There is no doubt that the BMW E46 3 Series line up of cars is great. They are right sized, relatively efficient to operate and have superb all around performance. But there are critical weaknesses in the chassis-- especially in the M3 version-- that need to be addressed. We already reported on the fatigue issues with the front strut tower in an earlier blog entry. This time we will focus on the rear subframe.
A few weeks back we announced that VRPerformance is going racing in SPEED World Challenge Touring Car. It is a daunting exercise that we are nonetheless excited to start. The first step was picking the car.
We have installed plenty of Super Sprint exhaust components on cars over the years. They make a superbly engineered product with plenty of research and development to back up their performance claims (and price). The biggest down side to Super Sprint is the sometimes sketchy build quality and comparatively high price. There are some good alternatives out there, including the Agency Power units we installed on an E46 M3 recently.
Squeezing more power out of a turbocharged 2.5 liter flat four cylinder engine is as easy as swapping out the original turbo for a bigger one, right? If only it was that simple.
A few weeks back I posted the first entry in my "M3 GT conversion" series. I mentioned that the next step in my quest to turn my 2003 E46 M3 into a true "Gran Tourismo" is installing new wheels. Well, they are here!
This is a note for all of you who run heavier springs on your E36/E46 BMW. We have had a rash of M3s come into the shop with cracked FRONT strut towers lately.
We began this project car with a clear focus on improving the performance of the suspension and the brakes, since the engine already had a thorough going over by another shop a few years back. The one speed area of the performance equation we decided to improve right from the start was changing the gear set in the differential. The biggest bang for the buck is not in adding power to the E30 engine, but changing how the exisiting power gets to the ground. This is espcially important at the track, where this car will consume most of its gas.
The BMW 1 Series has only been showing up on people's driveways in the States for a few months now and already there are enthusiasts ready and willing to fine tune it. A great performance car straight out of the box, it none-the-less comes with the compromises every modern car has. We've talked about this often enough: in order to satisfy the government's regulators, insurance lobbies, and the average consumer, new cars are "sanitized for our protection."
We're glad to report that the E36 M3 race car passed its first technical inspection and the owner/driver has his first couple of races under his harness belts. The basics we completed before the first race-- installation of safety components, removal of non-essential weight, thorough maintenance and re-build-- worked as planned. Now it's time to further develop the car, and the first area we touched was the suspension.
In the final installment (for now) of the Civic Si project we tackle the suspension. The suspension really is the most important aspect in the overall performance of the vehicle. All the power in the world doesn't help if you can't control it. You want the four tire's contact patches touching the ground in as balanced a fashion as possible, controlling the car's motion. A good suspension set-up works with the tires and the road to provide the best possible grip in all conditions when accelerating, cornering and braking. Its mission is to keep the wheels planted and the body stable. We specified the best TEIN kit available, the "Driving Spec Control Master Type Flex" coil over system with "Electronic Damping Force Controller" (EDFC).
Lawyers want to argue in front of the Supreme Court, soap stars want to appear in a summer blockbuster and race car drivers want to win for Ferrari—every discipline has its ne plus ultra that those toiling in the trenches aspire to. For an automotive performance shop it is building race cars. Which makes sense, since a race car is the ultimate expression of the performance automobile and a real test (and testament) for its builder. You’re putting your ideas, engineering and craftsmanship up against others in an open competitive arena. What works and what doesn’t is immediately showcased for all to see. Here’s our first attempt at building a race car for the NASA GTS series.
The "Ultimate Driving Machine" tagline is over 30 years old now, and it's safe to say that even non-enthusiasts know exactly what carmaker belongs to that particular phrase. BMW's brand marketing consistency is equaled only by its product consistency. Okay, so that's just a bunch of fancy mumbo jumbo to introduce this latest ad, which we think is pretty cool. Watch it after the jump.
And the transformation of the Civic continues... One of the weak spots on the 2006+ Civic Si is the braking system-- perfectly adequate for street driving but toast on the track. Our balanced approach to all things automotive dictates that we look at the entire system as we make upgrades. We've already tweaked the suspension some, detailed here (and there's much more to come in this department, stay tuned) and upgraded the intake and exhaust system, detailed here. So now it's on to the brakes.
The drive shaft on the modern GTO is a known weak link, and when any modifications are made to the power output, it is a good idea to upgrade it. The last time we checked in with this particular GTO, you'll remember we released some extra power from the 6 liter V8 by opening up the exhaust system. The suspension was already tweaked with some better bushings all around, so we tackled the driveline here.
