240hoke

Okay here is a picture of what im talking about: and here is the NIGHTMARE im working with: Im not exactly sure how to go about sealing everything up I can make an attempt at ducting but sealing will be an issue... i might end up just blocking some of the front end off.

Sounds like we really need to have a little NC get together!

Hey guys, lots of neat work going on in the front end. I'm working on mine too right now. I have even more crap im trying to get around though. However I thought i would through this out before people start buying sheetmetal.... You can take a flat piece of glass or sheetmetal and lay carbon fiber or fiberglass on it. Just wax the glass good and then apply the cloth and resin, let it dry and peel your carbon sheet off. Its easy to cut and work with, is light and strong. For connecting it you can get a piece of angle iron and make 90 degree corners and rivot or use sheetmetal screws to hold it all together. Ill post some pictures when i get done.. if i get done lol ....

This is an interesting read to say the least...maybe you shouldnt use a fluid at all... http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_1815/article.html?popularArticle

The water to air i/c has always tempted me due to its compact size and the ability to hide everything from sight. I have for a lone time though about using two small radiators in the fenderwells to cool the water and using a water to air unit either in the fender of inside the engine bay. I really like their design and would like to see somebody use it! There prices don't really seem all that bad to me. Heck maybe ill sell my setup hehe, even though I just finished it.

I obviously would go with Choice 3 . Its fairly easy to do and makes for a very clean setup, short pipes out of the engine bay. I dont have any facts regaurding air temps to back up my butt dyno but I did notice shorter spool and response times. I did more then just make the pipes shorter, the intercooler is now properly sized and is HALF the size of my original one. I think most intercoolers are way oversized and with the proper ducting on a small unit you will be happier. I am also running around 26psi without any signs of detonation.... meth might just having something to do with it though . I need to post of new pictures like I've have been saying I will... Ill finally take some this weekend. I easily ran a 3" pipe through the radiator support without hacking it up to much. So I have a nice big air filter up high and out front.

Worst thing about Charlotte is the traffic, I77 is always a nightmare. That being said though its a great place to live... plenty of car things going on and race parts suppliers. I live in Mooresville which is about 20 miles north of Charlotte appropriatly named "Race City USA" its a great place to be but the traffic for the commute would be pretty tough.

Ill take some good pictures tomarrow everything has been finished for a while I just have been busy and never took any pictures.

I had a discussion with bob on the inlet size on the front of the car. He said that for a track car that saw mostly high speeds you need an opening with an area roughly 1/4 the size of the radiator. He also said that for a street car 1/3 would be much more appropriate dude to sitting in traffic etc. This goes along exactly with what corky has mentioned in his turbo book he recomends on intercoolers that they only need 1/4 the area if properly ducted. On my personal car i plan on blocking off the entire area above the bumper and then use adapqute ducting to transfer the air through the i/c and radiator. I will probably split the air in between the two as well. Another thing to think about of how the air is ducted a duct shaped like this (radiator on the bottom shown as the solid line): ___/ will provide ALOT more turbulence and actually hinder airflow as opposed to something like this: /___ Hopefully in the next few weeks I can materialize some of these ideas and get some pictures. Alot of what Bob was telling us was almost comon sense when you sit down and think about how the air will flow and what can be done to alter and take advantage of it. I think alot of people almost over analize aerodynamics when It comes to street cars. We have a LONG way to go before we can even get close to correctly employing alot of whats used in professional race cars since the entire body is designed around producing down force. This windtunnel data is defintly getting us ALOT closer and I really hope we can collectively decide on a package to test in round 2.

Tom after hearing your story in person and now seeing the pictures all i can say is DAMN, its worse then i imagined it...you truly are lucky. i know its been a while but i am amazed at how well you are doing I would have never guessed you had so much titanium in your legs.

You can also build a box for hte oven to extend it, you lay the door down and set the box on it.. efectively doubling the size of the oven. I just used foil backed insulation board from home depot and some foil tape. Also lined the inside wit hanother layer of foil. It has worked awesome, I can do much bigger things. -Austin

Hey, I am running 9" up front and 9.5" in the back. I believe the wheels were sized to be used with the stock suspension as there is plenty of room between my coilovers and the tire. You will need Zg's however. Quoc may be able to answer your questions or get you with somebody who can.

