Category: The Story

What’s mine is yours, and all that…

As 2014’s three informal sprint events were finished, I wanted to get a lot more seat time and try a much bigger circuit to stretch the car a little. So on 1st November I arrived at Bedford Autodrome with my fiancée Emily for what would be the first public track day for both of us. In fact, it was Em’s first time at a road circuit at all!

Blyton and Curborough had been lovely learning experiences as I found my feet with this car, and the competitive edge of a timed run against the clock was a real rush. To really develop myself and the car, I’d need to be able to drive more consistently and for much longer, which also meant the knackered rear brakes needed attention first. Luckily, I had just the thing:

These Brembo “MAX” rear discs were quite attractive at £80 for a pair. I’ve never felt the need to spend a fortune on discs, firmly believing that they need to survive the temperatures and be round in one plane and flat in the other two. Nothing fancy required, it’s the pads that do the real work. For those, I matched the EBC Redstuff I had on the front, for only around £50.

With that done, I felt more confident in the car standing up to a full day of hard use on the circuit. So here it is, in its first ever pit lane:

The morning started off cold and a little damp, but soon dried to give us a lovely clear day of great conditions. The event (by Javelin Trackdays) ran really smoothly, with no red flags and a a few suspect drivers dealt with swiftly. I was quite happy with the balance of the car – it had perhaps a little too much understeer off-power, but as soon as you started opening the throttle it became neutral and transitioned really nicely to playing funny buggers if you so chose. That gentle understeer proved useful for tuition, and Emily acquitted herself very well for her first time on track, as you can see in the video!

It felt great to have a real open space to play. Bedford’s GT circuit links up all of the best bits of the smaller individual circuits that can be run for the (highly recommended) Palmersport event, and at four miles with plenty of runoff and no gravel traps to suck you in, it’s a lovely learning environment. Braking into a fast chicane from 120mph feels altogether more committed than second-gear Curborough.

We both came away very pleased, and the car seemed none the worse for its efforts. A more focused set of tyres was at the top of my to-do list – on the road-biased Kumhos, the car felt good and was very entertaining, but it barely rolled at all before the grip limit was exceeded much earlier than you’d expect. It felt like a good chassis being held back by its tyres, so some semi-slicks were on the shopping list.

That would be it for 2014 though, with the car resting up for the winter and the beckoning of another season.

Sam

If in doubt, drive it even harder?

Two months later, September 2014, we’re back to Blyton Park – but on the far more technical Eastern layout. I enjoyed this much more – it took a few sessions to really get my head round it and the great big long right-hander “Curva Grande” doesn’t seem to have any correct answer in terms of line, so there’s plenty of challenge there for an airfield track.

I didn’t make any major hardware changes after Curborough, as I’d been quite pleased with how the car felt, with the exception of some quite heavy understeer after turn-in. This turned out to be due to some very wayward geometry, and I went for these settings:

Front: -2.00° camber, -12′ (1.6mm) total toe (out).
Rear: -1.50° camber, +10′ (1.2mm) total toe (in).

Quick guide to track day or racing geometry settings for an E36: It’s important to have more front camber than rear, as the rear end has quite a bit of camber gain as it rolls, and the years hence have told me that actually you need a bigger difference than this – an extra 1 – 1.5° on road or track day tyres, a full 2° more at the front on race tyres. The front toe I would set to zero now, having a bit of toe out makes it feel like it turns in more eagerly, but it gives you understeer mid-corner. Some toe in at the rear is crucial because of the way the Z-axle moves, if you put any less than this it’ll start to feel weird or downright dangerous.

You might have noticed a very different soundtrack in the video above. Remember that cone filter I had from my E46? This finally made its way onto the car, with a complement of about £25 worth of silicon hose, aluminium pipe and a wraparound heatshield from eBay. I don’t expect it gives any power whatsoever, I couldn’t even feel much different in throttle response, but it sounds awesome so it stays!

There’s still a little mid-corner understeer, which I’m overcoming in the video with judicious trailbraking without any ABS and what felt like a bit too much rear bias. Oh how we grow with experience – it seems quite shocking how much I’m manhandling the car, looking back at it now, and I certainly wouldn’t be doing that on race tyres! I don’t fluff downchanges like that any more either, though in the last corner in particular it did make for an entertaining “moment”.

And don’t let anyone tell you I only show the good bits!

