Autocrossing a Self-Modified Performance BMW E36
The Rocky Mountain SCCA Solo summer series is finally getting underway after a very long break (for me at least). It was time to get my E36 out on the track and see if all these performance improvements were really going to make a difference! I've thrown a lot of things at the car over …
Continue reading Event 1, 2019 – My BMW E36 is way faster than me now!
It's definitely been a while since my last post, sorry! Quite a lot has happened in the last few months so racing my BMW has been put on a temporary pause. I just completed the move to Colorado from Seattle and am just now finally getting settled into a normal routine. I planned to enter …
Event 1 of 2018 had finally arrived! It was a beautiful dry day (though fairly cloudy) and my BMW E36 was running perfectly. My car has received a lot of upgrades and weight reduction over the winter, as seen in my previous posts, so this was the day to prove that it was all worth it. …
My two young sons recently informed me that in order for a car to be a "race car" it needs to have a rear wing. Apparently fast run times at events don't matter to six year olds. I guess that's not too surprising and rear wings do naturally make cars more cool, so on to …
I determined towards the end of 2017 that I wanted to turn my BMW E36 into as close as a street legal race car as possible in order to turn up the fun factor even more! To me, no race car should have an interior or any sound deadening. That means it shouldn't have five …
Continue reading Turning my BMW E36 into more of a dedicated race car!
With Winter now here, it's time yet again to move the BMW E36 race car into the garage, put it up on jack stands, and attack a few areas that need attention. Areas of focus are converting to a manual steering rack, upgrading the bottom of the engine, control arm replacement and changing gaskets.
Lately, during my autocross runs, I've found myself sliding around in my seat during the hard cornering. I've had to brace my legs against the door and transmission tunnel. I've also been using my arms to keep in position when all they should be doing is steering (and a single shift). A snug fitting fixed …
You may be a little thrown off with this being a post about Event 7 and the previous post was about Event 2. Let's just say it's been a busy summer and my family takes priority over racing! The good news though is that it's been dry and warm in Seattle for well over a …
I realize that I live in the Seattle area, but did we really need to have the rainiest winter on record? Isn't it over yet? As you can imagine, Event 2 took place in the rain. With my tires that are terrible in the wet, I had another challenging drive just to keep facing in the …
Now that I've run the BMW E36 at the first event, I thought it would be good to address some viewer questions and comments that I've received so far. First, I apparently need to clear something up that I didn't think even needed to be addressed. I'm not autocrossing the BMW Formula 1 car seen behind …
Continue reading Viewer questions. No, I’m not a Formula 1 driver…
