In the last installment, I had just taken delivery of a brand spankin' new-to-me purple e36 M3 to make a race car out of. Now it needed a class to run in and a cage installed.

 

To all of the experienced racer-types, the myriads of classes make perfect sense... J-Prepared, J-Stock, J-Modified, SUPER Modified, GTS, GTS-3, GTS-Unlimited, I-Stock, I-CONFUSED! (Just Kidding). I had heard folks throwing around these class terms for some time, but I had NO idea what they meant. So, first things first then. Read the rule books to make sense of it all. It sounds easy, but then which org are you going to race with? BMWCCA? NASA? SCCA? All of them? Each group has it’s own unique set of rules and regulations and some don't mix well with others. BMW has a fairly complex set of rules for car building, so PLEASE make sure you read the LATEST set of rules before you build your car. (More fun on that later) NASA is GREAT in that as long as your car passes their safety tech (as long as the cage is logical, and the car is reasonably set up), all they really care about when it comes to classes is power to weight ratio. Where in BMW CCA there are a number of rules around classes - what you can change, what you can’t, etc. You can read all about them at www.bmwccaclubracing.com and www.nasaproracing.com To keep costs down, my initial intention was to run the car in I-Stock. “I” because all e36M3’s run in this class, and stock because the level of prep to the car was low, and simple (read – “CHEAP” racing, or I thought). Two issues arose that ended with me building for the I-Prepared class.

 

The first issue: The car was a 95 e36 M3 which originally came with the S50 OBDI (stock 95 M3 engine) engine. My car had a “cobbled” together S52 (96+ OBD II M3 engine) OBDI conversion done to it. This automatically moved the car to prepared class. Since this chassis did come from the factory with both motors (95’s – S50, 96+ S52), the car was only bumped 1 class, and not to Modified, thank GOD!

 

The second issue: My friend, and mentor Dave, had also recently started racing his 95 M3 in I-Prepared. One thing that struck me immediately was the “Nascar Bars” on the driver’s side of his car. I know that a lot of folks argue about the positives and negatives of these bars, but after sitting in several caged cars, including Dave’s, I decided that I liked the additional arm room that the bars give the driver. Another CCA rule came into play - to have Nascar bars installed, the cage builder has to cut out the innards of the driver’s door since the bars bend outward into the shell of the door to give the driver additional room. That is not allowed in Stock class. So the decision made, I-Prepared was my class.

 

Now that it was decided that I was to be in I-prepared, it came time to select a cage. Ok the first question that comes up here is - Bolt in Vs. Pre-fab weld in Vs. Custom fabricated weld in cage. The benefits of a bolt in cage are:

 

• Can be installed with the interior in the car (sort of)
• Can be removed if the car is to be returned to a “street car”
• offers the same/similar level of protection as a weld in cage (sort of). I say “sort of” to a lot of these benefits because nothing is EVER easy.

• You have to cut up interior pieces (molding, carpeting, etc), and you have to make holes in the sheet metal of the car
• Offers minimal additional chassis stiffness
• Not as safe as a weld-in cage !!! MY OPINION ALERT !!! This has been debated a LOT. My own opinion is that a bolt-in cage is better than no cage at all, but when compared to a weld in cage it offers less in protection.

 

For one example of my concern with bolt-in safety; I have a good friend who is also a BMWCCA racer, who had a pretty horrific crash in an e36 M3 with one installed. While the cage actually held, it offered no foot protection, and one of his feet was very badly damaged. Decision made – No bolt-in cage for me!

 

With all of this whirling through my head I started calling different cage makers and had many, many long conversations. I finally had an interesting conversation with Kalani Goharra. Several folks that I spoke with said that Kalani was a madman, but made fabulous cages. So after a lot of thought, and research I chose to go with him. We had several in-depth conversations about what I wanted in a cage. Kalani has been doing this for a long time, and had has his own opinions, so we had even more conversations. After we came to an agreement, he told me specifically how he wanted the car prepped.

 

I spent the next several weekends (including Thanksgiving) removing the entire interior of the car. This included interior panels, carpeting, padding, and last but not least that FUN black tar sound deadening material. Let me tell you, that was not easy! The secret to removing the tar stuff is to heat it up, and take a flat head tool (with the sides rounded off, so you will no damage the sheet metal), and scrape it off. You then need to take mineral spirits and wipe down the entire interior of the car to remove the residual tar. (Make sure that you have a WELL ventilated room. Trust me on this one!) The last step was to tie up all of the loose wires; it is truly amazing how many wires there are in a modern car!

 

On December 2, 2005 I loaded up the car on my new to me open trailer, and hauled it all of the way to Kalani’s shop in West Chester, Pa. After some conversations about the cage, I left my new toy in the hands of Kalani. Over the next several weeks, I received daily calls from him telling me what fun he was having thrashing, and lighting my car on fire. I received a call on the week of January 3, 2005 that my car would be done that upcoming weekend, and that I could come and pick it up! I made the trek to Kalani’s shop with several of my close friends. We arrived at the shop, and I was a little nervous. Would the cage be a work of art? Would it just be ok? All of my fears were put to rest when I saw it. It was truly beautiful! The distance between the tubing and the car was incredible close. The Nasar bars looked solid. Now I had a car with a CUSTOM FULL cage -- I was one step closer to having a REAL race car!