Here's my former daily driver turned track car turned (almost) race car to hopefully make the Mid-Ohio race school the first weekend of April. The goal is to go play in IP and GTS3 w/ my friends who are about a year or two ahead of me. I think I'm about tied with Mario/TIATO tho. ;)

It's been a chaotic week but my cage is 98% done, and as is customary, I'm going to subject it to the armchair cage critics. :D

Huge thanks to Adam Hennessy/R247 Motorsports for busting his ass pulling 16hr days to get this done on time. Adam is a Porsche motor builder and chassis prep guy but I think I'm slowly converting him to BMWs. Now its time to start assembling the motor and we can swap it in!

Also thanks to Steve J and James @ RRT for all the phone calls and emails helping me pick the best design and all you BFc track guys that have answered questions.

I'll post up final pictures once the remaining gussets are done and its painted (starting that tomorrow).

1) The dash bar is bent 3 times to mimic the line of the firewall. Kinda stole that idea from Bimmerworld.

2) Funky center triangle w/ gusset in the main hoop is there because the harness bar needed to be mounted higher than the intersection of the center x. There will be gussets on both sides before we're done.

3) I have no idea how you guys get in and out of your cars with big a-pillar gussets or even the vertical door bar. I just ordered a quick release so we'll see if it gets easier, but I still dont think I can fit with the Racetech 4009HR's head restraint and my helmet on. Thoughts?

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^^^ Yes, I'm keeping the heater core, but using a duct and inline fan to blow it up to the dash instead of the huge OEM blower motor. The heater valve is going on a switch (hoping thats as easy as it sounds) to be mounted under the center vent.

Jesse,

Cage looks great. Going to pay K-fab a visit tomorrow to discuss the project.

Pretty pretty!!

It's been a chaotic week but my cage is 98% done, and as is customary, I'm going to subject it to the armchair cage critics. :D


I think it looks very good so far. No plinths which to me is a plus, and you carried the harness bar all the way across. Very good, should pass tech easily. :buttrock

Hope to see you at Mid-Ohio (if I can make it).

-Carlos.

Carlos- Got the door template, thanks for sending it.

I was hoping to get a pre-tech inspection at Mid-O. I think I'll be legal except for the right side and window nets.

I'll fail ya! :stickoutt
get yo safety equipment!

Carlos- Got the door template, thanks for sending it.

I was hoping to get a pre-tech inspection at Mid-O. I think I'll be legal except for the right side and window nets.

Jack Money can do that at Mid-O. I may go with him if I can get the day off Friday.

Cheers,
Carlos.

Safety equipment in the mail, definitely wont have time to install pre-Mid-O.

I'm leaving work now for another 10-hour marathon of working on the car. Fingers crossed.

Got plenty of work done last night but found out my fancy IP S52 motor wont be completed in time for Mid-O due to parts being held up.

The S50 from last season was plagued with a weird overheating issue that was never solved, so last night we pulled the head off and checked everything out. The head is at the machine shop right now and if it's not warped, we'll slap on a new HG, bolt it back together and cross our fingers for Mid-O. If it's warped and not worth putting back together, we've got a problem.

Anyone have a spare head or IP motor laying around?


Edit: Head's still in perfect shape after a 254*F coolant spike last year. :devillook It's getting reinstalled now.

You should buy my motor, IP legal 272@the wheels...
or buy the whole car....













please???

I'll buy the motor if I can come pick it up this afternoon and I'll only buy your whole car if it comes with those pimpin' E46 wheels you have on it. :D

I'm going to have to go easy on the motor and hope that it lasts. I say that but I'm sure I'll be flogging the daylights out of it by the 5th lap.

Got plenty of work done last night but found out my fancy IP S52 motor wont be completed in time for Mid-O due to parts being held up.

The S50 from last season was plagued with a weird overheating issue that was never solved, so last night we pulled the head off and checked everything out. The head is at the machine shop right now and if it's not warped, we'll slap on a new HG, bolt it back together and cross our fingers for Mid-O. If it's warped and not worth putting back together, we've got a problem.

Anyone have a spare head or IP motor laying around?


Edit: Head's still in perfect shape after a 254*F coolant spike last year. :devillook It's getting reinstalled now.


Oh thats sucks. At least you have a back up motor available. What parts are holding the s52 up?

Sleeves of all things. :rolleyes When it came time to put the motor together, 2 cyls need to be sleeved when we thought they were fine. We let it go down to the wire and it came back to bite us. Ah well, live and learn.

Bummer. Ive heard that if you cut the top and bottom of a DelMonte Fruit Cocktail can, that the empty can, can be used as a sleeve.

:D

Delmonte, of course! Damn, we were using Folger's Coffee cans!

we were using Folger's Coffee cans!

