Good evening ladies and gents. My name is Veselin, I originate from the town Pleven in Bulgaria where we have a good drifting community in which I have been involved for the past 10 years and take part in regular drift meets, events etc... Now days I`m based on the Isle of Man where drifting is just picking up speed so it`s like new start for me. So here it goes, for the first few drift events I had to use my daily driver. The E28 has M50B25+M3 box+M535i LSD and Custom coilovers... Despite the ugrades it was hard work to make a skid along the other guys with 300+hp powered Jap cars, so something had to be done.... So then Gonzalez was purchased... Before any events was to be participated few jobs had to be done to the car like: #1 Steering angle kit was purchased, this kit is made by good friends of mine with great drift and drag experience and they have designed so far the best kit considering the value for money. The company is named MG Solutions and the specs of the kit are as good as a Wisefab kit for a 3rd of the price. #2 Quality coilovers had to be bought, here comes in hand the great value for money products... Set of Mono Pro`s were fitted to Gonzo including front ARB delete with harder springs and in near future rear coilover conversion. #3 The rear end common E36 issues had to be sorted as well with some better rear end grip, so then M3 subframe reinforcment plates were welded to the chassis, rear camber arms from MG Solutions were fitted and a pair of E46 alloy upper arms were added to for less unsprung weight. Not last the whole rear end was Powerflexed with the hardest "black series"+chassis welds and subframe re-spray. The standart differential had a good weld job ofcourse. #4 While the above was done I thought it would be good idea to plumb in my hydro handbrake and fit braded brake hoses. Had to make all new rear end brake pipes aswell due to some surface corrosion. With all that kind of was a good call to delete half of the fuel tank so the fuel splashin was reduced and the car can run on less fuel in drift mode. #5 Here I stripped the whole interior of the car for some weight reduction and fitted OMP bucket seat on the drivers side with seat mount which worked out great. As well fitted a offset steering wheel and snap of boss which moved the wheel towards me with another 1-2 inches from where it was with the DW steering boss which made the driving position perfect for me. #6 Next step was to add some more grunt to the M52B28 engine and that was achieved with fitting 67mm TB from US M3, NV Inlet cam on the exhaust side+ the good old M50B25 Inlet manifold setup which I had from another B28 engine with gone HG. While all this was made I used the time to rebuild the Vanos unit with a US upgraded teflon O-ring kit and took my spare rocker cover and gave it a paint job to refresh the look of the engine bay. Set of Iridium NGK`s were fitted to. All that should have given me about 220 ish ponies considering every cylinder gave over 200PSi on the compression test I did. #7 Now I got some extra power so next call is having to sort out the cooling of the engine. New OEM 90 deg. thermostat, metal stat body and M3 oil housing with Mishimoto 16 row oil cooler and custom AN fittings bracket made and fitted to the car. #8 Just to be on the safe side I fitted a 52mm Vdo water temp. guage with a Vdo water temp. sender to have a accurate reading on the coolant temp. due the standart dashboard guage being so much filtered and inaccurate. #9 Rear axle custom long stud conversion with lightweight wheel nuts was added to the spec of the car. #10 Next I made myself a fiberglass lightweight boot lid which saved me 14kg from the 17kg OEM boot+spoiler. There are some more little jobs I`ve done and alot that will be done in near future to the car. Weight is just over 1200kg considering it`s still a road legal car. I`m quite happy how she sits and skids, more to come from the few events I have done durring the season and comments are more than welcome. Thanks for reading and keep drifting fun.
Both cars look good! E28 in particular I found that steering kit for the E30, how does it act when at full lock? too hard or...?
Happy that you like them, both have taken me loads of effort. The 28 has been trough various stages of looks and mods. Now since it doesn`t get abused I intend to keep it as clean as I can and slowly restore it. It`s never going to be 100% genuine so time will tell what going to happen. Few shots of the 5.
Thanks for the warm feeling. The Max Angle Kit is adjustable friendly. By all means the castor, camber, width of track, distance between both axles is adjustable and you can set what is the max lock you want to use with the lock stops. I haven`t played much with it yet due to needing the car road legal for now. I have moved the center of the front wheels with about a inch forward but reduced the castor alot so I can play with the car on track. The car feels very smooth and easy to drive on any angle due to the the Akerman reduction and the reduced stress in all the joints of the kit. At the same time when I am very agressive it`s just as easy to keep the line as for smooth driving style. A video will tell the lot.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVn1C3LoHEI&feature=youtu.be First event for me and the car. https://www.facebook.com/marcoandre....1260278016/10204752153904613/?type=2&theater A technical auto solo run. I have to do some editing and upload more.... - - - Updated - - - Thanks, BMW are very underated....
Thanks guys, you would catch the progress in the upcoming events. Ideas are all there, the rest is just time and dollar...
