BTCC Inspired E36 BMW 318is

Whens this thing coming out to play ?

yeah-yeah.. I've not done much since rockingham which I appreciate was frickin' ages ago but when I missed that deadline I kind of lost interest for a little bit, then life got in the way. I am back on it again now and sorting out the wiring, once that's done its a case of screwing on the drivers door, getting an MOT then lots and lots of tweaking and troubleshooting. My honest plan - get it on the road this year so I can get a few miles on it before winter, do some spannering over the winter to sort any issues out, then bring it out to play at the #trackaddict rockingham event next spring
currently its COVERED in dust where I've been making a mould for a centre console, but it will be getting some loving ASAP

I've created a build thread elsewhere on a closed classic Porsche forum, and so copying and pasting here, so some of the context might be a bit obvious or basic, but it was written originally for a different audience..
I'll post a bit at a time and hopefully by the time I catch-up to "current day" it will be on the road and running! I will add some notes here and there to explain where I was at the time to add a bit more context
Also as Photobucket just destroyed ½ the build threads on the internet I have just done a find/replace with their link to my new one – there might be a few dead pics, but I will go back through and fix those as they appear..


This car started as a cheap track toy, I did a few track days in it, then pulled it off the road to rebuild the LSD... ...which is where it all went wrong!



Rear end came out, was disassembled, and the suspension bits sent off for sandblasting..



While this was out, I decided to weld in the rear suspension reinforcement pieces - they have a tendency to tear the rear boot floor, so BMW kindly made some strengthening plates which can be brought fairly cheaply. One of the rear-most plates being held in position ready for welding..



Here you can see 3 of the 4 plates where the sub frame mounts..



I also did the rear trailing arm mounts while I was in there - these are 4x bosses which pass through the floor and are welded in on the inside. Again they can tear out or crack around the root and are hard to diagnose before it’s too late, so AKG strengthening plates purchased and welded in.. This basically levels the area where the trailing arm "cup" mounts, and so doesn't alter the geometry however it does need flattening off properly so you're not twisting the brackets and pinching the bush/bolt. Not the best picture, this was prior to dressing it all and had been given a quick blast of paint as I was off with work for 2 weeks to Canada and didn't want it sitting there un protected!



When I got finished with this welding, I decided to stitch all around the rear end where the panels passed near mounting points and things - this was done with roughly 1/2" weld, 1" skip, effectively tying the whole array of rear end suspension mounting points in to the rear of the cills and the transmission tunnel. Don't really have any pics of this sorry..

I also fitted some offset rear damper mounts from Amspeed - these are only really needed with true coil over rear suspension, however it moves the top mounting point across about 15-20mm and gives some more clearance to the inside in the back end, which seemed like good insurance with the larger adjustable damper bodies I had fitted
After that, everything under the car got cleaned-up - fortunately the shell is in really good shape with no real rust to worry about

That's probably enough for one day, will post some more soon..

Couple of notes:

1) these posts jump about a bit - the eagle eyed amongst you will notice the front engine bay is already welded in one of the pics! I didn't do a thread as I went along as I didn't really think anyone would be interested, but then about 2/3 of the way through it I started using Instagram and the interest grew so I started going back and doing one retrospectively.. its hard! Lesson learned: do a thread as you go along, if no one is interested then so be it..

2) this is all happening in a single car garage with no heating and no help, except for a few bits where my wife got stuck in, a couple of times the guy next door gave me some motivation, and my constant begging and borrowing of tools from a friend in the trade

3) no I'm not the best welder ever, but what they lack in looks they make up for in strength and functionality

Onto the inside!
Few little crusty bits around the fuel-pump covers, but nothing major - gave them a quick clean-up above and below..
Before:



..and After:



And then onto what some people have referred to as the worst job ever - Stripping all the tar and sound-deadening from inside the car!





As you can see BMW don't bunk on the tar!
I did a lot of reading on this and ended up going with the method that sounded cleanest and quietest! Anyone who knows my neighbour will understand the latter, and anyone who knows me will appreciate the science vs. brute force approach!

Bring on £20 worth of DRY ICE!!



The method is as follows..
Pour 1/2 into the first part of the car you want to remove it from then go make a coffee..



..hope that the crackling and pinging noises are a good sign, and then after 5-10min, shovel the ice out of the current area and into the next one. Bonk the floor-pan with a rubber mallet, and the tar immediately releases from the car and comes out in about 3 or 4 pieces!
Around 1hr later the ice will be about 1/2 its original size and not really working anymore, so chuck it down the drain and put the other 1/2 in and carry on.
By this time I'd done all the major areas - 4x footwells, rear parcel shelf, rear seat area, spare wheel well and the boot floor - however had the awkward "vertical faces" to tackle! To do this I built pockets from cardboard and shovelled the ice between these and the panels which worked really well! I tried putting the ice in a bin-bag and using that like an ice pack, but amazingly the bin-bag was enough insulation to stop this method from working!

