Race day! NASA HPDE Buttonwillow 10/10/10

It's been awhile since I was at the track. I figured I needed to get back out there. With NASA's Buttonwillow event right around the corner I took up the opportunity to hit one of socal's most fun and technical courses. The last time I was at Buttonwillow was in the spring of 2008 with my 01 Audi TT 225. That car preformed pretty lackluster to say the least. This time around was a much different story.

After anxiously taking three different exits before the acutal exit, I rolled up around 7:15 for tech inspection. The last two track days I've been out with the M3, I generally just pick the first open spot in the paddock that I see. Those spots have generally been around Honda dudes. Nice guys, but not much in common when it comes to swapping tips and tricks. This time though I looked for the BMWs.

I saw about 5 or 6 e36 M3's and figured that would be a good place to park. I met the owner of the company sponsoring the cars Ian from Midnight Oil Motors. Stationed in San Diego, they apparently had just started up at the beginning of the race season this year. Ian said he had 7 cars competing that day including the class winning spec e30.

Throughout the day I was able to ask them about tire pressures, specifics on the S50 and whatever BMW related race questions I seemed to come up with. Obviously I was a noob running in HPDE2, but everyone was super friendly and seemed to have no problem with me hanging around.

So the day started off well. From here on I'm going to give my personal experience of the race day. The day went extremely well and I found that the control and restraint I exercised allowed me to do much better than I had ever done in the past.

The day was broken up into 4 sessions for the "classroom" setting run groups. Between those 4 sessions were actual races of the series that NASA has setup. These series include a spec miata, 944 and e30 race. Other class races went on as well. The way the system works is you race from HPDE 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 until you're deemed ready to race with the big boys. You then apply for a license in a certain class. Generally people race for about a whole year (8 sessions/weekends) before they apply for a license.

HPDE1 requires an instructor. In HPDE2 an instructor is optional. I was able to move up to HPDE2 after California Speedway. I was happy because I prefer about 75% my own instruction and 25% teacher information. I've found I work best if I'm told the major parts of the equation, filling the rest in myself. The past two instructors didn't exactly work for me. Just like any teacher or instructor is can be hard to find the right person who works with one's style.

So with that all being said I pulled up to the wall outside pit lane with the rest of the HPDE1/2 cars. A guy comes up to my window and asks if I need an instructor. Recently I've been more positive and under the impression that I shouldn't turn anything down that is offered to me (within reason). So I said, sure, hop in.

His name was Tim. He said he also drove an e36 with a cammed m50 variant of some sorts. This was a good sign for me. The last two instructors drove FWD Fords.....kind of a different beast entirely. I told Tim I hadn't been out since April. He told me he hadn't raced until yesterday for 4 years. It's like riding a bike he said.

I took off and instantly the line I remembered from 2008 comes back to me. Tim doesn't say much, I keep pushing it. I feel good. All four tires are the same now and talk to me on all the corners. There is some sliding, but I know exactly where the car is. Tim gives me some tips about what gears to be in around each corner.

The first time out on the last couple tracks I tend to down shift too much and keep the car in the red a little too much. With most of the M3 torque kicking in around 3250RPM, I'm able to use higher gears and not downshift. I finish up the session and pull back to my spot. Tim gets out and we talk about smooth inputs and slow-in fast-out. He shakes my hand says well, you're fast. Felt good to hear that, like I passed some requirement or something.

The last couple times the instructors had been pretty critical. I was always trying to overdrive the car. I really really wanted to "feel" fast. I knew I wasn't doing the best I could and I realized it had alot to do with my use of energy and my "all-in" attitude. I took a different approach this time out and fortunately, on my own after the first session, I got faster and faster throughout the day. I felt good about my position in the group being one of the faster cars.

One thing I can attribute the better driving to is the overall attention to what I was doing. The night before I planned out my whole day making sure not to use up all my energy at once. I set aside 2.5 hours in the morning for just the drive there. After that I knew I had two sessions then lunch. I didn't eat a whole lot like I had last time, just kept it moderate. After lunch 2 more sessions but don't forget the drive back. The last couple times I spent all my energy for the 4 sessions. 5:00 rolls around and I can barely drive back home. It's like I forgot I had to get home. Not only did that make the drive home slightly dangerous by being so tired, it caused me to not allot my energy sparingly enough throughout the day which I believe, this time around, was the difference.