Apart from numerous attempts to throw the car at the scenery, the only issue I encountered was cooking the rear brakes. These were still standard discs and pads, just cheap stuff, so it was no surprise and I got some replacements on order. Next up I wanted to take the car somewhere much bigger to stretch its legs a little, so I booked a track day at Bedford Autodrome for a few weeks’ time…

Sam

A little less roll now, but second gear feels loooonng..

 

With the new suspension fitted and a rough alignment done, I was really keen to see a significant improvement. The car didn’t disappoint! Curborough is a pretty tiny double-8 sprint course, narrow and winding, and the standard gearing let me do almost all of the lap in second, but it actually served as a pretty good test ground. Lots of sharp transitions and a particularly unkind braking zone mid-corner were ideal to feel how the car handled.

I didn’t realise how much I’d been instinctively correcting for body roll and giving the car time to settle until I didn’t need to any more! It was instantly more adjustable and responsive, and let me feel like I could leave a lot less margin. Watching the video back today, it still looks plenty restrained to me, but for a car that still has a full interior in its second outing, I suppose it’s not too bad. There was some understeer after a sharp initial turn-in, so the geometry would need some attention*, but overall I came away very happy.

Curborough has one braking zone in particular that ABS really dislikes, as you enter a fairly open curve just as you need to start braking hard – off-camber and downhill! – for a very tight hairpin. So while I haven’t done it much since, I disabled the ABS and felt the car was quicker overall. This is pretty straightforward on an E36: you can do it by taking out the fuse, but that puts the car into a mild protection mode that won’t let it rev past 5500rpm. Better is removing the relay, which takes out the traction control you weren’t using anyway and doesn’t cause the lower rev limiter. BMW made this pretty easy to find!

The video at the top was my fastest run of the day, a 1:11.46 on the new “figure 8” layout. Reliability was perfect – once again, I came with a car full of tools and spare wheels and parts, and needed none of them throughout. The only time I encountered a problem was a couple of miles into the drive home – I had to pull over to wind the dampers back to soft, having left the circuit with them set far too hard for a comfortable drive home!

As the car felt pretty good and I didn’t uncover any new issues, so I only planned to get the geometry adjusted and otherwise leave things unchanged before going back to Blyton Park a couple of months later.

Sam

 

*Turns out I had a total of 40 minutes front toe out, which certainly explains the darty turn-in followed by heavy understeer!

 

If you were wondering what was on the to-do list from that first outing at Blyton Park, now you know! So, more or less in order of importance, here’s what I put right before the next event:

Stopping Power – some would be nice…

The nearly-new standard front brake pads just about survived sixty miles at Blyton before wearing completely through, making for a fairly interesting drive home!

Clearly these weren’t up to the task, so the first step up was to try EBC Redstuff. An attractive £65 a set for the front axle and well rated by fast road users, they made sense. I always find a comparison between what you took off and what you’re now fitting to be quite a satisfying photo:

While we’re on the brakes, I bled the majority of the fluid and replaced it with ATE Super Blue, one of the most cost-effective racing brake fluids. This would make local boiling of fluid in the calipers, and the resulting long, soft pedal, far less likely. I say majority, because the rear caliper bleed nipples were rusted down to almost nothing and completely seized, and for lack of a welder I couldn’t undo them. This also meant I couldn’t fit the braided brake hoses in the photo at this point.

Body Control

“Is that your E36?”, asked someone in the paddock at Blyton.
“Yeah, why?”
“I was following you earlier, and thought you should know the rear left wheel is bouncing in and out of contact with the ground in left-handers..”

Certainly that would explain the vibration! As if the soft springs weren’t enough reason to want to make some suspension changes, at least one damper being completely toast was another. The offending article is shown below, and offered no resistance whatsoever! Its age is rather apparent next to its replacement:

The springs and dampers I chose were HSD Dualtechs. Quite popular on MX-5s and E36s at the time, these weren’t a big brand or a particularly good damper, but they did offer a lot of adjustability for a very low price. I paid £565 for the full set, and got height adjustable spring platforms all round, one-way adjustable damping all round, and quite a wide range of front camber adjustment. All of these are invaluable setup tools, and while I was learning the car, I was quite happy having budget equipment if it meant I got the opportunity to adjust and test new things.

The stiffness and reduced travel of the new suspension shows up quite well here – with the wheel off the ground, it sits in nearly the same place in the wheelarch as it used to when fully loaded!

Drastically reduced rear spring length did at least make it much easier to install.

