The Red Drift ///Machine

[bigjae46]

Experimenting with an autometer oil temp gauge. This is an M12 sender in the oil drain plug hole. It takes a weird wire connector that makes it easy to remove for oil changes.



Removing some brackets that I no longer need.















Removed the parking brake tubes.



Only need one wiper...

[bigjae46]

Sat for a year. Life stuff...



Decided to make it into one of the lightest E46's to ever hit the track for maximum fun and minimum cost. This includes installing a roll cage. My plan was to make the car as light as possible before installing the roll cage. This includes wire harness thinning, cutting sheet metal, and removing unnecessary brackets. Also want to make improvements to the rear subframe reinforcement.

First up - 5 speed conversion.



Wire harness thinning and removing the heater core. First time wiring harness thinning so I'm taking a step by step approach. Remove some wires, test and go in and remove some more.





Sold my black dash...bought a tan one for a 1/4 of the price. Didn't want to hack up a nice black dash.



Painted it black with this and worked really well. A perfect match to the OEM black.

[bigjae46]

The Red Drift Machine is now in Milwaukee...

Added some brake ducts on the cheap. Had some Bimmerworld steel backing plates, the rest was from eBay. I zip tied the ducts into the foglight openings. They worked well. I was able to use the Stop Tech sport pads on the track. Stopping power wasn't great but the pads didn't fade. Track pads last about 50% longer (used to get 5-6 weekends, now I get 8-9).







Reinforced the rear subframe and installed solid subframe bushings. I epoxied the plates on using 3M DP420 epoxy (sorry, no pics)



Also installed a SPAL fan. I want to cut off the threads on the water pump...someday. Its a 16" slim fan...works pretty well.



Installed an "racing" steering wheel. It was a little better. The OEM steering wheel is pretty darned good!



Ran a couple of events at the Milwaukee Mile. Not the most exciting track but its a 15 minute drive. I did a couple of Track Night in America events with SCCA. These particular events were great. Take off from work at 1pm. Show up at the track 3pm. Run until its dark and go home. So simple, well run and great people!

Car is ready to go for BMWCCA Oktoberfast at Road America (Sep 2014) and disaster strikes during the 2nd session...



Rod #3 again. Back to the earlier engine problem...the engine would have lasted a lot longer if the crank was re-hardened. In the end, not too upset. Got 15k miles out of the rebuild...most of it being track miles all the while being poorly maintained. From this point, the car sat for about a year.

[bigjae46]

Fast forward to Nov 2013. Installed a used Bimmerworld Race Exhaust on an otherwise stock car. It was missing the rear bracket. Its track weekend...gotta do what I gotta do...



Added some much needed pep. The car feels like a dog, I was having trouble passing a Miata on the straights without them lifting. Still feels like the engine is weezy but the exhaust made it feel a little better.

At this point, I'm living in Milwaukee, WI and the car is in Houston. Not really doing much maintenance but the car is still going! The bad news...A "racing shop " sold me some manual transmission fluid. I flew in from WI that afternoon and was doing maintenance in the paddock (not fun!). So I put in that $30L Motul gear oil that I bought at the "race shop". Found out later on that is a GL5 lube. The transmission wasn't great before that but it was significantly worse afterwards. I had to rev match perfectly downshift. I got better at rev matching but was not perfect by any means. Grinding and missing a gear wasn't an uncommon thing.

The parting shot as the car leaves Houston, TX

[bigjae46]

This is what it looked like...







Lots of learning going on at this time. I ended spending $3000 to get the motor back together but it was money well spent in knowledge. I used a shop foreman that I knew to do the engine rebuild, an amazing dude.

Against his advice, I tried to cheap out and just replace the bearings and clean up the journals. Still knocked. So the engine was disassembled. Luckily, the crank was able to be turned and still be within spec for +.001 bearings. Turned the crank, installed VAC coated bearings and sent it. Storied of dust free shops to do engine rebuilds...lol...the shop foreman reassembled and installed the motor in less than a day.



Looking back, the only mistake made was the crank should have been heat treated. Overall, got really lucky!

[bigjae46]

Brake fluid was nasty...



Changed all of the fluids, FCABs and RTABs. Installed the TCKs, Vorshlag camber plates and Turner rear control arms from my 330ci. Ordered a new Stoptech BBK, UUC SSK Only issues I found at this time was a seized rear outer control arm ball joint and a leak from the diff pinion seal. I sent an oil sample off to Blackstone.

So you read that correctly, I used non-M camber plates on my M3. I called TC Kline because Vorshlag did not have the M3 plates in stock. TC Kline said I could use the non-M plates if its a track car. I'll just gain negative camber and lose some caster. So I set the Vorshlag plates to max caster (they come set in the middle setting). The camber range is -2.5 degrees for -4.5 degrees. This is GREAT because I have a much more usable range of camber for track use.

I had NTB align the car. The front camber was at -4.0 degres and the rear was stuck at -1.8 degrees. All in all, NTB did a good job but it was too much of a camber imbalance front to rear. Totally on me. So off to the track...

As you can see, the rear end was pretty squirrely. Then bad news. I spun bearing #3 at its first track event. I shut it down before anything else got chewed up. I get home and that Monday my Blackstone report arrives.

[bigjae46]

It started in Nov 2012. I had a supercharged 330Ci (LOVED IT!!!) which lost, yet, another oil pump sprocket nut. Third time. So it was time to move on.

Here is the last ride...

That car was fast! 1:57 at Texas World Speedway on street tires at 3300lbs. I needed something more reliable and less susceptible to heat soak.

I bought this red on red 2004 M3 for $10,500. It was an auction car so that is part of the low price. Since it was going to be a track car, didn't really care since I was going to gut it and replace everything consumable.

98,000 miles
Imola red on Imola Red
6 speed
Moonroof
19" wheels











So you've seen endless pics of stripping the interior...mine looks no different. I installed this VAC floor panel. Lesson learned, make it easily removable. Funny story. I was driving home from Ice Hockey at 10pm. I totally forgot that I was low on fuel. I pulled off on the next exit and then the car died. I was going to call my wife. I dropped my phone and it fell under the floor plate. So I had to walk 1 mile in a bad neighborhood and carry fuel back in 2 Gatorade bottles.

[bigjae46]

Here's the story of the Red Drift Machine. Started out as a track car but has been slowly evolving into a car geared towards competition. Not sure what yet. I hope to start in TT in 2021. Unfortunately scheduling...can't make any 2020 events in addition to the whole COVID thing.