Tuesday 11 September 2007

E30 M3 Group Ring Trip




The weekend started with a trip to Camberley to meet up with a mate who was towing his M3 out for the weekend - I had left mine at the ring three weeks previous.

we were taking out a replacement diff 3.64 ratio to be fitted to my M3 - Olli was also fitting a new prop shaft and two drive shafts - Oh and a new starter motor & spark plugs ........

Olli fitted the Diff and I picked the car up at 330pm drove (gently) to Adenau to book into the hotel and then drove back straight to Olli as there was a strange noise coming from the back :-(

We got in the car for a run so he could listen to the noise - but we could not go anywhere as one of the new shafts had snapped!!!! Olli took them off and put the old ones back on :-( - so I did not get on the Ring until 540pm so lost 20/25 minutes - did 4/5 laps - going well. Last lap and parked up to have a coffee - went back to the car and the battery was flat again.......?

Down Pistenklaus for dinner with the crew - no beers no wine as driving to Adenau - at the end of the night went out to the car - flat battery again - jump start and off to Adenau - pulled into the Aral garage and bought and fitted a new battery.

Up in the morning and out to the car - guess what - flat battery..........................

Lex at the enroadcafe jumped me and I was off down to the track few good laps and then up to Olli's to put the R888's on - noticed the cooling fan was staying on a long time mmmmmm Olli checked it out and found a loose wire - he sorted this and problem solved. However, all the jump starting had effected the ABS - i.e. it no longer worked - tried cleaning the sensors to no avail - so no ABS

Did some fast laps and really getting into the groove - funny thing though all our cars started running rich? nobody could work it out? Front nearside tyre was very worn (even driving on three wheels wasn't helping) by now so I went down to Olli's to change it but I missed him....damm - he had said he would be in Sunday so I thought OK go down in the morning but sadly no Olli - he eventually turned up at lunch time with his Mum and Dad going to the DTM race but it meant I only got passenger laps in the morning. He fitted my spare R888 and I was off for some more laps

I was being chased by a GT3 for most of a lap but the extra power of the GT3 on the straights meant I let him by :-) He came up in the car park later to say I was on good lines but the car was doing a good impersonation of a flame thrower. LOL

My brakes started to rumble badly again with pad transfer - I thought I had cured this with the new pads ....

One of the guys who was in a 540 saloon (he is rebuilding his M3) had a video cam in the car and followed me for most of a lap when I get it from him I will post it on Youtube - decided against this since a guy I know got a one day ban for doing this.

We were going out for a lap about 5pm with all the M3's in convoy I was behind Kevin at the front of the convoy and we were going strong but going down to Briedshied bridge the gear lever detached from the box and I had no gears - fortunately it had come out of gear and I was able to brake, put on the hazards and steer thro the gate into the car park at Adenau..

Phoned ADAC and they came and picked me up ( eventually - about 1 3/4 later) and took me to Munch where some of the damaged cars from the day were stored - the red Swedish 911 RS 964 was particularly sad - I believe he came together with an Mitsibitsi Evo in Wipperman which spun him backwards into the Armco

ADAC then delivered the car to Olli's in the morning and I went down to Mullenbach and they had a gear lever which Olli adapted and fitted to the car - works fine but it has changed the throw which feels odd because I have been driving it with the previous throw for 7 years.

Then while having a coffee and a piece of cake - a German asked me a question and I turned to answer and then took a bite of cake - something buzzed and stung the inside of my mouth - a f*****g wasp - I did kill it with my chewing :-(at this point I did think of flying home and leaving the car there :-(

Drive home in convoy with a couple of mates - delays on the Brussels RO meant we missed the 2000 and had to wait for the 2200 - got home at 0200 knackered. Good news the pads/disks seemed to have cleared.