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Thread: Cuda's Cars, v2.0

  1. #1151
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Whoa, a painter's tape bra? I haven't seen one of those before. Pretty cool.

  2. #1152
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CudaMan View Post
    Why do you hate them? I know I'd not enjoy them if there was a lot of traffic. In this case there was hardly any.
    Hydroplaning, random deep puddles that will try to rip the steering wheel away, the wrecks they cause which then cause traffic.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  3. #1153
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    Ummmm....hydroplaning doesn't rip the wheel out of your hand...

  4. #1154
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    That's why I put commas in between the items, they are different things.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  5. #1155
    I'd have been much more sketched out if I was on balding tires and/or in traffic, that's for sure. The Michelin A/S 3s did great. Also the ESC/TC seems pretty darn good on this car in when and how it engages. I was still one of the slowest of the few vehicles I ran across during that storm.

  6. #1156
    This happened a couple weeks ago, only now posting.



    I decided to take the 328i to an autocross anyway. I expected mostly varying degrees of understeer, with some one tire fire for good measure. I got the latter, but I also had plenty of rotation in various corner phases, too, which was shocking (in a refreshing way). For a stock 2011 sedan with the only real mod being removed camber pins, I'm very surprised it does anything other than understeer.. Tires are stock staggered sizes but are Michelin A/S 3s (non run flats). I could actually get some corner entry oversteer if I trailed it in. In a hard transition I could get the nose to hook and the car would rotate in an ideal way - I just had to be careful getting on the throttle then because the car was already in a neutral state and throttle would just promote that awkward kind of open-diff oversteer.

    I'm actually really miffed my camera managed only to record one out of 7 runs, and it was the most boring run of them all. The others had more fun 4-wheel-drifty moments. This run I was actually trying to put a time down and driving in a way to promote more stability. It wasn't faster, so I should have just stuck to having fun. Every run except this one I was backing it in to the finish lights.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfEIzK-Xh4s
    [And yeah it's way too quiet - curse the all-welded exhaust that discourages reversible modification]

    Prior to this event I had located (but not yet procured) an E93 M3 front bar and although I don't plan to campaign the car seriously, based on that first autox experience I'm starting to think the ~15% stiffer M3 bar might not help enough. It turns out the seller ghosted me (*after* we had agreed on a price and I asked for his PayPal! ) so I ended up getting an H&R bar overnight from TireRack. Much stiffer than the M3 bar. We'll see how it does. It's not adjustable and has no locking collars which isn't great (the picture showed locking collars). I didn't feel like spending $600+ on a nice Dinan bar though. One neat feature of the H&R - teflon coated bushings that require no lube.

  7. #1157
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    That's great. They do make a nicely balanced car across the model line.

  8. #1158
    Quote Originally Posted by dodint View Post
    Have you autocrossed or tracked the E90 at all?
    And now it has done both. I needed to track it for reasons related to work in my field, as I didn't have another car suitable for the job, so I did some prep to it a couple weeks ago.

    Brakes
    The front pads are the same as an E9x M3. Shocking. I am not sure if this is only for Sport package cars like mine or if that's true across all E9x 3-series. I spoke with Sam Strano about pad options since I've been out of the track-my-own-car game for so long. He's big on Raybestos ST43 but availability for my car was a problem, so we had to look elsewhere. Hawk DTC-60s were available for the front and there was one set of HT-10s for the rear in the country. They're close enough in temperature profile and characteristics to work together well. I guess no DTC-60s for the rear or HT-10s for the front. It seems my rear pad size is unusual. Anyway Hawk dropped the ball on the rears for weeks so we had to punt at the 11th hour for the rear pads. Porterfield, down in SoCal, custom-cut a set of R4 pads and shipped them overnight. Good on them! I have had Porterfield R4-S pads on my MR2 Turbo for ages and they're great. The rushed rear BMW pads didn't have a provision to clip on the brake pad wear sensor, so I carefully zip-tied it out of the way on a brake hard line, where it wouldn't get stretched or hit no matter how much the suspension moved around.

    I replaced the stock fluid with Redline RL-600. Again I'm so stuck in the past, brake fluid is always red/amber except for ATE SuperBlue, now discontinued. So I was surprised to see the BMW OEM fluid was pee yellow, and the Redline is clear. Whoah. In Covid isolation my only bleeding method was a Mityvac vacuum hand pump. It took ages and was cumbersome but it did work. I much prefer the SpeedBleeder method with my MR2.

