Dj's 1999 M3 Project

[D_Eclipse9916]

Small Update: Car is in the garage sitting getting ready for some upgrades/maintenance. Car finished out fairly strong with a few hiccups at the last two events.

Grabbed the Drivers Championship witih CDC (15 events, 6 drops, grabbed 897 points)
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AmFFjweq9w2-dEdCUGZHVVlRYXltbG9jenVuQzZTbGc&hl=en&gid=18">https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AmFFjweq9w2-dEdCUGZHVVlRYXltbG9jenVuQzZTbGc&hl=en&gid=18</a><!-- m -->

2nd to last event at VMP, as many of you know, I experienced a failure. But I had fun before it broke!




This is the result of my shenanigans as I launched for my afternoon runs. This is what happened to my front rear differential bolt (mine):


This is a common issue on these cars as the bushings age and lots of repeated hard launches (autocross and wayyy too much fun slideways action around town.) Pulled the rear diff and then headed down to Harrisonburg to help out Pete Denbigh get a few things installed. Luckily he was also there to help me get the rest of the bolt out of the diff and tap it. Thank god for drill presses!

Pictures below of pulling rear diff with Jason and then day after with Pete.

[

Got this all done and threw up the differential so I could finsih out my season with Capital Driving Club. Spent from after work til 11pm the friday night before the event getting the diff in there and didnt check things out. Well when I get to the autocross, I discover the rear upper cointrol arm blal joints are toast, and when im talking toast, there is approximately 1/4 play in both. All that abuse destroyed these ball joints along with 150k miles, they were done. But I drove an hour/hour and half up to this autox so I said f it, ill at least do 3 runs. So thats what I did.... Only got one clean run in but managed 2nd in PAX for the day.


So this winter's main project will be overhauling the rear suspension (over $500 in bushings/balljoints in the rear alone ...)