Just an Oil Service

I didn’t even know what oil was in the car for its first outing. I did know after a few runs that it wasn’t up to the job, with a tappety noise from the cylinder head whenever the engine was hot. This is apparently quite typical for an M52 engine that’s struggling a little for oil quality, either through cheap rubbish or degraded oil. Easily sorted with some Mobil 1 0W/40.

 

Stay cool – but not THAT cool!

The thermostat was stuck open when I bought the car. This is just fine for a pure race car that’s only used on circuits, many don’t have thermostats at all, but when it’s used on the road and often has to sit on motorways? Not ideal for fuel consumption or engine longevity. I left this job until after the first event, as any other issues I found with the cooling system would just lead to repeating a lot of the work. It was straightforward to change with a standard part and I renewed the coolant at the same time.

Now we were somewhat more fit for the next outing at Curborough sprint course near Lichfield. Time to see if I’d made the right choices…

Sam

 

PS. The air filter and ducting etc. do come, but not just yet, as I designed that heatshield for my E46 and it didn’t fit this car properly. Watch this space!

By God does this feel like a long time ago, watching it back now!

 

I didn’t have long to wait before getting out on a circuit – in fact, just four weeks after picking the car up, I was pulling into the paddock at Blyton Park in Lincolnshire. The two-and-a-half hour drive up was no hardship, lounging around in my leather seats with my 90s saloon car suspension loping up the A1. The trip computer claimed 36.7mpg, too.

So impromptu was this day that I didn’t even have time to get new tyres fitted around work, instead opting to buy yet another set of the BMW Style 30 wheels the car already had, complete with Kumho KU31 tyres in reasonable nick. Cheers Sam C! And yes, that’s sixteen wheels I have for it already. All I’d done to the car was replace the rear brake pads, which were worn down to the backing plates when I picked it up. I just used standard parts, as I wanted to test the car in a truly original condition and find out what it needed most.

The morning started off damp with more showers making it properly wet, but it dried up into the afternoon which made for a nice chance to see how the car handled all conditions. It was downright lairy in the wet, with attempts to put any power down on corner exit just provoking the inside wheel to spin up, and mid-corner pokes rewarded with nice, progressive slides. I found it quite intuitive to throw around, it seemed to enjoy being sideways! The combination of a long wheelbase and very little grip made it very approachable.

When I got a bit more serious I found a car that felt tired, with vague brakes under a very long pedal, soft springs and little to no damping – but it still felt like there was a lot of potential. It made a rather nice noise, too, though enjoying it meant that trip computer figure fell to 10.8mpg!

After some playing around in a track day format through the morning, the afternoon saw us lining up for solo timed runs from a standing start. It was at about this point in the queue to go that I realised I’d never launched this car before, and nor did I know how well the driveline and subframe would cope with such an offensive manoeuvre after seventeen years and 177,000 miles! But it turns out the peak torque point of 2500rpm and a slightly sympathetic feed of the clutch was just fine, and she took off every time with no dramas. The video at the top is my fastest run, a 1’20.21 around Blyton Park’s Outer circuit.

I was impressed with the car’s durability throughout the day. The powertrain stood up very well indeed, keeping itself cool and performing consistently. It developed a small tapping noise from the cylinder head at idle, but I put this down to the oil having been heated up more severely than usual and it did settle after the drive home.

All in all, a very successful first outing, if one that left quite a to-do list!

Sam

Now I had the car safely home, it was time for a more detailed evaluation. The fact that the rear brakes were shot and at least one of the dampers had failed didn’t matter too much, since all that would be changed anyway, I wanted to find out what sort of car it was. As it happened, I had a useful benchmark to compare it to…

Yes, another 328i, a 1999 E46 that I’d owned for two years. I’d considered selling it and finding one car that could serve as a daily and still work well on track, but in the end there wasn’t an ideal answer*, so I decided to go for a dedicated track car, figuring this would give me more freedom to modify it for its new purpose. Little did I know how far that would end up going…

I wrote my thoughts at the time. Here they are:

“It’s very, very interesting to drive the cars back to back. Maybe it’s exactly how you’d expect! The E46 [my red road car] makes a magnificent cruiser, it’s heavier-weighted and more direct than most modern cars but is ultimately easy to drive, and runs quietly, smoothly, effortlessly. Still capable of making a great noise, tearing down a back road and putting a big grin on your face, but perhaps a little sanitised.

