M2 madness

[M3M3]

back from four days at Summit Point race track at an SCCA race. One day of test piloting an E36 Enduro race car to shake the bugs out of it and 3 days of racing an E30. highlight of the weekend was watching the new owner of my E36 race car (son of good friend) get his first overall win in the car and do his first victory lap. very cool to see that car back in the winners circle!

then played with M2 seating a bit. have a sea of seats on shop floor as I tried several sparco's to find two that would fit.

going with Ergo II with custom seat brackets for left side and Rev Plus with sparco brackets for right for right side. hope to get all installed this upcoming weekend. actually have to because track school/time trial is the following weekend.

adjusted camber to 3.5 deg on both sides in front. the new lower plates added about 0.6 deg.

[M3M3]

fixed the pics in above post.

of note to people putting Sparco seats in a 2002...

i am 6ft tall and the harness holes on most seats are too low for me, even worse with a HANS on. the SPARCO EVO II is designed for tall(not wide) drivers and fit me perfectly. HOWEVER, the front of the seat has a significant flare to it which makes it difficult to fit in a 2002.

The ERGO II in "medium" size mostly fit me. the harness holes are not as high as i would like, but they are ok. it is also a touch wider than the EVOII, wider than i wanted, but i can fix with some foam under the cover. the front of the seat is a bunch narrower than the EVOII, so fit in 2002 was much better.

the REV Plus is more of a normal sized seat.

all three of these seats have space at the shoulders to accomodate a HANS.

for now i am getting creative with mounting to stock 02 locations without any sliders. this winter i may cut out the stock locations to get the seats lower.

[M3M3]

Got the drivers seat in today.

Modified some aluminum brackets I had made for my e36 race car. they offset the seat to to the right to move weight to center of car and center the seat on the steering wheel. drilled holes in sides to get the seat as low as possible, then drilled holes to match the 2002 stock mounting holes in the floor. Painted them rustoleum gloss black on outside and wheel paint silver on inside (because I ran out of black….).

Then mounted the lower harness strap in the floor.

Dropped seat in and bolted it down.

Position is ok, but really need a little more rake. Unfortunately, the roll bar blocks the seat from going back any further.

Well, I think my non-descript 40 year old vintage car “Stealth” look at the track is gone….oh well!

Tomorrow the passenger side goes in. I may be able to use the stock sliders to make it adjustable. Or I may just bolt it down, adjustment is overrated…;-)

[ray_]

I'm 6'0" by the way ;-)

Cheers,

Ray

[jgerock]

Are those belts pink?

[M3M3]

ahhh, no. purple. they are from the e36 race car which had a purple theme.

right side belts are...blue. they were the last set of belts i had in that race car.

[M3M3]

Finished up the seat project today.

Using 1.25 x 1.25 11 gauge angle stock, made two cross supports that bolt to stock locations. Sparco brackets will bolt on top of these.

While the paint was drying on those, bolted the lower harness points to the floor.

Paint dry, supports installed.

Seat mounted on the supports.

Ok, any lunatics want a ride in this thing? 

Tech inspectors showed up. Trixie and Spritle of Speed Racer fame. Appeared to pass.

Ready for track next weekend!

[jgerock]

Looking good Marshall. I see the extra negative camber. Did you tighten up the side mirror so it doesn't fold back at speed?

[jrkoupe]

ML

Just went over this thread again....good stuff

When u say

"i am 6ft tall and the harness holes on most seats are too low for me, even worse with a HANS on"..

can u elaborate

oh...any particular reason why you "nut" your harnes bolts INSIDE the car?...

is it to keep them out of the elements?.or to keep the underside smooth and safe?

[M3M3]

harness needs to come off the hans and go straight back to the bar. if the harness holes in the seat are too low, the harness comes off the hans, goes DOWN to the seat holes, then goes to the bar. this means in an impact, the forward load of the body on the harnesses causes them to pull DOWN on your spine, compressing it. NOT GOOD! this is why there is a spec for the angle harnesses must be mounted at. the angle is not measured from the seat hole, it is measured from where the harness leaves your body to the bar. i see lots of street cars with harnesses attached to rear seat belt mount points.....that is a 45+ deg down angle. unsafe.

when i ordered the roll bar i spec'd the height of the harness bar to be about 6 inches higher than it comes stock....to get it up where the harness would be horizontal.

nuts up or down not a big difference. i do it "up" as it makes it easier to take the harnesses out, and easier to line up the nut rather than fumbling around under the car.

[M3M3]

one last improvement before the track. wanted a touch more headroom. the Sparco seat cushions are comfy, but thick and firm. i cut up some foam padding i had to the right sizes and tried them...better. wife saw what is was doing and said "gimmee those". next day she had covered them in the leftover black material from the rear deck project. they look like they belong there and get me an inch lower in the seat.

[jrkoupe]

I often run sans my Sparco Evo cushions....cool....

Ive never seen a seat where the halo side head restraints are removable.......very nice...if car is street driven

[M3M3]

spent weekend at Summit point for an SCCA driving school and Club Trail.

i was instructing at the school, and ran in the Trail as a competitor. a club trial is basically like qualifying, or an auto-x on a race track. you spend several sessions lapping with the track timing system running. there were only 5 cars entered, so we had lots of open track to run on!

wx was awesome. 70's, dry and sunny. went with my buddy who has an 88 M3. our paddock setup...

couple hundred miles of track time. hours of video that i have to sort through. will post some soon.

[ray_]

Apparently a good day, since you didn't write about nuthin' done blowed up!

;-)

Cheers,

Ray

[M3M3]

well, it did develop an odd idle that varied in the last two sessions...have not tried to sort that yet....;-)

brakes sucked (slight pull to left and very hard to modulate), and i still need to dial out a push in the handling.

but...the Massive front track/camber spacers were worth it. getting the camber to 3.5 resulted in tire temps pretty even across the face of the tread. got more fender rolling to do though to run 205's.

i will start a separate thread on the real problem.....;-)

but for the most part the car made wonderful noises running up through the gears to 7500 and i took over a second off my previous lap times....