The Cart Before the Horse: Spec 3 Build

[NTIman]

None of this is going to give me any power increase, but I get what y'all are saying. We'll see. I need to let money settle down if I'm going this route and maybe get through December but I drop money on head gasket and head work.

Having the head decked and rebuilt will definitely give you a bump in power.  The bigger thing from all of this is to save yourself the headache and loss of track time later.  Reliability is the key.  Also you will go faster not having the thought of what you didn't fix in the back of your head, which will rear it's head at the worst possible time and you'll be hunting for a new motor again.  

The season is basically over anyway, no need to hurry.  Do it right.

This. Kaan and I have rushed through things and done a half-hearted effort in hopes of getting him track time, and it has bit us EVERY time. We will both tell you that it's a big reason why things have gone so wrong on so many track weekends with the Civic. 

Take your time, do it right, and do it once. We all just want to see you on track and not under the hood.

[Senor_Taylor]

Okay FINE. I ordered a headgasket and bolts. I'll pop my head off and get a shop to check how true it is and go from there. Not sure what to do about valve spring retainers at the moment.

[Kaan]

Not sure what to do about valve spring retainers at the moment.

read the rules... see what can be non oem... research what is best/affordable, and/or call DJ

[Senor_Taylor]

Dropped head off at a machine shop out near Dulles and work begins next weekend when I get the head back.

1. install safety wire oil pump nut
2. swap windage tray
3. install z3 reinforced pickup tube
4. new timing chain guides
5. reinstall head with new bolts/head gasket
6. new vanos chain guide
7. reinstall cams, vanos, time engine
8. install new rear main, flyweeh, clutch, pressure plate
9. attach trans and reinstall in car
10. Wash underside of the car
11. hook up driveshaft and such
12. torque new crank bolt
13. reinstall wiring, accessories
14. do everything else
15. racecar

[Kaan]

Dropped head off at a machine shop out near Dulles and work begins next weekend when I get the head back.

1. install safety wire oil pump nut
2. swap windage tray
3. install z3 reinforced pickup tube
4. new timing chain guides
5. reinstall head with new bolts/head gasket
6. new vanos chain guide
7. reinstall cams, vanos, time engine
8. install new rear main, flyweeh, clutch, pressure plate
9. attach trans and reinstall in car
10. Wash underside of the car
11. hook up driveshaft and such
12. torque new crank bolt
13. reinstall wiring, accessories
14. do everything else
15. racecar

yay! now strap your balls on tight because spec3 aint slow.

[Senor_Taylor]

Finally got started. Windage tray installed, bimmerworld safety wired oil pump nut installed, cleaned the block deck in preparation of head gasket install. I got the timing cover back on and realized I'm missing a circlip for the chain guide. Quite nervous about putting it all back together. I suppose there's no reason I can't have the engine back together this weekend.

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[Senor_Taylor]

New head gasket, picked the best lifters from each motor to make a set that's hopefully more quiet than before. Head installed, engine timed, vanos installed and timed, baffled oil pan installed, new read main, new front main, new pilot bearing, new oil filter housing gasket and other seals such as valve cover, timing cover, exhaust gasket, etc). New flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate, and then transmission installed on engine and engine loosely mounted back in the car. Work resumes tomorrow and I hope to get the engine started.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Honestly just guessed at where most of the connectors went and I guess I got the important ones right. Hooked up the battery jumper and it fired right up and idled for about 5 seconds before I turned it off. I guess I'll go ahead with getting the front end back on the car so I can get the radiator hooked up and get the engine full a coolant before I try to get it up to temp and figure out what I DID mess up. I'm sure some of the sensors have to be flipped around. The engine wire harness is an absolute mess and I'll probably have to pull the intake again to reorganize it.

I also have a new adapter for my coolant temp probe that I'm waiting to get in the mail, so pulling the intake will help with that. I hope to spend New Year's doing all of this and that potentially means I can put it back on the ground and take it for a spin up and down the street this weekend. If all goes well, I'll register for a refrigerator bowl event either Jan 10 or early February to see how the car holds up and brake in the clutch before Comp School in March.

[G.Irish]

Great work! That's a good win to end the year with.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Great work! That's a good win to end the year with.

