Chump Car - John Allen Special USFail1 Race Team Build

[M3Alpine99]

Fanpage - Bringing F1 to the USA!
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jo...01938023172698

The time has come for my friends and I to follow through with something we have been discussing for a few years. We want to run a ChumpCar race. We do a weekly "Wrench Night" under the shop name of Lost Souls Racing. We do track days, Auto-X and wrench. Our current team consist of track guys, mechanics, photographers, logistics manager, Grand-Am/IMSA GT3 mechanic and an IT Guy. Looking forward to the build and our fun theme. On top of the excite two Road Atlanta events are slated for 2012. Doubt we will make the first event in February but we can always hope!


Car - 1986 325/e
5sp Manual
Blue w/ Rust

Currently it has bent rear trailing arm, the driveshaft/csb/guibo is shot, the shifter hangs on the driveshaft while driving(you have to pick up the shifter to shit, it randomly will not start and leaves you stranded. It's rusting in spots. Interior is in rough condition. It needs a thermostat. It needs maintenance. It's rough to say the least but we cannot wait to work on it!

We are going to strip the vehicle and rebuild most of it for the sake of reliability. Obvious running 200,000 plus(unknown mileage) parts is not going to work. Want to make it safe and reliable. Timing Belt. Rebuild the cooling system. Brakes. Etc.

Theme - Our team name and theme is a play off a couple different F1 related teams. John Allen Special is a play off of John Player Special. A car everyone knows. The past owner's name is John Allen and we have always called this E30 "The Special". It is 'special' in ever sense of the word and somehow just will not completely break down. USFail1 is pretty obvious... so we will be black and gold. We plan to have a quick change front wing and working DRS(for passing of course!).


We will document the build here with either my photos, cell phone pictures and other potentially terrible photos! To get the ball rolling here is what we are starting with...



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 1 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 2 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 3 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 4 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 5 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 6 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 7 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 8 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW USFail 1 Reveal 9 by MotorSportMedia - www.racemsm.com, on Flickr

[5mall5nail5]

Where's the rust bro?

[RichE30]

Man am I excited to be part of this team! Let's get the can in the garage so we can tear the sucker apart!

[M3Alpine99]

Where's the rust bro?

You need dem glasses Jon? lulz

4th picture. Other side is worse in the same location... you can see light on the otherside! lulz

Man am I excited to be part of this team! Let's get the can in the garage so we can tear the sucker apart!

Yesh... we need to do this. Post Holiday we have it rocking!

[87shark]

. Have put a few hundred miles in the beast already. it rips.

[Serious]

Doesn't look too bad. IMO you're going to wish it wasn't an E though, our car passes the 325i's like they are driving around with the parking brake on. Hell somehow people have run m52 swapped e30 in chumpcar... which is ridiculous IMO.

In the end reliability and having good level headed drivers is more important than speed, but I can confidently say we had a top 3 driver lineup at PIR in october and even with near perfect reliability it was damn tough to manage a top 5 result (granted the fields for chump are huge now with 80+ cars at the NW events).

[5mall5nail5]

You need dem glasses Jon? lulz

4th picture. Other side is worse in the same location... you can see light on the otherside! lulz

I was just messing sir I saw the rust that you painted on

IMO you're going to wish it wasn't an E though, our car passes the 325i's like they are driving around with the braking brake on

The braking brake is hard to get off though - in their defense

[Serious]

The braking brake is hard to get off though - in their defense

haha yeah I imagine it would be.

[M3Alpine99]

Doesn't look too bad. IMO you're going to wish it wasn't an E though, our car passes the 325i's like they are driving around with the braking brake on. Hell somehow people have run m52 swapped e30 in chumpcar... which is ridiculous IMO.

In the end reliability and having good level headed drivers is more important than speed, but I can confidently say we had a top 3 driver lineup at PIR in october and even with near perfect reliability it was damn tough to manage a top 5 result (granted the fields for chump are huge now with 80+ cars at the NW events).

It doesn't look too bad but it's far worse than the pictures show. That is my job... make cars look good! Just today the plan was for some sweet film tone/vintage looking shots for this thread during lunch. Well it wouldn't start. Killed the already weak battery.

I agree but the team decided reliability and finishing a race is our goal. Get experience under our belt. If we do find the performance straight line to be severely lacking we can easily get an "i" motor and put it in. We just completed a 24V swap on an 86 325e coupe so we can put an "i" motor in this ETA if deemed necessary. We shall see. I think a decent finish is possible just running solid laps in the car.

