i_love_cars Posted June 23, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 e30 is almost back together. The baffle is tig-welded in to the oil pan now, connecting rod bolts are in, still needs the new shifter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris3 Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 In every car forum that deals with track cars, there's going to be a number of tow vehicle discussions. Challenge is that folks can be talking past each other if the intended purpose of the tow vehicle purchase is not clear. All sorts of camps are out there with some folks looking for dedicated tow vehicles and others for dual use/daily drivers, some folks looking for high end amenities and others looking for bare minimum reliability, some touting the merits of pickups and others advocating SUVs, passenger / cargo / conversion / molester and/or down-by-the river vans, reconditioned ambulances, box trucks, or converted school buses. Key is what you want to do with the ride. Anyway glad you found something that fits your and the family needs. My issue is that the days of relatively affordable new pickup trucks are gone, driven in part by demand for trucks from folks who will rarely if ever actually use them as trucks. This in turn feeds the piling on of amenities and manufacturers' dreams of ever greater profit margins. Can't blame the manufacturers. As long as gas prices are in a sweet spot and consumer demand is there, they'll crank out heavily optioned trucks well north of $50/60k. I had some time to kill before a flight home last week so visited the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn and watched that assembly line humming, cranking out one after another new F-150s. By the time you leave the plant tour after the high-end surround sound promotional video experience and the assembly line observations you walk out ready to jump in a new truck. Surprised they didn't have sales folks waiting at the exits before we got back on the bus. Sad that $41k is a deal, but it is what it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B C Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 Wait a sec, why were you messing with the rod bolts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earl Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 Because racecar dude! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suspenceful Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 13 hours ago, i_love_cars said: This truck also doubles as my year-round car in case i need to travel for work or anything, given that I am selling the Subaru. It doubles as an alternate that the wife can drive and cart the kids around in case her car takes a dump. Think what you want about the truck's price - there's no doubt it isn't cheap, but it's mildly offensive to judge considering you have no idea of what my financial situation is. If you actually had a family of 4 like I do who enjoy coming to track events with me, you may think differently about buying some shitbox, rusted out, 200k mile tiny ass cab truck for $5000. Cuz that's exactly what you're gonna get for $5k. Please find me a truck with decent mileage, not rusted to shit, has a full 4-door crew cab that can comfortably fit 4 people and amenities for a 2-3 day overnight stay track event, and modern tech like bluetooth audio, anti-sway LSD, brake gain/loss controller, etc. for $5000. It's easy to point a finger at someone when you have 0 other considerations other than yourself and purely towing a car, in which case $5k on a shitbox truck would indeed be fine. It's the stuff in bold that sends it over the $5k price point. I bought a 2000 Ford Ranger for $1,400. It obviously didn't have any of those amenities, couldn't tow a trailer, or fit anything comfortably. You'd think with a few more thousand dollars, you could get something decent. Maybe, maybe not. My buddy picked up a Nissan Titan as a tow vehicle for like $3k. Again, not sure it had any of those amenities besides the full crew cab. This is probably the closest to something I could get and afford: http://wausau.craigslist.org/cto/5579464262.html or http://wausau.craigslist.org/cto/5637734482.html Given your slightly hostile reply, I think you took my comment the wrong way. In no way was I trying to offend you or point fingers. I'm simply jealous, that's all! You've got an awesome truck (and soon-to-be trailer), awesome track E30, awesome 135i, awesome wife, and awesome kids. I can only hope that one day I'll be in a similar position. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patsbimmer1 Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 The amenities help to push the price up brand new but mean next to nothing when it comes to resale value. The large cost of buying new is the guarantee and warranty that is coming with the vehicle. You are paying for piece of mind. The question we should all be asking is can the Tundra do a burnout? suspenceful 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B C Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 The question we should all be asking is can the Tundra do a burnout? Finally! Someone has a good head on their shoulders patsbimmer1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patsbimmer1 Posted June 23, 2016 Report Share Posted June 23, 2016 Any accessories with the trailer? Winch? Electric? Lights? Toolbox? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted June 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2016 13 hours ago, suspenceful said: It's the stuff in bold that sends it over the $5k price point. I bought a 2000 Ford Ranger for $1,400. It obviously didn't have any of those amenities, couldn't tow a trailer, or fit anything comfortably. You'd think with a few more thousand dollars, you could get something decent. Maybe, maybe not. My buddy picked up a Nissan Titan as a tow vehicle for like $3k. Again, not sure it had any of those amenities besides the full crew cab. This is probably the closest to something I could get and afford: http://wausau.craigslist.org/cto/5579464262.html or http://wausau.craigslist.org/cto/5637734482.html Given your slightly hostile reply, I think you took my comment the wrong way. In no way was I trying to offend you or point fingers. I'm simply jealous, that's all! You've got an awesome truck (and soon-to-be trailer), awesome track E30, awesome 135i, awesome wife, and awesome kids. I can only hope that one day I'll be in a similar position. You caught me at a bad spot - the moment I posted on Facebook I had people arguing about which truck is better than which. 