Im intrigued by your choice to switch back to the m42 tranny. Is this purely a gearing choice? or trying to get the car lighter?
Will be interesting to see how well it holds up. The car has turned out great, a credit to the effort you guys put in. I'm very keen to tear into mine for stage 2!
This car started life as a 325i. When we put the turbo M42 into the car we used the Getrag 260 (325i trans). To do that we needed to move the engine forward about 1.5 inches. We considered it a temporary solution until we could track down and install a Getrag 240 in the car. It not only required a trans but it also required a drive shaft.
Our first goal was to put the M42 where BMW meant it to be which improves weight balance. That should also provide a slight benefit to braking and handling.
As a bonus, the Getrag 240 is lighter and many of the "version 2.0" mods were done to lighten the car.
Lastly we think the gearing difference should be good for us. We need to run the car more in this new configuration to fully determine that.
One of the main reasons we decided to build the M42 was because it is cheaper to build this motor over any BMW 6 cylinder. 2 less cylinders worth of parts makes it more cost effective. Another reason is that since this isn't an "S" motor (a motor that came from an M3) parts are much cheaper. Cores are plentiful and inexpensive vs. any M3 motor. Availability and cost effectiveness also applies to Getrag 240's.
As with many systems on the car, we bring spares to each race. We will have a spare trans in the trailer. We could almost build another E30 with the spares we have in our trailer.
