noz-e8tr
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2003
- Location
- Ocean Springs, MS
I've had a few people ask for a build thread. So I figured I'd start something here. It started a while back when a TB member posted a for sale thread listing his 83 242 V8 for $5,500. I just so happen to have a 2003 BMW 540i M-Sport for sale valued around that same price. I threw out the idea of a straight up trade and he was in. Many thought I was crazy. My 540 was nice. But it was high miles and just not "Me". There were some logistics involved. He was in Maine and I was in South Texas. So a road trip was in store. We met in Atlanta Ga, with the understanding that either of us could back out for any reason and we would simply drive our cars home with no hard feelings.
CHAPTER 1 AKA Berserker v0.0
After the first initial contact with Ben we started exchanging pictures and details of our cars. My 2003 BMW 540i M-Sport and his 1983 242 5.0. I really liked what I saw and apparently so did he. Here are some of the pictures that exchanged hands and a couple videos. Yes, I had many friends tell me I was crazy. But I had a vision of what I wanted to do and this 242 fit quite well in that vision.
We were very honest in how we represented both vehicles. Neither of us wanted surprises.
242
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RRFZdY6-F0Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BwC0M_oY4O0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The BMW.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DoT9805ylaE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
After making my decision to go through with the trade I met Ben in Atlanta Ga and we made the trade. The drive home in the Volvo defiantly wasn't as comfortable as the ride there in the BMW. But I was still happy with the trade. This concludes the v0.0 section.
The Trade!!!!
Once I got the 242 home my fist step was to set it up to run some auto cross events. This is detailed below in Berserker v1.0
Chapter 2 AKA Berserker v1.0
The goal of v1.0 was simply to get out on the autocross course as quickly as possible. This involved a bunch of parts from Ben and the Nitto NT01 I had been running on my 740 autocross car. I also added a racing seat and put on new front calipers with Hawk racing pads to help stop this beast. I ran into an issue with the front sway bar so I ended up running my first auto cross with a 25mm rear bar and no front bar at all. Here is a list of mods at the v1.0 stage.
Parts from Kaplhenke Racing LLC (AKA Ben)
Coilovers with 500/300 sprints
Koni adjustable race shocks/struts
steering correct
camber plates
Upper tower brace (the bad ass one)
Seat mounts
Ipd Parts
Full poly bushings
adjustable rear upper links
adjustable panhard bar
My results at auto cross was OK. But the sway set up sucked. Made a fun drift car though. Here is how the car sat at v1.0 and a few in-progress shots as well as some autocross action.
Bens awesome brace
More of Ben's goodies
Checking ride height
Nitto NT01...Slightly used
On the course
That's my serious game face
Where is all happens. lol
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ptbMia1wbXs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
My next autocross there were very few changes, so I'm calling it still v1.0. All I did was sort the issue with my front sway bar and add the ever so lovely Group A wing. This event was held at a different location and allowed for a much more open (fast) course. I found a couple limits of the car during this event. Limit 1 was the tires. The Nitto NT01 225/45/17 tires struggled to keep traction. I def had more power than they could handle. The other limit I found was the brakes. Slowing down a 3,000lb car with stock brakes is a chore. I will say that the Hawk pads never once faded. They kept grabbing right up until I set the brakes on fire. Yep. My brand new calipers caught fire. I had the rotor a nice pretty blue color and the rubber seals on the pistons on fire. Here are a couple pictures from that event.
Pretty wing...
The course was long and narrow. Very fast,
Baked Brakes (more like fried)
Some GoPro action
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vl1IeQbrB_8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
After this event it was evident that I needed to address a few things. This brings us to v2.0. Brakes and tires.
CHAPTER 3 BERSERKER v2.0
Brakes and tires brakes and tires brakes and tire. If you haven't figured it out yet, v2.0 is all about brakes and tires. On the previous autocross, I seriously baked my brakes so it was time to upgrade to some s60r calipers and rotors. That's a pretty straight forward process and well documented so other than a few pictures I'm not gonna go into great details. I picked up front calipers off ebay for around $300, so it wasn't too bad of an upgrade.
BRAKES
Here is a comparison between the stock and s60r rotors. Easy to see why this is an upgrade.