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Thanks!





Hooked up the radiator and cooling system to see how it ran when left on for more than 10 seconds. Filled with coolant and the water pump immediately started GUSHING. Luckily I had a spare with a plastic impeller so I swapped it out so I can continue checking things while I wait for a baller stewart pump to come in the mail.

Car idles fine and revs smoothly. Starts right up and even charged the completely flat battery well enough to start in its own. Next thing to do is to pull the intake and start rerouting wiring properly, install a new temp gauge adapter for my "real" temp gauge, and also figure out what sensors I have flipped around. Install the stewart pump when it comes in along with new knock sensors, then button up the front of the car and get it down on the ground to take it up and down the street!

The budget for this has gone seriously off the rails and I don't think I can reasonably expect to afford the stuff I need for comp school in March anymore.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Stewart water pump, 2 new knock sensors, and my external water temp gauge all installed. Pulled the intake and redid the wiring harness, got the temp gauge in the cluster working and got all of the other connectors in the right spot, I think.

Got it fire up and up to temp, then took it for a romo down the street. It seems to be running well. However, after the car runs for 5-10 minutes, the engine will start to idle at 3k and the CEL comes on, then when you turn off the car, the battery is completely flat. It was charging the other day, so I'm not sure what has changed. Since the battery is flat, the CEL is gone and I can't check it. Will try to tackle this in the daylight tomorrow and get the rest of the front end back on.

After I get the car sorted out in that regard, it's time to use the OG Racing gift cards I got for Christmas and snag some of the following

- fire system
- rain light
- seat back brace
- new belts

Then install my hood latches and I should be ready for comp school.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Car is back together. Runs and drives without issue as far as I can tell. Throw some green paint I picked at random on the m3 bumper it's almost kind of close. Installed the aerocatches (what a pain) and signed up for a refrigerator bowl in February to shake the car down.

I think I'm going to lose a lot of sleep over thinking about every bolt I could have torque wrong or forgot to torque. Mainly the engine crank pulley bolt. I snugged it down with the max setting on my impact and blue loctite, but the torque spec is like 400 lb-ft which I don't have a reasonable way to achieve. I guess we'll see.



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[Senor_Taylor]

So, story time. I’ve been scrambling to finish my Spec 3 for comp school. Got the engine rebuilt and back in, had to installed new safety gear, rain light, fire bottle, kill swtich, etc. Wrapped it up just in time. After driving 2 years in HPDE, I was finally eligible for Competition School, so I was signed up for Friday. I drove down Thursday night in the pouring rain to unload and work in Registration that night. Friday morning I had my first classroom session for Comp School where we went over the CCR and plans for the day. We were out on track doing a “half track left” drill at 8:50. This mean we had to drive at speed,only using the left side of the track. We were supposed to be doing this in a combined group with other racers doing a “test and tune” which mean there would be 50 other cars out there NOT doing this drill that we would have to also watch out for. The rain was so bad that the only people that ended up out there were the 10 folks in Comp School who had no choice but to go out. The rain was so bad that I could only do about 6/10 pace even on fresh rain tires. The spray from cars in front of me was so bad that I literally could not see a car in front of me on the straights, so I made a point to pass anyone I got behind so I could at least see out the windshield. That plan worked until my windscreen fogged up so bad that I lost all visibility out the windsheild. In the video above, you see me look out the pasenger window to see the flagger on the other side of oak tree. When I looked back forward, I had lost the track and went off. In the dry, it would have been a quick 4 off and back on track, but the wet grass was like ice and I slid right into the wall.

I got pulled out of the wall and limped back to the pits. I had no time to fix my car as the nexst classroom session started right away, so I left my two friends to work on getting my car back in a presentable state.






