Just dropped a deposit on some M Power - Trackday Project Car

tsinc80697 said:
I think there's a bright blue GTR going tomorrow, will be difficult to miss! Met the owner last week and he mentioned he was going this weekend I think.
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He was there, very nice car, had a little play, let him past and did a good job at keeping up but I will say Anglesey seems far better suited to lighter stuff sub 1000kg I'd say as the M3 was not as strong as usual but at the same time I was not very confident at all, I found the track a bit daunting especially church corner.

The day was fantastic, very quiet, sunny all day and breath taking views but it's not a track I will re-visit I don't think.

Problems I previously had such as over heating seem cured, water temp never moved beyond half way and oil temperature remained under 120c even after longer sessions.

Issues I think my diff has had it or a bush/mount is gone as sometimes on up changes I got vibrations in S6 so had to use S5 and the diff was very clunky on return drive, something it seems to have being doing more. But it's planned to be fully rebuilt with new final ratio next month. :)

Other one, cups sucked they simply just seem to pick up everything, maybe it was because they were on their markers, but they are truly shot now, drive home was not pleasant from vibrations from pickup on rear tyres and frontend felt floaty and no grip as tyres have gone like plastic, but again I knew they only had one more day in them, but at the end of their life they seem poor, maybe due to amount of heat cycles or something. Anyway F1AS2's ordered. :)

Did have tuition but we cut it short as on right handers there was dreadful knocking, the instructor noted it was probably pick up but did say it's odd to be that noticable so said it was upto me, I went into pits and spent the next hour removing huge lumps of rubber from the tyres, but car was fine afterwards just not much grip anywhere.

So need to sort slicks for spare set of wheels also going to refresh the steering upper and lower column joints as well to have a more planted front end as touch of play in it and parts are like £100 and relatively easy to fit.

A great day, lots of very fast stuff there, my mates Caterham and Honda Civic were mentally quick, there was a Lambo Hurricane there which was mind blowing and the XTR Westfield just blew everything away, normally I can keep up with and pass caterhams at Donnington but at Anglesey it was completely hopeless and not even close.


So before next track day:-
Get new final ration and LSD rebuilt as planned with new bushes
Slicks on spare wheels
Upper and lower steering column knuckles
Get the map sensor and new tune in as currently doing.
 
When did you last recalibrate the clutch biting point?

Diff "clunk" is common as you'll know but I found resetting the biting point (note: not the SMG adaption) after after/before every track session helped transmission smoothness, particularly after I had my clutch and flywheel replaced. It only took about 10 mins to perform the routine.

Worth doing anyway and hopefully the diff change sorts out any issues.
 
HummuH1 said:
When did you last recalibrate the clutch biting point?

Diff "clunk" is common as you'll know but I found resetting the biting point (note: not the SMG adaption) after after/before every track session helped transmission smoothness, particularly after I had my clutch and flywheel replaced. It only took about 10 mins to perform the routine.

Worth doing anyway and hopefully the diff change sorts out any issues.
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When I fitted the clutch I ran the INPA three stage, which I think stage 1 and 2 were bleeding system and stage 3 teaching itself.

Are you talking about something different and if so can you remember how you did it please?
 
Was a while ago now but stage/option 3 is the biting point calibration iirc. Takes only 2 or 3 mins from starting the process. This was from an old post on Cutters when we were looking into various causes of "juddering":

The reason why Carbon's clutch judder went as the clutch got bedded in was because the biting point was moving slowly towards the calibration of the hydraulic clutch: now that the SMG's idea of the biting point is matches it in real life means that it will be a smooth drive. In another 1k or so the judder will come back slowly until it builds up and up to the point where you get clutch slur.

Luckily with a manual you are 'recalibrating' your left foot all the time to match the biting point (which changes every day, with heat, wear and laziness).

So, the best solution for us SMG owners is to do a calibration (option 3 in INPA/Ediabas). It takes 3 minutes and you can do it weekly if you want a tight drive - my theory is that the only downside of this is probably a higher rate of clutch wear as the biting point is always correct, but on the other side the clutch is much less likely to warp or have uneven wear as it will slip much less.

