Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Two cars will be built because we have two interested party’s. One is Rick, he’s done the race before, he wants to promote his BMW repair business, he also wants to involve the people who work for him and to include his family. The other is Frank, and he simply wants to go racing, he’s done it in many forms before, and now the Carrera is his intention.

So now we need something to start with and Frank was first to find two available candidates. One had been locked away in a shipping container for a decade or more and the other set rusting nearby in the same backyard. Both of these cars came at the right price, free, that made the decision easy to take a closer look at them.

While Rick owns a shop, and sees a lot cars come through, 2002’s aren’t as commonplace as they once were, so the next one came from an ad on Craigslist. The pictures advertised what looked to be a solid choice, except they never showed the front left fender. Sure enough, that was bent along with the frame, but for $500 it was worth seeing if it could be straightened. In short order two more appeared. One being an orange lovely, dragged out of a garden in Sebastopol, and traded for an oil change. The other, a very clean 1976 square taillight, big bumper model. Too nice to cut up, and when sold, it’s worth its weight in racing parts.

The job of evaluating the last four and reducing to a final two was fairly easy. The ‘67 beige 1600 yard find had too much rust to be rebuild and made reliable. It’s headed for the scrap bin. The 1973 gray primered car, while a good prospect, but with the bent frame, will be held in reserve. That leaves us with the green 1969 container find, and the orange ‘72, as the best prospects. This pair is over 35 years old and have some dents and corrosion that needs to be repaired and thats the next step.

Both of these will now be stripped down to the bare minimum inside and out, scraped and sanded, have some excess metal removed, and bodywork done.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Moving Forward

The projects aim is to build two cars for the 2009 La Carrera Panamericana race and to have one of them ready for the 2009 Chihuahua Express race in March. For that to happen, a lot of things are going to have to move forward…quickly. The red car has been to the body shop to have the fenders and nose panel replaced, and will now sit while the green car advances in the fabrication process.

The fuel cell has been set into place, and some brazing done to the body to fill holes where trim was attached and rust had settled. The inside of the car has been taken down to bare metal, and most of the mechanicals

have been removed except for the wheels to keep it mobile. The present job involves building a roll cage. This has become one of the most important requirements to let a car through technical inspection, after an accident in

2006 critically injured a co driver without an adequate one. Once the roll cage is finished, a dashboard will be fashioned and then the car is ready to paint.
 
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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Standing Still

If you are standing still you can hear the clock ticking for the countdown to have a car ready for the Chihuahua Express. Unfortunately, it’s looking like things aren’t going to progress fast enough to be prepared for that race. The upside is, the roll cage is finished along with the dash and mounting the fuel cell, which means the car is now off to the body and paint shop. Once that’s done, the stack of parts can be assembled and things will start to advance more rapidly.

The seats are here along with most of the safety gear and communications. There was a problem with the coil-over suspension, it came for a completely different type car, but that’s been remedied. All the brake parts are sitting in boxes, waiting. The transmission and differential are all set to be put in, but the motor is another story. The head has been sent out to the experts to be worked on and it’s ready. But the pistons are another week away, and that means the block can’t be worked on until they’re here. No pistons= no block= no motor. The math is unfriendly, but there’s thirty days until the convoy leaves El Paso, let’s see what happens.

Please read: www.lcp2007.blogspot.com

The weekend of October 22-23 was the 24 Hours of LeMons race also known as THE SKANKAWAY ANTI-TOE-FUNGAL 500, SPONSORED BY CRUSKIN-SKANKAWAY INC., THE OFFICIAL FUNGICIDAL TOE CREME OF LEMONS. That’s quite a mouthful, even for a Lemons race. The Dream Team from North Bay Bavarian was driving a BMW 325, a car donated by Martin Lauber, who is currently battling for contention in Mexico’s La Carrera Americana. Good luck to their Alfa Romeo team!

The weekend started with a tech inspection ruling that the car had too many race parts. Understand that the premise of the race is to have a car that does not exceed $500 to buy and prepare. The NBB car was awarded only a 29 lap penalty, thankfully because their VIN number ends in 29 not 99.

Saturday’s race started with Dream Teamer John Sparks, setting a hot pace and erasing a few of those penalty laps. He actually ran the races fastest lap until about mid-day Saturday. The rest of the day went fairly smoothly, other than a couple of black flags collected by the Row family. These infractions were overcome by generous donations of cash and promises to be better human beings in the future. The end of the day finished well for the team, with no major problems.

The thing I noticed about this race, was that cars were really going for it out there, no putt putt’en around, just let’s go fast and get outta my way, even if I don’t know what I’m doing!

Sunday’s racing went well until about mid-day. With Dream Teamer Derrick Welch driving a very fast, but relaxed pace, he was bumped hard by The Mini Moke Thing into another car and into the wall.

That little get-together tore up the left side of the car, bent up a steering arm, bumper and rear wheel, and caused some over heating problems. Nothing the Dream Team couldn’t repair, but it put a major kink in any thoughts of pulling off a come from behind win.

 About 40 minutes in the pits for repairs got the car back out again on the track with Dream Team driver Frank Bushman taking no prisoners, and making up for lost time. Unfortunately because of the accident, and the front end being tweaked, the car developed a problem with over heating. Back into pit row, more repairs and D.T. Captain Matthew Row taking over, making a slow climb back up the standings. By now, the engine had also developed a rod knock which finally proved to be fatal before the end of the day.

The final standings show that North Bay Bavarian’s Front Row Racing finished 97th out of 164 starters, completing 212 of 378 laps. A solid middle of the pack showing, and all drivers agreed that a good time was had by all.

