Christmas weight loss plan

Following on the successful Thanksgiving dieting plan, the Christmas dieting plan isnt as much of a weight loss, but involves more of a sticky and tedious mess. Driver side all scraped out, tomorrow will be passenger side and then we can get ready to send to cage work.

New Alternator

So at Road Atlanta, my battery light kept flickering while in the paddock. If I gave it gas, the light would go away. Wasn't sure what to make of it, but Max Fischer had similar issues. Except for Max, he was racing in an almost hour long race. He lost his ABS and locked up all four tires into a wall. Luckily the gravel trap slowed him down.

Not wanting to risk a similar fate, I opted to buy a new (reman) alternator. From googling this issue, it seems fairly common that the stock alternator fails.

Replacing the alternator was fairly straightforward. Hardest part was messing w/ all the shrouding and removing the stock fan. I left the fan off since I wont be needing it.

Road Atlanta TTB Shakedown

Make the trek down to Road Atlanta with NASA-SE for their annual "Santas Toy Run". I actually had to add in weight from my prior strip down. The car would not be competitive in TTA, so I decided to try to sneak into TTB with some creative rule manipulation. Had to weigh in at 3400#s, but it allowed my to stay in TTB with 2753518 Hoosier R6s.

My main goal of this weekend was to run a time of about 1:40 and get my Moton Street Sport DAs dialed in. The last event I was way too rushed and didnt get a chance to really spend time with the car. This time, I was able to make suspension changes and make notes. Alignment was off b/c of my prior TTB rules manipulation which required me to put the stock rear lower control arms back on. Front had way more camber and Im not exactly sure the toe was set perfect. Anyhow on Sat, I used a couple sessions on street tires just to mess with the shock's compression settings. Road Atlanta can be bouncy in a few places and once I felt the car was ok, I slapped on the Hoosiers.

In my old E36 M3 GTS3 racecar, I was turning 136s, so my goal of 140s for a pretty much stock E46 M3 with suspension was a decent one. My first try on Hoosiers netted me exactly that. My competition in TTB was VERY close though, with Rene Badia, Jr edging me by 1 sec. Joe I. in a Nissan Sentra was also close in a close 3rd by 6 tenths and Mary Shive not too much further off.

Sunday, after a couple sessions, I was 3rd in TTB. The Sentra had busted out a 139.0, and me and Rene were separated by 0.03 secs. So it was on, I looked at data and made a small change in the Motons which are GREAT! Really stepped it up also in a couple places I knew I could go faster. Clicked off a 138.4 which I thought was good enough to win. Then I look at the results to see Rene had topped me AND took down my old TTB record with a 137.2! Ah well, two 2nd place TTB finishes in a car Im really driving for the first time is not bad. Im happy.

Car on scales

Put the car on scales to see where I am on weight. 2950 with 1/3 tank of gas, both stock seats, AC, rear carpet section. I need to be at 3415 for this weekend's shakedown in TTB. Which is doable even with the TT ballast limit of 250#s. Plan to replace the CSL/MINI battery that is in here with a stock one (+10#), Fire Bottle (~5-10#), fill tank with gas (~60#), myself (165-170#) and then ballast up to the required weight.

It's looking more likely that this car will end up being a GTS4 car. Once I take the power windows out, both stock seats, etc, Im going to be losing quite a bit of weight.

Holiday Diet Plan complete

So the holiday weekend diet plan is "complete". For now at least. I put some stuff back into the car, like the rear carpet section and non-functioning NAV unit, among other things because I have an event coming up this weekend at Road Atlanta in TT and I need the weight.

As noted in a prior posting, the NAV/Audio harness is completely separate from the rest of the wiring. Fully removed in the picture here. Those of you who guessed under 10#s win. It weighed in at 9 (NINE) whole pounds. That is quite a bit!!!

Lathe Fun

Went over to Stephen Dubovsky's house and had him mess around on his lathe. After a short while of goofing around, I now have the temporary coolant plugs to block off the heater core hoses. Long term solution will be to block off those hose outlets at the head, etc.

These just look real pretty. We even did the "grooves", chamfered the ends and rounded out the grooves so there werent stress risers.

BMW wiring harnesses

No pictures for today's post, but just a note of gratitude to BMW for keeping their wiring harness for the NAV/Audio/Speakers/Bluetooth, etc ALL separate!!! This is MUCH easier than in the E36 where everything was all lumped together.

