BMW Compact Rally Car Build

[DaveKern]

The liquid nitrogen did a great job of removing the undercoating, but the paint is left in place. Before seam welding can take place, we need to grind the paint off, so the welds will be clean. Here's Mark & Grant working with the grinders. We found using a wire wheel on one, and a flap wheel on the other made the job go quickest. Me...I got the scraper.





Dave

[KINGAMR]

Good work Dave, moving along pretty quick.

[DaveKern]

So no picture updates on the car since I haven't seen it in a week or so, but my buddy estimates that he'll have the seam welding will be done within a week. I'll try to get some pics when its done.

In other news, I'm trying to sort out some other things in my head, so I figured I'd see what you're guys thoughts are.

After a bunch of searching, it appears the Delage Sport kit is waaay out of my price range. I just can't see spending $4k for something that's going to be thrown around in the woods. I found another kit that's very similar, but it looks like the rear arches are just a bit narrower:

http://www.hh-ms.com/database/index....&SelModelID=23

The narrower rear arches could be an ok thing as I already have wheels meant for a stock body. I could fit spacers on the rear to bring them out a bit, and on the front, extra width can translate into extra room for steering angle.

I was also told that the complete kit (hood, hatch, front bumper, rear bumper, front fenders, rear arches) weighs in at a 60-61 lbs. The best part is that this kit comes in at less than half the price of the Delage kit.

Dave

[DaveKern]

Grant's been helping me out with the seam welding on the BMW, here's a few shots of him at work. He's going to be re-preping his Merkur XR4-TI later this winter, and I'm looking forward to some battles next summer.



Seam welding is a stinky business! No matter how clean you have things on one side, there's something to burn and smoke on the other.



Dave

[DaveKern]

The bottom of the car is now done being seam welded.












While I was at the shop this weekend, I took the time to weigh some of the parts I'd pulled off the car. None of this is very scientific, but I was using a set of scales meant for corner balancing. For the bulky parts, I just picked them up and subtracted my weight to come up with the final number.

Front Bumper 27 lbs (skin, crash beam, & mounts)
Other Front Brackets 16 lbs (brace, top of bumper, no lights)
Hood 38 lbs (as removed from car, sound deadening still attached)
Front Fender 7.5 lbs
Dash Assembly 17 lbs (still had a few vent peices attached to bottom)
Rear 1/4 Windows 7 lbs (seal still attached to glass)
Rear Bumper Assembly 30 lbs (skin, beam, & mounts)
Hatch 46 lbs (hatch, glass, both struts)

I'm beginning to think the Harry Hockly body kit at 62 lbs for hood, front & rear bumpers, hatch, front quarter panels, rear fender flares, and rear wing, may just save enough weight to make it worth the purchase in addition to making the car look the part. They've also got a carbon fiber replacement dash....hmm

Dave

[DaveKern]

Good day today even though I didn't actually do any work on the car.

Grant, a long time friend of mine that I met when first getting into auto-x-ing, and I reconnected last summer when I put up a post looking for help. Always looking to get close to the action and help in any way possible, he volunteered to head up my service crew for the Lancer Evolution at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

A couple months later I started thinking about building a "new" car for PPIHC when its all paved, and Grant, now an avid road-racer, was the first guy I called with all sorts of questions and ideas. He competes in events with his wife in their Mini and also in his Stohr sports-racer. My sports-racer idea didn't pan out, and after my wife an I spent a weekend at Rally Colorado, we decided rally was really what we wanted to get into.

After researching and settling on a BMW, I knew it was time to give Grant a call, because many of the cars he's built recently have been BMWs. His shop, Built-by-Bones (fabrication) works closely with SCR Performance (performance, race engineering and track/rally support). As part of the track prep, most cars end up getting some attention from both shops to ensure a complete package hits the track ready to run. After spending some time up at the shops and chatting with the owners, I liked their down-to-earth approach to building cars, and the fact that they can make solid recommendations for each budget level of build that I inquired about.

What's the point of my post? We're going to be joining the BBB/SCR team this year, representing the shop as their forray into the rally world. Big thanks to Grant (BBB) and Mark (SCR)!!

I hope to finish my end of the chassis prep over the next couple of weeks, and tentative plans call for the BMW to be delivered to Built-by-Bones in mid-February when the roll cage fabrication will begin.


Thanks for reading,

Dave

[matt4068]

got another follower on this thread. looks like fun stuff.

[ChItalian1027]

looks cool dave!!

[DaveKern]

Thanks for reading guys. FWIW, my cardomain.com page went all wonky, so I know that some of the descriptions of the pictures don't match the pictures shown. I'm trying to get that fixed.


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So, I gave up on trying to get the cardomain pictures to try and work and signed up for a photobucket account. All the pictures should now be showing up and matching the descriptions in the post. Sorry if that caused any confusion for you guys.

Dave

[DaveKern]

Not too much happening on the car in the past week, but I did pick up some bits for the car.

Here's the fire system we will be using in the car. Rally regulations call for two fire bottles in the car, but I much prefer having a system so it'll easily cover the engine & passengers with foam in the event of a fire. This system has a push button rather than a pull handle. Hopefully we'll never need to use it!



I will also have hand-held bottle, so if we come across another car on fire, we're able to lend a hand.

Dave

[ChItalian1027]

cool dave!! yeah hopefully you won't have to use the extinguisher

[DaveKern]

Anybody ever replace a roof skin on a TI before?

Mine came with a sunroof, and I'd like to replace it with a non-sunroof skin.

Thanks,

Dave

[tiFreak]

they have CF panels on eBay that fill the hole in, about $200 as I recall

[DaveKern]

Originally Posted by tiFreak

they have CF panels on eBay that fill the hole in, about $200 as I recall

Those aren't legal for rally, roof has to be all metal. Kind of a pain, but if you think about sliding roof first into a tree, CF splinters wouldn't be much fun.

On my first car I cheaped out and just welded some metal in its place, but that looks like crap, and/or takes too much time and effort and bondo to look good.

With my Evo, I ordered up the aluminum non-sunroof skin as it saved even more weight than the stock steel one.

Dave

[Will'sBimmer]

Some Ti's did not come with a sunroof so maybe u could find one that is being parted out and get one for cheap to replace for yours.