The last time we saw this particular Mitsubishi EVO was back in September when we installed new sway bars and upgraded the suspension bushings, Truly EVO Sway Bar Install. This time around we're replacing the stock struts with Ohlins units and upgrading the braking system with a custom brake cooling duct kit, stainless steel braided lines and new rotors at all around.
The second phase of our E30 M3 winter project is to tackle the suspension (see E30 M3 Rebuild: Brakes for phase one). We began by first inspecting the suspension on the ground as well as checking to see how the car behaved dynamically on the road. We decided, along with the car's owner, to go ahead and replace the dampers at all four corners, upgrade the sway bar size to help flatten the cornering characteristics as well ad eliminate some of the understeer, and replace some of the worn out suspension bushings. We tried to replace every stock part with a more performance oriented equivalent since the car will primarily be a track tool and not a boulevard cruiser. That means the around town ride quality may suffer a little, but with the payback coming on the track.
A BMW E30 M3 has taken up residence in our shop this winter—in out of the cold Midwest winter for a deliberate going over. The car has been tracked extensively and things have begun to wear out. We have been tasked to do a thorough technical inspection, replace, rebuild or repair what’s bad and give recommendations where the aftermarket has made improvements over the original equipment hardware. In other words, make it just I bit better than new.
Watch any British car show and you'll see plenty of powerslides-- artful footage of an exotic car speeding tail out around a dank English test track. Unless you’re on a dusty rally stage, sliding around a corner is not the best way to get a good time. But who cares, it looks cool. Follow the jump and learn from 5th Gear's Tiff Needell how to do it right.
As you know we at VRPerformance always preach balanced performance. High horsepower or sticky tires by themselves do not make a great car. It's how all the bits work in concert that separates the merely fast cars from the really great performance cars. And when you think about upgrading your car, it's important that you think about balanced performance-- incremental change to the system instead of lopsided focus on one component or another. Do it right, and you can fetch a new Nürburgring record (video after jump).
In 1964 Pontiac engineers stuffed a 389 cid engine in a Tempest, called it the GTO option, and created arguably the first mid-sized muscle car. Almost fifty years later, GM tapped their Holden enterprise in Australia-- where muscle cars still thrive-- and created the modern GTO. Equipped with GM's venerable small block V8 engine, the current GTO is based on the Holden Monaro. A disappointment to many GTO loyalists, thanks mostly to its bland styling, the modern GTO is nonetheless a good enough performer. But good enough is the enemy of better at VRPerformance, where we feel that almost every car can be improved with the right equipment and service.
A typical stabilizer (a.k.a. sway bar and/or anti-roll bar) swap takes a half an hour to maybe one hour if the end links are in a bad spot or the bar needs to be fed thru a tight area. The front bar on a Mitsubishi EVO is a whole other problem, requiring a great deal of disassembly just to see the bar in the first place, let alone take it out.
We're constantly preaching balance to our customers when it comes to installing performing upgrades on their cars. It is our philosophy that a car has three basic objective measures and one subject measure when it comes to performance: positive acceleration, negative acceleration (also known as deceleration or braking), and lateral acceleration (turning, or the ability to change directions). The fourth measure combines the three objective yardsticks into a subjective rating that's all about balance and feel-- how the three acceleration measures combine into a whole experience.
We work closely with our customers to put together a performance package for their car that best fits their needs. The new Civic Si is a great car out of the box, but it's not perfect. And when you take it to the track, as the customer in this case study does, the weaknesses are amplified. The Si has plenty of motor, but is lacking in the braking and grip departments.
The Michigan Volkswagen Enthusiasts club along with their counterparts at Motor City Audi came together again and organized the 4th annual Motorstadt. Held in the shadow of the Volkswagen group hedaquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan it is an event for VW enthusiasts of all stripes. The cars on display included totally original classic air cooled VWs to ultra modern and highly tuned VWs and Audis.
There is no real trick to mounting wheels and tires onto a car, but when the results are this cool we just had to share.
The installation of Supersprint headers on an E60 M5 was one of the more physically challenging projects to come through the shop in a long time.
If you’ve ever looked under the hood of a modern M5, you've probably noticed that the engine compartment is filled with V10 engine with nary a gap between it and anything else. As beautiful and organized as it is, it is not a friendly place for aftermarket go-fast parts. Looking over the detailed 10 page instruction booklet that came with the headers we were a bit worried that this project was going to be massively time consuming (and costly) for the customer.
(pictures and video after jump)