel pump cover and put a piece of fuel hose into a Jerry can and ran the pump again, no fuel...

I did have an old in take pump in the spares box. so popped that in over lunch and checked the fuel pressure. Pot pressure back to normal about 8-10psi and rail pressure 55psi.

However over lunch it had started to rain, it was time for wet tyres and a softer suspension set up. Spent the afternoon experimenting with wet lines, didn't take me long to have my first spin, coming from dry weather on slicks to full wet and wet tyres was a bit of a shock.

Finished the day with around 120 miles on track which Is my usual aim, full take of fuel and 20L

Post track day photo. Car absolutely minging after all the effort of painting the front end and the engine bay.
Wet wheels and tyres look lost in the front arches now even with spaces after changing the camber

Quick check over on the front left tyre which takes a hammering at Snetterton with all the fast right handers.
Tyre wear looks a lot better and the outer edge of the tyre hasn't been rolling over onto the shoulder, it appears the recommended 4.2 degrees of camber for the E46 on slicks is a good place to be.

Future changes.

So one thing which has bugged me with my current set up is I have all the data available on the CANBUS but I am limited by can inputs and outputs to the ECU.
Long story short because I drive the OEM BMW dash using CAN from the ECU I am unable to read CAN messages into the ECU. A lot of my sensors are wired to an Analog to Can board which take in the voltages from the sensors like oil pressure, fuel pressure, pot pressure, brake pressure for the front and rear, diff temp etc. But due to these limitations I can log them using my logger but the ECU doesn't see this data.
ECU Master have been talking about a V3 version of the software for a year or so now, they released a Beta version for testing back in May so I signed up for it. It's not a case of copying everything over as the V3 software is completely rewritten so I have completely written my map from scratch again, coping over some of the basics like VE and Ignition table but a lot of it has been set up from scratch again. One major reason for doing this was now the software has been rewritten they have reallocated some of the internal memory of the ECU which now gives much wider access of the Can messages.

Now I have got.

ECU out putting > ECU Master Stream + Stream for BMW OEM Dash + Custom stream for ABS/Wheel speeds/Traction control
Analog to Can outputting > oil pressure, fuel pressure, pot pressure, brake pressure for the front and rear, diff temp
All this data now going to the logger and the ECU.
This has enabled me to set up oil pressure protection, this would have been handy at Cadwell in 2023 when the oil pump failed.
Also set up fuel pressure protection to bring on engine management light over Can if the fuel pressure drops.

I have got the car booked in for a map check just to run over it and dial in some of the cam angles as now I've set up both variable intake and exhaust cams. Will be the first time it's been on the dyno since the engine was put back together sometime in 2021.

Finally...
Often this thread is just me stating what I think needs to be improved. But interested to hear what other people would change, what are other peoples opinions or what do other people notice?

I did say If the car worked at Snetterton I would clean it park it up and leave it alone until the next day out in the summer. But obviously I cant help myself... Should have an update at the end of the week on that one...