The E36 [the newly purchased blue car] takes the same kind of Jekyll and Hyde balance, but turns it completely on its head. From the moment you fire it up, with a stiff, direct-feeling key that whumps it into life almost instantaneously, this is a different car. I thought the steering was relatively heavy in the E46 – it ain’t. This is more like it. The clutch too. The throttle has a cable, not a series of digital instructions, and even the gearshift is heavier and more connected. Forget the cars only being two model years apart, this was released in 1990 and it never left. I can smell petrol. Excellent.

On the road, it’s much firmer (it has M-Tech suspension from factory), but not in a crashy way, just firm. It’s on 16″s like the E46, so the difference in the chassis setup is easy to pinpoint. But once I get past the speed bumps on my estate and onto a more open road, that ceases to be an issue at all. The car has… urge. It’s an urgent thing. When you plant your foot there’s an immediacy to the way it kicks you in the back, the noise turns on and it begs for more revs. Snick the next gear home and as you feed the power back in that distinct kick is there again – not rough, not because you fluffed the change, but because everything right through from the throttle butterfly to the tyres feels directly connected and it does what you ask, when you ask. It’s fantastically raw by comparison.

Little things really please me. Like when I rev-match on a downchange, it always seems to be exactly where I wanted it, just so. It feels lighter, pointier, everything has much more of a sharpened edge.. And of course, it’s faster, which when you’ve owned the same car for two years you can’t fail to notice. And become a little addicted to.

I’m bound to say it isn’t half as good at being “a car”. It tries, but it just isn’t – it makes all sorts of little random-interval squelches from the HVAC, buzzes from fans, little pops and squeaks and farts.. It shudders badly when you upset it over a bad road, and if you get the right frequency you can even feel the steering column move. Oh, and at the moment the aftermarket head unit assaults you under hard acceleration by lunging out of the dashboard in a mad bid to skin your knuckles, but perhaps we can’t blame the car for that one. It also has no cruise, no steering wheel controls, no parking sensors, no sunroof, no auto wipers (or even an adjustable intermittent), no nice soft-touch plastics, nowhere to put your shades, the air con doesn’t work.. None of the things I’m used to. I drove it to work for a week and could see how, when you’re tired or had a long day or just plain can’t be arsed, it would annoy you.

In other words.. It’s perfect.

I absolutely made the right decision buying the E46 back in 2012, it’s especially obvious when you get back into it after this, it’s just a superbly competent car. So there’s my road car. This new toy is louder, harsher, tattier, less convenient, less finished… But when you have nowhere to be and everywhere to drive, it’s the one. By a mile.

I’m gonna keep ’em both.” – 25th April 2014

 

And I did! Reading back, it all feels as true now as it did then, and I had that lovely E46 for another eighteen months after writing. It eventually ended up as the donor for someone’s kit car project, so at least some of it will live on. The car I’d just bought felt like a bit of a revelation, so much more analogue and engaging, and I couldn’t wait to try it out on a circuit.

Fortunately, I wouldn’t have long to wait, with a sprint at Blyton Park booked in two weeks’ time…

Sam

*You’d think that, over the years as this car turned into a pure racer and pretty inappropriate for the road, my decision to have two cars rather than one that “did it all” has been proven right. It’s a good job I love it dearly, because the alternatives I looked at were BMW E36 M3s (which back then cost £4k, now worth £8k) and Honda S2000s (which back then cost £5k, now worth £10k)…

Happy New Year everybody, and best wishes for a happy and successful 2018!

I wanted to start the year, and this new identity as McKee Motorsport, by sharing the story of how an enthusiastic amateur with precious little experience and no financial backing turned a standard road car into a class-winning race car – and himself from an unproven driver to a safe and quick racer.

There are a lot of preconceptions that motorsport, and particularly circuit racing, is prohibitively expensive and that you need tens of thousands of pounds to invest in car, trailer, equipment and team. I want to break these walls down and show how, with a bit of planning and perseverence, any enthusiast or track day driver could go racing with a modest budget. I’ll be open and honest about costs throughout, and keep the information as accurate and realistic as I can. I’ll always be happy to answer questions, and even happier to see you in the pit lane at an event, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Our story starts on 13th April 2014, when for the princely sum of £900 I bought a BMW E36 328i saloon. The car had a few scratches and scrapes and showed 177,000 miles on the odo, but ultimately felt solid and the engine was strong. Best of all, it had already been used on track, by its sellerJames. Little did he know that he’d later end up making his race debut in it! This reassured me that the car should be dependable enough, as I wouldn’t be exposing it to harder use than it had ever seen in its past. Another bonus was the inclusion of no fewer than eight spare wheels and tyres to go with the car!

Sam