I got everything disconnected and loose except for the front door speakers. So tomorrow's plan is to remove the door panels, disconnect/remove the door speakers and yank this whole wiring harness. Sucker is heavy. Estimate is 10#s. Over/Under?

Thanksgiving Dieting Plan

Thanks to my buddy Jim Khoury, we knocked out the entire interior of the car today. Who says Thanksgiving puts weight on! I havent weighed everything we removed, but it should make for a pretty nice weight loss program.

If anyone is in need of black E46 M3 interior parts, let me know! Front seats, non-sunroof headliner and NAV unit are sold, but everything else is available.

Also, as noted in a prior blog post, this car's previous owner put on a CF roof. After removing the headliner, Ive discovered why the interior keeps filling with water. It's like a 3 year old did the caulking job!

"Baseline Dyno" is in

HP is right where Id want it for GTS3, but will need a tune to pick up the torque. That is off by about 20. Bimmerworld Epic tune should help.

Also found a way to dyno the car without putting it in "dyno mode". Worked like a charm!

Awesome Track Shot

Thanks to Keegan Bursaw for this nice pic. Need me some bigger sponsor decals here soon. "Press release" to come soon on that...

First track day

First track day in this soon to be beast. I love Mystic Blue! Looks so nice. The Bimmerworld exhaust sounds absolutely AMAZING. Ill get a video up later of the sound.

Car still needs some dialing in as the current suspension settings are either over or under damped. Will be working on some suspension tuning today. First time out in the car, I managed to turn 214s. Not bad, but the suspension needs to be dialed in. That is still about 7 seconds off the pace, but hopefully with some more time in the car (and more goodies) I can achieve that.

Before / After

How could I forget a before/after! It took me half a day, but I tracked down the original owner of the

car!

Shocking before/after photos!

Amazingly the engine harness was intact, and the misc. wiring was all fixed before I took posession.

Brown brings the Blue and White

Have you ever noticed that when you are super excited to get something, UPS always comes late? Took Brown a while, but they finally delivered the Blue and White. Exciting! It's like Christmas in November!

What's in those boxes? First up are the super baller and bling bling exhaust pieces that make up the Bimmerworld E46 M3 race exhaust!

Racecar will need a good suspension right? After speaking with James Clay (team owner/driver Bimmerworld), I ended up going with some sexy Moton DA Street Sports. They are so sexy that they even come with their own orange fishnet stockings!

Gutting begins!

And so it begins! Started yanking stuff out and before I knew it, a couple hours had passed! Also did the first oil change using the BMW/Castrol 10W60. Tomorrow's pictures will be the REAL treat. Stay tuned!

Back from the Body Shop

Car is back from Givens Collision! Looks awesome again with matching color panels! Cant wait to start gutting.... more to come soon.

Body Shop Update

Givens Collision is awesome. They assign you a Vehicle ID # and you can follow the progress of your job step by step until it is done! Pretty cool IMO.

http://www.givenscollision.com/checkvehicle.htm

Mine is #11380

Will be painted today and I will pick it up to bring home tomorrow!

I also had them put the car on a frame machine, and it came back spot on and perfect.

First set of wheels acquired!

Forgestar 18x9.5". Not the lightest of wheels (approx 20#s), but they will do for now. Needed something quick for VIR DE this coming weekend. Bought a set of used scrubs from a fellow NASA member and all mounted and ready to go.

The kinda look a little like Competition Package wheels. I like the look, but once I get my lighter D-Force wheels, these will probably be turned into a set of rain wheels.

Prettying up the car

I typically do my own painting, but it is too cold outside for paint to set correctly. I was referred to a body shop near me, http://www.givenscollision.com

Jay, owner, set me up and I should have a matching car soon.

Vehicles aquired!

First step in this new adventure. Aquired donor vehicle (left), a 2004 Salvage E46 M3 with 90k miles on it. Car on the right is the new support vehicle, a 2003.5 E46 M3, also Mystic Blue but with only 19k miles!!!

Trying to get the street car registered, but MD is proving to be a pain in the butt when it comes to window tint. Inspected at 30% transmittance, but needs to be 35%. So now Im tasked with the wonderful and fun process of tint removal.