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By far the highlight of the speedshow this year for BMW Fans was the Replica 2005 BMW M3 GTR #1 - 24 Hrs. Nurburgring. Built by Andy Culpin's RaceFX in Auckland. The photos don't even do it justice. The proud owner of the car is Aucklands Barry Kirk Bernand, some of you may know Barry from the NZ bmw racing scene and the NZ Dunlop Targa. When asked what inspired him to take on such a project he said " I saw it at Schnitzer in Germany and fell in love with it, I asked to buy it from them but they wouldn't sell it to me. This is the next best thing, when Andy mentioned he had the body sitting in the corner gathering dust we decided to make our own". Barry will dedicate his trusty E30 M3 race car solely for Targa competition now that his new car is just about ready.
Barry KB intends to compete in the North Island Endurance Series and other Endurance Circuit Racing events, he will also be driving the car in the BMW race series open class. Andy Culpin, the owner of RaceFX mentions that they had to relocate the top mount for the front struts due to the 10" Maximum rim width as set out by the bmw race series rules. They were originally going to run with the 12" wide rims as used by the touring cars but they had to change the front suspension geometry so that the 10" wheels would fill the guards properly. hmm.
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RaceFX was dedicated to keeping the car's outer dimensions exactly as they were on the real Schnitzer Motorsport 2005 M3 GTR, it's even left hand drive. Andy claims he meausred from a diecast scale model to get all the body identical to the real item that was driven by Andy Priaulx, Pedro Lamy, Boris Said & Duncan Huisman in the 2005 24 Hours Nürburgring. They won the race but it was the final race for the famous factory M3 GTR V8; the factory withdrew "works" teams from the race afterwards. Car pictured below.
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The lengths at which Race FX have gone with this car are incredible and it's an absolute credit to their work! Everything is perfect and the attention to detail is incredible. The back and side windows have all been replaced with lightweight plastic and the front door frames have been replaced with custom light steel frames. The body panels are all custom made fibreglass and RaceFX now have moulds and templates for just about every part of the car. In fact it's worth mentioning that RaceFX is determined to build more of these cars and hopefully tap into the overseas market too - gentlemen place your orders.
The engine in this car is a BMW S62: The 5Litre V8 engine from an E39 M5, more info on this engine can be found here. A dry sump has been fitted to allow the engine to sit lower in the engine bay and clear the bonnet. The air induction system has been completely removed and replaced with air rams and a collector which pulls turbulent air from the bottom of the windscreen, this is to acheive the desired sound. I don't know about you, but i can't wait to hear what it sounds like!
The dual VANOS system has been removed and instead the cams can now be manually adjusted and set to their full travel. The engine management is taken care of by an Autronic ECU and Andy Culpin expects the final power output to be somewhere near 440 flywheel hp. behind the engine is the gearbox from the same E39 M5 and a diff from an E46 M3 delivers power to the rear wheels.
The car hasn't been weighed yet but Andy estimates it will be around 1240kg dry without driver, That's pretty impressive. So how does it stop? Barely fitting inside the massive rims you will find 364mm E92 M3 rotors in the front being squeezed by Porsche GT3 calipers. In the back are E46 M3 front rotors and Mitsubishi Evo 9 front calipers.
Bimmersport highly endorses the building of race cars to this high standard and hope to see more of them roll out from the RaceFX shop floor in the near future. We wish Barry the best of luck getting the car set up and in his endurance competitions. We hope to keepbimmersporter up to date with his progress.
Siemens if you are reading this, Barry would appreciate your sponsorship, your stickers are already on the car!
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Sorry no engine pictures! you'll have to wait .... for the video.
