Electrical work-

I decided to tackle the electrical system in the car...or at least simplify it a little. I got rid of the power windows, power locks, power mirror wiring, stereo, speakers and some misc wires that didn't seem to do anything. Every once in a while I would fire up the car just to make sure it still started. After mapping the tail lights and fuel pump wiring, I ripped out pretty much everything else in the back half of the car. All this added up to about 28 lbs of wire out of the car.

Next I removed the original battery from the trunk and shortened the cables so that I can mount my new lightweight battery behind the passenger seat. I chose to put it behind the passenger seat since mounting under the hood would expose it to too much heat, and mounting it in the passenger footwell would take up space where I want to install a fire system. The new battery is 13 lbs, the old one is 39 lbs (26 lbs savings). I think I figured out a way to install an external kill switch too...I'm just not positive that it will shut down the current from the alternator.

I'm going to finish up the carbon hood and trunk this weekend, I just got in 12 more yards of material and some new low temp epoxy so I should be all set. After the hood and trunk are mounted, I can get the car back over to the scales to see what kind of progress I've made. Plus, I wouldn't mind driving it again, it's been sitting for a couple weeks. I ended up buying a Corbeau seat for the car from the previous owner, so that should help with weight as well. It's actually not that bad of a seat. I initially wanted to get an OMP seat with the halo head protection, but they run about $700 each. The Corbeau is a much better choice right now.

Carbon hood and trunk lid

I got started on the carbon hood and trunk lid this weekend and it's been pretty slow going. The problem is that it is pretty cold outside and the epoxy that I got likes about 85 degrees to cure. It's taking forever to cure, and wetting out the carbon is a little tricky when the epoxy gels on the cold spots. Radiant heaters help, but not enough.

On top of that, I ordered the wrong S-Glass from Aircraft Spruce...it is WAY too lightweight to do anything to the structure. Of course I used it anyway and now the hood and trunk lid are too thin. Now I get to order 3 more yards of carbon and 8 more yards of 8oz. S-glass. Hopefully with 4 more layers of glass and carbon the pieces will hold their shape a little better. End weight should be about 8-10lbs for the hood and 5lbs for the trunk lid. I'm also going to try a different epoxy. The stuff I'm looking at cures in 30 minutes and has a good cold cure down to 40 degrees. Hopefully that saves the day.

I'm not really sure if the weight savings are going to justify all the work going into this, but it's pretty fun and I'm learning quite a bit. For example, Meguire's car wax works 1000x better than PVA mold release. That was a waste of money, and probably made the parts stick even worse. All in all I'm guessing a savings of about 85lbs (30lbs from the hood, 40lbs from the roof, 15lbs from the trunk lid).

In other news, I ordered an Odyssey PC680 battery, that should save another 30lbs or so. I need to check the SCCA rules to see if I can mount it in the cabin, near the passenger seat. I would mount it under the hood, but heat is never a good thing for batteries, especially being near the turbo.

Bye bye roof!

I finally got around to cutting the roof off the car tonight, along with some help from my little brother in law (seen using the cutter). We used a plasma cutter to remove all the sheet metal that wasn't adding to the structure of the car. The "halo" remains around the perimeter and the car didn't seem to distort by removing the roof. The roll cage will tie in to the A and B pillars anyway, so I'm not too worried about the integrity of the structure for now. I'm tempted to go crusin' for chicks in my new convertible...Ha! Not sure if my wife would approve.

The carbon roof cap fits nicely and has about a 2" overlap all around. I think a little epoxy and silicone will bond it nicely to the car. Overall weight removed is approximately 41.6 lbs, including the sunroof panel and motor. The new carbon roof is about 3.8 lbs. It was a lot of work, but a nice project and it was a great way to teach myself some composite construction techniques. I ordered about 9 more yards of carbon to complete the hood and trunk. My neighbor suggested "why stop there? Re-body the whole thing!" We'll see...it might just happen if the winter is long enough!

The next few things on the are:

1. Move the battery from the trunk to the engine compartment (or passenger seat?) Replace with a lightweight Odyssey battery. Get rid of the extra 12' of 0 gauge battery cable.

2. Remove AC system.

3. Install short shifter once it gets here (thanks eBay).

4. Replace rear windows with Lexan

53 pounds lighter after removing sound deadener

Use as much heat as you can get when removing the sound deadener out of the trunk! I put a heat lamp on one section at a time and waited until the area got up to about 110 degrees. 140-160 would probably be even better. It wasn't too hard to remove, but it could've been easier too. Anyway, it was well worth the 53 pounds removed! I was expecting about 20. Now I am feeling a little more ambitious about removing the rest of the sound deadening from the interior.

