Winter mods for the M3...

Hi all,

Haven't been on here in a while. Well, I managed to finish my first season of hillclimbs in the M3 with relatively little drama (apart from a little incident with a ditch in Wexford at the start of the year). The car was super reliable and the handling is all but sorted at the moment... only one major problem - the car was very very very slow. My mother's 328i road car feels an awful lot quicker. We since found out that the two 02 sensors were broken and that the six injectors were wrong - I'd say the ECU didn't know what was going on. That said, it was no harm to run it for a year down on power (no damage done) - I probably would've just made a ball of it otherwise.

So, I've used the break over Christmas to do a bit of work on the car to have it ready for next year:

• taken the diff out to get it rebuilt with a lower final drive
• taken the fuel tank out - to be replaced with a bag tank and swirl pot (lighter and simpler)
  
• the loom had been butchered before we got the car, so we are in the process of removing the loom & ecu to replace it with an independent Engine Management System.
  

Weight saving:

• taken the dash and heater out (apart from a seat, harness and steering wheel, there is nothing in there now)
• taken all heat shielding and various redundant mounts/brackets off the underside of the car
• removed the mid and back exhaust sections to replace them with something a bit lighter.
• removed the cable handbrake, brake shoes and cables
  

Other things to do before the start of the season:

• install adjustable top mounts and drop the nose of the car a little more.
• put in a pedal box so I can get some feel from the brakes.
• sort out a set of wider wheels that don't cost the earth. 
• figure out what to do with the boot lid and spoiler - they weigh a ton.
• move the battery to somewhere mid-ship.
• Find a sponsor!
  

Hopefully we should get the weight of the car down to 1100Kg for next season - it weighed 1200kg last season. We also hope to have the power upto somewhere around standard.

Looking forward to it already!! Happy motoring to you all in 2007!!

Denis

cool - 1100kg and 300bhp should be a bit of craic!

remove the spoiler, and cut the bracing away from inside of the bootlid.

denishogan wrote: Find a sponsor!

What is a "sponsor"?