V-12 Engine into 308 Build, over on Grassroots

1500 or 1500? My expectation for 200rw based on what I've read was 10k-15k, minus about1k per autoX?

What are you running them on?

 

Meant 1500 or 15000

 

one-thousand-five-hundred. Car is a rear engined, RWD with LSD, roughly 500 horsepower, roughly 3000 lbs.

Driving style is 50% of the milage just rolling along and the other 50% driven just motivated enough to where the tires get in a reasonable temperature window, i.e. when they become sticky. No burnouts, no drifting. Average driving skills, i.e. I can get from A to B without crashing but that's about it.

 

What are you running for suspension settings? Camber and toe?

 

If I remember correctly around -1.5 deg camber and just a bit of positive toe; I can get back to you tomorrow with precise numbers. Thats not the fastest setup but the one where tire wear seems to be most uniform (outside edge vs. inside edge). Running more camber definitely allowed for noticably higher corner speeds, but no point in doing that without intention, possibility and skillset to do so safely on public roads.

 

Front:
-1° 39' = -1.65 deg
+0° 02' = 0.033 deg (on each wheel)

Rear:
-2°
+0° 05' = 0.083 deg (on each wheel)

For some reason I can not send PMs to you.

 

Thanks. I don't have an account so no PMs.

The + on the toe....is that toe out?

I'm looking for reasons to believe my results would be better

I just talked to a 308 buddy who runs the bridgestone re-71rs 200tw and says 5k-10k with an ax once a month and 3 drgrees cambrer....but he's got matching front/rear and can rotate them. Rear tires tend not to last on my car for some reason????

 

+ is in.

Maybe our roads here in the Alps have a more abrasive surface. Or perhaps your buddy is simply a better driver than me ... cleaner lines etc. The 308 is significantly lighter and has 'only' half the power. Or the tw values might not be accurate.

Lots of reasons why the tires might last longer

For me the rears tires wear a bit faster than the fronts, but for a RWD driven on the street this is to be expected, I'd reckon.

 

Maybe yokahma vs Bridgestone difference to.

I have a heavy right foot so the current old tires are about 1/32 rear while the fronts are closer to 5/32

I'm not buying tires just yet, the engine needs to run again, but I think I'm talked into the 200tw bridgestones. It looks like my son will be running his 1st autoX this weekend so I'll have a look at what's fast around here. I did see though that there are several 2 seat cars entered in XA that I thought was a 4seat class, but apparently it's just a weight thing and the min with driver is 2930 which I can't imagine ever being under.....hopefully I'll get racing this year.

A stock 308 is C street for anyone following along and thinking about having some fun.

 

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Ha! I did something on the car!

The mirrors are back ....and not just on, OCD on

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They also now work for the first time in the 24 years I've owner the car. The function was still a bit sketchy depending on the how I push/wiggle the switch and its clearly broken. I could probably fix it by cleaning the contacts and solder-welding the housing, but a brand new one from bimmerworld is $70 so I treated myself. I'll leave the glass out and screw covers off until the new switch is here and I'm happy all is well.
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There was a small scare as I realized the drivers side wires had fallen inside the door
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but I was able to fish them back out without needing to pull the door apart

The connectors where corroded beyond salvage so I just used bullet connectors to still fit the tiny little whole in the door and this black wire is why I do all my new wiring with the cad plated aviation spec wire
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I thought I might work on something important tonight but I got a note from bimmerworld, the switch is back ordered with no available date because of frikin course nothing is easy even when ferrari used a bmw part its unavailable, so I canceled the order and got to work on the original.

600 grit on the board contacts and fresh dielectric grease
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weld up the broken housing
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Everything work so glue on the glass

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I broke one of my new covers, but I had an extra I just had to paint it. and that is it. I know this seems small but I've had the car 24 years and tonight was the first time the mirrors worked so to me its a pretty big deal ....celebrate the small wins Image Unavailable, Please Login

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What do you need mirrors for?

 

Lets get back to the juicy stuff, no more cigarette lighter and lock knob talk, whats happening with the engine?

 

And here I was feeling so proud of myself for the mirrors that I was 3/4 second guessing my decision to remove the broken power locks when I had the doors apart fixing the windows.

Now that the mirrors are off the bench and off my mind next is do a final debut on the trans adapter and get it out to heat treat so it can also be off the bench and off my mind.

Then the bigger task is finish making the cylinder shims and get them installed. Then I'll be back to waiting on the new head gaskets.....I'm considering rebuilding the a-arms while I wait as they were looking sad 20 years ago, or and the CV boots.

 

A quick google search for cv boots said ebay had them, a search on eBay and my local ferrari dealer popped up at $28 each, so 4 genuine ferrari boots bought. I never even thought to call those guys, small wins

 

Maybe not a win...I got 3 and 1, not sure what to think about this.