Also, I was able to pry the carbon roof away from my "mold"...I used paint-stir sticks as wedges at first, eventually upgrading to a 3' long piece of 1x3 to get it to pop. After trimming it, I ended up a 3.8 lbs, although I may need to add some more reinforcement to the underside, maybe another pound. Anyway, it should be saving quite a bit of weight up top...just the sunroof panel alone is about 12 pounds. I need to trim the edges a little more but overall I am pretty happy with how it came out. I learned a few techniques that I will be able to apply to the hood and trunk lid.

Laying the carbon roof for the e30

Today started out with mixing a test batch of "Poly-Epoxy" resin to determine how much working time I have before it gels. Well, turns out I have a lot of time. At least 90 minutes...it's very slow, probably due to the cooler weather. After my test was complete, I slopped on a liberal amount of PVA mold release and let dry. Now that the carbon is laid up, I'm less than confident that the PVA will help part the roof. Oh well, I guess we'll see in a day or so.

The first layer went on easily, I just poured the resin directly onto the fabric and worked it in with a small-nap roller. When I tried to lay the second layer, it got stuck to the first layer and caused some wrinkles when I tried to fix it. I probably should've had a helper for that part, but I thought I fine. The 2nd layer ended up looking pretty good, but there were some visible imperfections where the fibers had been distorted.

I waited about 4 hours to do the 3rd and final layer, mostly because I was deciding to even do a 3rd layer. After seeing that it wasn't enough fabric to do the trunk lid in one shot, I decided I might as well do it. It hopefully won't add too much weight :) The 3rd layer went on the best, and it helped hide the imperfections in the first 2 layers and the resin finish looks the best. I applied the resin with a squeegee this time, and that is definitely the way to do it. Much better resin control and easier to remove excess.

I have two heaters from Costco that are keeping the assembly warm while it cures. I was shooting for 120 degrees, but the heaters are only able to get the surface up to about 100. If this was summer, I could just park the thing outside and get 120 degrees easily. Oh well, the part isn't load-bearing, so it should be fine.

Now I get to wait and see if the carbon ever separates from the car so that I can cut the sheet metal away.

Also- I took the trunk lid off to prep it as another mold and I was really suprised at how heavy it is. Must be about 25lbs.

More prep for the carbon e30 roof

Today was more prep for the carbon...more fiberglass and body filler to try and level out the sunroof. I think it's to the point where it'll be good enough for the fabric. Since I'm not using a traditional mold, I can get away with some surface imperfections since the fabric will absorb a lot of it. I used a big block of wood and 100 grit sandpaper to level the filler. Holding the shop vac while sanding was a huge help in keeping the sandpaper from clogging.

Prepping the roof for carbon fiber

Tonight I began to prep the roof to receive some carbon fiber in an effort to reduce the overall weight even more. Taking weight off of the roof has the added benefit of lowering the center of gravity too, since the weight removed is up so high. My plan is to do a form of moldless composite layup, using the existing roof as a mold. I will lay the carbon fabric directly onto the roof, add epoxy, let cure then remove the carbon "cap". Then I can cut away most of the roof and replace it with the carbon fiber cap. I was really surprised at how heavy the sunroof panel was, so I can imagine the roof section I'm going to remove must be at least 50lbs.

The first step was to ensure a smooth surface for the carbon so that I don't have a noticeable spot where the sunroof once was. I disassembled the sunroof and removed all the weatherstripping. I then used wood shims to prop in in place while I used fiberglass mat to fill the gap that the weatherstripping left.

After the 'glass sets up, I'll cover it with a thin layer of body filler and then sand smooth. Hopefully this will help eliminate and hint of the sunroof when I lay the carbon.

I ordered the carbon fiber from Aircraft Spruce http://www.aircraftspruce.com/ They have a great selection of composite products...everything from fabric to resin to composite tools. It's always good to have an Aircraft Spruce catalog laying around the shop.

Hopefully I'll be ready to lay the carbon this weekend...I'll have a plasma cutter on loan and I'm very curious to see how much roof I can cut off. After the roof, I might try and make my own carbon hood and trunk lid. Maybe some door skins too :)

On another note- I spoke with John at Evil Genius Racing today about fabrication of a cage for the car. John builds cages for spec e30 class, and he is probably the best on the West Coast. His shop is about 2.5 hours from here, not too bad. The price he quoted me wasn't too bad, especially for the quality and complexity of the cage. I'm planning on dragging the car down there in mid-December to begin fabrication work. Above is an example of an e30 cage he did. More photos are available on his website- http://www.evilgeniusracing.com/

Time to lose the weight

Decided today to start gutting the interior and see what kind of damage I could do. I was supprised by how heavy the stock sport seats are...they must be around 40lbs each. I don't have my race seats yet, so the stockers will have to do for now. The door panels, seats and carpet came out pretty easily, all but the carpet will be able to go on ebay or something. The headliner was pretty tough, I had to remove most of the weatherstripping around the windows to get it out. The sunroof is still intact, I think I'm going to cut out the whole thing with a plasma cutter and call it done. The spare tire came out, as did all the carpet from the trunk. The next step is to take out the sound deadening from the trunk...I might try dry ice and see if I can crack it out in chunks.

