O-Blog

After the car was completely stripped I started with the body work. The body work consists of 2 parts, repair rust spots and prepare the car for the paint job.

Every rust zone has been steel blasted, sanded and treated with zinc. All the rust holes will be repaired by a welder for the best result.

After all the rust was removed I sanded the glossy layer away so that there would be a good coat for the new paint to attach.

In the mean time I bought a Sparco 10 points roll-cage from Biesheuvel and installed it in the car, the cage is not yet bolded in to the car because there’s some welding to do.

As my welder isn’t available for the next 3 weeks, I’ll be working on the cable harness. The harness will be checked and simplified.

I’ve just bought some of the suspension and brake parts, so that I won’t have to wait for them when the car comes back from the welder. Here is the small list of the parts.

• Billstein B12
• Tarox G88 (front + rear)
• Ferodo DS3000 (front + rear)

All the rubbers (suspension, engine, differential) form the car will be replaced by teflon parts from Janssen-revisie.

The first thing that you have to do when rebuilding the car is completing stripping the car. Many people think that’s easy to strip a car, but believe me it’s a hard job. Most of the parts haven’t been loose for over 20 years, but with a lot of patience I was able to strip the car without destroying it.

Let the pictures do the talking

TIP1: When stripping a car do it piece by piece, label everything, store every bolt and nut in the appropriate bag so that you’ll be able to put the car back together.
TIP2: With the possibilities of the digital era take as many digital pictures as possible. You can’t take too many pictures when stripping a car.

The next step is preparing the car for the paint job. Update will follow soon.

A couple of weeks ago I bought my first BMW, I’ve chosen the E30 320i from 1988. I will completely rebuild this car for track use only. The previous owner already changed the M20B20 engine with the M20B25 engine. So my track car will be powered by a 6 inline 2500cc engine that produces 170hp stock. The driveline hasn’t been changed, so with the stock 320i differential and transmission, the car will out perform a stock E30 325i.

I’ve started this project not only because I love cars and racing, but I want to become a race engineer. To become a race engineer you have to be the best and experience is required before any attempt is made.

To gain as much experience as possible, I’ll try to do everything myself. Somethings will be done by others because I don’t always have the required knowledge or gear.

I will periodically update my blog so that everyone who is interested can follow the progress. When you have suggestions or remarks feel free to post it as a comment.

After we’ve done 3 times the Quinta Quad Adventure we decided that it would be time to do something else. On the internet we’ve found the website of Karting Almancil and we saw that they organized buggy excursions, so the decision was quickly made.

We booked the excursion one hour before we left and had a quick lunch before going to Karting Almancil.

After a short briefing we were ready to go, the type of roads were more or less the same as with the Quinta Quad Adventure but it was road another and from my point of view a nicer track.  Below I’ve included some pictures, let the pictures do their job!!!

Click here to watch the on-board video (don’t mind the cameraman’s finger ).

Rallycross is an extreme version of circuit racing; it’s maybe slower and definitely cheaper than racing on a track but belief me it’s a thousand times more exciting. During the season there is weekly a race so I can practice a lot on the panning technique for taking picture of moving cars.

I will also try out some Photoshop work on my pictures because these days almost all pictures are edited in one way or another.

Below this paragraph I’ve included two pictures of the first set of pictures I’ve ever taken with a DSLR. The first one is the .jpg conversion of the .raw file and the second one is the modified version. I’ve sharpened it using a second layer (overlay mode) and afterwards applying a High Pass filter on it. On top of that I’ve also created a frame and a title, I hope you like it .

If you were a participant of the race or just a race-enthusiast and you want a picture from the rallycross at Scherpenheuvel 2009, you just have to place a comment with the car-number (I’ve taken a picture of almost every car from the S-class).

PS: For more information about the dates of the races, visit http://www.uacvb.com.

I’m just back at the hotel after a very nice evening @ Puerto Banús, this is really the best place to see the most amazing cars in real life. You can see all the cars while eating in one of the many good restaurants with a nice view on the road and the harbor.

Here is a short list of some cars that we’ve spotted:

• Ascari FGT
• Ferrari F430 Spider
• Ferrari California
• Ferrari F430
• Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
• Ferrari 575 Superamerica
• Ferrari 575M Maranello
• Lamborghini Galardo
• Lamborghini Murcielago
• Lamborghini Diablo 6.0
• BMW M6
• Mercedes McLaren SLR
• Audi A8L V12
• Audi R8 V8
• Chevrolet Camaro SS
• Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe
• Porsche Cayenne GTS
• Porsche Cayenne Magnum by TechArt
• Bentley Continental GT

If you don’t really like cars, you can always look at the amazing yachts (e.g. Lady Haya) or visit one of the beautiful shops.