katman

We shipped engines back and forth to CA from GA via Delta Air Freight. Put it on a pallet and build a box around it. Cost like $165, but the best part was you get something like a 3+ day, 2 day, or next day rate depending on what you want, but if you pick the 3 day and they happen to have room on a plane the same day or next it will go as soon as they have room. Usually same day in our case. The receiver has to pick it up at the freight depot at the airport though. Only downside.

Like the old guy with one word for Dustin Hoffman at his party in the movie "The Graduate", I have one word for you and it isn't "Plastics". It's "Corrosion". Run away, run far away.

"I'm just building the front part right now, i'm still going to build towards the fire wall later." Are you building the front part because you need some worthless dead weight up there, or you're afraid your radiator is going to get spooked and jump up through the hood? This reminds me of the joke: Cop says, "Why sir, are you on your hands and knees in the gutter?" Dude says "Because I lost my wallet on 3rd street." Cop says "Sir, but this is 17th street". Dude says "I know, but the light is better here." Oops, that was mean. Sorry. But really, don't waste your time going forward. The next post is the hot tip, smartly done.

WBO2. Then prepare to join the "carbs are just a semi-metered fuel leak" crowd.

"Dave's parts are nice, a friend of mine is using them, but they are race parts. If you're going to replace your hardened steel knuckles with aluminum knuckles, I hope you inspect them often." Ditto.

Put a horizontal in the main hoop at the kinks and forget about everything else. Not worth the weight. What you so far have looks great, BTW.

"Couldn't get the AD shocks to work worth a hoot on the ITS car after the panty wearing loosers lobbied SCCA to ban remote reservior shocks, and had them on the ITS E36 Bimmer and they were total JUNK. I love Jay's other parts, but I'm not impressed with the AD shocks." What specifically I didn't like abou them was this: On the Z, no amount of adjustment could settle the car. Seems to have enough bump, but not enough rebound. We surmised there wasn't enough fluid on the rebound side due to the amount of space the main shaft takes up. However, since the time spent with AD shocks on the Z was limited, and we liked GC's other stuff, we bought a complete GC suspension for the 2nd ITS E36 BMW we were campaigning. The first one came with GC all around. After a year+ of trying every spring and bar combo known to man, and every conceivable adjustment on the AD shocks, we could not give either car any "feel". Yeah, we were still winning races, but the cars were scary to drive. The drivers' report was: "When we have full lock we know we're understeering and when we're looking out the side window we know we're oversteering, but otherwise we have no idea what the car is doing." When I disassembled the suspension of one car to replace the shocks I noticed I could not compress one of the shocks, and another one rattled. So to sell them in good concience we sent them back to Jay to rebuild. He dynoed them and sent them back- "they check out fine". Still rattled and still couldn't compress one. Regardless, neither car responded to adjustments even when the AD shocks were new. Once replaced with revalved Bilsteins they were totally different cars. Very BMW like feel, faster, tunable. As they should be. So that's what I meant by "junk"- two applications and no apparent adjustability and lousy feel at the limit. I know other people swear by them but our experience has not been positive.

For future reference: http://www.bimmerforums.com

"I have also run Advance Design dampers, valved for and with 200lb springs. The 300lb set-up rode 'better'." Not surprised. Couldn't get the AD shocks to work worth a hoot on the ITS car after the panty wearing loosers lobbied SCCA to ban remote reservior shocks, and had them on the ITS E36 Bimmer and they were total JUNK. I love Jay's other parts, but I'm not impressed with the AD shocks.

300/100 is what we valve Bilsteins for full race. Plus they're Carerra's which I'm not fond of to begin with. Check to make sure you have 3 inches of bump and 2.5 inches of rebound travel in the shocks at static ride height. Regardless, you proly have way too much bump damping for the street.

Ah, to have enough money for a street car and a race car.....

Hoosier 225/50-14 Autocross tires. Since you're usually in a parking lot, and the car has to be streetable, I'm a big fan of "normal" spring rates, like 115F/145R and matching Koni or Bilstein struts. I'm also not a big fan of really big bars; I like to stop at 7/8 front and 3/4 rear. By far the two biggest things that reduce time in an autoX is driver and tires. A low profile tire will lower you for the autox and you'll still be able to drive around town at a decent ride height with your street tires. In the case of a 225/50-14 it will lower you almost an inch without screwing up your roll centers. Reasonable springs, good shocks, poly bushings, a good seat and belts, real tires, and a killer stereo. Call me old, but that's my recipe for a good autox/street car. The Betamotorsports setup would be the cats meow, and revalvable to your specific app when you're ready for national competition.

