Winter Work

It’s been a long winter; terrible weather, mud, cold and salt. Cars tucked up in the garage, waiting for the first signs of spring. Tyres unmoving as they long for the first chance to turn on unsalted roads. There is a plus side though, it’s a good chance to work on the bigger tasks and tackle the crazier work. For the ’73 BMW 2002, affectionately known as the ‘Shitterror’, this meant fitting the new sequential gearbox.

The original six speed box from the S2000 just wasn’t up to the power the car is now running. It required patience and first to second was almost impossible under full load, so the decision was made to go for something a little more focused. A Quaife 69G with helical cut gears was decided upon, rated to 750Bhp, giving flat shifts in 0.3 of a second. We just had to make it fit.

It wasn’t just the mechanicals that came under review over the winter, cosmetic changes were also considered. One of the biggest issues discovered when spending a lot of time in the car during the 2015 EuroHoon, was the turbulent air at the rear of the car causing exhaust fumes to be sucked in by the negative pressure created in the boot. This was then making it’s way in to the cabin and causing any amount of time spent in the car to be rather unpleasant. To help resolve this we fitted a new exhaust, a straight pipe and with a straight cut, along with a period style boot spoiler.

Keeping with the aero theme we decided to fit a super rare, very retro, rear window louvre. This NOS item took nearly two years to source, we finally found one with Latvian based Classic Euro Parts. Rumour has it there are only a handful of these left for the BMW 2002, so it was an extremely fortunate find.

The final step was to tidy up the cars nose. Due to the very tight fit of the engine and supercharger we have had to be creative with fitting various components of the set up. This meant the oil cooler for the supercharger was fitted in the shovel style front spoiler, originally running external hoses. However, it just didn’t look quite right, so ‘Lee the Wizard’ of Auto_Shack in Woodbridge spent time tidying up the front, removing the external hoses and levelling out the spoiler, improving the overall fit.

The next step, shakedown on circuit.