Tom's Track Car - BMW E46 -Engine Number 3

[tombate911]

Those seats look epic and I am sure will he excellent on track. How do you find harnesses for daily driving ?

Did you overcome the angled driving position in relation to the steering wheel through your seat brackets ?

[MENTION=52200]montana[/MENTION]

The seats are amazing for driving, feel more in contact with the car, confidence inspiring!

to overcome the fact the seats are off set to the steering wheel from factory, I mixed up the two pairs of brackets that bolt the seats down, rather than a left and right on each side i used a two lefts on one side and two rights on the other, this allowed me to move the seat across roughly 20mm, I was only able to do this though because I was mounting the seat rails on my own custom bases made from steel tubing.

I've got the 6 point harnesses in for 6 days and fun driving, for nipping to work and running around with passengers i've still got the 3 point belt in. It hasn't stopped me going to work in a 6 point harness though, just because i can!

 

[tombate911]

Little more wiring sorted this week. Played around with the Airbag wiring, 3ohm resistors in the airbags and 100Kohm in the switch from the sliding drivers seat.

Few more miles in the bucket seats and I'm made up with the difference!

Did a little more tidying up on the outside too, ready for when I remove the reg plates for track days I've removed the 15 old sticky plate stickers from behind the plates and attached the plates with some heavy duty velcrow. looks much cleaner at the front now,

 

[tombate911]

Aesthetics - GT Spoiler

Spent friday evening working on the car again.
This is getting very addictive.

I was getting prices for a cup spoiler to sort out the aesthetics of the rear. turns out my local renault had one of these GT spoilers nocking around in a box brand new in black which I was able to have heavily discounted....

Anyway I couldn't wait to get home and get it fitted, heres the photos...

 

[TB Rich]

Well done for the ingenuity, but you fitted Sparco seats......so you know you could have just fitted Sparco frames right! :lol2:
They do centre the seat with the steering wheel and they mount to either the floor directly or on top of the OEM sliders if you want to slide still - and of course being Sparco would have the corresponding bolt spacing on top for the side mounts!



The reason people have trouble with these cars and buckets is they buy the OMP frames which don't offset the seat to the wheel properly (and are insanely low). I think the Sparcos on top of the OEM sliders plus sidemounts would be perfect.

 

[tombate911]

[MENTION=38628]TB Rich[/MENTION] I did consider that route with a fixed mk3 frames however the additional £140 didn't give me any advantage over the current rail solution I'm running. Maybe in the future I'll move to that set up with a slider but at the moment I don't have any requirement to move the seat backwards or forwards as I'm the only driver. Was quite happy to manufacture my own rails to get the seat in a position and height I was happy with and they can hardly be seen now they're painted black. Thanks for your feedback though, moving in the right direction with it now.

 

[tombate911]

Another weekend, another job done, Running two polybush mounts now, torque mount and gearbox.
Massive improvement all around and has actually sorted out the slight difficulty I was having with gear changes at high revs.

While I had the airbox out and the battery tray I replaced a number of rusty bolts and painted a few brackets black to stop the little bit of rust setting in.

 

[Pav]

good job..:thumbup1:

 

[tombate911]

Not taken any photos this past two weeks but I've been getting it ready for its first track day at Oulton Park on Friday.

Anyone else going to the Renault sport day?

ive now finished stripping all the brakes down and bled them at weekend with some ATE fluid.
removed some more of the interior including the rear isofix bar which resulted in relocating the keyless entry sensor.

 

[Yiannis197]

Nice thread. Keep the updates coming mate!

 

[w33dsmok3r]

car looks great mate love the look with the plate off

 

[VolumeX]

Man I'd love to hang out with you chaps on this reno day, pity am on the other side of the globe.

 

[G8RSH]

I've tried 3.3ohm resistors for my airbag light, did you put them in the seat position sensor also?

 

[tombate911]

I've tried 3.3ohm resistors for my airbag light, did you put them in the seat position sensor also?

I used those resistors for the air bag but the seat position switch was 100kohm from what I can remember. I did a quick impedance test on the seat and then used that value resister to stop the light coming on. Not had any lights on since.

Before I got around to sorting a resistor for it I cut the switch off the old seats and wired that into the plug and left it under the seat so the car saw the switch as standard.

either way stops the airbag light coming on.

 

[G8RSH]

Tom's 200 Albi Blue Track Car - Bucket seats Update page 2&3

I used those resistors for the air bag but the seat position switch was 100kohm from what I can remember. I did a quick impedance test on the seat and then used that value resister to stop the light coming on. Not had any lights on since.

Before I got around to sorting a resistor for it I cut the switch off the old seats and wired that into the plug and left it under the seat so the car saw the switch as standard.

either way stops the airbag light coming on.

Mate your a life saver. Been fiddling with resistors for yonks now! I'll give the 100kohm a bash and see what's what!

 

[tombate911]

Nice thread. Keep the updates coming mate!

Thabks mate, I'll get some more photos added this weekend. Need to take some photos of the whole car now it's getting track ready.

car looks great mate love the look with the plate off

Cheers! I removed the plate and all the gunk behind it and reattached with Velcro so the plates can be removed on track. Love the front end without plates, looks a lot meaner! and the rear looks a lot better too.

 

[tombate911]

Managed to get to the Renault Sport day at Oulton Park on Friday.

Had an awesome day there with the quietest track day ever with hardly anyone on track.

The new sparco seats with 6 point harnesses were amazing on track.

 

[LukeRS]

That sounds great, would love to do one, especially if its that quiet.

 

[tombate911]

Spent a little bit of time over the past few evenings picking out some of the best bits of the footage, unfortunately I had the Go Pro set on the wrong setting in the afternoon, lots of photos but no video. Here's the best sections from the day.

[video=youtube;54eopzkOK7M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54eopzkOK7M[/video]

[video=youtube;tk_aT-7PiJ8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_aT-7PiJ8[/video]

[video=youtube;YbJMd6kmRGU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJMd6kmRGU[/video]

 

[Pav]

looks great..the car is a bullet..so fast in the corners..i love Oulton park..the only thing that i wasnt keen on was the fact that,you can stay in 3rd and 4th most of the time
glad you had a good time

 

[Pav]

if you fancy you could let me know next time you are doing Oulton park..see if i can make it too...