I also am in 100% agreement with you. I am still perplexed how an E36 is even making it's way in. It appears while they are not plentiful there are still a couple. I assume they are running with penalty laps but an E36 is quite the track car even when it is a piece of crap. Sticky tires and nice pads and it is an easy front runner. Getting the AIV to 500 would seem iffy to me. A 24V E30 is even worse! Those cars are HOT right now and everyone loves them. Finding a 500 dollar M52 isn't the easiest task by itself.


What is the setup in your 6er? I am surprised to hear it walk a 325i like that.

[Serious]

There is a pretty wild e36 that runs out here. Thing has konis, 3.91's, CAI, M3 exhaust, spring, SSK and god knows what else... good news is the drivers suck but it's a damn quick car.

Besides the safety equipment the 6 is stock. all I have done is put new schucks generic OE replacement dampers on and cut the stock springs. I made a header back exhaust out of $10 pre bent 2.5" exhaust piping sections from autozone and we installed a new waterpump. It also has a programa ECU but 100% stock software (might be looking at a dinan chip in the future to compete with the cheater cars out here... some I swear have a better pwr/weight ratio than my M roadster).

I couldn't believe the speed difference between the e30 325i and our car either initially but I pulled at least 5-6 car lengths on a 325i at spokane last summer and I know their car is strong and reliable since I saw them driving it home on I90 after the race haha.
For reference the 6 is about 3/4 car behind my friends stock e36 m3 from 20-90mph... after that the m3 just pulls because the 12v M30 is gutless up top and the e24 aero is horribad.

One piece of advice... run PFC06's. We have more than 25+ hours of track time and they are at like 40%. The only brake system modification is removed front backing plates and still despite our cars additional weight we still outbrake nearly everything in the field except mr2's and miata's.

Chump car is the shit IMO. $~600/driver for 3-4 hours behind the wheel racing on legit tracks (PIR, VIR, infineon, road atlanta, road america, sebring, daytona etc) in 80+ car fields and an increasing number of experienced drivers and payouts for podiums. Yeah some of the cars & drivers are hack but that just adds another level to the traffic. Hell my friend who raced with us at the last race who is used to national level karting (kid placed one spot behind dan weldon at supernats a few years ago) and he couldn't have been more pumped stepping out of the car after his final stint... it's just legit cheap fun racing. You guys will have a blast if you build a semi-reliable car (which all BMW's are).

[M3Alpine99]

I was planning on 06s actually

E36 with all those parts? How on earth?

That is surprising but cool none the less. Driven some E28s(never an E24) and they do not feel faster. I would wager though there is a LOT of weight to remove off an E24/E28. Not as much in the E30 so the power to weight is probably an advantage post weight reduction.

[Serious]

I was planning on 06s actually

E36 with all those parts? How on earth?

That is surprising but cool none the less. Driven some E28s(never an E24) and they do not feel faster. I would wager though there is a LOT of weight to remove off an E24/E28. Not as much in the E30 so the power to weight is probably an advantage post weight reduction.

Yeah stock weight the car could barely out accelerate a 90s honda accord automatic but we figured it was so packed with luxury garbage (powered headrests for example) that removing all that stuff would improve the pwr/weight ratio... and the m30 responds really well to simple exhaust & chip mods from what I've read. All the power is midrange and the car drinks fuel like you wouldn't believe but it's pretty competitive. Not to say a 325e won't be since tons of those have won chump/leMons events in the past.

As for the e36, I have no idea... I know it got penalty laps but at spokane in july it only had 3 laps (in a 24 hour race & you can buy 5 laps back for charity lol).

[M3Alpine99]

So it got only 3 penalty laps after the BS Inspection.


True on the M30. A chipped ETA wakes up quite a bit as well but might not really be worth it to have to run premium.

[Serious]

So it got only 3 penalty laps after the BS Inspection.
True on the M30. A chipped ETA wakes up quite a bit as well but might not really be worth it to have to run premium.

Haha fuel will be cheap for your car! We use 17 gal of premium every 2 hours... 4.5mpg!

[M3Alpine99]

That is a question... how are you refueling? For HPDE I have 2x 5 gallon jugs. Easy to use. Easy to fill up. If you are going through 17 gallons every 2 hours I don't have the jugs to keep up with that. Do you have a lot of jugs? Something else? How are you getting more fuel? I ask because like at Road Atlanta the pricing inside the track is insane.

