SCTS Racing M4 Race Car Build

[scottn2retro]

Originally Posted by C-Mu

This is awesome. Thanks fellas.

You're welcome. A lot more to come

More tube welding. The driver's side X bars are in


View of all the bars from the trunk

[scottn2retro]

X Joint covers for the driver's side


Gusset tubes from the main hoop to the A pillar bar


Another view of all the tubes from the back


Had to chop off the ends of the OEM dash bar to get it to fit between the A pillar bars


Next up - one of my favorite custom features - mid car jacking points!

[scottn2retro]

Okay, one of the special features of our car is going to be these 'mid-car' jacking points. Over the next so many years, these are going to be a huge help in letting us get the car up on 4 jack stands at home or in the pits.

They turned out to be more toward the aft OEM jack pad spots than at the midway point between them byecause we don't want to catch them on the lift ramp (important).

First prep the area with the Crud Thug and remove the undercoating stuff. Rocker Panel covers were off when we sent it to the cage shop.


Using a break, shape the steel plates to fit the rocker panels and create an oval hole to accept e46 style jack pads


Next, you need some steel the right thickness for the 'teeth' of the jack pad to grab onto. So these are going to end up inside the rocker panel

[scottn2retro]

Test fit the e46 style jack pad (cut down in height) onto the receiver plate. This the part that will be hidden up in the rocker panel


The side on the bottom of the car that we'll be putting the jack on (center button not pushed in yet)

[scottn2retro]

Cut a hole in the rocker panel for the plate to fit up in there. Looks pretty hollow in there and it's thin metal - thus the need for the load spreading of the jack pad receiver plates


Steve started with a hole he knew was just a little too small and using the circular grinder to make the hole just big enough for the plate to fit up in there


There you go - jack pad receiver plates tacked in place between holes for the rocker panel cover attachments

[scottn2retro]

Had to throw some paint on that bare steel of the jack pad plates


OEM dash bar adapter on the passenger side


OEM dash bar adapter on the driver's side


OEM dash bar in place adapted to work with the cage

[scottn2retro]

And it's done as the car sees the light of day again for the first time in a month. Cage done by Steve Pavlov at Pavlov Racing Service
http://www.pavlovracing.com/

Coordinated through Lang Racing Development
http://www.langracing.com/



And it's time to load it up


And it's off to the Paint shop


And arrived at Gerry's Body & Paint in Santa Ana

[scottn2retro]

Okay, we are now up to album M4 Build Part 4:
https://www.facebook.com/26857413333...30889853766997

At the paint shop, a rear fender well before they fix it


Body shop making it nice and smooth


Working the center console as well

[Sergm3]

Keep up good work looking good

[Rude Boy]

Dope

[scottn2retro]

Originally Posted by Sergm3

Keep up good work looking good

Thanks - I was thinking they were just going to grind/sand to improve the appearance of the interior, but they are using Bondo to make it really nice. So while adding maybe a couple of pounds of material, it should look really awesome inside.


It gets really hard to work in a race car once all the cage bars are in.

NOTE: See those 3 yellow pieces of tape? Those are marking tack welds the cage builder put in to hold the main hoop in place while fitting in the other bars. You have to cut those apart for the cage to be BMW Club Racing prepared class legal.

[scottn2retro]

Originally Posted by Rude Boy

Dope

Thanks - but so much work. So now for some of the more fun stuff. Here's what a Carbon Fiber roof bought from BMW comes in


The top side has a really nice clear coat finish on it

[scottn2retro]

Smoothing out the rear seat / gas tank area.


Almost ready for the paint booth. He estimates about 1 pound of bondo

[///Mobbin]

Great build so far, keep it up!

You might also consider pulling out the rest of the sound insulation like Ortho did (post 161):
Ortho's E92 Build

[scottn2retro]

Originally Posted by ///Mobbin

Great build so far, keep it up!

You might also consider pulling out the rest of the sound insulation like Ortho did (post 161):
Ortho's E92 Build

Except for all the rubberized stuff under the car, we pulled all of it out of the inside (those olive green patches are where it was, but we cleaned them with tar remover) except for getting all the glue seams.

[ninekrpm]

looking good.

Sounds like one would have to factor in the cost of replacing the CF roof when doing a cage in one of these

[scottn2retro]

Originally Posted by ninekrpm

Sounds like one would have to factor in the cost of replacing the CF roof when doing a cage in one of these

If the car already has a CF roof, it doesn't need to come out to do the cage, but I do recommend pulling the rear side windows along with the windshield and rear window to help with access on the cage install.

If the car has a metal sunroof like ours did, you have the option of leaving the roof on and filling the sunroof hole, but since we didn't want to do that and we wanted the weight savings as well, we went ahead and pulled the roof once the cage bars were in place. Having the roof off does help the cage builder get all the way around all the bars.

Before BMW and other aftermarket companies made CF roofs easy to get, we have on 2 past race cars (the e46 M3 and 135i) swapped out the metal sunroof top for the single layer steel hardtop.

[scottn2retro]

More progress as it heads towards the paint booth

[scottn2retro]

In the mean time, they pulled the heater box out. I haven't weighed it yet, but feels like 15 lbs. maybe


Gutting some doors. They are put together different than past doors. The safety bars are part of one of the layers that get sandwiched together


Base door went from 51 lbs. to 31 lbs.

[x.shell]

Best thread on F80 post. Thank you for posting your progress in detail.

[scottn2retro]

Originally Posted by exo-shell

Best thread on F80 post. Thank you for posting your progress in detail.

Thanks - a lot of masking had to happen to let them do a top notch paint job.

Masking the trunk area


Masking the left


Masking the right


Covering all the cables


Masking the right rear

[kitesurfer]

fantastic thread! thanks for taking all time to share this build