99.9% of people are too poor to ever own more than 2 trucks in their entire lifetime, and yet they somehow all are experts on every make/model of truck ever in history. There is so much ignorance. The bottom line is any modern full-size pick-em-up-truck can easily tow 6000-6500 pounds, which is the average payload of literally everyone i know who trailers race cars. At that point it's like pick the truck you like and just move on. One is not better than another at that weight class (assuming full-size pickups). the sad reality is that Boris is right about people not using trucks for their intended purpose. Ever. I was fortunate that i could locally source an SR5 Tundra. Many people end up buying Limited or Platinum editions which jacks up the price, because they want a truck because #truckStuff but it's their only car, so they also want "luxury". Even though no matter what you do to a truck, it's still a truck. The trucks you linked that you would buy are fine for you, but those are exactly what I was talking about in why I wouldn't buy them. For $4k - look at all the dents and rust on that F250, and the interior is basically shot. One look at the steering wheel and seats and you can see how beat out that thing is. and nearly 200k miles like i said/expected. And it's not a diesel - a regular gas V10 like that in a work truck won't last nearly as long as a diesel. My research showed that a "decent" truck - i.e. 80-110k miles, crew cab, 2005-2008 vintage, clean body - was still about 15k for most makes/models of full size pickup. Pat is also right about peace of mind. For me, especially if I have other people with me, I don't want to have to worry about having my truck break down and cost me more money to tow it and inconvenience other people in my life. I spend enough time wrenching on my 135 and the E30. I don't need a 3rd car to spend time fixing. Already went down that route with the Subaru and hated my life for it. My time is worth way more than that. KaiserRolls 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaiserRolls Posted June 24, 2016 Report Share Posted June 24, 2016 The last line. That is all. I'm over wasting my time with crap that isn't my e30 m42b32 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted June 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2016 12 hours ago, patsbimmer1 said: Any accessories with the trailer? Winch? Electric? Lights? Toolbox? i paid $4250 for the trailer. it has interior lights but no other amenities except an oversize service door (48"). It needs some work. I ordered 3 new door latches today and there was a small bit of water in there this morning after the rain last night. 2 nails at the top were dripping and left like super tiny 1x1" puddles. So I went to work today caulking all the nails from the inside, then went up top on the roof and layered in a bunch of new caulk lines where the original stuff was cracking/splitting/had holes. We'll see how she does on the maiden voyage to Blackhawk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted June 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 All loaded up for Monday. Bassboy3313, B C, suspenceful and 3 others 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted June 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2016 Well i'm back to the drawing board. I woke up on Sunday after heavy rain on Saturday to find my trailer leaking from like 6 spots on the roof. The guy I bought it from clearly lied to me and would not return my text messages. So I fire-saled it on Sunday and had it sold for cash by 10 p.m. - luckily I made back almost all my money by being honest and telling people the roof needs to be stripped and re-sealed. I just don't want to deal with it. For now I have friends with trailers that I can borrow for track events this year. Next season I will look into getting a brand new trailer - my buddy got a real nice 20' enclosed by traveling down to the manufacturer in Georgia. He paid $4k for something that retails at like $7k. Anyways Blackhawk yesterday was a great success. I'm really starting to get more familiar with the E30 now on the track and was putting down lap times around 1:22 which is pretty fast I think for my 2nd track day with this car. It is incredibly fast and I think it is capable of 1:18 or 1:19 in the hands of a better driver than I. The pedal position at first was making it hard for me to heel-toe it 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I was able to match the revs perfectly except 2 times when I got sideways, and with the new solid bushings/shifter and the engine mount properly secured now, no grinding of the gears occurred. I probably was leaving 1 second per lap on the table because on my downshifts I wasn't getting out of the clutch fast enough and so the car gets just a wee bit unsettled when trail-braking into the corners. So that's the next thing I am going to be working on. I took 3 full sessions of GoPro video from the side of the car - not sure how it's going to turn out when I view it on the big screen but I will try to get something edited and posted soon. It's not very eventful because I only got passed once the entire day. All the footage is basically my car doing all the work to pass a ton of other cars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B C Posted June 29, 2016 Report Share Posted June 29, 2016 So glad to hear the shifting improved Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungCR Posted June 29, 2016 Report Share Posted June 29, 2016 Most utility trailers are made in Indiana along with campers. Interstate, Haulmark and Neo Manufacturing are all just off I80 2 hrs east of Chicago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted June 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2016 Footage from Blackhawk. I need to pick up a couple additional bits for the GoPro - i used to have an array of them so I could make all kinds of angled arms but i lost some so I had to record this with the camera rotated 90 degrees and then rotated the video to get it upright. I will have a wider angle and probably top-mount the camera for Road America in July. First 6-7 minutes interesting, 12 minutes or so I find more cars, and 15 minutes is cooldown lap. patsbimmer1 and KaiserRolls 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaiserRolls Posted July 4, 2016 Report Share Posted July 4, 2016 Requesting in car footage please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted July 