How fast do you go?
My 318i's top speed at the end of the 1/2" mile straight at our local track of Pacific Raceways is about 115 mph (120 mph indicated). The car hasn't been on a public highway for ages, so I have no idea how fast it would go given 3 or 4 miles of Interstate -- and I have no desire to find out. Going fast in a straight line is easy, and not very much fun. The fun part is getting through the corners quickly. Keeping a car balanced at or approaching the limit of adhesion takes concentration, judgment and anticipation. It is amazingly difficult, fun and rewarding.
Hot lapping? Drivers ed? Racing? What's the difference? It's all just racing, right?
Hot lapping and high performance drivers education (HPDE) events are not racing. Many car clubs, including the BMW CCA, sanction HPDE events on closed circuits. Timing, prizes, or any kind of wheel to wheel racing is strictly forbidden and will result in you being asked to leave. Passing is limited to the straight away, with the car in front "controlling" the pass via a point-by system. Unmodified street cars, even "non-sporty" cars such as the Geo Metro, are welcome, however a motorcycle-type helmet is required. SUVs are not welcome, as their higher center of gravity make them unsuitable HPDE events.
Why should I go to the track? I already know how to drive!
There are many, many skills to be learned from high performance track driving, even if you never go racing. These skills take time and a lot of repetition even for a very talented driver -- something that's just not possible on the street. Whether you're learning how to position your mirrors, how to heel-toe downshift, the best way through a complex of corners or eye or hand position, you will be exercising skills that are imperative for high-performance driving, but not learned or taught on the street.
Where do you race?
I only race on closed circuits. While these are known as 'road courses', they are not public streets. They are about 1 to 3 miles in length, and provide a variety of both left and right hand turns, as well as elevation changes.
Is it safe?
The level of injury in amateur automobile racing is approximately equivalent to hiking or rock climbing, but much lower than hang-gliding or para-gliding. There is risk involved, but good judgment, proper car preparation, and quality safety equipment can help mitigate that risk. Most importantly, everyone on the track is a consenting adult. If I'm going to have an accident, I'd rather have it doing something I love.
Can you win money?
Not in amateur racing. You win $15 trophies and admiring looks from small children and pets.
Isn't racing a BMW expensive?
Racing is very, very expensive and time consuming, irrespective of car marque. Older BMWs have many junk yard parts and performance modifications available, and tend to be very reliable. In general, smaller, lighter cars in less prepared classes tend to be less expensive to race as they go through less brakes and less tires. Additionally, smaller engines cost much less to rebuild. There are probably cheaper cars to race -- but when all things are factored in, they may not be as cheap as they look initially.
If I was going to build another race car, I would seriously consider a Mazda Miata. Mazda has a fantastic program supporting amateur and semi-professional racing. BMW could take a lesson from Mazda -- Mazda's program fosters a strong, pro-Mazda enthusiast community.
Will the car always be gold?
Egad! I hope not. No offense to gold-car owners, but it's the single most hideous color for a car that I know, matched (by not surpassed) only by the United States Forest Service's decaying-corpse green.
Why not race a faster car?
Faster cars cost more money over the long term, but don't necessarily provide a proportional return on investment. I.e. they're not necessarily more fun.
Dude, just stick a turbo / nitrous on your engine, and you'll go really fast!
Many modifications, including forced aspiration and nitrous oxide, are illegal in the class rules that I race under. While there are classes that allow comparatively more modification, I don't know that I'd have any more fun -- and my cost per race would be much higher.
How can I start?
Schools such as Proformance Racing or car clubs such as www.bmwcca.org offer novice HPDE events that will slowly introduce you to basic skills over the course of one or two days. I would suggest doing a year or so worth of HPDE events to build your skills and see whether you want to commit before making the decision to go racing. Ian Alexander of Strictly BMW has provided a good introduction, located here.
If you're interested in racing, check out this book:
Going Faster
What kind of modifications should I make to my street car?