Caliper comparison
And what it looks like installed
Tires and wheels were a little bit more work. I wanted big. 295/30/18 r-compound Toyo r888 is what I wanted to run. So how do you make them fit? The truth is you can't. You have to make the car fit them. That means breaking out the saws-all, cutters, hammers, bigger hammers, grinder and welder. I seriously cut a lot of metal to get the car dropped as much as I could. The process is not hard, but you have to take your time and cut a little at a time. Its real easy to decide you want to cut a bit more compared to the realization that you cut too much. I cut just enough to where I could drop the car to ride height without the cut metal touching the tires. From there, I positioned my flares where it worked and looked best. Taped them in place and marked the outside edge. Removed the flares and cut 1" to the inside of that mark. This gives me a one inch flange for flare mounting. I was careful to only cut through the outside skin. This allows the inside skin to be notched and eventually bent up so it can be welded and trimmed to the outside skin. This video show a little of the process. The boring repeated hammering part.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k2jLZEUg3y4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This was my first mockup just to get inspired. I liked the way it looked even at full droop. The final placement put the flare up against the body molding.
Final placement compared to mockup
I'm not going into any real detail on the front. Its pretty much straight forward. Finder liner was removed already, so it really a matter on positioning the flare, marking and cutting. Its single layered, so no drama. I will say that with 295 tires you really have to cut a lot for the tire to have room to turn. Remember, this is not a "stance" build, I actually have to turn. I will say I'm not real pleased having the flare trying to conform to the hump where the body molding was. I was more interested in function that form. I will re-visit that later and come up with a better solution.
One thing I did do was limit the steering. With these tires and Bens geometry correction/quickening parts I could easily damage my tires against the frame. These solved that issue. (from Grainger)
v2.0 on the course.. First time out and I destroyed all my previous best times. This thing stuck. I was very impressed with the tires.
Here is an interesting comparison of how the tires and wheels changed its attitude.
And I had a Facebook friend do this for me
A video from the last autocross
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BCPUIElJUZc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Berserker v3.0 In progress
Power.....more power. Time for some go fast parts. Details coming soon, but here is a small parts list,
Twisted flow heads
Twisted flow pistons
head studs
Forged rods
custom ground roller cam
roller rocker
fully balanced
gt40 intake
65mm throttle body
coyote injectors
Lightening MAF
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c4aJxJRgrTY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Dropping the beautiful 5.0 back in.
Had to modify the solid mounts a bit and I replaced the washers that have been used previously with proper spacers. Just needed a little tweaking to clear the Canton 7 qt road race oil pan.
CHAPTER 1 AKA Berserker v0.0
After the first initial contact with Ben we started exchanging pictures and details of our cars. My 2003 BMW 540i M-Sport and his 1983 242 5.0. I really liked what I saw and apparently so did he. Here are some of the pictures that exchanged hands and a couple videos. Yes, I had many friends tell me I was crazy. But I had a vision of what I wanted to do and this 242 fit quite well in that vision.
We were very honest in how we represented both vehicles. Neither of us wanted surprises.
242
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RRFZdY6-F0Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BwC0M_oY4O0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The BMW.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DoT9805ylaE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
After making my decision to go through with the trade I met Ben in Atlanta Ga and we made the trade. The drive home in the Volvo defiantly wasn't as comfortable as the ride there in the BMW. But I was still happy with the trade. This concludes the v0.0 section.
The Trade!!!!
Once I got the 242 home my fist step was to set it up to run some auto cross events. This is detailed below in Berserker v1.0
Chapter 2 AKA Berserker v1.0
The goal of v1.0 was simply to get out on the autocross course as quickly as possible. This involved a bunch of parts from Ben and the Nitto NT01 I had been running on my 740 autocross car. I also added a racing seat and put on new front calipers with Hawk racing pads to help stop this beast. I ran into an issue with the front sway bar so I ended up running my first auto cross with a 25mm rear bar and no front bar at all. Here is a list of mods at the v1.0 stage.
Parts from Kaplhenke Racing LLC (AKA Ben)
Coilovers with 500/300 sprints
Koni adjustable race shocks/struts
steering correct
camber plates
Upper tower brace (the bad ass one)
Seat mounts
Ipd Parts
Full poly bushings
adjustable rear upper links
adjustable panhard bar
My results at auto cross was OK. But the sway set up sucked. Made a fun drift car though. Here is how the car sat at v1.0 and a few in-progress shots as well as some autocross action.
