Eurotrash Motorsports

Friday night, a 5-7pm lapping event was being held at Calabogie.  Of the Eurotrash team, there were Chris, Pat, Naresh, and myself driving, and Jamie came up to watch a bit later.  Having never lapped before, he wanted to get a feel for what it was.

To get the bimmer ready, I had taken the day of work.  My exhaust had developped a leak between the manifold and the midpipe, so I decided to just weld them together.  I realize that this is going to be an issue if I ever need to remove it, but I’ll deal with that issue when it arises.  Also, my front brakes were getting low, so I had purchased some new hawk pads to install.  Unfortunately, there was a shipping issue so those  didn’t arrive in time.  Thirdly, the truck manifold had blown out, and that was still in the shop being fixed by our good friends at Canadian Tire on Carling, so I had to borrow a tow vehicle from a coworker.

All signs seemed to be telling me that I wasn’t supposed to be doing that lapping day.  Well, there was another one on the track – my brother was the second car to stage, and I was the fourth.  He was let in front of the car from him early on, and I was as well.  With one car separating us, he was pulling ahead (not that’s its a race or anything, but still fun to try and pace each other).  I finally got let by the car, and worked on catching up to Chris.  When I did, he let me by right away.  A few corners later, I hear a clunk coming from the engine and my battery light comes on.  Then I notice that I had lost my power steering. THEN i noticed that my coolant gauge was starting to creep.  I quickly put my car in 5th and nursed the car back to the pits.  Thankfully I was able to shut the car down before the gauge got into the red zone.  However, once the car was off, the coolant temps kept rising, and stayed high for a while.  I assumed it was just the serpentine belt that drives the water pump, alternator, and power steering pump that had come off, and that it wasn’t a big deal as they have a part store at the track.

Turns out, the belt was fine!  One of the pulleys had seized and tore off the car, which caused the belt to slip.  That was the end of my night – 15 minutes in.  I was also concerned about engine damage as the temps were through the roof, but as the car wasn’t running, I hope it will be ok.  After letting it cool down, I fired it back up to get on the trailer, so at least i know it runs!

I’m hoping that no bolts broke, as that would require me removing the whole front end of the car to be able to extract them.  If I can simply replace the two pulleys and the belt, it should be a fairly simple job, and my car will be ready in no time.

Thankfully, no one else on the team experienced any issues and had a blast.  The track was damp, but there was no rain and it was a great evening.  I stuck around and went for in for a session with Pat and it was lots of fun.  Plus, we got more people hooked – Jamie will now be registering for the MCO lapping day in September!

Not sure if anyone took pictures, but if I find some I’ll post them for sure!

Shawn

Now THAT is how you spend a Friday night.

After picking up the car from Ralf at Canadian Tire Carling only hours before, I set out to Shannonville Motorsports Park to participate in an evening lapping event with the new swaybars installed. I was excited to see how the behavior of the car would change with the addition of the bars and was one of the first cars in line to set out onto the track.

Unfortunately my first outing was cut short when my car suddenly died mid corner. I had just come down the front straight and was barreling through the first corner in the top of third gear – now when I say top, I mean 6800-7000rpm – when suddenly my car just bogged and then jumped back. My initial thought was “OH GOD I BLEW THE ENGINE!” but when the car came back to life there weren’t any sounds of mechanical carnage. I cruised back to pit lane to diagnose the issue. After checking that the alternator belt was tight, my friend pin pointed the issue. The 4 gauge power wire from my old stereo system had pulled itself out of the empty fuse holder and had begun arc welding itself to a screw. Every time the wire made contact, the entire electrical system shorted, and the car would die. Thankfully it was an easy fix.

With the electrical issue sorted out, I set back out for round two of testing the swaybars.  The balance of the car hadn’t changed all that much but there was definitely less roll which really through off my internal speedometer.

That being said, the car did manage to rotate a little bit….