    Suspension
    The H&R front bar has been on the car for a little while now. It's great. Tightened up the front end just enough, with no ride quality penalty in my view. And obviously now the car has less body roll and is quicker to respond in transitions.

    A couple weeks ago I installed M3 front control arms. They give a bit more negative camber (a degree or so? I forget) and have firmer bushings including a spherical in place of a bushing at the inboard mounting location for the main lower control arm. Super cool stuff. Love the better feel from the firmer bushings. The mush is slowly being dialed out of the car, and it still rides superbly.

    Doing the control arms meant I'd need to re-align the toe for sure. My front tie rods have been seized together for a while now. It was fine before because my alignment was fine, but now I knew it wouldn't be. So I installed new tie rod assemblies as well. Getting the inners off of the steering rack was super hard, it took all my strength. You need something like a 36mm wrench. Once they were replaced I aligned the front end using my toe plates. The short front overhang and normal ride height meant I didn't have to jack the car up to make toe adjustments, and that saved a lot of time. I still need to tweak the toe a little bit but it's very close.

    My rear tires were worn out pretty quickly, so I suspect shenanigans under load back there. Static toe is fine and well within factory specifications. I haven't aligned the rear yet myself, I think that will be harder to get right at home because of the methods involved. The rear subframe and control arm bushings allow so much lateral movement back there, and I work the suspension harder than the average non-M 3-series owner, so my current theory is excessive toe change dynamically. I have Whiteline rear subframe bushing inserts ready to go in. They should firm up the locating of the rear suspension a fair bit. There's way too much void area in the stock bushings!

    Photo of the now fully refreshed front end.

    IMG_20201214_191233.jpg

    Clutch
    Since the car was in the air I took this time to replace the CDV (clutch delay valve) in the line to the slave cylinder. I hate CDVs but OEMs love them now for some reason. I replaced it with the M3 part which doesn't have the flow restriction. I bled the system afterwards since you lose some fluid in the process. I did it wrong at first, because the clutch hydraulics share the master cylinder reservoir for the brakes but I wasn't aware there was a separate partition within the MC reservoir for the clutch. So the main level wasn't going down but this hidden partition, a very small section, was going down super fast and I started sucking air through the system. Bah. Once I figured that out I had to spend a lot more time bleeding because I had introduced air to the system. But I got the clutch pedal back after a while.

    Reports on the internet say the CDV delete makes a big difference for clutch feel, shifting smoothly, and a sense of connection. It made virtually no difference for me, it's still vague and mushy with its engagement. I imagine it's possible there's still a bit of air in the system, but the feel and pickup point are consistent so I'm not sure. I fear it may be a clutch disc nearing the end of its life. I don't think there's an inspection plate to remove, so if I remove the transmission to inspect it I might as well just replace the clutch. Which is expensive and extra complex, of course. And I believe the flywheel is a non-serviceable dual-mass flywheel, which is also expensive. So yeah, this one has me concerned.

    Misc
    Replaced a slowly leaking seal on top of the valve cover for the eccentric shaft sensor electrical connector. Easy job.

    Went ahead and replaced the spark plugs since they're due soon. I expected to feel a difference or see a MPG increase, but I didn't. At least I know they're good for another 60k.

    Obviously put fresh oil in the car, something that would stand up to high temperatures with plenty of protection (lots of ZDDP) and no or minimal shear (ester based). Redline motor oil is expensive but good insurance especially without an oil cooler.


    All went well at the track, except for the cracked front rotor hat. That was something I've never seen before. Overnight temps did get below freezing but I figure that was a gradual cool down and that shouldn't have temperature-shocked the metal, but I'm no metallurgist. The crack hasn't grown but I should probably replace that rotor.

    crackrotor.jpg
    Last edited by CudaMan; January 1st, 2021 at 01:31 PM.

  9. #1159
    Senior Member
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    So, dual mass flywheels can be resurfaced, but you need to Have a shop that knows what they are doing.

    Check with the racers market in Cumming, Ga as they have a shop that is experienced with that sort of thing.

  10. #1160
    It's been too quiet in my garage. Too boring. Monday I'm bringing a trailer to add some spice around here.

    [No it's not a Cayenne ]

    I keep putting miles and miles on the BMW and it keeps ticking along great. Clutch still feels the same, so probably good news it hasn't gotten worse and it's probably me expecting too much of a direct sports car clutch feel. But I have a bug to replace it with a G35/G37 6MT sedan again. If I can find the right one.

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