Bens awesome brace
More of Ben's goodies
Checking ride height
Nitto NT01...Slightly used
On the course
That's my serious game face
Where is all happens. lol
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ptbMia1wbXs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
My next autocross there were very few changes, so I'm calling it still v1.0. All I did was sort the issue with my front sway bar and add the ever so lovely Group A wing. This event was held at a different location and allowed for a much more open (fast) course. I found a couple limits of the car during this event. Limit 1 was the tires. The Nitto NT01 225/45/17 tires struggled to keep traction. I def had more power than they could handle. The other limit I found was the brakes. Slowing down a 3,000lb car with stock brakes is a chore. I will say that the Hawk pads never once faded. They kept grabbing right up until I set the brakes on fire. Yep. My brand new calipers caught fire. I had the rotor a nice pretty blue color and the rubber seals on the pistons on fire. Here are a couple pictures from that event.
Pretty wing...
The course was long and narrow. Very fast,
Baked Brakes (more like fried)
Some GoPro action
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vl1IeQbrB_8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
After this event it was evident that I needed to address a few things. This brings us to v2.0. Brakes and tires.
CHAPTER 3 BERSERKER v2.0
Brakes and tires brakes and tires brakes and tire. If you haven't figured it out yet, v2.0 is all about brakes and tires. On the previous autocross, I seriously baked my brakes so it was time to upgrade to some s60r calipers and rotors. That's a pretty straight forward process and well documented so other than a few pictures I'm not gonna go into great details. I picked up front calipers off ebay for around $300, so it wasn't too bad of an upgrade.
BRAKES
Here is a comparison between the stock and s60r rotors. Easy to see why this is an upgrade.
Caliper comparison
And what it looks like installed
Tires and wheels were a little bit more work. I wanted big. 295/30/18 r-compound Toyo r888 is what I wanted to run. So how do you make them fit? The truth is you can't. You have to make the car fit them. That means breaking out the saws-all, cutters, hammers, bigger hammers, grinder and welder. I seriously cut a lot of metal to get the car dropped as much as I could. The process is not hard, but you have to take your time and cut a little at a time. Its real easy to decide you want to cut a bit more compared to the realization that you cut too much. I cut just enough to where I could drop the car to ride height without the cut metal touching the tires. From there, I positioned my flares where it worked and looked best. Taped them in place and marked the outside edge. Removed the flares and cut 1" to the inside of that mark. This gives me a one inch flange for flare mounting. I was careful to only cut through the outside skin. This allows the inside skin to be notched and eventually bent up so it can be welded and trimmed to the outside skin. This video show a little of the process. The boring repeated hammering part.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k2jLZEUg3y4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This was my first mockup just to get inspired. I liked the way it looked even at full droop. The final placement put the flare up against the body molding.
Final placement compared to mockup
I'm not going into any real detail on the front. Its pretty much straight forward. Finder liner was removed already, so it really a matter on positioning the flare, marking and cutting. Its single layered, so no drama. I will say that with 295 tires you really have to cut a lot for the tire to have room to turn. Remember, this is not a "stance" build, I actually have to turn. I will say I'm not real pleased having the flare trying to conform to the hump where the body molding was. I was more interested in function that form. I will re-visit that later and come up with a better solution.
One thing I did do was limit the steering. With these tires and Bens geometry correction/quickening parts I could easily damage my tires against the frame. These solved that issue. (from Grainger)
v2.0 on the course.. First time out and I destroyed all my previous best times. This thing stuck. I was very impressed with the tires.
Here is an interesting comparison of how the tires and wheels changed its attitude.
And I had a Facebook friend do this for me
A video from the last autocross
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BCPUIElJUZc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Berserker v3.0 In progress
Power.....more power. Time for some go fast parts. Details coming soon, but here is a small parts list,
Twisted flow heads
Twisted flow pistons
head studs
Forged rods
custom ground roller cam
roller rocker
fully balanced
gt40 intake
65mm throttle body
coyote injectors
Lightening MAF
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c4aJxJRgrTY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Dropping the beautiful 5.0 back in.
Had to modify the solid mounts a bit and I replaced the washers that have been used previously with proper spacers. Just needed a little tweaking to clear the Canton 7 qt road race oil pan.
Last edited:
...GM used to own Saab 