After taking a few minutes to collect myself after my adventure into the infield, I came back determined to find the limits of my new setup. Everything was really coming together, the added stiffness, the tires, the brakes – they were all working perfectly. Although lapping isn’t a race, it’s always nice to play cat and mouse. I’m happy to say that, for once, I was the cat more often than I was  the mouse!

After taking a ride along with one of my teammates (Pat), I was shown a few different lines that I hadn’t tried yet. Excited to test them out for myself, I hit the track. The result? A 2:18, a 2:19, and TWO 2:15 lap times. I was impressed.

The added stiffness really helped and by the end of the day I was taking down A4′s, Z06′s, mustangs, V70Rs, and even a Cooper S .

Check out the video section for some clips of yesterday’s action!

As most of you know, last weekend was the start to the season for me.  Jeff and my brother Chris had already participated in a few events – a lapping day at Shannonville with K-Playground and a “Test and Tune” at the Picton Airfield with the St-LAC club.  Because of my overhaul, the bimmer’s spring break-in was done at Calabogie Motorsports Park.

Thursday night:

Jeff and I both went to Carp to work on a few little things that were left to do before the weekend.  I had to install my new electric fan temp switch (the one on the car was dead) and then adjust my brakes because of the new proportioning valve.  Jeff was planning on trying to install a subframe brace on his Protégé.  After I had finished installing the switch and letting the car heat up to make sure the fan worked, I set out to test out the brakes.  There was only one problem: I had forgotten to close my hood pins!!!  As soon as I got up to speed, the hood flew open into the winshield and cracked it end to end instantly.  After several moments of panic realizing I may have just ruined my weekend, I got on the phone and started calling everyone I knew who could help me.  The answer was always the same – no one can do anything on a Thursday night at 9pm.  I’d have to wait until Friday morning – the only issue with that was that I was supposed to be leaving for CMP at 6:30am!  So I then proceeded to call every autoglass store in the area to try and find out when they opened until I called Speedy and someone picked up!  What?  It turns out that their headquarters are open 24 hours and can book appointments!  I was shocked.  I was even more shocked when they told me my windshield was in stock and that it would be in Ottawa by 8:30 the next morning AND that there was an opening at 8:00am at the Kanata location!  I couldn’t believe it!  At worst, I would miss half a day!  Chris and I took my twisted hood off the car before heading to bed.

Friday:

The next morning I woke up at 5:30 with Jeff and Chris and watched them leave without me (that sucked).  I then loaded the car onto the trailer and drove over to Speedy Autoglass.  The guys there were great, and let me watch them as they worked.  By the time they had gotten the old glass off, the new one had arrived.  With one hour, they had the new glass installed.  Normally, the car is not allowed to be driven while the glue cures (about 1.5 hours after the install).  Since my car was going on a trailer, they said that would be fine!  I made it to Calabogie by 10:30am!  I couldn’t beleive it!  The organizers were great and allowed me to run without my hood.  Jeff and Chris had already done 2 20 minute sessions, but I was able to get on with them for the third of the 7 sessions we would be getting that day.  That first session I was very hesitant – I didn’t know how the car would handle with my new modifications, and I was worried because I didn’t really get a chance to adjust my brakes.  After that, things started getting back to normal – I started remembering my lines, and becoming more and more confident.  My car was AMAZING!  I couldn’t believe how incredibly it handled.  All the hard work I had done and it was paying off!  I was started out in the beginner run group with Jeff, Chris, Naresh, and Pat.  I wasn’t assigned an instructor, but I grabbed as many people as I could to get in the car with me to give me pointers.  By the end of the day, I was ecstatic.  The car was perfect (almost) – my only issue was an exhaust leak between the headers and the midpipe, however this didn’t affect anything on track – only at idle.

