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When running a car for hours and hours on end in the high RPMs cooling is one of, if not the top concerns when building an endurance car. We worked with CSF Racing to design, test, and develop their entire new line of E9X cooling parts and let me tell you now, they work flawlessly. Heat is a major issue for stock E9X M3s, let alone full blown race cars running for 25 hours straight. We had the prototype parts on our car for the 2014 25 Hours of Thunderhill and throughout the entire race the operating temperatures of the water and oil never got past normal city driving ranges. That’s just mind blowing…and exactly what we need. We’ll do a data rich article in the near future on these coolers and just how effective they are.
The aluminum drop-in CSF Radiator and power steering cooler we ran for 25 Hours and will do again. One of the many parts on the car that we are 100% satisfied with. For as long as this car is running, it will be running the CSF Cooling system as there is simply no reason to change. We also run their transmission cooler and oil cooler. All did their job to 100% of our expectations and are drop-in replacements of the stock components.
The fuel system in the car is one we spent a lot of time on. The factory M3 system is crazy complicated with high and low pressure pumps, intricate electronics, and a saddle tank setup. We can’t have all that complicated noise for an endurance race car. We need performance, reliability, and simplicity. Barry Yost spent many hours creating an entirely new fuel system with the help of Aeromotive. Aeromotive’s new dual Phantom system allows us to mount two pumps inside our somewhat shallow 22 gallon fuel cell. Each pump flows much more than we need, but here’s why we have a second one. If we have a fuel pump failure on-track during a race, we can flip a switch to the second pump and fix the problem in an instant without ever having to come into the pits. Pretty sweet right? Barry also modified the stock fuel rails to allow for a return style system that returns excess fuel to the tank leaving the injectors a steady plentiful supply of fuel to pull from. An Aeromotive pressure regulator and custom hard lines with AN fittings round out the fuel system.
Another awesome feature of a full blown endurance race car is the dry break. Being in the ES class, we’re allowed to fuel as much as we want in the pits whereas other classes can only take 10 gallons at a time. Because of this we need to fuel as fast as possible to reduce the time spent in the pits. This dry break kit hooks up to an elevated fuel rig we set up behind the pit wall. One side is a massive fill tube; the other is a massive vent tube. The result is going from 0 to 22 gallons in about 11 seconds. That’s 2 gallons per second for you mathletes.
Photo: Crooks Life
Well, that’s all we’ll shove down your throat for this article. As you can see, we’ve come a LONG way since the blue vinyl wrapped partially built race car we left you with, tore it completely down, and come a LONG way again to what we have now. And as always, it’s still a work in progress.
We’ll continue this soon and take a look at our aerodynamics, engine & drivetrain modifications, and more! Check back soon.
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