M2 madness

[M3M3]

yet another steering wheel arrived today from cosm3os...brands is "NOVA", says made in italy on back. 355mm, FAT grip.  really like it.  cleaned it up with some lexol leather stuff and installed.  it even has red stitching to match the car!

 

 

then built a new front hub.  new 320 hub, new bearings and new seal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

and put some new front rotors on the hats.  these are coleman directional vanes items.

25ftlbs of tq!

 

old ones

 

cracks on inner edge heading out.

 

not looking good for getting the car back together before track weekend 15/16 march.  still missing some critical parts.  may have to take a street car instead for instructing.

[Ian]

Nice steering wheel!  BMP carried the Nova brand back in the early '90's.  I got my Nova "Corsa" in '94, I think you'll really like it.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Ian

[M3M3]

LOL! same brand wheels..guess i am still copying you Ian! thanks for info on NOVA brand. it is a very solid wheel and is well built. internet searches just seem to bring up links to some Chevy....

[Ian]

Great minds think alike, Marshall!  Funny, all I got when I looked this morning was wheels for muscle cars!  The only downside to the Nova wheel is that the bolt pattern is not Sparco or Momo, so when I wanted a hub-extender (which are all drilled for Sparco or Momo) I had to make an adapter to  fit my wheel.  Other than that, it's a great wheel.

[M3M3]

the one I have is drilled for the standard sparco/momo pattern. bolted right up to my hub and extender.

i have another wheel like it (but not NOVA) which has a five bolt pattern. will probably be selling that one and the hub for it soon.

[ray_]

I just bought a big ol' wood Nardi, for my leisurely drives.

 

;-)

[M3M3]

Time to try the knock back springs in the front calipers...

bought these from performance friction,

 

and these piston seals for "while i am in there"

 

while the calipers were off, used two sets of vice grips to pinch the feed lines to the master to stop the fluid from draining.

 

did one caliper at a time and made a "stopper" out of a piece of rubber hose and a bolt to block the end of the hard line at the caliper.

 

 

pulled calipers and used several small claps to keep three pistons in while i popped each one individually

 

used a block of wood to keep the piston from damage and low pressure air to push the piston out.

 

the piston and spring

 

assembling

 

started each piston by hand, then used clamp to draw it in.

 

repeat x 4 per caliper

 

done

 

reinstalled, bled out the system and looking forward to testing on track 2-3 May.

 

highly recommend this HF part...paper towel holder!  friend bought me this.  two mounts with strong magnets.  works great!!!  and it is only about $6.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2014 by mlytle

[M3M3]

the adjustable stock bar may have been too soft..even on full "stiff"..put IE back on the rear at the softest setting.  used the adjustable end links with heim joints.  these should come with these bars...WAY better than those urethane bushing things.

 

 

then attacked the driver seat.  the sparco sliders have a ton of slop in them.  if you look at my in car video you can see the drivers seat moving.  tried firming things up by more solidly mounting the bottom of the sliders and by bracing the side mount brackets.

 

 

it helped, but there is still a bit of slop in the sliders.  i probably should just take them out and hard mount the seat.

Edited April 21, 2014 by mlytle

[M3M3]

car ran great at track event last weekend.  brought lots of smiles not only to my face, but to the half dozen people that got right seat rides and folks walking around.  had one person comment it was the best sounding car out there.  he could tell where I was on track just by the sound.  

 

after working hard, collecting most of the bugs in WV on the front of the car and a bunch of the pollen inside the car, i treated it to a bath and full Zymol HD cleanse and Carbon wax treatment today.  no more track days in that car until july.

------------------------------

ok..the important stuff....did the knock back springs cure the brake issue?

 

no.  they helped minimized it a bit, but not fully cured.  instead of a full left foot stroke to bring pads out to rotors, i now only have half a stroke.  better, but getting into the habit of a quick left foot brake stab to set the pistons after every turn.  argh.

 

also confirmed how bad race tires get with too many heat cycles.  I was too lazy to change over the weekend and didn't want to waste good tires just giving rides to people, so put 9 more heat cycles on tires that already had 16 cycles on them.  (hankook z214's)  wow do they suck when they are that used up!  sure, there is tread left, but the grip is not only gone, it is not predictable.  lap time was up 1.2 seconds from the 10-12 heat cycle range and up 1.4 sec's from when the tires were new.  oh well, they kept the wheels off the pavement for one last weekend!

 

----------------------------------

got some good video of a session playing with an instructor/racer E92 M3 that I will post when i get a chance to process it.

