Doogee Dakar M3 Track Build

[dcramer]

Originally Posted by DItalianJob

interesting... with mid corner understeer i would of tried increasing the rear spring rate 100lbs or softening the front. Im interested now to see if your bigger bar will help. Keep us updated...

i admire your persistency AND your ability to complete your project. I guess its come down to fine tuning and seat time now...

I'm curious too, as my understanding is that a bigger front bar will increase understeer.

[Bullet Ride]

It might, it might not. When you get into fine tuning turn in, mid-corner, and exit characteristics of the car things become fairly complex because you're dealing with both transient and steady state suspension characteristics. So when you make a change to affect one characteristic the other characteristics will be affected as well. There's always a compromise to be made.

I'd say if the car feels good on corner entry and exit and there's only really a couple corners where it's bothering you it might be something as simple as changing your line through the corner or being a bit softer on the throttle. However I definitely think it's still worth it to play with things like the sway bar, shock settings, and tire pressures that way you'll get a really good understanding of what the car likes and doesn't like.

I'm sure I'll see you there this summer

[DItalianJob]

Originally Posted by dble Trouble

???? Forget Mosport? More like forget Cayuga! Did you recently buy shares over there or something?

lol
I know... Cayuga??? True... it is a smaller, very flat, and sometimes boring track but what surprises me is it's continuing benefits for car setup/improvement and car control... and on rainy days its VERY fun and insightful... And its open NOW!
Big track, small track, autoslalom... they each have something to give and help expand ones driving toolbox.

Mosport is by far my favourite track and was not dishing it at all.
I can hardly wait to see everyone at the Trillium BMW track and autoslalom events this year.
The season has already started...

[doogee]

Very excited to get out! I agree Cayuga would be amazing practice in the rain. I wish Shannonville was closer!


As for the front swaybar, yes on most vehicles a stiffer bar will increase understeer. I can't remember the reasoning behind the E36's geometry but Scotch (Arek from 8legsracing) explained it in a thread on here somewhere. A huge sway bar on any E36 track car is definitely a no brainer. Same goes for the E46.

I'm happy with the way I'm driving through 3 and 8, but it is definitely the car holding me back. I prefer the way my daily driver e36 behaves in those two corners specifically haha. So I'm going to pull the UUC bar off that and put it on the M3.

Once that is done and the brakes are sorted, I'm very confident in dropping my laptimes significantly this year. I averaged mid to high 1:36's last season but I believe the car has atleast 1:34 in it, probably even quicker once I improve as a driver.

I'm shipping out the leaky shock to TcKline tomorrow, hopefully I'll have that back in within two weeks.

[Axxe]

Nice progress! I hope to have my DD ready to hit the track again. I haven't had my own car on a track in years.

[DItalianJob]

Originally Posted by doogee

The car under steers a little in turn 3 and 8. Can't point the car in enough mid corner.

i was thinking about this and thought of something i ran into that you could easily check.

Since it is only on long right turns and in mid-corner... it is possible it is spring rate related. Also you mentioned you have not corner balanced yet. Corner balancing/alignment is soooo important and would be the first thing i would do to have a firm base to fine tune from.

That said, i would suspect you may have some preload on one of your end links from your front or rear swaybar. I encountered a similar situation on my car... it would turn great one way but have slight understeer mid corner the other way. I got home put it on my scales and found the rear bar had some preload on it. I adjusted the endlink for zero preload and next track day the car was cornering the same right or left.

Anyway, an easy way to check without balancing equipment is level the garage floor (you can use vinyl floor tiles as tire pads to level) then role the car on the pads. Crawl under the car and loosen one of the endlinks from the rear. The endlink bolt should undo and easily come on and off. Check the front also.

If you do find preload... make sure both a front and a rear end link is undone... then role the car back and forth about 10ft and put back on the pads. Then adjust the end link or modify it if not adjustable to get the preload out and bolt back on.

worth a try...
I would get it corner balanced and properly aligned... before trying to susp tune.

-daniel

[doogee]

I had a small amount of time to get something done on the car today so I decided to get the rear view mirror mounted up. I had a serious problem with vibration and the location of the mirror last season.

So rather than mounting it to the body of the car I tried the cage. I used some hose clamps with some rubber to isolate the vibrations. Much better now!

[Racer]

Originally Posted by doogee

I had a small amount of time to get something done on the car today so I decided to get the rear view mirror mounted up. I had a serious problem with vibration and the location of the mirror last season.

So rather than mounting it to the body of the car I tried the cage. I used some hose clamps with some rubber to isolate the vibrations. Much better now!

THAT'S(!) how to deal with understeer!
Also, get some light weight brake lines... Less weight up front - less push.

Oh, and...

[davericher20]

lol

[DItalianJob]

Originally Posted by Racer

THAT'S(!) how to deal with understeer!
Also, get some light weight brake lines... Less weight up front - less push.

Oh, and...

lol

he is going in the right direction with the mirrors...
driver improvement >>> he is working on his VISION...

[doogee]

Today I got a proper crankcase vent set up. Rather than spending $100 for a breather tank I decided to make one up myself. I ended up using a power steering reservoir. Mounted it upside down, used one port as the inlet and put a breather filter on the other. Plugged up the vent on the cap and good to go!

Just going to tap the bottom of the cap and put a twist style drain on it.

I went this route because now there aren't any hoses to worry about cracking. Don't really need oil vapors being sent back through the intake either.

[sb_600]

Nice! Only downside is you're going to have to drain it every now and then... Which isn't a big deal.

I have mine running back into the dipstick

[doogee]

So I'm planning on taking the car out to Mosport for Tuesday. Hopefully the weather holds up since I dont really have anything to drive on in the rain yet

I got some work done on the car the last two days, the car is almost ready.

Nice new hood and bumper were painted last week so I went ahead and installed those. The car looks much cleaner now.



Hood pins and whatnot:



Today I tackled the brake ducts which weren't the easiest things to figure out. But I'm very happy with how they turned out. I used the original ducts I had made out of fiberglass and mounted them to the bumper shocks rather than the bumper. This way I can remove the bumper without having to undo anything.

Ducts mounted:


Hose routed:


The tires slightly pinch the tubing around full lock so I'm going to get some rack limiters in the future to prevent any damage.


So only a few small things to check off the list. I still need to drain the coolant and full it with water, tinker with the brakes a little more and possibly put the bigger front swaybar on.

We'll see how things go!

[iverson03tj]

Wats the advantages of having a crankcase vent set up

[doogee]

Originally Posted by iverson03tj

Wats the advantages of having a crankcase vent set up

All vehicles have one. I just deleted the stock system so it's one less thing to go wrong.