Classroom ended and I went back out for my second session. This time we were doing a half track right drill. The track was dryer so I was pushing a big harder. Passing some folks and doing well. Then my car developed a severe, but random misfire. I limped it along for a few more laps until my ABS failed going into turn 1. Luckily the runoff is huge there, so I just slid through the grass and I’m really lucky I didn’t flip. I limped it back to my paddock spot

I had no time to work on the car, so I went back to class. The next drill was a leap-frog passing drill. I was partnered with another E36 and we were tasked with passing each other at every available turn. For 35 minutes we jumped back and forth, but my misfires kept getting worse and worse and worse. Unfortunately, we had back to back sessions. We came into the hot pits after the drill, but were scheduled to go right back out, so I had to yell to one of my friends to go search for some ignition coils for me to try to swap around. A few minutes later, we were back on track for our “start” practice. We did one warm up lap, then did a simulated “Standing start” . We did one more, then 2 rolling starts, then one single file restart. Then we raced for one lap and came back into the paddock. We were instructed to not leave out cars. Some folks with stop watches came by, and when they said “go” we had to get unhooked and out of the car in under 15 seconds, or else we failed comp school. (Video soon to come)

So, at that point, the only thing left for Comp School was the “dust off” race. The comp school students would start at the back of the pack and race against everyone else. I had about 30 minutes to try to get my severe misfire fixed, or else I’d be a rolling roadblock for everyone. We were scrambling to swap coils, check grounds, etc to figure it out. With 20 minutes to go, Jake said “Stop messing with that and just take my car”. I lined up and went out for my first real W2W race. A couple laps in, we catch a full course yellow and we get bunched up in a big pack on the back straight right as the flags drop and we go back to racing. I’m three wide coming into the roller coast and I see a honda challenge racer try a late pass on the outside of me. I leave him room, but as he gets to the side of me, he gets loose, dips two in the dirt, and darts track right, hitting me right in the door and sending me spinning off the track through the dirt.

I fill out the body contact forms and submit my video to compliance, then head straight to the classroom for my written test to finish everything up. I’m in class until 7PM. After that, I’m out of light, so I can’t work on my car anymore. Unfortunately, Jake was done for the weekend as well. I end up hearing back that it was ruled the other driver’s fault and he was suspending for one race for the move.

At this point, I wake up at 6PM Saturday morning and work on my car some more. I took my DME out and checked for cracked solder points or an unseated chip. I put it all back together and head out for the Lightning warm up. The car still misfires. I come back in and borrow someone else’s DME and swap it with mine. After that, I was finally able to pull a code for a bad crank sensor. It took about 2 hours, but I got that swapped out and the car was as good as ever. I went out for qualifying and placed 6 out of 8 in my class (27 out of ~50 overall). A few hours later, I started my race and finished 5th out of 8.

Sunday was smoother sailing and I could focus on my driving since my car wasn’t broken anymore. Jake took my car to run GTS2 just to get points for starting a race and completing a lap as well. Sunday, I qualified 5th out of 8th in the Beast of the East race.



In the race, I had a bad start and dropped back to last in my group. I fought my way back and passed on guy in turn 3, and the next guy in turn 12. On the next lap, the guy ahead of me spun in 10 and hit the tire wall track left. At this point, I pulled away from the guys behind me and the leaders of Spec E30 ended up catching me. I let them by (to avoid out of class racing), but the Spec E30 leader used me as a rolling road block to cut off P2 in SE30. I gave P2 a point by into 14 and he overcooked it and spun. He ended up catching back up to me and I signaled to him to catch my draft. Spec 3 cars are faster on the straights, but I’m a bit slower in the turns than the top SE30 drivers, so they usually tuck in behind us on the straights for a draft, then dive over and outbrake us at the end. I sling shotted him ahead and let him go on to catch P1 in his class.

For the rest of the race, I maintained my lead on the Spec 3 guys behind me and no hope of catching 3rd place, until apparently he pulled off track and retired, so I ended up finishing 3rd in my third overall race and might get some free tires!

And that’s that. One more race to complete my provisional license and I’ll be an officially licensed racing driver. I’ll have to complete 5 more races to lose my “rookie” status.

[Senor_Taylor]

[Senor_Taylor]

Wasted no time tearing into this. Summit Point in April will be here before I realize. Guessing, using some eye measurements, I hammered and pried the fender back out to where it looked decent-ish. I also bent the jack posts back and cut them down shorter so I'd stop hitting them on the trailer.





I started looking for a parts car with no success, so I checked local junkyards and found one about an hour away with 1 325i and 3 non M50 powered Sedans, so I made couple trips.







I also put in some orders on Rock Auto. Turn signals, fender liners, rotors, grill mesh, etc.



