Here are some of the fruits of our labor, Enjoy! :)

High Res:
http://gallery.underclockers.net/albums/6-28-04-at-Pocono/P6280093.jpg
http://gallery.underclockers.net/albums/6-28-04-at-Pocono/P6280093.sized.jpg

More Pics to come Shortly!

:hotflash :drool: :phatyo:

Another teaser ;)

http://gallery.underclockers.net/albums/6-28-04-at-Pocono/P6280001.jpg
http://gallery.underclockers.net/albums/6-28-04-at-Pocono/P6280001.sized.jpg

Note: Jim, Please check your PM to discuss, thanks.

That is awesome. Stupid awesome.

sweetness!!!!!

Props to RRT! :buttrock

lookin good. You guys were able to the ride height a lot lower. Can't wait to see it run at RA

Those are NOT E30 M3 front aluminum control arms. :devillook

E46 arms ? :dunno

I think he's kidding, they are e30 arms.

Aluminum e46 arms are being fitted to e36's. Not kidding.


..

They are E46 arms. Much stronger than the E30 arms, and with offset bushings, we have gained ~1.5-2 inches of track in the front over the stock E36 arms without having to use spacers.

Nope, they are E46 arms. Much stronger than the E30 arms, and with offset bushings, we have gained ~1.5-2 inches of track in the front over the stock E36 arms without having to use spacers.
Would this be something that can be done as sort of a "bolt on" to say a GC suspension or would other substantial suspension work need to be done ?


Pedro.

The arms won't just bolt up. You must fabricate specific lollipop bushings to accept the slightly longer arms, the arms must be machined and sleeved to fit the lollipops due to the hexigonal shape of rear portion of the stock arms, and the arms/outer bushings require modification to prevent interference with your brake rotors.

All that said, you will also need a lot of fender clearance to accept the added track. RRT could probably make you up a set if you were interested. They would likely need some measurements of your specific brake setup to check for adequate clearances.

Further, with added track, your handling balance and roll rates will have changed, so a small spring rate or bar change may also be needed in order to keep the car's balance as you like it.

GOT CAMBER?

Looking nice Bryan.

Why do you have the front sway endlinks mounted to the control arms rather than the shock body?

Bryan-

Are the strut towers stock or have they been moved inward? Although I've never seen mine with the front end opened up like that, the struts seem to be at more of an angle than mine.

What's up with that thermostat housing or whatever it is with the radiator hose connections on it? It doesn't look anything like mine. Is it because it's a different motor? Or, maybe an electric water pump?

Thansk - Jay

Why do you have the front sway endlinks mounted to the control arms rather than the shock body?

Because the bar is gigantic. We put it there to reduce the rate. The bar has seen better days. The mounts are worn out and the linkages are horrible. We have a different set under development but we are trying to shake the car down ASAP so this one will have to do for now.

Are the strut towers stock or have they been moved inward? Although I've never seen mine with the front end opened up like that, the struts seem to be at more of an angle than mine.

What's up with that thermostat housing or whatever it is with the radiator hose connections on it? It doesn't look anything like mine. Is it because it's a different motor? Or, maybe an electric water pump?

The struts have been modified. There are all sorts of changes going on with the suspension. However, the angle you are refering to is very similar to how yours looks.

The coolant housing is a stock Euro s50 B32 piece.

Barry

Jeez, everyone knows you want positive camber up front for the best ET. :rolleyes

It's finally back together (almost) congrats Brian.

damn, that looks mean. going to be one hell of a car!

A couple more pics...

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6280085.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270056.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270062.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270058.JPG

Nice pedals! :redspot Car looks very good. Congrats!

sorry i'm not familiar with mod class rules, but for all the work it took to get the arms to fit, why not just do an l shaped arm?

http://www.e30m3performance.com/installs/installs-3/control_arms/pic-4.jpg

http://www.e30m3performance.com/now_showing/gallery/kk/pic8.jpg

2. Suspension
A. Free, except that cockpit adjustable sway bars are only allowed in Super
Modified.
B. Shock absorbers are free.

sorry i'm not familiar with mod class rules, but for all the work it took to get the arms to fit, why not just do an l shaped arm?

It was considered, but there wouldn't have had a place to mount the ARB links with a tubular arm (trying to avoid strut mounts for now). Further, the E46 arms with offset bushings and sleeves were already on the shelf at RRT ready to go out to customers...all that had to be done was to bolt them up and test the fit. Much easier than designing tubular arms from scratch. And, on top of it all, we all just sorta wondered if it would work. :)

To do the tubular arms correctly would have required getting rid of the lollipop, notching the subframe, and using proper double shear mounts to move the inner control arm mounting points up for better geometry. There wasn't enough time to study, design, and build "optimum" tubular arms...we would have just ended up with tubular arms with the same geometry as the E46 arms anyway. Maybe in the future. This car will likely be a "study" in progress, but with the E90 coming out, the E36 and E46 suspensions will soon be very dated, so too much more development might be a waste of time.

smoketacular indeed.