There you go. The coffee cans are for exhausts.

The S50 from last season was plagued with a weird overheating issue that was never solved, ........Anyone have a spare head or IP motor laying around?

i had a wierd overheating issue also, turned out my stock exhaust cam was out of time, couldn't evacuate the exhaust gas. found this out when we installed the schricks.

I may consider selling my OBDI S52....IP legal.....PM me if you're interested.

the cage really looks nice. lots of tubing, but not a big deal for a weight limited car. you can take weight out elsewhere

Thanks Joseph. Turns out I might be ok motor-wise, and I'll have a fresh one waiting when I get back from Mid-O.

Still waiting to do the final weight (prob Fri or Sat) but I should be about 10lbs light keeping power windows (open trailer) so I'm in good shape.

can you still get to the hood latch with the foward hoop tube in the way?>

Yep theres room to pull it up from underneath.

Update:

The old and busted S50 w/ new HG is complete and back in the car. Cage is painted, car is aligned.

It's now back up at R247 Motorsports w/ Adam Hennessy getting the door panels mounted, quick release hub welded on, wipers switch, etc.

It's not 100% complete, but all the necessities are there and we're just missing the frills which I'll have to get to after Mid-O. A few minor things left (interior stuff, brake fluid flush, etc). Maybe I'll get a full night's sleep again soon.

Thanks to Benny for the pictures. Never thought the car would see salt again in its life but the weather just got cold again up here.

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Thanks again to Benny for the pictures.

It's not 100% complete, but all the necessities are there and we're just missing the frills which I'll have to get to after Mid-O. A few minor things left (interior stuff, brake fluid flush, etc). Maybe I'll get a full night's sleep again soon.


Congrats. Car looks awesome.

-Carlos (envious)

Bravo! Awesome looking build!

BTW, I love the side view mirror script..."objects in mirror are losing"!!!

Thanks guys.


BTW, I love the side view mirror script..."objects in mirror are losing"!!!

It made my first few DE instructors nervous and I've had it ever since. :D

Can't wait to play with ya! Should be entertaining! Ditch that boiling hot water next to your legs....:stickoutt

Never! That boiling hot water is going to keep me toasty warm and the windshield fog-free.

The heater valve is on a switch and I have an inline fan and some ducting to run up to the vents in the dash for defogging. Everyone that told me "That Fog-X stuff is all you need, ditch the heater core!" lived south of the Mason-Dixon line so they probably dont do many icy mornings at LRP.

Hey is that my old m3 in front of you in your sig? =P

Sure is. You've got a PM incoming...

How could ya tell.. hood lift? :)

Hi folks,

I'm Adam Hennessy, owner of R247 Motorsports. Just dropped in here as per Clarks request and noticed this thread. I appreciate the comments on the cage. I've been building cages and tube chassis for some time now, but this was my first ever BMW, let alone an IP M3. Jesse knew what he wanted from the start so I had a game plan to follow which made things easy and difficult at the same time. Took me about ~110hrs to complete this cage but I'd guess at least half that was me just taking my time planning out the bends and fillets. Was a fun build and I'm looking forwards to doing a few more in the near future once a few things slow down here.

Jesse's S52 is still getting some TLC down at my machine shop. The block being used is #2 he picked up(first was a complete motor that lost oil pump nut....cracked block alone crank mains...block warped .0068"!!!!!!). This block was a bare core left open and had some surface rust and cylinder deflection from what appeared to be stuck rings. Two cylinders were sleeved as a result. Apon the final hone the rust in #'s 1-4 got worse and would not be cleaned up properly within the piston clearance I wanted so I'm eating a $450 bill and sleeving the entire block. Sucks on my end but Jesse's a good guy and friend and I'm sticking to my quote for him. Plus the project is fun :stickoutt I've built my fair share of BMW engines in between everything else here, but Jesse's car is the first I'm actually doing any sort of "on-chassis" engine work.

Jesse's overheating issue has me a bit baffled but I'm leaning towards it being an improperly torqued headgasket(not by me) as a result of installing ARP headstuds. I removed the head and checked everything. Perfectly flat, pulled good vacuum at the ports and had zero leak on the pressure tester. Washed it down, reassembled, and slapped it back on the S50 block with a new HG and new factory headbolts(ARP's initial thread damaged by previous install), torqued to fatory specs. MY guess to the inproper head torque is due to an unusual pattern on the head surface frfom the HG fire ring. Wasn't 360 like it should be, but rather randomly spaced half moon like marks. I believe that it was torqued enough to run fine on the street, but when subjected to 11/10ths on the track I think it leaked enough compression gases into the water jacket to create an air bubble and vapor lock, thus a big overheating issue in these cars. Time will tell.....I'm hoping to get a thumbs up phone call this Friday from Mid-O with the all clear.