Disassembled everything to assess damage. Damage was a bit worse than I expected. Driver frame rail was bent in a bit, inner fender was totally out of whack. The bumper shocks were also bent and the studs were knocked out of the frame rail. The hood was also bent at the front and bowed in the middle. The nose panel was ruined, the frame connector was bent, the bumper core itself was bent as was the core support. The door and rear quarter are also scratched, and of course, the mirror was broken. Basically everything on the front of the car needed to be replaced. Luckily, my trips to the junk yard had been fruitful, so I had everything I needed. I also picked up some spares at the yard like a fuel pump, wheel speed sensor, extra mirrors, etc. 





Sanded, primed, and painted the old M3 bumper and the fender from the junk yard. 







New wheel liner





This bumper has seen better days, but it looks completely fine at 100 mph. $10 m3 grill mesh from Rockauto is much better than cutting up gutter guard to fit. Not sure how it's supposed to be fastened though. 



Lots of positioning, hammered, and prying later and we have a car again! Hood is still bent. 



Pulled some vinyl off and washed it. Hopefully getting some new numbers (22 was taken with NASA MA anyway) soon. 



Bonus shot of the cul de sac de BMW

[Senor_Taylor]

Before my weekend update, please check out the newly renovated Spec3 web presence I've been working on. 

Our new series page https://spec3.nasaseries.com/ 
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/NASASpec3 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nasaspec3/



Installed one polycarbonate window and it took forever so I decided to hold off on the other until after the event last weekend. Stopped by RRT on the way to summit as well and saw a Z8, which was awesome. I ran the car in Spec3 and Jake ran it in TT5 all weekend and it never missed a beat. I qualified 7th and finished 7th both days. Great weekend!









Saturday Race



Sunday Beast of the East (Qualifying) 



Sunday Race



I also took a Spec E30 out in DE2 which was a lot of fun.

[Senor_Taylor]

Polycarbonate rear window install finished. Door skins cut out.

Used 17x8.5 ET40 K1s fitted with 15mm spacers and new 235/40/17 RRs.

[Senor_Taylor]

Welp, engine overheated really badly on the first session of a three day event at VIR. Spent the entire weekend trying to figure it out including bleeding the system a bunch, swapping thermostats, gutting a thermostat, pulling apart the whole cooling system etc. It kept getting worse and worse and eventually it became clear that the head gasket was blown.

What I think happened was a test port on the radiator was not torqued after I had the radiator pressure tested and it slowly backed out and eventually let out coolant only under pressure on track. I kept trying to do things to fix it and it would overheat and I think that eventually killed the head gasket. The head had already been milled and they had to take even more off this time so my hopes are not high that this will not go south again, but we will see. Currently have the head back on the car with a new thicker gasket and copper gasket spray applied to both sides. Hoping to find time this weekend to get it all back together.

I also managed to scratch up the head when trying to place it the first time when it got hung on the header stud. Yikes.

[Senor_Taylor]

Car is back together and fired right up. Idles well and holds temp without issue. I think we're okay! Installed bumper trim, fog lot delete panels, and a new turn signal. Ready for Summit Point!

[Senor_Taylor]

Welp, another bad weekend.

Took the car to Summit Point this last weekend. First session out, the water temp gauge on the dash slowly crept up over the course of the session, but the after market gauge I installed read 180-190 and I saw no physical signs of overheating. Either way, it really freaked me out, so I did some digging. I plugged in my scanner and found that the DME was reading a lower coolant tempt than expected as well. I went out for the race on Saturday and the car felt very down on power and the stock temp gauge slowly crept up over the 35 minute race and eventually was reading WAY TOO HOT. I had decided to power through and ignore that gauge as long as the after market gauge I installed read correctly.

Turns out I had my coolant sensor plugs switched around, so I flipped them and fixed everything. I believe the DME thinking the engine was too cold probably hurt power, but I never got a chance to test this as the clutch of flywheel failed during a session Sunday morning where I let a friend test drive the car.

Single mass flywheel kit ordered and I've gotten an exemption from the series leader to run one (since a dual mass is required for the rules). I hope to have this installed, along side the cool suit system and transponder in the next couple of weeks before Pitt Race at the end of July.