There is a pretty good discussion on how high the flares should be in my how to install the ZG flares post. Mine are mounted toooo low. Most of the time its fine but it bumps the fenders every now and again... im sure if i went to the track it would be a problem. When I repaint the car ill raise them a bit. Lookin good though phil, once shes lowered it will really look good!!

J Giels Band - Centerfold and I like to listen to Rise Against when driving.

Ive never had any trouble out of any of my BMWs (Knocks on wood). My last car was a 93 325is which ran really strong the whole time I had it... I sold it with around 240K miles. I have heard many maintence nightmare stories from M owners the majority were e36 M3 guys. However most all of the problems were things that should have been taken care of with regular maintence... things like waterpumps and a/c compresssors, fans flying off etc I wouldnt hesitate to use a M motor either... but its defintly no L series, it going to take alot more work to make everything work right. There is plenty of aftermarket for them however, with studs and a headgasket they can take some pretty good boost and things get crazy with you put forged internals in.... If i was to run across the right deal I would pick one of for a swap

I think the problem here like with most M swaps so far will be cost. I absolutly love the M motors and if i had my way I would have a turbo e46 motor in my car.... but there are damn expensive! BMW has the smoothest engines that I have ever driven and driving my 330ci everyday is a pleasure.

In regards to the Varible vane turbo.... has anybody had any problems with vane failure due to EGT's?? It was my understanding that the reason they have not had variable vane technology until recently (this year I believe) was due to the higher gasoline exhaust temperatures...which were were too much for the materials used on diesel unit.

Thought I would throw another update up here for my Beaten L28. She has been runnign great and very strong, put some hard miles on the car at SEZ and also around here through the country. Right now she isnt burning much oil, gets 20+ mpg cruising... and is LOVING 26psi. I may even up the boost a little bit more but I think a cam and intake is desperately needed right now. I ran a compression check last night 145 aross the board... so after all its been through seems pretty good to me. L's are strong A$$ motors. Hoping to get the car on the dyno soon, I got rained out last weekend so hopefully soon Ill be able ot put some numbers down.

Dude get the thing finished!! Its looking sweet cant wait for your final pictures.

Well its also a DC unit from what I see... which mean you can't weld aluminum.... No foot pedal?? Its almost impossible to weld TIG without being able to change the amperage as you go, pulsing the pedal, stoping and starting, coming up on corners, anything.... you name it you gotta vary the amperage a to make a good weld, unless maybe you are going in a straight line in the middle of new sheet metal

Okay here is my one piece plenum design. The smaller plates are what I call the weber pack to plenum adaptors. They bolt to the throttle bodies and the ring around the top is for a standard viton o-ring you can get from macmaster or whereever. The oring provides the seal on the plenum. The plenum can then be easily bolted onto the adaptors with the 8mm bolt from the back. The adptors are sunk into the base plate to provide extra strength. Anyway I thought this was a much better way of approching it then dealing with bolts inside the plenum and inside the airflow. The plenum adaptor plate woudl be generic for any 2 bbl weber retro fit. My deminsions arent exactly spot on in these sketches as they were quick, but you should get the general idea. Also the 8mm threaded holes in the base plate would not go through so there woudl be NO protrusions into the plenum, or anywhere for a leak.

Ron Tyler I cant say I didnt have some inspiration from you! Its where I got the idea.... been following your manifold build and I love it!

Heres mine, I think I did a pretty good job on it...bent every frame rail front and rear. Nobody got hurt but I did hit my head pretty good. The main reason I DONT have a full cage in my current car.

What system are you using? Looks sweet!

I have designed the following two part setup which incorperates the airhorns into the base plate. the plenum was designed so that it could be made out of standard 3.5" 10CR mandrel bends and sheet metal. If your vender is charging that much you need to find a new one, the aluminum cost about 25 bucks for both plates.... and machine time of prolly around 30 mintues. I have also designed a one piece plenum with get ride of having to have a base plate and the plenum seperate and gets ride of the mounting holes being directly in the airflow, ill post this up later as its on my work computer. This was the route i was planning on. I was pretty set on going the ITB route, but I think I have decided against it so if anybody wants these models lemme know and ill send em your way.