[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

Howdy! New to the E9x forum, but a long time Bimmerpost fan and active on the M2 F87 pages. After 5 years of tracking my M2 and meeting many like-minded souls at the track, a group of us finally decided to build an endurance car. We finally found a perfect donor - a 2011 auto E90, and will be documenting our journey on YouTube - feel free to drop by and say hi! Looking forward to chatting with many of you as we will surely find many things unique to the E92 that we'll be reaching out to you all for help.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

Well a week later and we have stripped the interior, removed the seats and airbags and now need to work on removing the sound insulation. We then have engine and tranny preventative maintenance scheduled for September and cage install in early October.

https://youtube.com/shorts/7deM-PiGsY0?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/iGDH0K_4FxY?feature=share

[rismo]

Nice project! Keep us posted, planning to convert mine also to a dedicated track car. Keen to learn from your adventure.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

[san40k]

Have you seen https://spece9x.com/ ? Doesn't seem to be super popular, but might be useful.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

We are going off the list - somewhat loosely though because we are not planning to participate in the spec class.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

3 months later we are now 3 days away from our first test. Here is an update from this last weekend:

https://youtube.com/shorts/AGhTCSqTO...1SBYXH24t76RNd

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

First shakedown test is in the books!

[M-technik-3]

That's an expensive build, hope the AT holds up. Any reason why you did not purchase someone else's build?

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

Part of the experience for us was building out the car itself. It was a project car for us and something to bond over the off-season on.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

… and the fun continues now that we are digging deeper into the implications of running the N51 engine while trying to maximize its power delivery:

[simontibbett]

Originally Posted by GasBurnlife(landapanda)

… and the fun continues now that we are digging deeper into the implications of running the N51 engine while trying to maximize its power delivery:

Really cool informative video there. Props for doing so much research and knowing what you have!

VIR in March? Need a driver/coach? I have a few thousand laps there.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

We may actually. We all have a good number of laps at vir but haven’t driven the south config.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

We’ll we are finally done with all the mechanical work. Finished installing plastic rear windows and exhaust install yesterday, so posting a few vids of progress.

https://youtube.com/shorts/92pG97H3k...eipZC_pRHeixD9

https://youtube.com/shorts/X2jbFaXOd...g30qJSAlZBOBLp

https://youtube.com/shorts/W0hUw8Ksi...QjckosyDvgA4ZQ

https://youtube.com/shorts/tbT3WvgHD...QXybj8hia-fR42

[rismo]

In regards to the AT, what I have learned is to manage it's temp and replace the fluid as soon as you have overheated the oil.
This requires ideally a good ZF diagnostics head to readout the TCU metrics and also a cooling solution.
The stock cooling is not adequate and might lead to severe and premature wear. The rebuild of the gearbox on my former 3 series costed me around 2.5/3k. I then learned from that mechanic that much more and relevant metrics can be pulled from the TCU itself.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

Appreciate the info. What’s the max temp threshold to keep the temps under?

[rismo]

If I remember well target around max 100/105c with an operating temp at 90.

What I learned is that to keep the box in shape, flush the atf as soon as you suspect sincere overheating. This as the ATF becomes significant less efficient afterwards.

On my n54 the gearbox temp trailed during warmup in avg 10-15 behind engine temps. So these gearboxes warmup slower and so later full operational when compared to the engine itself.

I checked the ZF ATF spec sheet but much info about these ranges is not provided:

https://aftermarket.zf.com/remotemed...-australia.pdf

I did find this link with halfway a nice graphic showing some temperature ranges and impact:

https://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/...%20ATF%20fluid.

[FiberMonkey]

We run an E90 in Champ/Lucky. Are you going to try to make the 24 hr at VIR this year? It would be awesome to have another E90 on track. We didn't make the March race this year. We were running at CMP that weekend. You should check out Lucky Dog. No points restrictions.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

Hi - no plan for the 24h race. We are focusing on AER this year and will be back at VIR at the end of this month. Hopefully we’ll run into you at one of the next races.

[dominancex]

Originally Posted by GasBurnlife(landapanda)

Hi - no plan for the 24h race. We are focusing on AER this year and will be back at VIR at the end of this month. Hopefully we’ll run into you at one of the next races.

That's exciting, we just ran AER @ Watkins Glen. I won't be able to make it to VIR but the team (Laying Pipe Racing) should be there. Would love to check out the build if you'll be at any other events. I usually take my E90 out during HDPE in the morning.

[GasBurnlife(landapanda)]

Awesome, would like to see your build. We will be back at Summit Point for the AER race at the end of June.