Glad to see that you put the MC reservoirs outside the cockpit. :thumbup:




waiting patiently for my RRT dampers

Glad to see that you put the MC reservoirs outside the cockpit. :thumbup:

I sorta liked them inside. I could pump the pedal and add fluid without getting out of the car. But the plumbing is much easier this way, and it keeps the interior looking nice and neat.

Holy sh*t batman!

Are other CM cars typically this exotic?

Are other CM cars typically this exotic?

Nope. We just decided to have a little fun and see how far we could go and what we could learn. The chassis and suspension will be "exotic" as club racers go, but the motor will be just a fairly stock, mid-mileage 3.2 liter Euro motor.

Holy sh*t batman!

Are other CM cars typically this exotic?

No. But they are coming.

Bryan is right, with the E90 - E36 development and to a lesser extent E46 Development will slow.

An E90 Motorsport Chassis would be VERY NICE. With the new M3 V8. Hmmmmm - better save my pennies.

An E90 Motorsport Chassis would be VERY NICE. With the new M3 V8. Hmmmmm - better save my pennies.

Let's build a M3 and go after PTG in the Rolex Series...the rules are more limited than the development we've both done to our CMod cars anyway. :)

More pics...

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6280086.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270049.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6250014.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6280083.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6280080.JPG

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6280090.JPG

:eyecrazy
http://webpages.charter.net/raimundjames/spooge.gif

Matt - Keep that stuff of our new paint.

Looks beautiful! Certainly a far cry from what we saw at the open house.

Coupe questions..

Given the reservoirs, I'm assuming the Ohlins you're using are different from the packages RRT is putting together.

Are those spacers down to the control arm? Anything similar for the tie-rods? Can't see..

Why helper springs?

Matt - Keep that stuff of our new paint.

:lol I cant contain myself with that airbox
Jared is the one you should watch, he might rip that thing off when you arent looking:stickoutt

Looks beautiful! Certainly a far cry from what we saw at the open house.

Coupe questions..

Given the reservoirs, I'm assuming the Ohlins you're using are different from the packages RRT is putting together.

Are those spacers down to the control arm? Anything similar for the tie-rods? Can't see..

Why helper springs?

I believe Bryan has double adjustable Ohlins whereas the packages RRT is mainly doing are single adjustable. With a car as advanced at Bryans, double adjustables will help tremendously. I have the single adjustable Ohlins from RRT on my C-Mod car with some custom tricks up front and a rear coilover in the rear. They feel great and have plenty of adjustment (20 clicks front and 30 rear) You'll be extremely happy with RRTs work. Im already planning on bringing my car down in the offseason for some cage reinforcement and rewiring.

Given the reservoirs, I'm assuming the Ohlins you're using are different from the packages RRT is putting together.

Jared answered above. They are currently double but can be triple with a different canister. We probably don't have a need for the triple right now as we have them custom valved to our needs and we rarely run bumpy tracks where we need to tune high-speed compression.

Are those spacers down to the control arm? Anything similar for the tie-rods? Can't see..

Yes. Spacers on both, which is the reason that they are nearly parellel. Still need to run a bump steer test so that we can come up with the "perfect" length for the tierod spacers...but we also plan to come up with something a little different to further improve the control arm geometry since the car is so darn low.

Why helper springs?

Just so we are speaking the same language, these springs have a significant rate to them, so I usually refer to them as tender springs. I know helper and tender get interchanged.

We use them because the spring rates used on these cars really limits the amount of static compression of the spring, so there's very little rebound travel. The tender springs are fully compressed at static, but provide additional rebound travel for the inside wheels when the car rolls. They are almost absolutely necessary when running a rear coilover setup due to the different motion ratio.

The Motorsport arms are machined to an "H" cross section with leading links that connect near the outer balljoint. Gustave has made some nice 4130 steel units that mimick the design, but only made from a simple round tube. This is not ideal, since the load paths put the lateral section under a heavy bending load when braking. These are not 2000lb E30 M3s, this is a 2500lb E36 with bigger slicks and higher trap speeds, so the loads on the control arms are significant. We could have designed welded 4340 steel arms with a heat treat, but that would be 10x more work than just getting the E46 arms machined. As Brian said, they were 'off the shelf' for us, lighter than the steel arms, and much wider. I had to make outer tie rods that were about 1" longer to compensate. The ones pictured in burgundy are the old ones, and are too short for the new arms.

The outside of the front rim is flush with the outside of the rear arms. This huge increase in front track gives camber galore and helps reduce lateral load transfer. It helps reduce wear on the outside rear tire and makes the front turn in much better. BMW did the same thing with the E46 M3. Their arms are another 3/4" longer than the E46 non-M arms!

Matt, is that JB Weld? Same stuff Bryan used to build his Miata cage?

Oh, and it roared to life early this afternoon. Whew!! I rebuilt my first Euro motor successfully! Thank GOD you guys ditched the VANOS. It took me a couple of hours just to figure out how to get it out. It would have taken days to figure out how it actually works and goes back together!!

