24 Days Left - It ... runs?

With 25 days left, I finished and installed the new clutch-slave mounting bracket.

The bracket isn't perfect as the slave still gets a chance to "rock" inside of it's mount but at least it is no longer only half-disengaging the clutch.
To celebrate by birthday, I holed myself up with Jim in the garage.  We attacked the Mess3 with a single minded focus: make it run.  I did add a small provision: make it run, without major leaks.  While installing the clutch bracket pictured above I discovered this little gem of a problem:

A bloody red coating of transmission fluid all under the engine compartment.  That's not to say I thought anything was wrong with the transmission. BMW kindly uses ATF for power steering fluid.  The stock M3 power steering pump is actually mounted in the Ford accessory bracket with the assistance of an adapter plate.

I spent some time disassembling the power steering pump Sunday morning to discover that one of the copper crush washers in the Banjo fitting for the reservoir feed to the pump was leaking.  It was leaking badly.  When you are the owner of the only car of its kind in the world, it can get difficult to source specific parts.  I am, essentially, the only parts book for my car.  I need to know the exact make and model from which a part originates.  Without that information the parts stores are fundamentally useless.  I'll give an example via dialog.

Me: "I need an oil filter."
Parts Store Staff: "Make and Model?"
Me: "Um, it's a 1997 BMW M3, with a Ford 2.5 liter engine, the Block is a '91, the head is a '74, the oil pan is a custom racing unit from KevKo, and oh, yeah, it has a custom turbo setup using a center-mount header from a company that no longer exists, but the turbo is a Precision 5857."
Parts Store Staff: "Make and Model?"
Me: "The oil filter is for a 1988 Ford Thunderbird."
Parts Store Staff: "5.0?"
Me: "No the TurboCoupe, 2.3 ..."

Even with all of those "problems," the line that connects the factory M3 power steering reservoir to the factory M3 power steering pump should be something that is relatively easy to find.   And from what we discovered, that line is available, it is just a three day wait to get the line.  Oh, and that line will still not come with the small washer-like fittings that we need to.  So the dialog really went like this, with every parts store within a driving distance of my home:

Me: "I need a 16 mm copper or aluminum crush washer."
Parts Store Staff: "Make and Model?"
Me: "Do you have crush washers?"
Parts Store Staff: "Yep, some."
Me: "In metric?"
Parts Store Staff: "I don't know.  Maybe."
Me: "How about some crush washers for the power steering pump line for a 1997 BMW M3."
Parts Store Staff: "Let me check."
At this point, I assume most store staff have actually just gone to get coffee, the computer crashed when they got back, so they went for lunch, then after the tech from central IT fixed the computer, they pick up the phone again.
Parts Store Staff: "I can get that in about three or four days."
Me: "Just the washers?"
Parts Store Staff: "No, the entire line."
Me: "Does it have the washers."
Staff: "Let me check".
Coffee, IT problems, Lunch, pick up phone again."
Staff: "No, it says we will have to get those separately."

The saving grace in this dialog are two of the Napa stores in my area.  They know that I'm usually "up to something" and generally try to be helpful.  Failing to find the washers on Sunday, Jim and I decided to instead use a substantial amount of aircraft Form-A-Gasket on the washers and see if that was up to the spec of handling the pressure. 

We had dinner, rushed to clean up the tools, and around 9:00 PM had the car idling in the garage.  Given the amount of tools, rags, and various garage bits that had found their way into the engine bay over the winter, and especially the last few days, it was amazing we didn't lose a wrench.

After playing with the idle and low-load tunes for an hour, we were able to push off for what really felt like, another maiden voyage.  We worked through some of the significant hiccups and low-load drive-ability issues.  Even some of the off-boost high-load drive-ability.  But our quest for a tune was ended early.  One of the intake tubes blew off on a low-boost run and the wide-band oxygen sensor stopped working entirely. 

More to fix, more to loathe, but more progress has been made.