Being able to reserve myself allowed me to really calm down and drive. Other times I just go full bore and nutty on the track. I really took in the mantra of "you have to slow down to go fast." I noticed that while I was racing at speeds past 100mph, shifting, engaging the clutch, heel toe and turning the steering wheel, I still had to watch for everyone behind and in front of me. It's amazing to me that while all of this sounds so hectic on paper, you're body is producing so much adrenaline just to "slow" your brain down to handle it all and make instantaneous decisions. That thought somehow crept into my mind while I was racing.

I remember getting out of the car after the 3rd session heart racing, hands shaking. You stop all the inputs, but the body continues it's course. It really just amazed me.

I was able to really think about my body, brain, attitude and control all those things so I could have a really successful race day. I now understand that you can pretty much use the idea of restraint and control and be successful in almost anything, but nothing holds more true than in racing. You have to be totally reserved. There is no room to be any other way.

Overall I was very happy with how the day turned out. The whole day left me soaring. I can only think about the next time I'll be out there, and what I can do to my car next. Yet while I don't have the budget or time right now to race every other weekend and work on my car, I still hope and know one day (soon) I will.

So that's my personal experience with the day. There were some sick cars in the paddock including an SL AMG Black. I didn't get a picture, sorry. Here are some of the other cars including some sick Porsche's, a couple e30 M3s and a cool paint scheme on a Honda. If the timing works out I'm heading back to buttonwillow on November 6!

Oil Change Total Quartz 5w30

08/07/10

141,213 miles

So I changed the oil today. The 15w50 was making the Vanos sound pretty chattery. I read this whole site Bob's the Oil Guy and decided to try a thinner oil. I picked up some of the same synthetic oil I used before from RMEuropean Total Quartz. But this time I used the 5w30.

I'm no expert on oil and I'm not saying "Bob" is either. But I do know a thinner oil will create less oil pressure and spin the engine more freely. A heavy oil is going to be thicker and cause the engine to not spin as freely. That is the extent of my logic and the information on BITOG gave me the idea to run thinner oil. Also the fact that a 5w30 weight is good enough for year round daily driving and it is the original oil weight BMW suggests.

Either way I will see how it compares and probably try 5/10w40 next.

UPDATE 10/13/10: After 2k miles the engine runs noticeably quieter with the 5w30.

UPDATE 03/28/13: 5w30 is way too thin for the track. Maybe ok for DD but use 5w40 or 10w40 if you can find it.

Still dynoing, results!

So I couldn't just hold onto these chips and not see what the difference is between them all. I took my car back to DC Performance on Friday and hit the dyno. Chris was helpful enough to oblige me on my interest with off the shelf chip tuning. At this point I would be better off to get my own custom chip done, but nonetheless this is what we found.


Here is the The racers Market (TRM) chip vs the Turner Motorsport (TMS) chip. As you can see the TRM chip is gaining a lot more top end. There is a loss of bottom end torque compared to the TMS chip. As far as driving on the road goes the Turner chip does feel a little better down low and in the mid range. Once you get on it up top though it smooths off. The TRM chip did pull a lot up top. Here is the TRM vs my stock dyno pull.


Looks about the same until about 4500rpm. Overall though the TRM is a better and more consistent chip. The fuel delivery is more consistent and each of three runs was around 208hp. The TMS chip varied from 205 206 and 207 hp max gains.

Around town though I do like the torque of the TMS, but I would run the TRM chip if it were free. I guess now I have to decide if I'm going to keep the TRM chip and return/sell the TMS chip or just stick with the TMS chip.

Also I'm still not sure why my gains are so low. The funny thing is that before dynoing these chips against each other I felt like the TMS chip had more bottom end but the TRM chip had more top end. I also thought I may be crazy, but the dyno proves just what I felt! And it wasn't very extreme gains or loses at that. So that gives me reason to believe that the drop in power after the pulleys and belt change that I felt was real and needs to addressed again.

So something happened during this maintenance that killed some of the power that I had first felt after swapping out the stock chip, maf, injectors.

Besides the pulleys and belt I also changed the tensioner and an oil filter gasket housing. I'm switching to a thinner oil to make sure the oil pressure didn't just shoot up once I closed off all the leaks in the engine. I mean it did rip when the valve cover gasket wasn't even on correctly. Would be damn surprised if oil pressure is causing any of these power issues, but it's simple enough to change the oil and find out.

I still haven't ruled out the bearings on the pulleys.