I advanced the exhaust cam a touch. It was fully retarded on the cam sprocket adjustment. That should bump up the high RPM torque.

The carbon airbox didn't fit under the hood! DRAT!

Too bad Curry's screwed us over on the dyno. Looks like we'll be dynoing in Winston-Salem tomorrow morn and then heading to VIR before lunch.

Matt, is that JB Weld? Same stuff Bryan used to build his Miata cage?

Yea, this isnt the 2-part stuff bryan used though :cool

Nice. Now how about free up Kevin to put my head back on before next Fri. :help :stickoutt :D ;) :alright

:lol I cant contain myself with that airbox
Jared is the one you should watch, he might rip that thing off when you arent looking:stickoutt

Shhhhhhhh.... I was planning a sneak attack on the airbox. Way to spoil it bro :stickoutt

Nice!

Bry the car looks friggin' amazing man! RRT really went the whole 9 yards on the car it seems! :buttrock ... congrats, look forward to seeing that thing on track tearin' off fast laps :alright

http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270056.JPG

Did you terminate the front brake hardline at the firewall and run softlines through the engine bay?

And is that a rear hardline that the clutch softline is ziptied to?

I've been curious about plumbing a racecar with all softlines - seems like it could work as long as the rear circuit isn't a much greater length than the front.

--Matt

Just so we are speaking the same language, these springs have a significant rate to them, so I usually refer to them as tender springs. I know helper and tender get interchanged.

We use them because the spring rates used on these cars really limits the amount of static compression of the spring, so there's very little rebound travel. The tender springs are fully compressed at static, but provide additional rebound travel for the inside wheels when the car rolls. They are almost absolutely necessary when running a rear coilover setup due to the different motion ratio.

They shouldn't be used interchangeably.

Helper springs are low rate and simply keep the springs seated at full droop.

Tender springs are high rate and form a compound spring. Once (if) the tender spring coilbinds, the rate changes over from the compound rate to the main spring rate.

BTW, awesome work guys.

I also like the new lightweight front end, but it must he hell on aero. ;)

Seriously... Nice work.

To add to Geo's comments:

http://e30m3performance.com/tech_articles/susp-tech/springs/

Did you terminate the front brake hardline at the firewall and run softlines through the engine bay?

And is that a rear hardline that the clutch softline is ziptied to?

The hardlines from the master cylinders terminate at firewall fittings:
http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270070.JPG

You can see the blue fittings here:
http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270054.JPG

From left to right, the T-line runs directly to the front brake calipers...no fittings between the T and the calipers. The second line is the hardline that runs to the rear. The third line is the slave cylinder line.
http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270056.JPG

The hard line running down the transmission tunnel:
http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270047.JPG

The hard line AND fuel lines running down the transmission tunnel as well as the clutch line:
http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270055.JPG

The T-fitting at the rear of the transmission tunnel. The soft lines run directly to the rear calipers without any other fittings or junctions:
http://www.bryanwatts.com/racing/assembly/images/P6270048.JPG

I've been curious about plumbing a racecar with all softlines - seems like it could work as long as the rear circuit isn't a much greater length than the front.

I think it would work just fine. I've talked to folks who haven't used any hardlines and didn't have any problems with spongy brakes or braking feel.

holy cow. :eek: :eek: :eek:

That is outstanding. Dream car for sure.

Thanks for all the great comments everyone.

I'm still a bit under the weather, so I was unfortunately not able to head down to VIR with the guys :(

We should be at RA next weekend though, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone :)

Thanks for all the great comments everyone.

I'm still a bit under the weather, so I was unfortunately not able to head down to VIR with the guys :(

We should be at RA next weekend though, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone :)

Steve, Are you going to be running the car with the Watts' in the future? I'd love to have the opportunity to run a machine such as this. Great work fellas, the car is amazing! :buttrock
-Ted

Steve, Are you going to be running the car with the Watts' in the future? I'd love to have the opportunity to run a machine such as this. Great work fellas, the car is amazing! :buttrock
-Ted
Please specify: By "you," you mean RRT? By "Running," do you mean R&D/race support?

Everyone has the opportunity to run this kind of machine (for a cost obviously). Our skills, experience, and R&D will benefit everyone with the products currently available and the ones that are coming out, as well as future amatuer to pro race car/teams.

I'll get more completed pictures up early next week.

Have a great 4th weekend everyone!

Ahh, I think I see how it is. My original thought was 'you' personally 'driving' the car with Bryan, but it now appears to me that you are working for RRT (or have been for some time, unbeknownst to me :p ). Again, thanks for sharing,
-Ted

No problem, sorry for the confusion. Been engineering down in VA with RRT for almost 6 weeks no, currently in the hotel in Atlanta for the bmwcca premiere race weekend.

Making a seperate post now for the weekend report, keep posted!

so how much do u want to sell this car for??