Black Widow V.3

[bjackson]

I have changed my sedan based car for this year. I gave away Black Widow V.1 earlier this year. It was a good car to me, but I wanted something with more power and rear wheel drive. Black Widow V.2 is still awaiting a new engine. With my renewed focus on track events and instructing I wanted to get another sedan based car. The Formula Vee will need to wait another year.

I had a short list of cars to look for: Nissan 240SX, Porsche 944, Mazda RX7 and BMW E30. I managed to find a great E30 for a good price. It has very little rust and a few mods. I took possession back in March and waited for the nicer weather to start the conversion to race car. It was a street car until I started my transformation. The car has been up on blocks for a couple of months while I found time to work on it. Mostly I have been taking out weight and making sure everything is in good working order. I bought a few parts to get me going as well.

A few pictures:

Massive Big Brake Kit for 15" wheels. It is 300mm x 22mm with a Wilwood Dynalight caliper. Running Hawk DTC 30 pads. Also there is a generic coil over kit with Bilstein Sport struts/shocks. The lower control arms are attached using Treehouse Racing LCA's and the rear upper shock mount is a Turner Race one.

Turner Race studs to replace the wheel bolts.

[bjackson]

Stripping the interior down to the bare essentials. I had not removed the tar yet. It has now all been removed including the trunk.

The engine is pretty stock. It has a header, slightly bigger cams, Ireland Engineering Rocker Arms and reprogrammed ECU for a higher redline. The engine should be good enough for a while.

[bjackson]

Back down on the ground. I have a set of euro 15x7 basketweaves that came with the car. This will be for the rain tires. I have removed the heavy front and rear aluminum bumpers. I may put on some plastic bumper skins down the road.

[bjackson]

OMP Race seats installed.

[bjackson]

Rear interior has been removed along with all interior and trunk tar.

Stock dash for the time being.

Spal Fan installed as a pusher. Mechanical fan has been removed.

[luker]

Excellent, another BMW in the group. That two new E30s in the last couple of week, sweet.

[Chris_A]

Way cool, Bruce!

[vwgolf2lwk]

Sweet!

[Protege2886]

Awesome Bruce!

So when are we renaming the club? BMW Motorsport Club

[Chris.B]

Wow looks like an extremely clean chassis for an e30. Nice find!

[bjackson]

It is extremely clean for a car that has been in Canada all of its life. I suspect that it has been rarely winter driven and was rust proofed. I was looking for a solid car to start with so that I had to do limited fixing.

The car with most of the parts already there. I have only added a little so far. Next big job will be to remove the rear subframe and replace the bushings/reinforce. The sunroof still needs to come out for additional weight savings, especially before a roll bar/cage install.

Looking forward to this weekend when I finally get to drive it at Picton and Shannonville.