BMW Compact Rally Car Build
 

I'm getting started on a rally car build.

Figured I'd start with a quick 'how did I get here' rundown. I got hooked on racing about 10 years ago on a frozen lake in the mountains of Colorado. I've been bitten by the auto-x and rally-x bug, racing an Impreza RS, Miata, 323 GTX, and most recently an Evo. After a few years racing in parking lots, I got the itch to get more serious about playing in the dirt and put a cage in my Mazda GTX and brought my wife along...literally...as the navvie calling out the pace notes. We had some fun in the Mazda, but it was old and beat so we upgraded to the Evo IX. We've had great fun with it and some pretty good success, but we're really interested in getting out into the woods with some stage rallies.

After careful budget considerations, we've come to the conclusion that rallying a top level car is a bit out of reach, so we're looking to build a 2wd car and will save the Evo for Pikes Peak. I always had great fun in the Miata, so I knew we'd be looking for a RWD car, but most of the common RWD stuff is 1970s era, and I've had enough with rallying old vehicles after the GTX. After some youtube'ing of rally videos from Europe, I stumbled across the BMW Compact Cup, and I was sold.

I started looking for a 318TI and found one a couple weeks ago on this site. It was a high mileage car at 240,000 miles, but the most important thing was that it is rust free.

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/01_318ti.jpg

Here's a shot of it on the scales. 3100 lbs on the nose with 2 people in it. It weighed 2820 with an 1/8th tank of gas. Waaaaay to heavy, so lets get started!

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a.../02_Weight.jpg

This is what she looked like after a day in the garage. Most of the interior is gone, but I've yet to tackle the dash and associated wiring.

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...3_Interior.jpg

End of day two, and the motor is almost out. Rear bumper and back half of the exhaust was removed as well.

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...ing_Engine.jpg

That's all I've got for now, thanks for reading!

Dave
ps - if you're local and need parts from a decent running 318Ti, LMK.

Don't forget to cap the shock towers, they are thin metal. I'd do them from the bottom side if your tearing things that far out. Then add the turner upper shock mounts.

Dave

Thanks! That's going to be on the to-do list for sure and was one of the first things I learned about BMWs on the rally forum.

I haven't decided on many things to do with the build, but my current plans are to strip it down to bare shell and find a place to acid dip the chassis, so we can start seam welding it. That'll be a great time to go after the weak areas of the chassis and fatten them up.

Dave

Looking good. I am interested in this build very much.

Cool! Keep us updated with (bigger?) pics! :)

Sounds interesting,what engine are you going with?

I found a 1995 S50 swap, engine, trans, wiring harness, ecu. Was going to wait on the announcement till I had pics. Should arrive sometime next week though. :)

Dave

looking forward to this project, I think you're the only person on here making a dedicated rally car

For now...just wait till I get up pictures of the cars from the Compact Cup in Europe. ;) Hopefully someone else might join in the madness. One of the beauties of a rally car is that they are street legal and insured, so you could daily drive it. I won't be, but have friends that were DD'ing their rally cars for a while.

I'm currently working on getting a price quotes from one of the suppliers for the BMW Compact Cup for the full body kit, underbody bracing, lexan windows, and rally suspension. I won't be using the same drivetrain as those guys, as the S14 and sequential transmissions are $$,$$$!

Dave

Make it look like the one and only REAL rally Ti...


http://www.rallyracingnews.com/teams/bmw318ti.jpg
________
roor bong pictures

Or... this.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk0JH8RExt0
________
Harley-Davidson WLA

Coolest thread I've seen in a while, thanks for sharing! I'll definitely be watching this.

Is that a PNW based car?

Dave

I've helped build quite a few race cars, and I'd stay completely away from acid dipping a car. I've worked on two and it was not worth it. Caused massive problems with the chassis, you just can't get the spooge from the tank out of all those little nooks and crannies.

Soda blasting is way more controllable and IMHO does a better job for pre-welding. It also produces a natural resistance to corrosion.

I helped on a Mustang done this way and the soda blasting guy came to our shop and blasted the whole chassis for like 350 bucks. Made the welding easy. We used POR to paint the underside of the car.

Just a opinion... :)

Dave

Funny you should mention that. I gave up on the acid dipping today and emailed for a quote from a soda-blaster.

My orig. thought on the acid dipping was that it would make seam welding easier since the goo would be out of the seams. I'm also just feeling a bit pressed for time on this build, and was thinking the acid would take care of me having to remove all the tar/sound deadening. Trying to find out if soda blasting will do that too.

Local shop charges $100/hour to do it...any thoughts on how long it should take to strip the chassis? I won't have them strip the fenders, hood, doors or the rear hatch, so that should save some time.

Dave