"East Coast" alignment: -3.0 to -3.5 camber front -1.5 to -2.0 camber rear 1/16 to 1/8 toe out front Zero to a smidge toe in rear Ride heights at bottom of flat on rockers: 5-1/4 front and rear with driver. With the ShockTek's we were up to 400 #/in front, 350 #/in rear on the springs, and a hollow custom front bar equivalent to about a 15/16 solid with no rear bar. Clutch type LSD. Slow in fast out, is always the quick way around, east coast or west, unless of course the track is dominated by a plethora of ingress oriented turns like turn 6 at Road Atlanta, but its rare to have more than one of them per circuit. John's right- it's track dependent, although a lot of the tracks in the southeast we could run the same "east coast" setup with minor camber and bar adjustments. But Road A and Mid Ohio- totally different setup. I also have a theory that front roll center is a big player in spring rates required. I've had several different Z's on the same track and it seems the closer to streetable ride height you're at the more likely you'll need closer to west coast spring bias versus east coast. And I'm also of the strong opinion that softer is "faster sooner" for a dual purpose car and driver. In other words, if you don't track but a few times a year you'll be faster in a soft car sooner than you'll be fast in a stiff car. You are inquiring for what goals?

"I have been told in person by Jerry the owner of Zraceproducts that if you ever break one (or both) of his LCA's that he will replace the broken one free. His only request is to see the car that broke it and hear the story behind it." Provided you live to tell it....

Ron had it right in his first post- struts (shocks) can be the biggest contributor to ride "harshness". You need shocks matched to the springs for the application (street) and it's extremely unlikely you will ever get that since these cars are way past the time when anybody in the shock business was interested in valving shocks for Z's. Good luck. What shocks are you using?

"don't need to mess with the worst software ever created, ITunes, either." Ah, spoken by a guy who never had to mess with Sony's Sonic Stage! After that, my kids think itunes is slicker than a submarine sliding on whale sheet.

Uh, maybe because intake velocities are way lower than exhaust velocities? And if you look at a stock intake manifold versus a stock exhaust manifold there isn't toooo much difference.

Unless you get lucky, none of the aluminum race seats will feel good after an hour in the seat. They're like sitting on a park bench. However, you can use the two part expanding foam method to fill in the gaps or custom fit them like I do- sit your arse in the seat and beat on it with a sledgehammer until it contours your body. Viola! Custom fit! When we had the money we installed Momo's, when we didn't we used the above method on Ultra Shields. You also have to cut and bend the area's around your armpits, because they won't fit worth a hoot either. I always used Recaro's for dual purpose cars. I'd highly recommend avoiding a race seat (or a roll bar) in a street car.

Ha! You weren't driving fast enough! The first time we went to Road Atlanta after Panoz reconfigured the track we did that after 10 laps with fresh Porterfield RS4 pads! Might have only been 7. Ended up in the gravel trap at 10a. Eventually were able to go a full race absolutely hammering the brakes, but it took Hawk HT-9's, lots of cooling ducts, and properly biased Carbotech shoes in the back. Stock calipers and drums only in ITS, with really sticky tires. You can do a lot with stock if you have too.

I lot of weight up very high, I might add. It's already a fairly upright car, and they pretty much put everything they could up high- Petty bar, X brace to the rear, crossbars up front etc. I would have built it as if it was a roadster with only the main hoop above the driver's head..... Yeah, it'll be safe- especially if they put the stock side air bag "curtains" back in! In stock form it's pretty impressive for a $15k car.

More proof that the ability to weld has nothing to do with the ability to design safe, light, cages.....

The probes for an EGT gage should be about 6-8 inches from the valve. But they're really obsolete when it comes to measuring mixture.

GEICO supplies radar detectors to Police departments, in the interest of safety, of course. I've also had them dispute a slam dunk no brainer police report and refuse to pay a claim. I will never do business with them again. But Mike has it right- every insurance company will screw you.

Eddie Radatz assembles motors, but he uses Goza in downtown Acworth for the machine work. Another alternative if you're in the northwest.

Depends on the class, sanctioning body, and whether you want to win or just have fun. Tough call. The Z will always feel more like a real race car, but depending on class rules the BMW may be faster. In ITS we won ARRC's in Z's until the E36's came along and we saw the writing on the wall. I've driven both in IT trim and like the Z better but the E36 is faster- in that class. The BMW costs more to race (tires, motors, spares)- in that class. The Z looks more like a race car to me, but it comes down to what you're trying to accomplish. For the longest time the Volvo 142 was the hot car in ITB. Proof that you can't make a race car out of a pig, but you can make a damn fast pig. You don't say what class you intend to race in and what you're allowed to modify. That will determine which is faster.