Saturday:

The next day, my dad Pierre joined the party in his Infinity G37S.  Because we were sharing the track with the racing school, we raced on the east track instead of the full track (still an insane amount of fun).  Mike and his brother Fadi (the guys who helped me install my transmission) came up to get some rides, and did we ever give them some!  We all had a blast, and then it started raining.  For Jeff, Chris, and Pierre, it wasn’t a big deal because they all had hoods and new tires.  I, on the other hand, was running on season-old tires with a car that had no hood!  It turned out the that hood was not an issue at all, but the tires were.  The car was so loose in the wet, I could barely get the power down.  I had to be so sensitive on the throttle and I was almost a gear slower throughout the majority of the track.  We all had a few scary moments, but we all ended the day it one piece and still had a blast.  In the rain, both my brother and my dad were faster than I was – oh well.  That evening, Chris and I set out to reinstall the hood.  After some precision bodywork with the back-end of an axe, we managed to fit it back into place.  It actually didn’t look too bad!

Sunday:

Today was the last day.  We were all getting tired, but none of us wanted it to end!  After inspection my tires, I noticed that my two driver side tires were suffering: the front had heat cracking on the shoulders from being overheated, and the rear was starting to lose chunks of rubber.  I decided that I was going to have to drive more cautiously that day to try and make them last till the end.  After a few sessions in the morning, I decided to rotate them from side to side.  Technically you aren’t supposed to do this because of the directional tread, but since the tires were almost finished and the track was dry, I figured it would be fine.  This was the first time I had jacked up the car since I had put on the new endlinks and I quickly discovered that there was an issue with that – they bind!  It was a quick fix, but something I will have to watch out for when I raise up the car.  With the tires rotated, I started pushing harder and harder again, and I kept having more and more fun.  By the end of that afternoon, all four tires had started chunking, and the tread was starting to peel off.  I guess I put them to good use!  My exhaust leak was also getting worse – I discovered monday night that over the course of the weekend, the leak had caused the gasket to desintegrate, and that’s why it had gotten worse.

Monday:

Monday was a cleanup day.  After having taken over my dad’s garage for the past month, I owed it to him to clean it back up.  After it was swept and all the tools were put away, I put the car back on the lift and started working on the exhaust.  I took the clamps off the midpipe and seam welded them.  My plan is now to helicoil the hole in the manifold where the bolt was stripped so that I can seal it up there too.

The weekend was phenomenal – the organization was amazing, and everything went off without a glitch.  I had a blast drivng my “new” car, and there were no issues with any of the work I had done – all the bushings were intact, the gauges worked, the fan worked, there was no overheating, and (other than the windshield and the tires), everything stayed in one piece :).  It wasn’t budgeted for this year, but it looks like I’ll be buying new tires soon (and new rims while I’m at it).  I will be going to a 16 inch rim that weigh 2.2lbs less than the OEM BMW rims.  I’ll also be increasing to a 225 series tire instead of the 205s that I’m running now.

303 Imaging was at the track all weekend and sold us hundreds of pictures of all our cars.  Check out the Gallery under Lapping to see them!

Shawn

April 11, 2010 – the official start of my 2010 motorsports season.

Yesterday Pat and I decided to take the day off and cruise down to Shannonville to take part in a Kplayground lapping day at Shannonville Motorsports Park.

Pat left his car at home but made the trip down to check out the full track and to keep me company and keep himself busy.

For me, the day was designed to be more of a “test and tune” to see how the new brakes and tires would hold up. I have to say that both held up admirably but the day did point out a few flaws in my setup: a crummy alignment, excessive body roll, and sharp fenders.

After a couple of laps on the course it was clear that my body roll was too much for my stock alignment and my fenders had actually started chewing into my rear tires shaving off small bits at a time.

In the end it was a fun day and I left with a list of things to improve for next time.

Check out the video section for a couple of vids that Pat and I each shot with your SD and HD Go Pro cameras.

I finally got around to posting the videos from my lapping day with 3-Balls Racing last summer.   Check out the videos section, and enjoy!

Shawn

A few weekends ago, Jeff and I signed up for a lapping event for the morning of October 18th through Midnight Runs, and then for one in the afternoon through KPlayground.  Both these events were at Shannonville Motorsports Park, using their long track (4 km) and we were extremely excited.  Jeff had never been lapping, and I couldn’t wait to get back on the track!