Evening, a slight bit of a update since the Autumn is closing in. So did a skid at the infamous Grand Stand last weekend, just to keep my eye in. We have another event locally mid November, but by then we (the local drifters) will be attending Matsuri with a couple of S14 so we should have some good time in two weeks time. So far that will be the drifting for this year...., since the winters here are long, wet and dark there are few possible outcomes for next year. I have a spare M52B28 laying around so could use the crank, rods with some forged pistons, studs and steel gasket and build them up in a cast iron block so I can get the use of my ported Eaton M62 compressor. Other possible outcome might be related to this car getting a 4.6 Alpina engine swapped from a X5 with 4.6is or the engine going in a S14 low mileage shell so I can use the BMW meanwhile and after that see what life brings ... Some shots from the event thanks to Matty and Jessica. Thx for looking.
Evening. First of all I should post up a update from Drift Matsuri which was brilliant specially towards the track layouts and the amount of seat time everyone had. We had to do a quick gearbox change Saturday morning on Nick`s S14.3 which other than that ran great all weekend. The only other trouble we had was that when I went out in Sam`s S14, late on Saturday we noticed that she puffs a cloud of white smoke from the exhaust and had lost some coolant. That had said it all, the car had to be retired from the Sunday runs to make sure she will drive back to the IOM with no dramas. Here is a short video in which we have been captured swapping gearboxes. Sam`s car..., thanks Sam. Ross doing a thing after Nick took me out to show me how he can crash in the tires while drifting in 3rd gear. Has been just under a month (15th of November), since the last Manx drift event which was awesome towards the seat time we had and the 2nd layout we have used for some more skillful drift in 2nd and 3rd gear skids. Unfortunately due to the poor weather conditions there was hardly any footage from the event, although I`ll post what we have. I have some on board when I had Jay out with me. https://www.facebook.com/jay.young.9041/videos/10156201442640433/ Aswell one from Tri`s camera work. https://www.facebook.com/TristanKewley/videos/10156263867130048/ All in all the season has been great for me, car has performed faultless other than engine and gearbox mounts failure which was expected, for now those have been upgraded with some hard rubber ones from E34 M50 mounts which I had in stock. For next set I have my eye on a polyurethane engine and box mounts made by a Polish company and sold on Ebay, if anyone here has experience with those would be glad to get some feedback. Other than that my rear upper arm spherical joints are a bit noisy so those are due to be replaced which I have in stock as well. Future upgrade before next season will be to replace the standard exhaust for weight reduction and at the same time convert the lower rear arms to spherical joints like the M3`s are. At the same time I would like to modify the rear subframe and drop the fixing points on the lower arms so they can become close to parallel with the upper arms which will improve even more the rear end grip. I`ll take myself back to my previous post due to that I have decided to go ahead with plan A since I`ve sourced a M50B25 complete motor, mainly for the cast iron block so I can stroke it to 2.8 and supercharge it. Finally managed to source a tow van which has soaked some of the stroker money as well with me having to do B+E and source a trailer to transport the car to Spring Matsuri, that`s the plan anyway. Before next season main job to do is sorting a lightweight flywheel and uprated clutch with that I have bought a fiberglass bonnet which I`m strugling to get posted to IOM at the moment. For the FW I`ll be looking at the DW lightweight to go along with a M5 sprung friction disc and standard or uprated pressure plate of which I have a couple of standard ones in stock so I`ll be down to the budget. Thanks for looking and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all.
Evening everyone. First post in the new year with not big updates so far. Hopefully to changed that soon. Cheers Andy, hope so to. So far missed the booking and need to check how things would work out for Drift Cup at the same time, might just do that. Progress is little as nothing for the moment, Stripped my M52 block and checked the condition of the rotating assembly. All looked good, crank is on first grind in perfect shape which I`m guessing is from when BMW was sourcing replacement short motors for the pre 98 cars with dodgy blocks that were getting done under warranty. Anyway, had a go at the pistons with such result for reduced detonations... Other than that I have swaped diffs., now running a 3.15 from the stock 2.93. The stock one is stripped and getting build to 3,64 so I can drift on 17, 18 inch wheels and tires. Just need to swap the pinion and crown wheels, shim and preload it. Something else I have done is stripped the M50B25 motor to short motor. I was going to stroke it as stated above, but after doing the mats about the output the Eaton M62 supercharger it would not flow enough air for 2.8l motor as well the B25 are well known to hold massive power outputs so for now it will stay stock. I will replace the usual gaskets as rocker cover, inlet manifold, etc. Very likely fit another M3 oil filter housing so I can leave the other one on the B28 motor I run now and have it as spare motor. The short B25 motor will be painted black wrinkle before going back together btw. Coming weekend I should hopefully machine my smaller SC pulley to fit, going from stock 94mm to 62mm pulley which is just under 2.3 (2.274) ratio to the stock M50 front main pulley. That would spin the SC on rev stock rev limiter at 14782 rpm and should make something like 12-14 psi of positive pressure from idle to rev limiter depending on pipe routing losses and heat loss. Btw I have ported the SC, so should have increased its performance by around 10% which makes it about as efficient as a turbocharger = 68%. Managed to have a look around for nice body kits of which I only liked the Racing Dynamics one which are to rare to look for, or the Pandem Rocket Bunny which is to pricey to my budget. At the end things took turn towards me making my own custom aero kit. So that`s where I am so far. Thanks for reading.
are those rear e46 upper arms wider then the E36 ones ? and are they really lighter, because i cant image this ^^