[5mall5nail5]

Look halston - the first step to victory is having big jugs

[M3Alpine99]

I know this to be true... must find bigger jugs.

[Serious]

That is a question... how are you refueling? For HPDE I have 2x 5 gallon jugs. Easy to use. Easy to fill up. If you are going through 17 gallons every 2 hours I don't have the jugs to keep up with that. Do you have a lot of jugs? Something else? How are you getting more fuel? I ask because like at Road Atlanta the pricing inside the track is insane.

I am sure you've read the rules already so yeah chump requires you to fill the car with the racing fuel cans in the pits... so what we do is get a bunch of used metal VP racing fuel cans from the karting track and take about ten or so of those to a local gas station. Typically have to make 2-3 trips to gas station depending on length of the race. Then just transfer the fuel from the VP jugs to the racing jugs and fuel the car.

The only problem comes in at tracks like portland where the pits are situated inside the track so you have to leave a vehicle outside the pit area and haul the fuel jugs in by hand (which SUCKS!) but many teams will be selling extra fuel after their camaro's overheat or once they rolled their mustang down the front straight... so you can typically get fuel for cheaper once the race progresses.

As for going through 17 gal in 2 hours... well yeah that's the biggest problem with our car, due to the rules optimally you want to be making fuel stops exactly on 2 hour intervals during driver changes but since our car will consume much of it's usable fuel (I say usable because slosh and an unbaffled tank means it starts stuttering with about 3gal left) we are forced to stop between 1.30 and 1.45 (can stretch it long if yellows) which means we're always doing at least 1 extra pit stop compared to our competition. Which is what kept us off the podium at the last race but that's an easily fixed problem.

[328iBMW10]

this should be fun, can't wait to get started!

[M3Alpine99]

I am sure you've read the rules already so yeah chump requires you to fill the car with the racing fuel cans in the pits... so what we do is get a bunch of used metal VP racing fuel cans from the karting track and take about ten or so of those to a local gas station. Typically have to make 2-3 trips to gas station depending on length of the race. Then just transfer the fuel from the VP jugs to the racing jugs and fuel the car.

The only problem comes in at tracks like portland where the pits are situated inside the track so you have to leave a vehicle outside the pit area and haul the fuel jugs in by hand (which SUCKS!) but many teams will be selling extra fuel after their camaro's overheat or once they rolled their mustang down the front straight... so you can typically get fuel for cheaper once the race progresses.

As for going through 17 gal in 2 hours... well yeah that's the biggest problem with our car, due to the rules optimally you want to be making fuel stops exactly on 2 hour intervals during driver changes but since our car will consume much of it's usable fuel (I say usable because slosh and an unbaffled tank means it starts stuttering with about 3gal left) we are forced to stop between 1.30 and 1.45 (can stretch it long if yellows) which means we're always doing at least 1 extra pit stop compared to our competition. Which is what kept us off the podium at the last race but that's an easily fixed problem.

That is what I was looking for. Guess we'll need a couple of the legal jugs and then I'll use my bigger jugs for the trip. 4 of my big jugs will hold 24 gallons or so. Which is ~2 complete fuelings on our car. Could get a few more of them and have a nice supply of fuel.

[Bremsen]

Good luck with the build and look forward to racing against you guys in 2012. We've done 2 lemons races but looks like we'll be running mostly CCWS this season (Lemons schedule only has one possible event for us). Our Z31 seems pretty competitive with most E30s so we might get the chance to dice it up.

[sab0276]

Nice! Good luck with the build. You'll have a lot of fun with CrapCan racing.

Here is our build if you need any help/ideas:
http://DTMLeMons.blogspot.com
Duct Tape Motorsports 1991 BMW 318is
1st overall Nelson 2011, 1st in class 2nd overall Summit Point 2010, 1st in class Nelson 2009
http://www.facebook.com/DuctTapeMotorsports

-Scott

[M3Alpine99]

Initial Planning meeting on Tuesday. First workday Saturday!

[Fastech]

"Currently it has bent rear trailing arm, the driveshaft/csb/guibo is shot, the shifter hangs on the driveshaft while driving (you have to pick up the shifter to shit)"

That last part seems pretty inconvenient... Lol


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I am here: [ame]http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.184478,-85.343512[/ame]

[M3Alpine99]

Yesh... very! haha