I decided to put a few touches on the car before heading out – I reinstalled the 12 volt adapter so that we could use a portable air compressor, and I jimmy-rigged a power window connector for it so that we could roll the windows up and down from inside the car (as opposed to using an external battery like we used to).  Both worked great and the weather forecast said it was going to be a nice day, so our spirits were up!

Once again, we had to leave extremely early as we needed to be there for 8:45am.  So we hit the road at 6am to make the 2.5 hour drive.  Everything went smooth, and we even ment up with some fellow racers on the 401.  I took the first lapping session to try and get Jeff used to the idea and to show him what the car can do at higher speeds.  The car was hanlding awesome, and I could really feel the traction improvements that the camber was giving us.  We played with the tire pressures a bit and we found the sweet spot for the car in no time.  The second session went to Jeff, and he quickly got the hang of – he learned the lines, and was able to maintain a pretty good pace throughout the whole track.  In fact, in the first right corner coming out of the first straight, he was feeling gutsier than I was and shifted to fifth to take the corner, whereas I was only taking it in fourth (he didn’t realize at the time that he was going faster than I was)!  It was turning out to be an awesome day.

Unfortunately, during the next session, I came out of that same first corner and tried to shift to 5th, but the gear selector was jammed.  I couldn’t move it at all, even with both hands.  I finished the lap and pulled off the track to tell Jeff the bad news.  We missed out on the last hour of the morning session, and we were able to get credited for our afternoon session.  Trying to get the car on the trailer was exciting though – as soon as I touched the ramps, the clutch started slipping and then smoking!  With the help of some friends we were able to get it up anyways.  We were pretty dissppointed, but it really could have been a lot worse.  We had picked up a used transmission this summer and were planning on swapping it anyways this winter, so this just added a bit of fuel to the fire.  We were also considering replacing the clutch, so now we have even more reason to do that too.  All in all, we still had a blast, and nothing “serious” happened.

A photographer got some really great shots of us in action, and Jeff should be uploading some soon as well!  Unfortunately we didn’t get any in car video, as we wanted to wait for the afternoon… so much for that!

Shawn

Last weekend was probably one of the best weekends of my life.  Period.

Emil and I signed up for the 3 Balls Racing Calabogie Lapping weekend (that’s right… saturday AND sunday).  Unfortunately, as expected, rain was expected for the entire weekend.  Although this wasn’t ideal, I didn’t mind too much because my first Calabogie experience was in the rain, and it was still a blast.  Plus, having rain makes you focus more on smoothness and line selection, and less on pushing the car 110%.  In a way, I was glad because I knew that the bimmer would be up for the challenge.  As you can probably tell by the lack of posts and pictures, Emil’s jetta is no where near ready, so he was using his daily driver – a turboed Golf.

Saturday:

With a couple of guys from last year’s Carleton University FSAE team (which we were on as well), we headed up in the morning in the wet.  The day was set up so that we would run for 30min every hour, with a total of 7 sessions.  As expected, it was a fantastic day!  I was initially suprised at how much I remembered of the track from the last time I was there, and I was also impressed at the difference the new suspension made.  The car left more nimble and stable, as the center of gravity is now much lower.  It did make me realize that the spring rates we have on our shocks are a bit too soft because there is still a lot of body roll.  3 Balls Racing were awesome hosts, and provided us with a catered lunch of steak burgers, chicken souvlaki, greek salad, rice, fruit, and deserts!  The afternoon turned out to be just as much fun as the morning, and by the end of the day, I had burnt roughly 65 liters of gas, and drove roughly 250 km.  Unfortunately, Emil was having trouble with his MAF sensor, so he had slowed down in the afternoon.

Make sure you check out the gallery for more pictures from saturday!