So around 2.5hrs after I started, I was done! All tar removed.. ..well except for a little bit because I ran out of ice, but I was basically done and it was basically painless! AND I got to play with dry ice



For anyone wanting to replicate this method, a couple of notes..

Get prepared up-front with things like card to make the pockets, and duct tape (everything else seems to freeze and fall off)
Get a cheap plastic dustpan for shovelling, but don't get a fancy one with a rubber lip (it will freeze and fall off). Also, don't plan on using it after, it will get really shrivelled up and fall to bits!
Get some decent thick rubber gloves from screwfix, pref LARGE ones and wear some woolly gloves underneath - dry ice is exactly that, DRY, so it won't stick to you like normal ice, but it is really cold, and because it doesn't stick to you, it’s really easy to get burnt off it without realising
Plan up-front and work fast! If possible do it in the winter when it’s cold anyway

That dry ice method looks a hell of a lot better than having to using a heat gun and a paint scraper, which is the way I spent an afternoon doing it.

So.. The dodgy eastern European guy came through, despite my worries, and the car was delivered to Nickson Motorsport on the south coast - more on that, and the trials and tribulations of dealing with "roll-cage people" later..

With the car out of the way for a few weeks, I set about re-building the engine. The car had the m52b28 engine which is a 2.8 litre aluminium block straight six, knocking out about 190-ish bhp.. its a dohc 24v engine with on-off variable valve timing on the inlet only (comes on around 1200rpm and off again about 5000rpm if memory serves). It’s a pretty neat set-up, and I have some bits on how it works somewhere which I’ll post later. It’s pretty simple, but effective
The engine had a mighty 130k on the clock, and despite some of the internet horror stories about bmw m52 aluminium blocks (nikasil lining failures), this is a very late e36 m52 so has the later alusil lining and no associated issues, in fact compression was spot-on across all 6 cylinders. These are really great engines and throttled quite a bit by the inlet and cam shafts (intentionally to gap them vs. the m3) so there's quite a bit that can be done to improve them over and above the stock <200bhp. They were also the basis for the M3 engine in North America (although with an iron block same as the earlier M50) - they didn't get the "proper m3" due to emissions, and so there's a few trick bits you can steal from those models

Right - In the words of the spice girls, this is where "two (engines) become one.."

First M54B30 from the later e46 330ci. This has a longer stroke crank, and different pistons (crown height) to cope with the increased stroke. It also has different con-rods, but they're the same length - the m54 had fracture split rods, whereas the m52 did not. Both have forged everything so a good basis for tuning!



Picked up a "short engine" for £100 from a breakers. It came from an engine that suffered a HG failure which is not uncommon on those engines. I removed everything I needed and sold the block for scrap for £40 – net £60 for a “forged stroker crank”, pistons and a spare set of con-rods. Bit of a bargain!

Crank measured up OK and was put to one side



Pistons in good shape too, con-rods were disregarded (used m52 conrods as they're better at going back together again than the fracture split ones, and other than that detail they're basically the same)



All of these things went into the ultrasonic cleaner and came-out like new

Pulled the 2.8 block to bits (mostly to get to the con-rods)
Purchased a single mass flywheel kit and clutch from euro carparts - this was a kit they were getting rid of from stock and so I managed to pick up the whole lot (flywheel, clutch friction and pressure plate, plus a release bearing) for £120!
I had done a little research and found out about a mythical guy called "billy the balancing man" who lived the far side of the M1 from me, so after 2 or 3 attempts at getting in touch with him finally arranged a meeting.. I packed everything up and set off to see him!

I was 1/2 expecting a "hagrid" from harry potter, but actually billy turned out to be a fairly quietly spoken guy smoking a roll-up, with a very placid border collie at his side. When I arrived he was just packing-off a works Moto GP team with their latest set of bits! I figure if it’s good enough for them it’s probably going to be good enough for me..
Dropped it all off, drove away, then started to fear the worst (price wise) once the whole moto-gp thing sunk in! I decided not to worry TOO much, and flew to the US / Canada for 3 weeks with work leaving my wife at home training a 6wk old puppy!

On my return I had a voicemails saying everything was done (puppy and the engine parts) so headed back and picked it all up! The following work was done for a VERY reasonable sum!

Flywheel - Clutch surface re-faced (was a bit rusty before) then flywheel lightened and balanced
Conrods - End-to-ended and weight matched
Pistons - Weight matched
Conrods/pistons paired up and assembled, then marked so they're weight matched as assemblies
Crank lightened and balanced
Crank and flywheel assembly balanced
Crank, flywheel and clutch pressure plate assembly balanced, marked up, etc. etc.

I was a very happy chappie