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BMW 502 Race Preperation |
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<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 >> The BMW As just discussed, the car must be earlier than 1965. That leaves out a lot of high performance BMWs. It leaves as choices the 501, 502, 503, 507, 3200CS, the Isetta and 600, the early New Series 4-cylinder sedan, and any prewar BMW. For us, some were easily dismissed because of high value or lack of performance, others due to their relative rarity. Our final choice was the V8 502 because though it is uncommon it is not rare or valuable, it has respectable performance, and because it barely fits into the Original Panam class where it has at least a chance of being competitive. Most of the faster classes allow modern Chevrolet and Ford V8 engines and are really fast---the unlimited class overall winner is often a 200mph Studebaker which is essentially a full Nascar chassis and drivetrain with 50's Studebaker sheetmetal. The Acquisition Phase
Once the car choice was made, we began looking for raw material. We knew of a 1958 502 locally that I had owned in the 80s, but had allowed to escape. We quickly reacquired that one in the summer of 2000 and began disassembly. That car came with drum front brakes, which we knew would be inadequate for our purposes. Don Dethlefson had a disc brake 1961 502 that he didn't need, so we bought that one and had it shipped to us from Chicago. Finaly, sometime later we found another late 502 rusting away in a field in central Texas and we bought that one as a parts car. The other thing we knew all along was that we would need was a good engine. The '58 car had a 120hp low performance 3.2 liter engine with a known oiling problem, the rusty parts car had a 3.2 liter engine with a spun rod bearing and damaged crank, and the Chicago car had a 2.6 liter little engine. We searched a high performance engine for about a year without much luck, until finally Don Dethlefson remembered that he had a spare in pieces somewhere in the attic. He kindly agreed to sell it to us, and we had our race engine. |
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