bmwe21.net forums

no pics then? cmon you go to all this trouble!

Nick emailed out a link to some pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmwccgb/se ... 85/detail/


Jason

Finally! Great collection of beautiful photos!

An update to this because today was a continuation of what happened at Silverstone.

BMW car club GB trackday at Oulton park, my local circuit.

Picked the car up yesterday having had the fuel pressure problem from Silverstone fixed. I have now had two e30 in tank pumps go bad in this car. Now have alloy tank, lift pump, swirl pot and injection pump sat in the boot. Much lighter than the original stuff.

Morning started well, sighting laps followed by a good 20 minute session, remembering how it goes. Then it misfired a bit, decided it could be low fuel so I headed for the pits and filled up the tank with V-power that’s been sat in the jerrycan since Silverstone. Still adequate fuel in the tank when I looked so I pondered briefly before hitting the track. Misfire around 3000 rpm, not happy.

At Silverstone I wondered if the crank trigger bracket was flexing too much and losing signal/buggering up the timing. Similar thoughts now, so I fire up the laptop and connect to ECU – I see many crank trigger errors. Rang Ric Wood my engine man who had replaced crank sensor and dynoed the car on 30th – he was unavailable in a meeting for ? 2 hours!

Noticed that throttle pot was only going to 75% so I tightened up the throttle cable, then was rung back by Ric who reckoned it could be the crank sensor too far from trigger. It looked to be touching, but I proceeded to fiddle with it repeatedly. Eventually got it running OK in the pits then out on track, misfire intermittent and worse in left hand corners. Just touching the sensor with my finger would move it enough to upset things, likewise pulling on the cable would wiggle the thing - the bracket definitely needs replacing.

So after further pondering, bit of lunch and a few more laps I was about to pack it all in, car was usable on track but misfire was really irritating. I stuck some fresh today V power in, and then had a eureka moment.

Crank sensor wire is cable tied to the ARB coming from LHS of car, looks a bit tight.

On Left hand corners like cascades,Island, out of foulstons, middle of Knickerbrook, deer leap onto start straight the engine was moving to the right relative to the ARB which tensioned the wire and moved the sensor sideways, buggering up the timing and making it misfire. On right hand corners like Old Hall, Shell, Druids and Lodge the engine moved leftwards relative to ARB and sensor stayed where it was supposed to be.

Cue side cutters and two loud snip noises.

As I headed out to test it the rain started falling, this was when I knew it would be fixed. No more misfire but three red flags for people going off, pissing down rain and visibility/condensation worse than the sighting lap I did at Silverstone meant I stopped about 10 minutes before they called it off for the day.

So I need a better crank sensor bracket, which probably means I need a new crank pulley and trigger wheel. I’ll look into getting one of those alloy ones from the USA. I also need to investigate better demisting systems - the little fan I have is not good enough.

Next trackday should be back at Oulton in february, hopefully I'll have fixed these issues by then plus planning to get some plastic windows so I can lose the heavy metal stuff out of the doors. Might even try and lose a few Kg off the driver too!

nice story, i like how you figured out the crank sensor as being the problem, shame you didnt figure it out before the rain! at least next time you go racing your car will be running fine.

why dont you just put the standard heater box back in? its not like it weighs alot is it?

you see, modding a car to the point that its awful/awkward to drive normally, when it serves no real purpose is where i draw the line.