It's also good to keep your gearbox and clutch actuators healthy by bleeding and re-pressurising them regularly (options 1 and 2 in INPA/Ediabas). If you want to be OCD about it, you can it like this: options 1, 2, then 3 when the car is stone cold (drive it the night before to have a good charge in the battery and do it first thing in the morning) and finally finish it off with a paddle reset and a good drive. PM me if you want more info on this.

The paddle reset does a quick memory clear of your driving style. I.e. the drivelogic forgets how you drive and what sort of slippage in the tyres it's used to. This sometimes cures it temporarily, but there is no actual measuring of the biting point and actuator position in each gear. This measuring is what makes the real calibration a noisy process!


With regards to putting it into neutral at lights. As long as you have your foot off the accel. pedal for a few seconds, then the actuator will go into rest and chill out for a bit. It won't be pushing the clutch against the flywheel, until you touch the pedal again (the amount of movement needed on the pedal is minute to trigger it to wake up again), so putting into neutral doesn't really make a difference.

Try it yourself, you'll hear the actuator retract when you let go of the accel. pedal and slowly come to a stop, and you'll hear it spring into life again when you brush the pedal again.
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Cheers will re-run just the stage 3 then, thanks for that, makes perfect sense though, but it could have just being caused by diff or worn mount of knackered tyres.

Also my worries about getting the CSL IAT sensor to fit and it being bodged were not an issue, the hole is marginally to small which means it clips in nicely and is very snug, I've added glue to ensure it stays there.

Original IAT relocation kit. You can see it's held in with a nut

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CSL version nicely clicks in tight after making the hole bigger, then secured with glue

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So that was a load of worrying over nothing. :)
 
Next step done:

Teed the map sensor in the brake boost vacuum hose, this hose runs from the back of the air rail to the brake booster, the map sensor gets teed into here and is actually common practice on many cars. Then the sensor itself well it locks into position nicely on top of the metal brake lines running from the DSC module and is again approved by the tuners.

It looks very messy right now as I emailed these photos to TTFS to see if they would confirm they are happy and they replied saying absolutely perfect, so later I shall cut down the cable ties and shorten the wiring and push it through the gromets directly into the ECU box for a neater install.

However none of this can actually be seen in the engine bay as it is covered by covers being right at back of engine, so not noticeable:

Couple of photos:

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A friend has offered to solder/splice the two wires into power and ground for me, signal wire comes with a pin on the end as it goes directly into the ECU block as pin 18 where it goes is currently empty. :)

Hope to have this done tomorrow and then I shall swap the ECU over, read the ECU data and email it to get the EWS deleted and the tune applied. Hopefully by weekend I shall be up and running on the map sensor.

Will let you guys know how it runs, good or bad and take a new pic of the install tidied up, but as I say this is all out of view anyway, so it looks like nothing has being done. :)
 
HummuH1 said:
Was a while ago now but stage/option 3 is the biting point calibration iirc. Takes only 2 or 3 mins from starting the process. This was from an old post on Cutters when we were looking into various causes of "juddering":
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Ran it seems to have improved, but I think my judder was wheel hop after doing som research on cup tyres.


"A "Heat Cycle" is when a tire heats up to operating temperature, then cools down to ambiant temperature. The term mainly applied to track driving as road driving seldom gets the tires up to optimal temperature. These "optimal tempertures" make the tire very sticky and soft, and really help keep the car planted against lateral forces.

I attend Driver's Education track events under which I will have six 25 minute sessions on the track. Each of these sessions would provide a complete "heat cycle" as the tires would go back to ambiant temperature between sessions. Michelin Pilot Sport Cups tend to get "hard" after about 24 heat cycles. This means that they do not soften up once the tires get to optimal temperature on the track, and the tire "stickiness" goes down hill fast. Let's just say sliding around the track becomes the norm... "


My tyres are absolute rock hard and on the day they never got sticky or tacky like normal and were rock hard even when warm.

But in hindsight I never knew about heat cycles and was just going of tread depth, they are now around 1mm but the above explains the numbness I felt and lack of feedback/grip as I've done well over 24 heat cycles on them, probably nearly double infact.

Oh well you live and learn! :(
 
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Dude, is that sensor really cable tied to your brake pipes? Right near the modulator aswell that will flutter around in use.

Will soon bite into the pipe and let them rust!
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Dude, is that sensor really cable tied to your brake pipes? Right near the modulator aswell that will flutter around in use.

