My first Enduro event.

Sunday 31st of May 09, I took part in my first enduro race @ Lacock (Naish Hill), what an eye opener!

2 of my friends and I all did our bike tests at the end of last year and bought ourselves off road machines. I chose an '04 KTM 250excf, Hugh got a '02 Yamaha WR250 and Ted(another Alex) a Suzuki DR350. We did a fair amount of 'green laning' and charging about up on Salisbury plain and a few other places local to us, but none of that could of prepared us for Sunday! I'd had a run of bad luck with my bike and a lack of time (working on the cars every weekend) meant I'd hardly used it for the last 2-3 months, so I was a bit out of practice/shape (getting the excuses in early).

The event was to start at 11am and finish at 2pm, with the winner being the person to do the most amount of laps in that time. Each lap was approx 3.5 miles.
The three of us had initially said we would stick together for the first lap, but once the flag was dropped, it was every man for himself!
I got the fastest lap out of the three of us on the very first lap, but I was pushing too hard and after another half a lap I had to pull over to the side and get my breath back for 5-10 minutes, the heat was killer and lack of experience meant I was putting in 2 or 3 times as much effort as I really needed. I was holding onto the the handle bars for grim death and my forearms quickly became the weakest link, meaning regular stops to try and get fresh blood into them or risk falling off or letting the bike get the better of you. At one point in the wooded section I dropped the bike on a tight corner with 5 guys right behind me, I completely blocked the track, I was completely drained and have no idea how I got the bike up and out of the way, but the effort I had to summon left me screwed for a good 10 minutes after, but luckily I didn't hold the other competitors up for more than a moment. Lesson learnt, stop when your tired!
After a couple of hours we all started to get the feel for it and were pootling round at an average pace with no-one really knowing who had done the most laps out of us three, I thought I was at least 2 laps down on Ted and 1 down on Hugh, meaning Ted would take the honours.
A phone call later that eveing from a slightly disappointed Ted, revealed that Hugh had actually taken the honours as he's managed to cross the start/finish line a minute before the end, and as he completed his lap within the given time meant he'd done 10 laps, and Ted and I had done 9. 31 miles in 3 hours!
Its questionable if I enjoyed it at the time, especially for the first couple of hours and I didn't sleep very well last night as each time I moved a different muscle would hurt. Today I ache like never before..... but I'm itching to get back out there and do it all again!! : )


Hugh, Alex(Ted) and I all geared up and ready to go.

The three of us at the start.

Trying to look cool for a photo, nearly lost control of the bike! lol

Me holding someone up through the woods.

The 2002 is here!

Well 2 days after the M3 turned up, I took delivery of a Lhd 1802 and 3 pallets of spares, which basically comprised of a 2002tii without the body shell, so; engine, front struts with uprated calipers, whole rear beam assembly, more chrome trim than I know what to do with, some spare seats, all the bits needed to convert back to Rhd (doubt I'll bother) and loads and loads of bits which I have no idea what they are, all in random boxes, with no lables or instructions, tis gonna be fun!

Its arrived!

6pm on the 19th of May 2009 I became the proud owner of an BMW e30 M3 shell. The shell was bought from an advert seen on E30zone.net. Unfortunately the shell was up in Glasgow so it was bought without seeing it in the flesh. I arranged for a transporter company to collect and deliver it to me.
As you can see from the photos above, the car had no suspension or wheels and so had to be lifted on/off the trailer, which wasn't TOO bad with 4 guys. The seller gave me 4 roller type things that he had the car sat on which helped getting it off the trailer and will be useful for moving the car about for a few weeks until it has the suspension and wheels back on.

What I got
The shell was sold to me with a heap of other bits, including; Rear bumper, replacement front slam panel, replacement scuttle, steering rack, brake servo and master cylinder, pedal box, dash, steering column, heater box, boge rear shocks and original springs, 5 stud front suspension struts with brake calipers, 5 stud rear trailing arms complete with brake calipers, rear subframe, rear spoiler. There was also the remnants of the original wiring loom, an engine wiring loom but both were in a right mess and most of it was chucked!



Bits I've managed to find/had already:
M3 instrument cluster
Passenger side door
Rear tail lights
S14 Engine (complete)
Gearbox
Prop
LSD Diffs - 3.25, 3.63, 4.1

Bits that I need;
Front wings
Bonnet (fibre glass or CF)
Front bumper
Front Windscreen
Rear windscreen
Drivers side door
Rear quarter glass
Front subframe
Wing mirrors
Exhaust
Wheels and tyres
Boot lid (fibreglass)
Fuel tank
Coolant expansion tank
Side skirts

The plan
I am going to restore the car back up to a nice standard but as it is going to be used for track days and racing in the TTRS so there's no point going over the top and trying to bring it back to concourse condition.
I've built two normal e30 2 door track cars from the ground up, a 318i that I raced in the PBMWC in 2008, and a 325i which was being built for TTRS, this was finished a few weeks ago (only took around 5 weeks in total) and has been used for 2 track days so far, and have another booked for this Friday @ Castle Combe. Having built two of these already (ok, the m3 is slightly different) I'm fairly confident that I can get this done in a reasonable time scale. I plan on having it drivable by the beginning of September, doing all the work myself.

Build Specifications
-Repair damaged panels and rusty spots.
-Strip remaining sound deadening and remove any other excess weight.
-Complete re-spray in either White with the Warsteiner livery or Orange with the Jagermiester livery. As one of the guys I may be racing against next year has just done the white option I guess I know which I'll go with......white! lol


-Safety devices B6 Multipoint roll cage - with added triangulation to the front struts.
-GAZ coilovers
-Adjustable rear brake bias and running rear brake line through the cabin
-Run fuel lines through the cabin
-Fire extinguisher and an electrical cut-off switch
-Racing seats and harnesses
-15" or 16" wheels with toyo R888 tyres
-Uprated anti roll bars
-Solid rear subframe bushes, engine mounts, diff bush, transmission bushes
-Pagid brake pads
-Brake cooling backplates and ducting from the front bumper
-Faster steering rack and custom pipework - Lhd E46 item
-Odyssey lightweight racing battery
-Loads of other stuff I can't think of right now.....

Bank holiday weekend coming up so I'm hoping to make a good start on it. I will be photographing everything as I go along and making regular updates to the blog.
I have also taken on another project which will be turning up tomorrow, a bmw 2002. Currently LHD, in inca orange with a dead engine, coming with 3 pallets of spares including everything to convert to RHD and a 2.0l engine. Mine for £100! Couldn't say no! Probably going to put a 2.5 M20 engine into it and a 2002 turbo body kit and just use it as a run around. Will end up looking something like this......except maybe orange or white depending on which colour the M3 goes : )