Also, here's a picture of the new breather can.  I made it myself.  Some of the welds are pretty ugly, the gaps from my precision machining and raw material quality left much to be desired.  I ignored most of that bug running the welder hotter than I should have...

Holy Crap, I'm going Racing, Days Remaining 27

Today, I got the call that let me know, I'll be able to run at the ECTA's "Ohio Mile" event that runs from April 27-29.  Myself and my unholy creation will be there.

Which may be a feat, as this is a current progress picture:

TSD Rally 2

We have embarked on our second Time-Speed-Distance Rally. The intended route was from Duluth to Ely, MN. After a slightly rough start, Andy and I started to develop a communication system and my confidence in our car, a 2001 BMW 325xi is growing.

That allowed use to be within less than 10 thousandths of a minute on two of our stages. We were able to analyze our deficiencies on the other stages .

A rude message was echoed into our head: keep a full size spare.

While traveling to the next stage we were interrupted by a bit of an inconvenience:


That rock left us with a "did not finish" in the rally and 250 miles of driving on the donut spare.

The First TSD

TSD = Time, Speed, Distance.

Not a terribly enticing name for a "racing" event but a couple of weeks ago I participated in my first "Timed Rally."  The concept is fairly simple.  There is a fixed starting point, ending point, and a few fixed check-in points.  The goal is to maintain the suggested  average speed  across all points between the fixed points and the end points.  This does get tricky, however, as accuracy matters much more than it does in horseshoes.

When we started chatting with others participating in the rally, they claimed a "good" run was a score of 40 points over the course of the rally. When we, myself and my navigator Andy, realized what this meant we were pretty floored.   A point is awarded for every tenth of a second above or below the target time.  A rally lasts approximately six hours.  So that means, over six hours of driving, a car was able to time their arrival times with no more than 4 seconds of inaccuracy using nothing more than the car's odometer, speedometer, and a stopwatch.

This type of racing may seem anti-climatic.  For me, it is a bit.  There is quite a bit of math, quite a bit down time, and the speeds that need to be maintained are only a struggle because of the conditions provided by the road.  However, Andy and I are taking it all in as a part of a training program.

The goal is to run in September's Silver State Classic Challenge.  The race is run in Nevada on closed public roads.  The course is 90 miles long and the goal is to travel the course at a given average speed.  The minimum class speed is 95 MPH.  This means, over 90 miles, the goal is to average 95 MPH.  There are twists and turns across the 90 mile course and we'd like to run in one of the 100-110 MPH classes.  To do this we established a bit of a plan:

1.  Train our navigator/timing efforts.  This is why we were doing a "TSD Rally."  It helps develop a communication system, a vocabulary, and coping mechanisms for when things are going right or wrong.

2. Get the car ready.  The intent is to run with the M3.   The validity of this as a "good idea" may or may not pan out but it's my preference to run the car I've been tweaking for a year.  The car is still untested, undyno'd, and has never seen a rolling speed of greater than 80 MPH.  We may need to find some time on some private roads.   Or at least a dyno cell.

3. Get the logistics ready.  We are coming from Minnesota and will need to plan on transportation of ourselves, the car, and everything we need to support the car and ourselves.  This will probably be the most difficult part.

So, the boring part, learning to navigate is step one.  We did reasonably terrible at our last TSD and are hoping to do a few more in the coming months.

Updating the Shop

I've been constantly cleaning the garage since we moved into our house over three years ago.  It always seemed like I was doing pretty well, and then I'd actually try to do a project and the entire garage would fall to pieces.  That became much more literal a few weeks ago when my main storage shelf fell on me.  Many of the shelves fell through their frames and large car parts and all of my scrap metal, used for fabricating things, came down on me.  The bruises on my shins were the things of legend.  Legend and pain.

To tidy things up a bit, Jim and I had some whiskey, argued about optimal shelf design and then built a more appropriate replacement to the old fallen shelf.  We probably should've measured better but things generally went together just fine. Except the main pole, which is hung from the rafters, doesn't always touch the floor.

Clearly, the acrobatics were necessary.