Decide whether you want to go fast or look fast. If you want to go fast, spend your $$$ on the driver by attending HPDE events. If you want to look fast, you shouldn't be asking this question of a guy with poor taste and such an ugly car! That said, come up with a goal and careful plan of how to get there. In the long run, you'll be happier with the final result. Do you want a concourse car? A 1/4 mile car? A car to pick up girls at the local Taco Bell? A track car? A race car?
Do racing and track-learned HPDE skills carry over to the street?
Yes and no. Being able to pass someone in a corner by out braking them is not that useful (or advisable) on the street. On the other hand, good judgment, anticipation, relaxation, concentration and awareness are all directly applicable to street driving.
I race on the street! That's practically the same thing.
No it's not. It's dangerous to other, non-participants, shows a lack of judgment and requires much less skill than wheel-to-wheel racing on a closed circuit. Above all, speed isn't decided by skill, but simply by the willingness to risk the well-being of others or receiving a hefty ticket. There are plenty of good ways to get to the track -- exercise them!
Where did you get "UnSage" from?
My name is Sage, and I'm not... I write a monthly article for the BMW CCA Puget Sound region magazine titled the "UnSage Mechanic." You know -- as in "unwise" (or just plain mechanically dim).
The Fast and the Furious rocked!
No way! Frankenheimer's Grand Prix is a real racing movie.
Grand Prix
Do you do this all by your self?
My girlfriend, friends, instructors and fellow racers have all provided immense help, support and expertise. With the help of more folks than I can possibly name, I wouldn't have been able to complete a single race, much less a season. More importantly, all Conference safety workers and officials are volunteers that take their work extremely seriously. Without them, no one would be able to race at all.
Is your racing like NASCAR?
No! I have most of my teeth, and I get to turn right, too. All jokes aside, NASCAR cars are tube-frame, purpose built, V-8 driven, carbureted rear wheel drive race cars that are very different from 4 and 6 cylinder, front wheel drive, fuel injected cars they are meant to represent. They are fast as hell by any measure, but then so are most purpose-built race cars. Most NASCAR tracks are ovals, meaning the cars only turn left. The racing is very close, and because the entire course can be seen by the spectators, it has a wider appeal. It's not for me, however, because I like the added technical difficulty of having to brake, shift and turn through a variety of different corners on a road course. Additionally, I like the fact that the cars I race against are real street cars that once lead placid lives until they were rescued from mundaneness.
There's no replacement for displacement.
Actually, this is technically incorrect. It would be much more accurate to say that there's no replacement for a good torque to weight ratio, and even that's not a much better statement. Big displacement engines are one way to achieve this. Another is very high-revving, low displacement engines such as those used in Formula 1. With a high-revving engine, it is possible to take advantage of very tight (short) gear ratios, resulting in higher torque at the rear wheels. Since lower displacements engines tend to be lighter, the car will also be better balanced, and have an equivalently better torque to weight ratio.
I was wondering, what kind of modifications increase torque? most of the stuff I hear about is always about hp. If uncorking an engine with free-flowing exhaust and cold-air intake and what not increases hp but decreases torque, does that mean if you plug it all up it would increase torque and decrease hp?
Okay, okay... slow down a sec.
What you have to understand is that while torque is a measure of FORCE, and
horse power is a measure of WORK, they are both directly linked to each other.
First, a very quick lesson. HP = RPM * Ft. Lbs. / 5252. Always, no matter what.
Or, to put it another way, HP and torque are always exactly equal at 5252 RPMs.
Always, no matter what. This is why dyno curves always converge and diverge at
5252 RPMs.
Here's another generally accurate principal: the peak torque an engine makes is
generally unchanged by most modifications. More on this below.
When people talk about "torquey" engines, they mean engines that tend to develop
a lot of torque at low RPMs. Engines like this often tend to have their peak
torque drop quickly. The equation above means that if your engine doesn't put
out much FORCE at high RPMs, it doesn't get much WORK done. The 390 cubic inch
(6.3l) engine in my 1972 Ford F250 redlines at about 2500 RPMs. It makes
hugacious torque, but pathetic horse power. It's great for pulling a trailer. It
feels quick off the line, but bogs down pretty quick.
