E34 M5 track toy progress

[Benji]

Before attending the open day at Redstar this past weekend, we lowered the rear of the car by about 5mm as well as adding about 7mm (per side) rear track width. I also hobbled together a "cabin ventilation" system with repurposed drain pipe by harnessing the high pressure air below the windscreen and redirecting it into the cabin. It has been moderately successful, but we at least have some air blowing across our sweaty faces. It was our first outing with the skimmed front brakes and also our first outing since owning this car (4+ years!) without any brake shudder! It really is nice to stand on brakes and get consistent speed retardation. It takes some proper recalibration to learn to trust the brakes.

We are finding we may have a little too much rear brake bias now. The rears underrotate (revs drop under heavy braking) and it will attempt to spin if you have too much brake pressure on corner entry and havent let the rear wheel speed catch up to road speed...I hope this will get better once the front brakes bed in properly, otherwise we will need to look at a more aggressive front brake compound - currently running Ferodo DS2500. We experienced no front brake locking and it is quite easy to modulate the brakes now.

So onto the biggest surprise of the day - the car has suddenly become very playful with the rear end. It is like an excited puppy that wants to be involved in every corner and you need to be careful with the throttle on corner exit. This is probably not the fastest way around a track, but it is fun especially as the car is very communicative about how sideways it wants to go! I suspect that lowering the rear by 5mm has increased the rear camber (was -1.5 before) and increased the toe-in/out due to the "passive" rear steer built into the E34 suspension. If we wanted to fix this, we would likely need to weld in a camber correction bracket with eccentric bolts, but I doubt we will...

Anyway, car was consistently doing low 2.17s at Redstar and I feel it had a high 2.16 to give if I didnt run out of fuel during my last session. That is at least a 2 sec improvement over my previous PB 😎



What a fantastic machine!

 

[gavsadler]

Awesome man, the track machine is out and about early this year.

Any plans for the M Performance Race Series this year?

 

[Benji]

Awesome man, the track machine is out and about early this year.

Any plans for the M Performance Race Series this year?

No, the plan this year is to set the car up nicely and get a lot of seat time at the open days. We will join the race series next year

 

[Benji]

Not too much to report on the race car. Hoping to do a track day in June

Attempt 3 for some interior ventilation:


Many internet points to the one who can guess where this vent comes from. The idea is to force fresh air into the cabin, have not tested it yet.

We also lost 3.5kg by doing a passenger wiper delete, cutting out some sheetmetal and removing the ignition barrel. Next weight saving project is a fiberglass dashboard. I doubt we will save much here as the original dash weights only 5kg, but we went through the effort of removing the dash, we may as well fiberglass it, because, race car! Does anyone know where we can get flocking done on the dash?

 

[NBN]

That looks like a Peugeot bonnet vent

 

[gavsadler]

That looks like a Peugeot bonnet vent

I was going to say the same, 206/207 GTI vent?

 

[sonic6]

Definitely a Peugeot 206 bonnet vent from around 2005 vintage.

 

[Benji]

Correct! The next random parts being added to this car are from a Fiat Panda, more to be revealed soon

 

[Fordkoppie]

Does anyone know where we can get flocking done on the dash?

Good luck on finding someone to do flocking locally.
ATS used to do it, then they started outsourcing it, and now that source also stopped.

Please let me know if you find a new shop that can do it

 

[Bernard///M3]

Good luck on finding someone to do flocking locally.
ATS used to do it, then they started outsourcing it, and now that source also stopped.

Please let me know if you find a new shop that can do it

No that Flocking was done by Danie Human ex BMW SA employee for ATS.

He emigrated about 18 months ago

 

[Benji]

Good luck on finding someone to do flocking locally.
ATS used to do it, then they started outsourcing it, and now that source also stopped.

Please let me know if you find a new shop that can do it

I found a guy on FB who says he can flock, he is based in CapeTown. He said I would need to ship my dashboard down to him which seems expensive and fraught with risk.. I will probably go down the DIY route, I have seen some DIY kits online.

 

[NBN]

I found a guy on FB who says he can flock, he is based in CapeTown. He said I would need to ship my dashboard down to him which seems expensive and fraught with risk.. I will probably go down the DIY route, I have seen some DIY kits online.

Have you considered using Acoustic material to recover the dashboard, its relatively cheap and stretchable

 

[modocrat]

Do an all-round window delete for more weight-saving, plus you will also have enough fresh air in the cabin. Win win

 

[Benji]

The race car gets way too little attention...Finally got the dashboard done, that was way too much work to save a measly 2kg...but the car is now much cooler...

Rip out old dash and make a mold from expanding foam. First layer of gelcoat in the foam


Add some fiberglass


Attempt to wash the itch away with some beer. Swear and shout to get the dash out of the mold, making a mess in the process


Add some "reinforcing sticks"


Turns out expanding foam isnt quite the best material to make a mold from...fill the imperfections with some filler



Hide your sins with some fake Alcantara


Throw in some Fiat Panda vents, the cluster and control panel


To the untrained eye, it looks stock, to the trained eye, it almost looks like we know what we are doing


Do a small bit of plumbing using a carefully selected combination of pool and drain hoses... ie, literally exactly what we had lying around


Never look under a ladies skirt...but we are fairly proud of that. We have air directed to the feet, and both sides of the cluster and they are all adjustable to make those early morning winter drives to the track bearable. Except the amount of air coming through was a bit less than optimal to cool the adrenaline junkie behind the wheel. Bring out the aluminium tape:




That should be sufficient to scoop birds and small children into the cabin!

After doing some maintenance, our next area of focus will be aerodynamics, so we stole some knitting wool from the wife. Again, to the untrained eye, it could really appear like we know what we are doing... To nobody's surprise, our rear spoiler is doing absolutely nothing...It is sitting in turbulent air and while it might look like a wing, it was probably designed by a graphics guy, not an engineer. Anyway, we will experiment with lifting it and possibly removing some "angle of attack" to see how the airflow reacts. The fundamental problem is that we quite like how it looks...




Pack our gear and head out to a very well attended open day at Zwartkops. The race class had well over 30 cars ranging from amateur driven CitiGolfs to fully modified Audi R8 and GTRs.



I had a deep and eventful excursion into the kitty litter thanks to the aforementioned CitiGolf who pushed me off the track in turn 2 while I attempted an overtake on the outside in the braking zone. Apparently, the guy never saw me nor the huge cloud of dust I kicked up while doing a light spot of farming. This was despite my nose being in front of him during my failed overtake attempt. Mirrors? What mirrors?

Other than that, the day was fairly uneventful and a lot of fun with some nice battles in the race class. Mark beat his PB despite the resurfaced track being about 2 sec slower. He would have been deep into the 1.15s on the old surface. My timing equipment failed, so I was just there to have a good time. The car is really enjoyable on the track except for the brake shudder making an unwelcome reappearance and the brake bias shifting too far rearward as the fuel tank empties. Will take all 4 discs in for skimming and possibly change the front pads for something more aggressive. There is also a plan for a brake bias valve, but there is no telling when that might happen...



We were forced to drink many beers while waiting out a mother of a storm at the end of the day, much to our dismay. Did make for a cool picture for a bit more under skirt impressions...

 

[Benji]

Some on board footage: