Track

This winter we prepared the Baltic Blue 323i do have some track fun. 

The car was upgraded with a 3.91 LSD and our 286x26mm front big brake kit. A lowered suspension was already installed featuring Bilstein B6 shocks and H&R springs. The standard seats made room for a set of Sparco’s but other than that, the car is pretty standard. 

We did one trackday in February this year, where the car performed exceptionally well apart from excessive body roll.

With the experience of the first trackday earlier on, a few upgrades went into the car.

First of all, we got rid of the Bilstein setup that clearly isn’t developed for track use. A brand new BC Racing extreme low coilover suspension was installed all around. The extreme low struts allow an extra 2 inch of lowering over the standard version, which is quite handy for a track car. The lower the point of gravity, the less body roll. At the same time the rear subframe was modified with one of our camber/toe kits, so that the suspension geometry is now fully adjustable. When extremely lowering any E21, the rear wheels have way too much negative camber and the toe-in is also completely messed up. Our camber/toe kit has massive adjustability and allows to set the geometry to wherever you want it to be.

Another upgrade was the installation of a set of E30 rear brake calipers. This is quite straightforward and requires only small modifications to the calipers. The advantage is especially the choice of available pads for these calipers, something you don’t seem to find for the original E21 ones. The
pads have slightly bigger surface as well. While installing these calipers, the brake pressure regulator was eliminated and braided lines were also installed in the rear. All of this really helped a lot to restore the brake balance of the car.  Before the front brakes were doing all of the work, now you can feel that they are supported by the rear ones and the car brakes more ’square’ look it’s supposed to do. We still need to replace the standard brake fluid with the racing type one. When really hammering the brakes, they finally start to fade as the brake fluid reaches its boiling point.

One last investment is a set of Federal semi slicks.

With all of the upgrades in place, we did a trackday at Circuit Zolder. The car performed exceptionally well. A new list of improvements is already waiting. Polybushes and better cooling are on the list along with removing most of the interior to lighten the car somewhat. Once the chassis and brakes are fully sorted, some power upgrades will be considered, but first things first.

Drifting

Driting started back in 2012 with my 325 E30.

Having swapped different engines into this car, things came to a hold in 2015 for the E30 when the S38 engine in it gave up the ghost. A 1999 M5 V8 was bought as an engine donor. The car had heavy frontal damage and was basically a write-off.

I managed to get it running again and patched it up somewhat in order to test the engine and gearbox before dismantling it. That testdrive turned into 5 years of immense fun on different tracks, the M5 proving to be a tremendously good car and being virtually indestructible.
By the end of 2019, I finally took the decision to dismantle the E39 and get that E30 out of hibernation for a complete and serious makeover.

The E30’s body has been stripped completely and all off the sound deadening and rust protection removed. A FIA approved multipoint roll cage is welded in and stretches from the front turrets to the rear shock absorber mounts in the trunk. The usual rust repairs are done with new sheet metal. 

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