October is the month that racing will get going again for the Spec E30 group at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. I thought I’d be telling about the results from the September racing, but there wasn’t any E30 racing at either Infineon or Thunderhill.

 It’s also the month for the start of the La Carrera Panamericana in Mexico. One of the cars participating, a BMW 2002, was built by North Bay Bavarian, it finished well last year, and we wish them all the best this time around.

 What all this is leading up to, is that there is not much to report. So what we’ll do is go back again and show some videos of BMW’s. I hope you have some extra time because there is about 90 of these. They are mainly about the 2002 and are in German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and even English. Some are short one minute commercials, and others are longer, telling the history of the that model.  52 BMW 2002 ads

 Tired yet? Here’s more infomercials on the “New Class” of the German car, the 1500, 1600, 1800 and 2000. There’s also some movie clips from the 60’s and 70’s with a chase or two with those cars . The bad guys seem to always be driving the BMW’s, being chased by a blond hero in a Alfa Romeo.   More Bmw videos

Now, how about a E30 rally car going really fast in the rain, shown from the in car camera     323i E30 

And finally, this last but not least video is from 2007, showing a race from Valerbanen Race Track in Norway. The car is a 1968 2002ti, that works hard to pass almost everyone on the track.            bmw

 And after everything is all said and done, we’ve watched all the videos, we know the 2002 is a great car, you’ve got to have one. But what do you do to make it really special, maybe something like this. Now that’s a 2002!!

At least that’s what Harry Hogge/Robert Duvall told Cole Trickle/Tom Cruise in “Days of Thunder”. I only bring that up here because, it’s been awhile from the our last entry, and since we’ve had no on-site reports or pretty pictures from the track, we need to show some kind of racin’ and a little rubbin. After all, this blog is mainly about BMW’s, so what better way to show you that than some videos with what they do best, handle great and go fast!

Let’s start with a video showing highlights from the The Festival of Speed in New Zealand 2008 and moving on to tracks in the US of A. There’s a little bit of everything here, crashes, spins and rubbin….     ‘69 BMW 2002

Next we’ll watch another 2002 at the 2007 Northwest Historics at Pacific Raceway in Kent, Washington. This guy seems to be able keep up OK and even pass a few cars…    ‘68 BMW at Pacific Raceways

And finally, how about a little more modern BMW. A very fast E36 from the Dutch Supercar Challange in the Netherlands in about 2006. I recommend turning up the volume so the sound of the transmission’s straight-cut gears can clear your mind…     BMW E36

And that’s some tidbits to keep things alive in blog world for now. There’s a few new things going on at North Bay Bavarian,  some new cars and drivers to take a look at before the next races in September.

Harry Hogge: Cole, you’re wandering all over the track!
Cole Trickle: Yeah, well this son of a bitch just slammed into me.
Harry Hogge: No, no, he didn’t slam you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you… he *rubbed* you. And rubbin, son, is racin’.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The BMW 2002

A short history will tell you that BMW or Bavarian Motor Works is an old company, dating back to 1916. Originally a manufacture of aircraft engines, they were forced to stop production after WW1 and shifted to motorcycles by 1923. In the 30’s they began again to build aircraft engines for Germany’s Luftwaffe. In the long run, that didn’t work out, so by 1959 they were on the brink of bankruptcy. The gas shortage of the late 50’s revived the company with the building of the Italian designed Isetta or the ” Bubble Car”. In the early 60’s BMW started to produce what was known as the “New Class” starting with the 1500. This was the start of the company’s comeback into the automobile market. The 1500 ultimately led to the development of the 1600, 1800, 2000 and 2002. The 2002 was produced between 1968 and 1976 and was probably the most important model in BMW’s history. It’s designation stands for 2 liter engine and 2 doors, hence 2002. The 2-door sedan redefined the image of BMW. It combined powerful engine and agile handling with solid German build quality and practical 4-person accommodation into a reasonably priced package.

It actually started life in 1966 in the form of 1600-2 (2 doors). It was derived from the contemporary 1600 sedan, with rear doors deleted and wheelbase shortened by 50 mm to make it lighter and more agile for handling. Its 1.6-litre sohc engine produced 85 horsepower and enabled the 2100 lb little car to outperform many contemporary sports cars. Its all independent suspensions (with MacPherson struts up front and semi-trailing arm at the rear) and front disc brakes were not found in any cars at the same price level, providing great handling. On the other hand, 1600-2 provided all the practicalities of a sedan – a properly-sized rear seats, excellent visibility (thanks to large windows and slim pillars) and a big trunk.The 1600-2 received many appreciations from the press and the market. Sales exceeded BMW’s expectation and production volume ramped up quickly to meet demand. But this was only the beginning. Next year, BMW introduced 1600ti, a hotter version of 1600-2. It used higher compression ratio and twin-choke Solex carburetors to raised the output to 105 hp.

Because the 1600ti engine could not pass Federal emission regulations, it was not offered in the US. With the huge potential of that market in mind, BMW developed a 2.0-litre engine for the car. Big engine in a small car, it became the mighty 2002. About 80,000 were produced for the US, in total about 425,000 were produced world wide. The cars built from the years 1968 to 1973 had the round tail lights, while the cars built from 1974 to 1976 had bigger bumpers, and square tail lights. Various state of tune were available: the regular 2002 had a single carburetor to produce 100 hp, the 2002ti got 120 hp through twin-carburetors and lastly, a mechanical fuel injection and higher compression ratio helped 2002tii to squeeze out 130 hp. In the latter form, it could top 118 mph and did 0-60 mph in 8.2 seconds.

So this short history of the “The Ultimate Driving Machine” now takes us to finding one or two for the La Carrera Panamericana.

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