Edited May 6, 2014 by mlytle

[M3M3]

since no more track days for a while, spent day cleaning interior and converting back to street configuration

swap diff from 4.44 to 4.10

change all brake pads to street compound

raise ride height a inch

swap to street muffler

remove traqmate display and drivers seat wings.

 

ready for some local drives and taking to the Vintage (on a trailer.....)

 

have about had it with the rear spring stock perches.  the misalignment makes it very difficult to set the springs in place.  when i convert to tii trailing arms i am going to drill out the spot welds holding them on, move them forward an inch and reweld.  any one else done that?

 

Edited May 9, 2014 by mlytle

[jrkoupe]

ML...

 

good stuff. I assume when you say rear spring perch, you mean the "lower" rear spring perch???..and not the upper nub where you have your adjustors?..

 

 

..interesting thought,  Ive never hear of it done, but it does seem like a more forward position will help.;

 

sorry to hear knock back is still an issue.

Edited May 9, 2014 by jrkoupe

[M3M3]

ML...

good stuff. I assume when you say rear spring perch, you mean the "lower" rear spring perch???..and not the upper nub where you have your adjustors?..

..interesting thought, Ive never hear of it done, but it does seem like a more forward position will help.;

sorry to hear knock back is still an issue.

Yes....the lower perch.

[M3M3]

long time no updates...racing season started and the E30 has been getting all the focus.

 

 but...have another race then two HPDE weekends coming up in July.  time to put some focus on the M2.

 

decided to attack the brake booster pivot bearing slop issue.  i have one of the first IE bearing kits for this job.  I hounded Andrew mercilessly for the last 8 months to put the kit together..

 

warning.....this is not a simple job to do.  it requires removal of the upper pedal box/booster/linkage mount.  it may also require removal or at least loosening of the pedal box.

 

sooo..to begin, clear a path to and remove the booster support/mount.

 

 

if your brake lines are short, you will not be able to get the booster moved enough to get the support out.

 

 

ya gotta remove the bitch clips on both locations on the pivot.  (i had converted to the new style bitch clips a while ago and they are not that bitchy...)

 

 

next, take some slop out of the pivot where the pins go through.  the hole is a little big for the pins, so i hit the inside of the holes with a welder to build a little material on the unloaded side of the holes.

 

then filed off the extra weld metal until the fit really snuggly.

 

 

 

and you can take up a touch more slop by twisting the arm on the pivot a tiny bit to take up the slack in the double sheer arm holes.

 

for reasons i am working out with Andrew, the center spacer that came with the IE kit would not work, so I made a new one out of an old metal stock spacer.  basically cut it down so that its length, plus the width of the bearings equaled the width of the pivot.

 

 

 

think of this as a mini rear wheel bearing. inner and outer bearings with a spacer between them.  axle goes through the center.  all the load goes along the center part of the bearing.  the pivot (hub) rotates on the outer edge of the bearings.

 

little bitty washer keeps tighening load on center.

 

the one catch is that the OD of the bearings was not tight to the inside of the pivot.  fixed this like i fixed the pin slop.  a touch with a welder to build metal, then filed the metal off until i could tap the bearing in with a hammer.

 

reassemble and test.

 

was the effort worth it.  yes, but results not spectacular.  definitely a little bit less slop to take up in the brake pedal before brakes engage, but still a little there.

Edited June 30, 2014 by mlytle

[M3M3]

having too much fun driving the car lately.  bunches of track events.

 

latest was this weekend at summit point (again) with SCCA.  saturday i instructed a student with a 997 porsche.  nice!  sunday i competed in a time trail.  sort of a handicapped qualifying session.  whoever get the best qualifying time wins.

 

our paddock area with several other instructors.

 

incar video from quickest session.  wx was perfect.  65deg and sunny.  took 7 tenths off my quickest previous lap in the car.  1:25.2 best today.

 

the two other cars in the vid are full tilt race cars (at least one of them is an ex-grand am cup car)

 

for comparison, here is incar video from the E30 full tilt race car i also drive.  this was two weeks ago.  lap times were 1:25.5.  three tenths slower than my laps in the M2.  unfortunately i only got a few laps in before the left trailing arm eccentric adjuster cut loose leaving 1/2in toe OUT on left rear wheel.  there were about 40 cars that started the race.  i had qualified pretty close to the front.

Edited September 15, 2014 by mlytle

[ray_]

Nice pink Miata. And a PINTO??

 

Bad luck on the adjuster. Pic?

 

Cheers,