And yea Jesse, you are slowly pulling me to the dark side of BMW motorsport, but not enough to sway me from Porsche muwahahaha!

Thanks again guys and I'll stop back in when I get further into Jesse's motor

Hang out here long enough and you'll start E36 shopping before you know it.

Door panels installed. Thanks to Jay Hudson once again for the template.

Center vent panel along with the dash should be back in tonight.

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Nice work Jesse and Adam. :alright

Meeting with my builder tomorrow. My cage project has been moved up a month from mid May to mid April.

Mario- Awesome. It's pretty surreal to see it in there the first time.

I dont see your name on the Patroon June Watkins list yet, whats the deal? :cool

Carlos- Got the door template, thanks for sending it.

I was hoping to get a pre-tech inspection at Mid-O. I think I'll be legal except for the right side and window nets.

Hey Jesse,

I'd be happy to go over your car with you, I figured there'd be a few people that might want to do that. If it's not completely ready for a full annual that's not a problem we can just go over it using the form and make notes (if needs be) for you to finish up later. Lookin' pretty good too!

Cheers.

Jack- Thanks, that'd be great. I should be legal except for the window net and right side net but if you notice something that I missed it'd be great to know about it ahead of time.

How could ya tell.. hood lift? :)

lol, didn't notice that till now. The tape on the bumper though. And it being in the lead =P

Wanna trade? I just got a 325is m-technic, only just started to tear into. Trying to find a nice donor m3 with an s52 and few other parts :)

The bumper on Jammer's car is actually new since he bought it, funny story too.

The bumper on Jammer's car is actually new since he bought it, funny story too.

Ya he told me about the whole trailer thing that happened, and I thought it was weird when I saw the tape on the bumper, cuz I thought he said he got a new bumper...anyway I've totally been hijacking your thread =P

Your car looks awesome, and I would love to get some templates for those door panels :)

Looks amazing Jesse!!! Glad I could provide at least <1% of the funds for this great project.

looks great. Nice cage, interesting triangle in the harness bar

Adam will be taking my car in for a similar go round as far as the cage goes... Can't wait! I want an ejection seat though... darn E36's are small inside once all those bars and the seat is in place!

Ya he told me about the whole trailer thing that happened, and I thought it was weird when I saw the tape on the bumper, cuz I thought he said he got a new bumper...anyway I've totally been hijacking your thread =P

Your car looks awesome, and I would love to get some templates for those door panels :)

Tape is covering what was a missing fog light delete. Since you had it I have replaced the bumper...rear window glass..made some accidential door hinge adjustments with my car lift..but, assed a racetech seat, put the SPG in the passenger side, added wheels, slicks and yanked some of the guts, installed a tracmate... and various levels of upgrades and damage. :).. Okay, back to the IP cage!

Nice door skins for the 1st run Adam. I'm ready for mine!

ARP head studs always back off. Need to be retorqued often. Evosport can tell you how to make it work. stock is easiest though!

Adam will be taking my car in for a similar go round as far as the cage goes... Can't wait! I want an ejection seat though... darn E36's are small inside once all those bars and the seat is in place!

Ejection seat......E36 James Bond IP here we go! Looking forward to doing this as well. I've got to tie down a few of these big projects here that I've had scheduled in since Jan. I go from zero work to more work than I can handle. I'll be calling you fairly soon to sit and chat about this little project and see exactly what you want/don't want as far as the cage goes. Door panels came out pretty good I think too. I might make a few changes and try to move the door handle out from behind the panel so you're not reaching in through a hole fingering for the lever :stickoutt.

ARP head studs always back off. Need to be retorqued often. Evosport can tell you how to make it work. stock is easiest though!

I've dealt with a few issues in the past with other motors as well using ARP fasteners. I'm a Porsche guru here and have built numerous motors, dealing with the air cooled boxer six's that have crazy expansion rates. Took ARP many attempts to get those expansion rates down. Supertech beats them outs till though. May be something similar on the BMW motors with the long head(uneven heatup/cooldown) that causes the loosening. I know that these particular ARP fasteners in Jesse's S50 were probably torqued incorrectly as they were damaged the first few threads down on every stud.

I like ARP for what they're good for and agree that for a relatively stock motor that doesn't need the clamping force of ARP fasteners the stock torque-to-yield headbolts work fantastic when installed properly. I really am an avid user of ARP lower end fasteners though(rod bolts, bed plate fasteners, cranckase through bolts) as they keep things from distorting much much better than most OEM fasteners in that area, which reduces wear and heat buildup during those 8K rpms runs :buttrock