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2016 yep i have the suction cup for the gopro so i will definitely be putting it inside the car for some future events Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted July 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I got back from 2 days at Road America last night and have a better camera angle this time because I mounted my GoPro on the rollbar. Unfortunately I forgot to bring proper tape to strap down the audio cable for the external mic to the engine bay - I will be at Blackhawk in 1 week and will make sure I bring it so the engine sound is a bit better. All in all the weekend was good. MVP Tracktime has a fantastic group of cars in all run groups, and this weekend they were also hosting CCR race trials for like 15 Ferraris. Unfortunately one of them money shifted after the carousel and threw a rod through the block leaving oil for about 800 yards of track on Friday and starting a fire under his hood, and even worse on Saturday we had a major crash where one of them dropped a wheel over the rumbles before the kink and hit the wall at god knows what speed. Red flag on track for total blockage shut down. No one was seriously injured. I took my instructor from last summer with me and he was very pleased with my progression. He said at this point I really just need to continue to get seat time. My awareness is good, I'm willing to burn corners when I know I fucked up and every time I made a mistake I knew what it was before he even had to say anything and was correcting appropriately. You can certainly see in the video below that I had some corners that I came in too hot for and had to hold steady on brake in a straight line for longer and burn the corner. But he enjoyed riding along so much he wanted me to sign him up for all sessions the following day and do some lead-follow chasing each other (he drives an E92 M3). Really good news is he has a spare set of Kosei K-1 wheels identical to mine and 10 hoosier r6 slicks he doesn't need any more because he has an E30 M3 that is pristine that he stopped tracking and is going to sell me the wheels and slicks for dirt cheap. One of my biggest challenges was being that I am so new to this car, downshifting from 5th to 3rd was a bit tricky. At BHF I almost always downshift from 4th to 3rd. At RA there are quite a few corners that require 5th to 3rd so I had to figure out where to start braking to effectively have enough time to downshift to 4th while holding the clutch in, then rev-matching a second time on heel-toe to go from 4th to 3rd and letting the clutch out. I am continuing to work on that. My best lap time of the day using Harry's Lap Timer was 2:47 which I was very happy with for my first time with the E30 at RA. I'll be back for Oktoberfast in September and hope to be able to get down to the 2:43-2:44 area. I know the car has a lot more in it but I need more seat time with it to really make it shine. wasnt m3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m42b32 Posted July 25, 2016 Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 Out of curiosity (maybe I missed it in the thread somewhere) is the 5-lug on your car E30 M3 or E36/Z3 parts? If its E30 M3, are you running stock M3 brakes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted July 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 1 hour ago, m42b32 said: Out of curiosity (maybe I missed it in the thread somewhere) is the 5-lug on your car E30 M3 or E36/Z3 parts? If its E30 M3, are you running stock M3 brakes? E30 M3 5-lug and i'm running the E30 M3 Massive BBK with Wilwood SLR6 aluminum calipers in front, and E30 M3 calipers in the rear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m42b32 Posted July 25, 2016 Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 8 minutes ago, i_love_cars said: E30 M3 5-lug and i'm running the E30 M3 Massive BBK with Wilwood SLR6 aluminum calipers in front, and E30 M3 calipers in the rear. Thanks for the info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted August 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2016 So the E30 had a rough day today at BHF. I went off coming out of Turn 7 and ate the tire wall on the inner side of the track at about 50 mph. I blame Stuart as bad luck because today was his first day back at the track with the E46 since he last crashed 2 years ago at BHF, and he rode along with me for the first session and this shit happened like 7 laps in LOL. It rained all night and everyone was going slow today because the track was wet with no real sun in the sky to dry it and temps in the low 70's. I waited for 5 other sessions before I went on track because slicks + rain don't mix well. I was 90% of the way through Turn 7, nearly straightened fully for the main straightaway, and at the last second getting on throttle just shot the car sideways. The east side of turn 7 has a bunch of trees in front of it, so even if we had sun at 10:20 a.m. when this happened it was still going to be damp. Unfortunately my tires were just a bit too cold still even on lap 7 because of track conditions. The day cleared up as time went on and in retrospect I should have waited another full round of sessions before going on track i.e. after lunchtime. as you can see the engine bay is mint other than the radiator being slightly pushed upwards because the support for it got pushed in a bit. The car runs and drives just fine other than the passenger side front wheel is fucked but I have a spare set of Kosei wheels anyway so whatever. I dropped the car off at Big Bear to have them align it and check for bent suspension, and as long as that all checks out, I'm just gonna source some new quarter panels, a valance, and driver door and then replace the brake ducts and be on my merry way. No leaks, no smoking, no odd noises when moving under its own power, steering wheel is straight as can be so I think the tire wall did its job today. Even the fiberglass hood didn't crack - just has some chipped paint at the front. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris3 Posted August 28, 2016 Report Share Posted August 28, 2016 Sorry to see this. Glad you're ok, and it's just sheet metal. i_love_cars 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_love_cars Posted August 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2016 post updated with photo of where the car ended up. It was just a weeeeee bit wet out there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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