the build

I installed the new intake today with the help of a reducer tube that I brought from http://siliconhoses.co.uk they managed to deliver it next day (even if I ordered it on the friday). I needed a conversion from the 80mm original air intake size to the 70mm diameter of the 318is maf intake tube. They had the 70-80 reducer on the shelf, and it was the correct length so I have not had to make more joins, or cut anything down. The new air intake had a hole for the temperature sensor also, so I pulled out the original sensor from the old air box (when I took the old paper filter out I noticed that there was glass in my air box, this must of been sucked in at croft when my intake tube came loose from the bumper and was rubbing against the floor.

Here is another picture with the new intake fitted. It sits behind the headlight so it can get the cooler air from here and not use the warm air thats in the engine bay (or so I have been told)

I have been running for most of last year and so far this year something thats known as a fogged air box, this is where the air box internals are removed, and the air intake pipe is repositioned so it gets cool air from the front of the car, I have been looking around for other options to try, and noticed something called a 'gruppe m' which is supposed to give you 5-7bhp gain in power, but these are a lot of money, so I dropped on a second hand replica the other day, and will try to get this to fit, its not exactly the correct model for my car, but I am sure it can be made to work.

With the significant other being out of the country for the weekend, I took the opportunity to fit the new clutch and flywheel that I had since January.

Note: The old flywheel was about 17kg, the new single mass one is 6.5kg so a weight saving of just over 10kg.

As I had a spare engine, I swapped the entire engine, gearbox as one from the car, this seamed the easier solution, as I could put the new flywheel and clutch on the spare engine, in my own time, then rent a engine crane to lift out the whole engine, and I would not have to play with lots of extension bars to get to the bolts that are on the top of the engine (and a pain to get to)

I started the transplant at 10:00 in the morning, and proceeded to remove the front end of the car (makes access very easy) with the front of the car removed, I proceeded to undo the propshaft, and gear linkage, then it was time to remove all the cable connectors, water supply, and the fuel hoses (I noticed that I could not reuse the fuel clips due to there design, so I would need new ones), at 13:30 I had the old engine and gearbox removed from the car, all that was left to do now was put the new one back in.

Before I could put in the spare engine, I needed to transfer some parts from the old engine to the new one, items that were cut when the spare engine was removed like the water pipes, and fuel pipes.

I had also got a spare rocker cover painted in white, but took the decision to put back on the standard one, the intake manifold is painted gloss white though.

Once I had the new clips that I was missing (these were purchased on sunday morning) I proceeded to get the engine ready to start by turning over the crank with a 22mm socket with the plugs removed (to ensure the engine would turn over) then I proceeded to connect up the battery, but it did not start (flat battery) so I got the charger out, and charged the battery, then it was turned over with the plugs disconnected (just to ensure we have oil pressure and no leaks that I could see). Once I was happy, I connected the coil pack and the car started first time, all was well and a little trial (about 10 foot drive forward, and then reverse, to test it would move) and then to start the clean up (that could take just as long as it took to swap engines, as I got very messy changing the engine)

With the season starting next weekend (17th April) at brands hatch, and there was a couple of jobs still outstanding on the car that needed to be sorted.

• Replace brake pads all round
• Remove the weight thats in the front and rear bumper carriers
• Refit the front wheel arch liners (to stop stones and debris going into the area behind the front wings.)
• Simple service items like changing filters, and checking oil levels
• Replace the brake fluid
• Put on the new doors (they still can be lightened in the future)
• Apply the stickers to the new doors and remove ones that are not this years sponsors.

The weight loss from the bumper carriers, was about 3-4kg when I removed the ends of the carriers, and got a new drill to cut out a lot of the material from them. I got told I can get them lighter if I use some of the alloy carriers that were used on early cars, but these are difficult to get hold of.

Next was to put on the new doors, that have been sprayed by Gary at 'the vehicle repair center' (http://www.vehiclerepaircenter.co.uk) and his company has joined as a sponsor of the bodywork this year, the photo does not look good as the rest of the car was so dirty, so that means a cleaning session is on the way, so out with the snow foam.

Still have the stickers to put onto the new doors, and as the championship has some new sponsors, a couple of existing ones needed to be removed, also we have a new regulation on the stickers, in that our surnames are to be on the front windscreen by the kumho windscreen sticker.

With only 2 weeks left till the first race of 2010, and there still being jobs that are needed on the car like

• Alignment
• Finish off the rear trailing arm bush (the one with the snapped bolt in)
• Lighten the car as much as I can
• Fit new clutch
• Tidy up the electrics and attempt to put on a coil on plug kit
• Locate a new supplier for the tow van, as last years supplier has none this year

As the above list keeps growing, some items are going to have to be delayed, like the clutch, as it should last for the first race at Brands Hatch.

Other items are not in my power to do like the alignment and removing the snapped bolt, so the car is going to get transported to BM Sport where Jags is used to snapped bolts, as he does it himself on a regular bases.

From what I could lighten I started this weekend on the bumper supports, there are fibreglass mounting structures behind the front and rear bumpers that can be reduced in weight, by drilling circular holes in them (had to buy a hole cutter drill bit) and you can also remove the ends of the bars, all aids to save about 2.5kg's per end of the car. The only problem that I encountered was after drilling about 7 holes, my drill ran out of charge, no problem you may think, but when I put the battery back on charge, it would not charge, so I can not finish the holes in the bumpers, although I did get the grinder out with a cutting wheel on and chopped off the outermost parts of the bumper support, and so far (not finished) have removed about 2kg of weight from the front bumper.

The electrics are waiting on a connector block to be sent from the suppliers.