Overall it went pretty smoothly, my brother-in-law came over to help so with two people it went quickly. I went to the scales again and I was really supprised to see that we took out 200lbs! That is about double what I was expecting. Race seats, AC removal, sunroof delete and more should really get the number low. 2540 is pretty darn light for a street car. And that's with stock wheels and tires!

Also, the entire interior is for sale! Let me know if you are interested in a 20 year old black e30 interior. Cheap!

The car is here!

Well, I finally went and picked up the car and got the title. She was super fun to drive back to the house...the tire light up a little easier when you're not on a test drive with the owner sitting next to you. I went over all the receipts that the car came with, it looks like it has been well maintained and has had a few good mods done already, mostly to the suspension. I noticed there is an oil leak and possibly a master cylinder leak, but nothing too major. Took it to the local truck stop to get it weighed as a baseline. 2740lbs...not bad. That is with 3/4 tank of fuel too. I'm sure that there are a few hundred pounds to be lost though...2400 should be attainable.

Possible Upgrade Paths

Looks like I'll be bringing the car home in a few days...I'm glad to have a new project for the winter. The '32 Ford will be out of the garage (it sold) so I'll have some room to work. I need to come up with an upgrade/mod plan for the car so that I can build it as efficiently as possible...here's the list so far:

-Safety

One of the first things I want to do is to add a rollcage, proper race seats and belts. Adding the cage will mean gutting the car, so I guess gutting it is actually number one. I need to aquire the seats before I really start gutting the car so that it is still semi-drivable if I need to take it to the fabricator. I'm thinking about the Kirkey Aluminum seats...light weight and reasonable cost. Plus, Summit sells them and they are close by. Hopefully the sale of the interior will help offest the cost of the new seats.

Once the cage is in, I can add a fire system and emergency electrical cut off. Undecided on the fire system.

-Performance - Stage 1

Brakes will be the most important upgrade to the performance of tha car, and should probably be considered a safety item. These are the brakes I'm considering- http://www.uucmotorwerks.com/PBC/fitments_E30_325_318.htm

I'll upgrade to steel braided lines at the same time.

I'm still undecided as to what size to get. if I run the 11.75" rotors, I can use 15" wheels (light weight, lots of tire options), but the 12.19" kit is nice too...I'll just have to run larger wheels. I'll call Tirerack and see what kind of wheel options I'll have either way. I would like to run an 8" rim width (or more) so that may put me into a larger diameter.

Wheels and tires will have to be purchased before or at the same time as the brakes. I would like to use Kuhmo v710s on the lightest and widest wheel possible, maybe Motegi Traklites or OZ ultraleggras. Wide wheels may require the use of bolt-on fender flares, Ireland Engineering has a set for about $260 I think.

The next performance aspect to consider is making the car as light as possible. Gutting the interior will be a good start...then I'll see about removing the AC and possibly the power steering. There is a steering rack conversion that I read about that takes the steering ratio from about 4 turns down to 2.7 or something...I'll have to find that later.

The rear side windows can be fab'd out of lexan. Should be easy and will save a few pounds. Plus it looks cool :) The sunroof can be discarded and the hole plugged with something, maybe carbon? I've been looking for an excuse to get out the Aircraft Spruce catalog and start ordering! A complete carbon roof would be awesome, plus it could help lower the center of gravity by removing some weight up top. I'll have to calculate how much time and materials will be to see if it's worthwhile. It may be worth it just for the look!

And so it begins!

Well, looks like I've done it again- I'm picking up my new toy this Saturday. I purchased a 1987 BMW 325is for a track car for about $2000. It's in pretty decent shape, good enough for a track car at least. I took if for a test drive with the current owner a few days ago and it seems like a good platform. Definitely one of the slowest cars I've ever driven, but I could see some potential, especially in the handling department.

The car already has some suspension upgrades (springs, sways, some urethane bushings) and is very well documented. I'm still trying to decide my upgrade path and figure out which mods I will do first. I guess number one is safety, so gutting it and welding in a cage will be something to tackle while we still have some nice weather.

The photos here are from the previous owner, I haven't brought the car home yet.