I'll keep ya'll posted.

TRM to the Rescue!

So with the Turner chip running rich and possibly only netting 3whp gains, I took my predicament to The Racers Market (TRM). I described my issue to Michael McCoy and he responded by basically saying he would send me a chip, if it worked for me keep it and pay for it, if not, send it back.

I thought, wow, that's nice! That's a big change in customer service from what I was getting from Turner. I had called them about the chip issue and Drew said he's working on it. That was a week and a half ago. I don't know if they're burning another chip or if they just don't give a shit.

I decided to take TRM up on their offer. I emailed Mike back asking what we should do, if he needs a credit card number for a deposit or something. He replied to me email saying he had sent the chip. Awesome! Just like that! You don't see a lot of trust like that now days. I was quite impressed! I hadn't sent him any information other than my address and mod list.

So the chip shows up last week and I decide to give it a whirl. I take out the TMS chip and put in the TRM. I start it up and everything's fine. I can't really tell if there is any more or less power with the TRM chip. I decide I would have to dyno it to find out. I figure I would just drive around with it for a couple days and decide on how I feel.

Problem is I get back to my car after the first run around the block and the it won't start. It just sits there and cranks. I ended up having to put the TMS chip back in to get going again. I don't know if it was loose or if it were EWS, but it ran one time. I'm getting pretty frustrated and feeling helpless at this point. Going to hold off for awhile, go on my trip and reassess when I get back.

And thanks to TRM for letting me try the chip free of charge!

Dyno #2 = No gains :(

I took my car back to DC Performance on Friday to see what kind of power my mods had gained me. Looks like not much. The max HP is now 207 and TQ is 200. The graph is showing some AFR's going into the 10-11 range which doesn't look good.

The only other thing I can think of is that the car felt like it pulled pretty strong before changing the idler pulleys and belts. I remember after I did that the car felt like it lost some power. I'm going to call Turner first to see about the rich condition.

Overall it's pretty safe to say I'm bummed. I mean that's pretty bad for a system they charge over $1,000 for and claim 35 Hp.

Bimmerfest 2010 - Kinda Boring

I just got back from Bimmerfest. Fortunately it was only about 3 minutes from my house this year. The Rose Bowl parking lot isn't exactly as luxurious as the manicured grass court of the equestrian club in Santa Barbara where Bimmerfest 2009 was held. But where the show lacked in grass it made up for in shear turnout.

It felt like there were almost too many BMWs. Bimmerfest's format is to basically showcase every single car at the show. While this may seem interesting and cool like a huge GTG, it really just adds a bunch of crappy cars with unorganized parking assignments. So instead of just seeing some bad-ass cars you have to go up and down the aisles separating the wheat from the chaff. Hartge e28 next to some busted e36, fully restored 3.0 CSI next to a 98 740i on 22s....you get the idea.

Unfortunately there wasn't really anything new or inspiring at the show. One of the more "out there" setups was a Luguna Seca Blue E46 with neon/takata green TE-37s. And if that's new and original then we're all in trouble. Still cool though, but nothing really pushing the envelope.

I was hoping to see more track cars, and race vendors, but it was mainly angel eye headlights, 22s and expensive unrealistic 800whp street turbo kits. There was that one green E36 straight track car that I absolutely went nuts over when I saw it for sale a couple months ago. Just a balls out full on race car. 18x10s all around, 12.75:1 C/R, 303whp, OBD I management. Just retarded. The owner was cool too. He's down to $22kobo.

Enough about the show here are some images.

Rounded out the set, 2 more INVOs

I picked up two more Nitto INVOs to replace the Sumitomo HTRs that were on the back a couple weeks ago. I found a pretty low price at onlinetires.com, printed it out and took it to America's Tire in Pasadena. They matched the price without even really looking at what I printed out. The tires were a week late so they knocked off another $25. All in all I got everything mounted balanced and paid for at under $250 for (2) 245/40/17.

While the wheels were off I checked out the rebuilt caliper I had replaced from earlier. The clearcoat over raw metal is still holding up! I stand by this way to protect the calipers from rusting if you want to leave them silver and not paint them a different color.

I had them rotate the older INVOs to the back and run the new tread on the front. Besides the two track days the older tires have about 1500 miles on them. Too bad the track days count for about 6000 regular miles. Either way I have those crappy Sumitomos off of there and have a full set of 4 matching tires. Yay!