The tow van has been sorted and I should be renting the same van for the coming season, so at least one thing has been done.

I got up early on saturday morning to finish off what I had started the week before (replacing bushes on the rear axel), and now armed with a 1/2 drive 18mm socket I thought it would be easier going this week.

I had changed the rear track control arm (RTAB) bush the weekend before, but had not finished with the top ball joint, (as I was waiting on the part to arrive from BMW). Also the week before I had noticed that the anti roll bar drop links were well past there sell by dates on both sides, so I removed and replaced these whilst the car was in the air.

Then I hit a snag, I moved around to the drivers side to do the top ball joint, no problems, and then started to remove the three bolts that hold the rear track control arm bush holder to the body of the car, one of these snapped clean off (as you can see in the photo) and it left me with this as an issue. A couple of places that I have spoken to have suggested leave it as it is, as two will hold it securely, but for piece of mind I think I want three bolts holding the carrier in, as the car is being used for racing, so when I can get the car down to BM Sport they will get the rest of the bolt out, and do the alignment on the car, so at least I can get to the first race.

I think I am going to have to leave the clutch to be done in-between the large gap in racing that we have during may and june, as it would be cutting it very tight to get this done for Brands on the 17/18th of April.

UPDATE.

Jags at bmsport (http://www.bmsport.com) removed the bolt with skill, he drilled the center of the bolt with increasingly large drills, until he could get some special tool into the center of the snapped bolt, then with a little heat it was out.

Well I tried to change the bushes on the rear of the car, I started with the top wishbone bush, as I had brought some of these from ebay earlier in the year, to ensure I could remove them easily, I had brought the proper tool, this helped a lot, and the existing bush was removed easily.

To put it back in the tool has to be dismantled and reversed, so I began to do this, and assembled the tool in place with the bush in the center, but the bush just slid in, this was obviously not correct, so I have had to order another 2 bushes today from a proper BMW dealer.

Whilst I had the car in the air, I noticed the rear copper brake likes were starting to look ropey, so these are now scheduled to be replaced, and I proceeded to change the rear trailing arm bush (RTAB) and put in some powerflex bushes that I had brought from bmsport. One side went easily, the bolts were tight but they did undo and it was all reassembled and put back, then it was time to change side, when I started the RTAB on the drivers side, the first thing that I did was snap my extension bar that I was using to reach the bolts, so this is where it ended for the day, as they are 18mm bolt heads, I did not have the socket in my 1/2 driver set, so could not progress.

Will have to buy a 1/2 socket in 18mm and also will replace my (now broken) 3/8 extension bar, before I can continue with the bush replacements.

From researching on forums and asking questions of other drivers in last years racing one of the simplest ways of loosing some weight from the car was to have 'Aluminium' doors, these doors were fitted to some M3's at around the 1995/1996 model years, and from whats been said, they are the lightest you can get that are original BMW equipment, as we are not allowed to run composite doors, like carbon fibre or fibreglass.

I started to search for a pair of these doors last year, about November time, but most places had not heard of them, or if they had they wanted some serious money for a pair, it seams its not just racers that like them, people with later road cars like the doors also.

It took me till February this year to locate the doors, I got a drivers one in December of last year, but the passenger was harder to locate (without paying silly money)

I decided to do some experiments with the weight to see how much (if any) I would save, below are the figures

• Standard door (glass, impact bar but no electric motor for the window, as I had sold it) - 28kg
• Standard door (as above but with the interior stripped, and cut back) - 25kg
• Standard door (as above but no side impact bar) - 22kg
• Aluminium door (glass, impact bar, no electric motor) 16kg

So having them just fitted as they are I would aim to be saving about 15kg, as my drivers door still has the side impact bar in, this should take my weight down to 1140kg ish in race prep.

The door glass by its self weighed 4kg, and from what its been said about plastic windows, this could be cut down to 2.5kg (they state 40% weight saving), at present I think I may keep the glass in the doors, as it does not move around when racing, and i can if needed fit the electric motors and have windows that move, unlike now when they are fixed in position.

All I have to do now is get the doors sprayed white, as currently one is black (the original primer from the factory) and the other is a nice shade of blue.

Well after a lot of hammering and drilling the rear bushes surrendered and left the diff carrier housing, and have left space for some powerflex bushes to be fitted. Before this gets onto the car though I am going to either powder coat it, or spray it, powder coating would be more durable, but the one diff bush thats left in would have to be removed, if I spray it then this bush can remain in place.

I am torn at present as to which colour, as I have some 'Treehouse Racing' front bushes and these are in a lime green colour, but the standard colours under a car are black (satin) so should I go green or black.

I brought a second hand rear diff carrier about 2 weeks ago with the aim of removing the bushes, and putting in some powerflex bushes so I reduce the movement in the rear of the drive train, the first job though was to remove the 10 year old bushes, this is not a simple task, as BMW employ a special tool to do this (but at about £300), I thought it was a little too much money. So the old fashioned method of removing the rubber from the bush in a sufficient quantity to allow a hack saw blade in there, so that the outer metal of the bush can be cut through, and weaken the bush's hold on the diff carrier.

The first one got a little more mangled than the second one, but I think thats normal, as the second one is always simpler, I have another two to do before I can attempt to paint the carrier (lime green is my current thought on the colour), but items outside of my control stopped me removing the final two bushes. (it started to rain, and my battery died in the drill.

first bush: removed from carriersecond bush: still in carrier

Just another two to go, then I can paint it, I brought a spare one, so I do not need to have my car raised for the time it takes to replace the bushes in the rear diff carrier, and I am also going to change the rear track control arm bushes, but for this one I think I will purchase a special tool.