Sunday:

NO RAIN!  I was extremely excited to head out in the morning since they were forcasting no rain for the day!  My girlfriend, Alyssa, and I left bright and early and couldn’t wait to get on the track.  Unfortunately, due to his MAF sensor issue, Emil decided to sell his spot for sunday to preserve his car.  He picked a bad day, because when we arrived at the track, we discovered that the other group had less members than expected, so it was to be an OPEN TRACK DAY!  This meant as much track time as the car would allow!  I didn’t push it too much, because driving the car that hard for that long is very tough for it, but I definitely got my money’s worth!  Saturday I ran into an instructor, Pierre,  who also had an E36 BMW (his was a 328i), and offered to show me his lines/comment on my driving on sunday.  After warming up, I went to see him and we set off.  I learned a lot!  Generally, the lines I was taking were close, but there was a few corners where he really showed me how to improve.  I also took the time to play with my tire pressures, and by the end of the day, the car was set up perfect with 42 psi in the front, and 38 psi in the rear (once the tires were hot).  Thanks to Pierre, I felt confident pushing the car harder and harder, and by lunch time, I had improved significantly, and I’m sure that my lap times dropped a lot as well.  I was taking more corners in higher gears and higher throttle positions, and really feeling the grip of the car.  By the end of the day, I had improved even more, and I was using the rotation of the car to help me get through corners.  Pierre and I went out again towards the end of the day, and he was impressed with my improvement.  I followed his car in mine for a while, and then we switched with him following me.  I was surpised and excited that he was losing ground as we drove!!! There were two corners where he was faster than I was, but generally around the rest of the track, he was the same speed or VERY slightly slower.  Just seeing the difference between us in the morning to the afternoon made me extremely excited and anxious for more!  After that session, I went off the track to cool off a bit planning on heading out once more before the end of the day.  Unfortunately, a car went into a wall about 10 minutes before I was planning on going back out.  Luckily no on was hurt, but it made me rethink my alertness, and I decided not to push my luck, and to head home (after another 90L of fuel and roughly 280km)

It was an INCREDIBLE weekend!  Check back for videos, as we will be posting those soon!

This was my first ever lapping day, and was it ever awesome!

After our Auto-X event from last weekend, Jeff and I noticed that our all-seasons were finished.  With my lapping day coming up later that week (yesterday), we decided it would a good idea to pickup some new tires.  Since we were spending the money, so big or go home right?  We went with the new Kumho Escta XS, size 205/50/15 competition tire (“cheater” tire) since they were on sale from Talon Tire, and are one of the best rated street legal competition tires.  They’re a little lower profile that the stock size, but since the car is a track rat anyways, who cares!  A trip to Canadian Tire on Carling resulted in them getting mounted & balanced and a passed track inspection to go with it!

Thursday morning was grey, and as I was heading out to the track, it only got worse.  There were two groups of 25 cars each, and we were scheduled to have 7 25 minute sessions throught the day.  Since I was a novice driver, I was assigned an instructor to help me learn the lines, and to ensure I wasn’t going to endanger myself or anyone else on the track. My first session was in the dry, but it was clear that I needed to work on remembering the track.  If you have ever been to Calabogie, there are many corners that you can’t see because of the elevation changes, but to get the right lines, you have to start turning in blindly.  It took me a bit to remember the track, but once I did, whoa!  What a blast!  After 3 sessions, my instructor signed me off, and I had the afternoon to have some fun!  I decided to ask a few more experienced drivers to come with me for some expertise, and it really helped me get comfortable at those high speeds.  Basically the entire day was in the rain, and there were a few spots with standing water which made them prone to hydroplaning (it only happened to me once, but at 150 km/h, it can get scary quick!).  I made sure to always leave extra room in the braking zones just in case!

Overall, this was one of the best experiences I have ever had!  The car performed exceptionally, and I improved steadily throughout the day, getting lots of compliments from other drivers :).   The tires on the car were fantastically grippy, and even in the rain, they only let go a few times, but it was always comtrollable and predictable.   Can’t wait for the next track day!

Check out the gallery for some pictures I took of the day, and stay tuned for some in-car videos!