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Also on my mind is the condition of the suspension. When the car was last inspected in 2005 I kind of remember the guy being not to happy with the visual appearance of the bushings and they still look just awful
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The ball joints and tie rod ends are tight but the boots are long past there prime.
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Then I've lowered the car about 1.5" so the A-arms are not pointing in the directions the factory intended and I've increased the spri8ng rates by about 4x so the suspension travel and body roll are about 1/4 original meaning the designed camber gain isn't actually doing what it was designed to do. Also with the grip of wider modern tires (even my old ones) and extra HP there is pretty significant pitch going on throttle to brake that was never intent by the factory. And last setting the rear toe is only possible because the A-arm bushings are rubber and can twist a bit making replacing the rear bushing with, I don't know, just thinking out loud....say ball bearings or delrin or rod ends not a good idea. I think I've mentioned this before but I'm kind of leaning toward doing something....something that involves cutting and welding......

 

The rear outer bushings on a 308 are what 365 boxers and 512's up to 1978 had in the front control arms for bushings. Full race cars have them all around, something to consider. The steel inserts fit in place of the rubber ones.

 

Interesting......

 

Completely unrelated but I was sawing the burnouts video to a buddy and noticed in the second burnout, it second gear, you can see the tach and speedo needles.. .they instantl hit 7k and it looks like at least 80mph, the speedo needle is not straight up but almost. Have another look

 

I need specials editing permission so the next day when I read what I posted I can fix the nonsense typos.

That aside, I checked the owners manual and it says 6800 in 2nd is 52.5mph. I changed the drop gear ration 24%,, I was at about 7000- 7200, and my rear tires are a touch big at 26" vs 25" so 56X1.24X (7200/6800) x(26/25) =72mph not "at least 80" bu8t still a lot of tire speed for 2nd gear. More math and 9500rpm redline in 2nd gear is now about 95mph (just noticed - 2nd gear mph is rpm/100), redine in 1st is 65mph. Fast.

Suspension wise I guess step 1 is get the chassis and suspension bits into CAD (unless someone already has a file they are willing to share?) and go from there. After more reading my current understanding is that one of the biggest drivers of the move to anti drive/anti-squat/anti-roll suspension geometry is keeping aero bits pointed in the right directions and working properly more than anything else and that doesn't really apply to a 308 in general. But everything I was thinking about reduced motion and A-arms no longer pointing the directions the factory intended is still true. Also in the 308 weight thread a couple posts on tires and the gist as it applies here is that modern tires are not 70s tires and wider tires in general are more sensitive to angle changes. So everything into CAD and see if what improvements can be made without being (too) stupid I guess.

 

Step 1, get it into CAD, is not off to a great start as I can't read the frame width numbers in my manual......anybody got a legible copy?
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Never mind, that was the modial book I keep pulling pulling wrong info for, my 308QV book has a fine drawing but if anyone already has a CAD model I'll take it

 

I've started and stopped that project many times. The frame dims are a good start, but I've found that actually measuring the chassis gives slightly different results. So I foresee a bunch of takeoff measurements in your future.
I'll dig thru the CAD library later today when I'm near the PC and see what I've got. Though it might be mondial chassis suspension though...

 

I was trying to find some suspension software but really haven't so back to CAD modeling. I've also been reading a bit and and best I can tell building anti-roll into the suspension is generally frowned upon because it produces "jacking" which raises the GC. I am pretty sure though that with the stiffer suspension increasing the camber gain is a good idea especially since the plan is sticky 200tx tires that like camber from what I read.

This bit is kind of interesting. The unreadable chassis drawing was a mondial, I should probably throw that book away as I keep pulling wrong info from it....but I noticed it had a little anti-drive in the front with the front A-arm at 7deg. Today i noticed the 328 is the same

308 is straight
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328 and mondial 7deg
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So it looks like ferrari added a bit of anti-dirve on the newer cars, likely a result of modern tires getting stickier. My original idea was just mess with the bolt on lower A-arm mounts but I'm realizing that is probably a bad idea as it will probably add too much and jacking will become an issue which is why ferrari used the top not the easier bottom. The anti-drive force is an extra force so in normal use its just the springs holding up the car, but on braking there would be the additional anti-dive force+ the spring force which results in the car CG lifting. That can be somewhat compensated for in the back as any anti-squat for acceleration becomes pro-squat on the brakes so with some math the car can stay relatively flat and steady height I guess.

In the rear both cars (308/328) A-arms are parallel to the ground, so no anti-squat...likely because the cars just didn't have the hp to need it Image Unavailable, Please Login .....which of course is not my situation Image Unavailable, Please Login

Last, a work buddy has a buddy with corner scales so there is a vague plan to set the engine back in and try to get so weights to make the math a bit more accurate then my guesses. We should have a pool for closest to actual weight Image Unavailable, Please Login