Philip Slate
Well-Known Member
…or, “What I did on my Summer Vacation”.
Started this past April, well, actually about a year and a half ago, when Shawn Essex, he of the Northern California racing coupe contingent, tried to get TBL, Cuffy Crabb’s very nice later style gruppe 2 copy and his own stock bodied racer on the track at the same time in order to harass some Porsches. At that time the ’91 M5 engine was still sitting on an engine stand next to TBL and would remain so for the next year mainly because I was a-scared. Then in April Shawn called me and said to get off my skinny lazy ass (arse) and get TBL ready for a great race weekend in June, no excuses, no whining, just shut up and git-‘er-done. Well, as it happens I had run out of excuses and figured a year and a half was long enough to put off a project (though certainly not a record for me. Not by a long shot). So, in April engine prep began. There are a surprising number of small differences between the old M6 engine and the new M5 and for the first five weeks or so it was a one step forward, two steps back kinda thing but then with a few weeks to spare before the race I removed the old M6 engine and put in the new M5 engine…almost. One of the reasons that this group is so good is that right around that time there was a discussion about newer big six engines and oil pans…which I didn’t really pay attention to but should have because when I lowered the M5 into TBL the oil pan came to rest on the front cross member which left the engine resting about two inches above the engine mounts. After looking around for what would have been very expensive solutions, I was rummaging through some old stuff at the back of the ‘shop’ and found an oil pan and pump for a 635 (I think). Swapped out the M5 pan and sump pickup for the 6er stuff and the engine went in like buttah. Once in, there was more peripheral stuff to figure out (one step forward, two steps back) and it became obvious that the June race was not going to happen for TBL. This time, the group was discussing newer oil filter housings on older engines and I think it was Peter Sliskovich who pointed out the differences which I had not noticed and which could have resulted in much unpleasantry when trying to use the old oil cooler line adaptor on the new engine. Appropriate modifications were made and thank you so much Peter. Coulda been ugly. Finally got everything in and hooked up only to be completely confounded by the electronics which were, again, just different enough from the M6 engine to leave me in a head scratchin’ mode. The person from whom I bought the engine directed me to Ron at Coast Motor Werk as someone who could figure out the electrical stuff. Ron is a triple threat in that he knows older cars (he has a Bav), is factory trained and is very capable of coloring outside the lines. So he didn’t even blink when I contacted him and told him my predicament. He just said bring it in and he’d make in run. There is still some minor tweaking Ron wants to do but I was able to drive TBL briefly the other day and (touch wood) there seems to be a bit of horse power just waiting to have some on track discussions with a couple of Porsches and Alphas…and Mustangs and Corvettes. These discussions begin September 15th. Updates will follow.
Some pix: …http://tblracing.com/e9coupe/TBL M5 pix/
Started this past April, well, actually about a year and a half ago, when Shawn Essex, he of the Northern California racing coupe contingent, tried to get TBL, Cuffy Crabb’s very nice later style gruppe 2 copy and his own stock bodied racer on the track at the same time in order to harass some Porsches. At that time the ’91 M5 engine was still sitting on an engine stand next to TBL and would remain so for the next year mainly because I was a-scared. Then in April Shawn called me and said to get off my skinny lazy ass (arse) and get TBL ready for a great race weekend in June, no excuses, no whining, just shut up and git-‘er-done. Well, as it happens I had run out of excuses and figured a year and a half was long enough to put off a project (though certainly not a record for me. Not by a long shot). So, in April engine prep began. There are a surprising number of small differences between the old M6 engine and the new M5 and for the first five weeks or so it was a one step forward, two steps back kinda thing but then with a few weeks to spare before the race I removed the old M6 engine and put in the new M5 engine…almost. One of the reasons that this group is so good is that right around that time there was a discussion about newer big six engines and oil pans…which I didn’t really pay attention to but should have because when I lowered the M5 into TBL the oil pan came to rest on the front cross member which left the engine resting about two inches above the engine mounts. After looking around for what would have been very expensive solutions, I was rummaging through some old stuff at the back of the ‘shop’ and found an oil pan and pump for a 635 (I think). Swapped out the M5 pan and sump pickup for the 6er stuff and the engine went in like buttah. Once in, there was more peripheral stuff to figure out (one step forward, two steps back) and it became obvious that the June race was not going to happen for TBL. This time, the group was discussing newer oil filter housings on older engines and I think it was Peter Sliskovich who pointed out the differences which I had not noticed and which could have resulted in much unpleasantry when trying to use the old oil cooler line adaptor on the new engine. Appropriate modifications were made and thank you so much Peter. Coulda been ugly. Finally got everything in and hooked up only to be completely confounded by the electronics which were, again, just different enough from the M6 engine to leave me in a head scratchin’ mode. The person from whom I bought the engine directed me to Ron at Coast Motor Werk as someone who could figure out the electrical stuff. Ron is a triple threat in that he knows older cars (he has a Bav), is factory trained and is very capable of coloring outside the lines. So he didn’t even blink when I contacted him and told him my predicament. He just said bring it in and he’d make in run. There is still some minor tweaking Ron wants to do but I was able to drive TBL briefly the other day and (touch wood) there seems to be a bit of horse power just waiting to have some on track discussions with a couple of Porsches and Alphas…and Mustangs and Corvettes. These discussions begin September 15th. Updates will follow.
Some pix: …http://tblracing.com/e9coupe/TBL M5 pix/