Will soon bite into the pipe and let them rust!
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Can't really think of anywhere else to mount it as it needs to face down. Supposed I could use thick rubber adhesive pad so not cable tied to it. Would that do?

If not suppose other option is to make a bracket it for which bolts to rear bulkhead that it can sit on?


P.S. If it did not need to face down then I could just bolt it to bulkhead directly or even use double sided take and put it by itself. Is orientation really important as it baffles me why orientation of it can effect it any way.
 
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Gibbo said:
My tyres are absolute rock hard and on the day they never got sticky or tacky like normal and were rock hard even when warm.

But in hindsight I never knew about heat cycles and was just going of tread depth, they are now around 1mm but the above explains the numbness I felt and lack of feedback/grip as I've done well over 24 heat cycles on them, probably nearly double infact.

Oh well you live and learn! :(
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It's why you'll see quite a few part worn/hardly used track tyres for sale.

List 1B tyres, such as Yoko A048, Kumho V70 etc, tend to start to go "off" after 8 to 10 heat cycles on the driven axle we find. We'll only use a set for 2 race meetings max. It's not that they suddenly become useless, there is just a noticeable drop-off in the level of grip which generally shows itself as understeer on turn-in and less traction on corner exit.

Rotating the tyres can help improve life and for track days it's not a huge issue as you're not chasing every 1/10th.
 
Gibbo said:
The map sensor I shall be soldering in, not using scotch links, already said this in my post. :)

As explained the CSL setup has the map sensor on the air rail with a proper fitting and the IAT sensor has a proper fitting on the air box but it heatsoaks, again already explained.

Onto the brake booster line being good, well think your wrong there, before I even spoke to TTFS I spoke to other people who tune and build race cars and their comment was why you looking at buying a BMW air rail, just t-piece the map sensor into a vacuum line
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Hints of turbo toaster there! Is the CSL not individual throttle bodies though... Which means you don't have a manifold to take MAP from.... Hence bulk assessment by sharing 6 throttle measurement into a rail doesn't work that well for OEM calibrations hence BMW implemented Alpha N in the first place.

Race cars are easy!

Is your M3 single throttle? Just take a MAP from the manifold piece of cake, clue is in the acronym. I hate seeing OEM discredited on these grounds. May not be race car.... But they have the much harder job.
 
I notice similar with sprinting on the R888s. I can't afford to be buying tyres all the time so I still have to run them until they're worn down (I generally have no problem making a set last more than a full season from a wear point of view) but I always notice an improvement in performance when I'm able to stick a new set on.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Hints of turbo toaster there! Is the CSL not individual throttle bodies though... Which means you don't have a manifold to take MAP from.... Hence bulk assessment by sharing 6 throttle measurement into a rail doesn't work that well for OEM calibrations hence BMW implemented Alpha N in the first place.

Race cars are easy!

Is your M3 single throttle? Just take a MAP from the manifold piece of cake, clue is in the acronym. I hate seeing OEM discredited on these grounds. May not be race car.... But they have the much harder job.
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No the CSL and regular M3 is identical, individual throttle bodies. The CSL has a map sensor on the air rail. The hose which runs from the air rail goes to the brake booster, so as stock M3 has no map sensor on the air rail it is just teed into the brake booster line as that is where the CSL is taking its readings from, some remove the stock air rail and replace with a CSL or modified run for a more OE look or they just tee in the map sensor, readings it gives are same.

BMW ran map sensor on CSL from factory, due to the air box deleting the maf sensor, I am now running BMW OEM CSL ECU, so need to plumb in the map sensor.

I am attaching the map sensor to a bracket now, once done will add a picture.


Please do not compare me to Turbotoaster, you insult me, because I am actually taking your advice and remove the sensor from the brake lines and locating somewhere where it won't cause damage and will look neater.

I am taking your advice and thank you for it, but do not compare me please. :)

kaiowas said:
I notice similar with sprinting on the R888s. I can't afford to be buying tyres all the time so I still have to run them until they're worn down (I generally have no problem making a set last more than a full season from a wear point of view) but I always notice an improvement in performance when I'm able to stick a new set on.
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Never really knew about heat cycles, learn something new everyday, can't wait for new tyres to be here. :)
 
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