A bit of bodywork before the 2014 season starts

As the winter blue set in it was time to call upon the services of the guys at SPR coachworks once again to fix the damage to the rear wing sustained at Brands hatch last year. Brand new BMW wing and battery tray being installed and painted along with the roof being painted as the sunroof infill panel has always looked a bit ruff.

Also finally getting round to replacing the rather well used windscreen and repainting the inside of the floors.

E36 M3 - interior painted

A bit more progress has been made on the M3, after a long week or so of prepping the inside we were ready for some paint.

Bit of a toss up between going for a subtle mid grey or brighter colour but in the end opted for the inka orange which I'm very pleased with, certainly shouldn't miss it

E36 M3 Build - Update

I pleased to say at long last the E36 M3 has a roll cage installed.

I went for the full FIA approved custom cages option which is looking fairly substantial, having had the seat trial fitted the car's now at SPR coachworks having the inside painted before returning home.

Donington Park - 29th September 2013 - PBMW rounds 11 & 12

After all the stress, hard work and cost of rebuilding the engine I was really looking forward to rounds 11 and 12 of the PBMW championship, Unfortunately due to work commitments  I could do the test day before the weekend, which in hindsight isn't ideal.

Sunday started off with an early qualifying, as always only 7 laps to remember where the track goes and set a time. Ended up with a time of 2:05.014 which whilst being towards the back of the grid in 25nd place was still over 5 seconds quicker than my qualifying time in 2012.

First race was fairly quiet trying to continue to find a bit of time eventually finishing 22nd with a best time of 2:04.683 equalling my best time of the previous year.

Got a good start in race 2 and for the next 7 laps had one of the best races to date with Arron Morgan and Rob Cooper. Unfortunately on Lap 8 whilst trying to pass Rob I put the car into the gravel, real shame as they finished 14th and 16th so a reasonable result could have been achievable.

On a positive note my best time of 2:03.233 was over 1.3 seconds faster than I previously been at Donington so I left quite content despite the trip into the gravel.

Now only a few days until the last rounds of the championship at Castle Combe, Another track I've never visited and another test day I'll miss due to work.

Snetterton - 19th September - Trackday

After several weeks of hard work the engine was now ready for running in.

As well as giving everything a clean and checking tolerances to make it as new, we also replaced piston rings, main and bottom end bearings, valve guides, skimmed the head and added an oil pressure gauge.  

Found a few other minor issues along the way, including noticing we'd only been getting 80-85% throttle for a while and quite embarrassingly I also found the current clutch looked like this when it was removed, may go some way to explain the lack to drive out of corners! 

With everything looking good I set off to Snetterton to run in the engine, Started off on a dry track with limited revs for the morning, It was a relieve to see everything running correctly after all the hard work which went into building it.

By the afternoon the rain had set in and a good number of people had left the track (there was only 26 signed on in the first place) In many ways this came just at the right time as I was now able to use higher revs and the wet weather and quite track meant for an ideal opportunity to gain some experience of driving on a wet track, something which up until now I hadn't done much of.

Ended the day positive that the car was ready for Donnington in a weeks time, check engine and gear box oils and both were fine. Now all it needs is a quick oil change and the hand brake shoes replacing as for some reason all of the material had come off of one and was locking the rear wheel.

New Engine for the 320.

After destroying the engine at Cadwell it was time to locate and rebuild a new engine. ASWR managed to supply a used engine in super fast time and in order to make sure we where going to get the most out off it a rebuild was going to be needed.

In order to keep the cost a little more sensible I stripped down the new engine and took care the the time consuming task of de-greasing and cleaning all of the parts as the engine builder wasn't about to start putting together parts which weren't like new.

after hours of cleaning the block, pistons and head we're currently starting to look on track.

Cadwell Park - 20th July - PBMW rounds 7 & 8

Cadwell was another first for me having never visited the circuit before, I had concerns about the width of the track in a few places but after a few laps this was all forgotten as the circuit is great.

Prior to the weekend the rear shocks had been sent back to GAZ and shortened to eliminate the bottoming out, this seams to have done the trick, Nice to see some forward progress after several annoying outings.

We did the test day on Friday and although we had a little under steer the car generally felt good, Come the qualifying we ended up on the back of the grid, I think mostly down to using worn tyres, still had plenty of tread but past their best.

A quick trip to the kwik fit van for a pair of fronts both cured the understeer and improved the pace slightly for race 1. Unfortunately they only had 2 tyres left.

Between Races 1 and 2 Ben Woodcock took the class win in Project 8 Racing saloons (sure he won't tell the grand children it was first of 1!)

By the time race 2 came round we'd located a second pair of new tyres for the rear. I got a reasonable start getting passed a car or 2 but on the second lap whilst trying to make up some time to the cars in front there was a sudden loss of power and a very poorly sounding engine.

We're not sure what cause the failure, either over revving the engine and the valve head eventually coming off or if the bearing failed, either way it's pretty safe today number 6 is past it's best so the hunt for a new engine starts. 

But we did at least get a picture of the car in the programe