Having built a shelf, I wanted something a bit more sustainable for storing my scrap metal bits. It just so happened my wife brought home a nice wooden crate. Which I then modified by adding a 2x6 floor and some cast steel casters.

Rolling box of metal sharps.  Reach in, feel around, it'll be a fun tetanus shot filled trip to Urgent Care.

I'm a computer geek by trade and was really excited to have the box. It was an old electronics shipping container for one of the more historically significant computing companies - Control Data Corp.

"Data Action Corp" was a pseudonym at the time.

This has allowed me to see floor space in the garage. I still have some things to sell and some items that I should just trash. (But how can I not have a wiring harness for a 1988 Lincoln Mark VII?)

The Bowels of Winter

A major portion of getting the car ready has been winterization.  This car lives in Minnesota.  Furthermore, it lives in an unheated garage in Minnesota.  Today's high was a balmy 15 degrees Fahrenheit.  I'm not really complaining about the heat but it did mandate the car get actual coolant in the lines.  During the build I solely put distilled water into the system and leaving it that way would probably necessitate installing new frost plugs in the spring.  So Jim helped flushed the system and we put in some fresh 50/50.

Explanation for People Who Don't Really Care about Cars
Every car has some form of engine cooling.  Engines generate heat and if too much is trapped inside, it will fail to really operate properly.  The most popular form of modern engine cooling is liquid cooling a.k.a. water cooling.  There are a few key components to this system:

• The engine, it actually generates the heat, and moves the car.  It also has a part on it called, "the Water Pump."  The water pump is important because it actually pulls cool water from the radiator into the engine.
• The radiator.  This is the part where all the water generally goes.  When the "low coolant" light comes on, you generally are putting water into this.

When the engine is turned off there is water left in the engine.  This good, this is how the system is intended to work.  However, when water gets below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Centigrade) it will change itself into ice.  This is problematic.  If a pop-can gets left in the freezer for a little too long you get a mess, the same thing happens with an engine, leave it with just water in the engine for too long and you get the same style mess.

Recognizing this potential problem, most engines have "freeze plugs" which will pop-out before the entire engine turns itself into the can of Coke someone really needed to have cold fast.  The real prevention mechanism is to add "antifreeze" or "coolant."  We put in Prestone's best green goo, mixed with some water, and so the car should now be very comfortable for the winter.

Catching up, Part 1

So, it's time to dust off the blog.

The car has been running since July and I've been so busy between work, family, and getting the car running that I let journaling about it degrade.  And by "busy with family," it's important to note our family did get bigger by one:

The car made small, incremental progress through March, April, May, and June.  I'd spend a few hours on different small projects trying to assemble the car.  Between the newborn, working, and trying to pretend to sleep a few hours at a time, that was all I could ever get done.  Then came Car Craft.

The Car Craft Summer Nationals has been a long running event at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.  Since high school, I've attended nearly every year for at least one day.  No matter the rat-trap, clapped-out, ill-running condition of my projects cars, I've always tried to drag them there.  The thrash for completion began.  Every night for a week, after putting the kids to bed I spent until 2 AM working on the car.  The unforgiving alarm clock would still ring four-and-a-half hours later.  I'd clock my eight hours at work, make dinner, put the kids down to bed, and head back out to the garage.  The Minnesota weather was cooperative by handing me record high temperatures and humidity.  My long time partner in crime, Jim came down Friday night.  We were able to get it nearly ready to start up but it didn't happen.  The wires were in the right places, the oil plumbed to the right holes but we were met with a bum starter and at one in the morning it was going to be difficult for us to get a new one.

My wife was graceful enough to give me the time to put in a near-24-hour push on Saturday.  She was even brave enough to help run the drill press and get her hands dirty after the kids went to bed.  Sunday morning, I fired up the car and headed to the Fairgrounds.

I met quite a few people who found the car interesting. One, Alex Bellus, a local beater-racer, and excellent photographer was kind enough to send me a well-shot picture of the car at Car Craft:

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Alex for sending me this picture and encourage you to visit his website.