95 e36 M3

For the love of my 1995 BMW e36 M3

[95e36m3]

Next Chapter

With the E36 getting banged up I will be giving it a new owner who can decide the best path for it moving forward. I will be focusing my efforts on my Radical PR6 http://radicalpr6.tumblr.com.

[95e36m3]

Well it finally happened.  Old Blue crashed into a wall at Sonoma.  I was not behind the wheel and the driver was fine but Old Blue is not doing so well.  I am still waiting to hear what it will take to get her race ready again.

[95e36m3]

Great day working on the car with Gary. Getting clean power to a distribution box with easy access, mic pickup in engine bay for video feeds, new racing pedals, and the ever important vinyl names for the drivers. Good day

[95e36m3]

Hard Motorsport brake duct kit installed.  Also got a second set of tires and wheels to make it more streetable when needed (same Apex wheels but this time in hyper black wrapped by some Bridgestone RE71 rubber).

Still need to do some electrical work on the communications, master power, and data logging power.  Hoping to get to that in the coming weeks.

[95e36m3]

Best Laguna lap thus far.  This is from our latest track day.  The sound was not working due to us getting a little fancy but then introducing sound interference. Still need to work out the comms issues.

I feel I can easily get to sub 1:50 if I braked later and had less fade, not to mention I can still improve my shifting.

[95e36m3]

We had a great day at Laguna with the E36 but have noticed that we need a brake duct kit to cool the brakes faster.  With the back to back sessions the brakes are fading.  After looking and talking around it seems the best kit is the Hard Motorsports brake duct kit.  Looking forward to getting that installed.

[95e36m3]

SoloDL with hard wired power, video recorder, and SmartyCam. Can't wait for more consistent data logging and video.

[95e36m3]

After rewiring the comms to get rid of a ground loop we then moved the location to make it easier to use while strapped in. Comms test on the track this weekend to see if we worked out the bugs.

[95e36m3]

Comms Clean Up

I big thank you to Gary for coming over and helping me figure out what was going on with my communication system.  I was not able to transmit out and I had a ton of electrical noise from the car coming through the system.  We wired the system directly to the battery which immediately cleaned up the noise and magically we can now also transmit out.  I also had a SoloDL and SmartyCam installed to have consistent lap times and videos recorded.  The next step is to finish the wiring of all of this and to patch in the communications into the SmartyCam so we can record the pit conversation with the driver.  Hoping to get it all done before my next Laguna track day later this week.

[95e36m3]

Getting ready for a hot day on the track.

[95e36m3]

Not the best day for me.  I was not that fast because I was getting use to a new set of slick tires.  Cold track plus new slick tires = a lot of movement.  It got better later in the day but I still was not pushing it hard enough.  Next time should be better.

[95e36m3]

Another personal best at Sonoma, shaved another 2 seconds off.  Shooting for 1:55 at the next track day.

[95e36m3]

Minor adjustments = big results

I was having a decent amount of rubbing to my back tires due to the wider set up and low stance.  I ended up rolling the rear fenders just a bit and now no more rubbing.  We also adjusted the toe in the front for more of a track set up and to reduce understeer.  Lately we increased the downforce by extending the front splitter and adjusting my rear wing to the max.  This new set up is my favorite so far, really helped in my lap times.

[95e36m3]

This is my best lap for my most recent morning run at Sonoma.  Finally broke the 2 minutes barrier.

[95e36m3]

Best lap at Sonoma yet.  Still not fast but getting there.

[95e36m3]

Great day at Sonoma Raceway at the Sim Performance Driving School - stage 2.

[95e36m3]

Racing Battery

Time to deal with the battery. Took out the heavy Red Top and dropped in an Odyssey PC925. Then upgraded to hold down to a Rennline battery mount with an adapter for a kill switch and pull cable. I will deal with the kill switch and pull cable later as I haven't figured out a slick location for the pull.