It's relatively easy to make a torquey engine that doesn't make a lot of HP:
just use gobs of displacement, ala my truck. Since the engine doesn't need to rev
very high, a very unsophisticated, high tolerance design can be used. I.E.:
American vehicles.
The Honda S2000, by comparison, has a 2.0 liter engine with peak torque at something
like 8000 RPMs. It's not capable of putting out a ton of FORCE, but because it
does it at high RPMs, it gets a lot of WORK done.
This is a more difficult way to design an engine, as it has to be able to run
reliably at very high RPMs. This takes more sophisticated engineering.
What does this all mean? Well, as it happens, a torque to weight ratio is a good
measure of how quickly a vehicle will accelerate at lower speeds where vehicle
weight is key; a horse power to coefficient of drag ratio is a good measure of
how a vehicle will accelerate at higher speeds where wind resistance is key.
This is a very big generalization, but is roughly correct.
A relatively more torquey engine than a competitor IS valuable when road racing,
however, as it can help passing on corner exit. But, if that same competitor has
a engine that develops a lot more HP, they're going to blow by you again at the
end of the straight.
When you're tuning an engine, you're not giving it more HP at the
cost of torque or the reverse. What you're really doing is moving the point of
peak torque upwards in the RPM range. The FORCE the engine is capable of putting
out is relatively unchanged. But the engine is capable of doing more WORK
because the FORCE peaks higher in the RPM range. This
is generally desirable for a race engine, where it's possible to keep the RPMs
high and a fair amount of time is made up on the straights. Finally, it's
desirable to make torque at higher RPMs, as you can use more advantageous
gearing.
Shelby, by the way, is wrong -- at least taking the quote "Horsepower sells
cars, torque wins races" out of context. If you
visualize the HP curve heading rapidly upwards than slowly downwards as the RPMs
increase, what you really have to do is maximize the total area under the curve
(since this is a measure of how much "accelerating" the engine is doing) for a
given gearing. This means adjusting gearing, shift patterns and engine tuning to
the optimum point that will be reliable (and legal within class rules) but
provide the most "accelerating" potential. It would be more accurate
to say that "Peak torque at the optimum RPM wins races, where optimum is defined
as a balance of numerous different things."
Let me provide an example. I'll use my race car's 1.8 liter engine, which
makes about 105 ft.lbs of torque at about 4500 RPMs. I'll spot Shelby a magical
engine that makes 5252 ft.lbs of torque at 1 RPM, but that tapers off very
quickly -- say 0 ft.lbs at 2 RPMs. That's a torquey engine! Shelby's engine,
unfortunately for him, develops 1 hp at peak. In other words, it's capable of
pulling very hard, very slowly. I'm going to bet on myself.
All that said, 'torquey' engines are more desirable for daily driving. People
spend a lot of time putting from one stop light to the next, and spend a lot of
time low in the RPM range. For 'seat of pants' feel, torquey engines have a lot
of appeal.
So, what modifications increase torque? The easiest way to increase your torque
is increase your displacement. "Plugging up" (or at lest mildly restricting the
exhaust of) an engine won't increase torque, it will just drop the point of peak
torque in the RPM range (so the engine gets less WORK done).
What is heal / toe downshifting and how do I do it? Is it even important?
Heal / toe downshifting is simply a method of using your right foot to actuate the gas and brake pedals at the same time. This is necessary to smoothly downshift, while braking, for corner entry. In short, while the left side of your foot applies continuing firm brake pressure, the right side of your foot "blips" the gas pedal to raise the RPMs just as your left foot disengages the clutch pedal. When done properly, this allows you to brake at the limit of adhesion and downshift simultaneously -- without locking up the rear wheels of the car. Another way to do this, that I am less familiar with, is left-foot braking. Left-foot braking is most applicable in high-speed corners where trailing off the brakes deep into the corner can be the key to speed.
Heal / toe should be practiced on the street first!
You can find a great discussion on heal / toe on the BMW Puget Sound bulletin board.