By Nate Risch
06/27/2016
There’s something wonderful about emerging from the Midwestern winter and performing an oil change. Ah, the snow is gone early this year, and the sun is finally shining. You line up your tools, get the trusty E36 up on its low-angle ramps, and prepare to turn the first bolt of spring. This thing is much tighter than I remember. Did I do the last oil change, or did I take it to a shop?
By Nate Risch
06/26/2016
Last week I put Otto’s head on the block (which has an utterly different connotation here than in, say, the French Revolution) and torqued it down. I thought that, given one uninterrupted evening, I should be able to button everything up and get Otto running.
By Nate Risch
06/20/2016
For this month’s Roundel Weekly, I thought I would answer one of the questions I get asked very often: “How did you get started in racing, and what do you suggest is the best way I can get started?” Although I had my own path into racing, there are many answers to this question when it comes to how you can get started.
By Nate Risch
06/20/2016
Two weeks ago I picked up Otto’s head—the one I’d bought at the Vintage—from the machine shop. My machinist, Hal, had decreed the head was straight and crack-free. He cleaned it up, milled it, deemed the valve guides reusable, transferred over the valves and springs from the original head, lapped the valves, and installed new seals.
By Nate Risch
06/13/2016
The manual transmission may very well be dead as we know it. Not gone—but ostensibly dead. In the near future, I expect that a manual gearbox will likely not be an option on most M cars, much less lower-echelon cars like the 3 Series. Perhaps “Ultimate Modern Driving Machine” maybe a more appropriate moniker?
