I Crashed my BMW M3 into a 911 GT2 at Silverstone trackday

Hi, I'm Phil from Driftworks. This is Jay. Welcome to a slightly less enthusiastic and fun vlog on my E30 M3 because it looks like this at the moment. So yeah, we were at Silverstone yesterday. We weren't filming a vlog as such while we were there because it was a bit of a stressy day. It didn't really go to plan from the morning, did it? No, it didn't. We were having all sorts of issues with too much oil in the DCT transmission and the firmware had been updated on it and it wasn't working properly. So HTG were really kind and sort of logging in and helping us with stuff, but it was just a really frustrating start to the morning. And I just, yeah, stuff kept on just like tiny little bits kept kicking us in the ass. Yeah, brand new bumper. Well, not brand new to me. Gaz spent quite a lot of time making it nice and yeah, I kind of toasted it again. I'd spent absolutely ages about probably a combined eight hours making a nice looking tip for this because the turn down is just ugly. That's what's on there at the moment. It doesn't look very M3-ish. So I've made this really nice, you know, for me, really nice and my fabrication skills, tailpipe for it and it had perfect clearance and everything. But what happened was as the exhaust got super hot, as it does on this, it extends basically, the exhaust grows because the metal grows. And what it did was swing up on one of the hangers enough to actually touch here and then pretty much set fire to the bumper. So yeah, there's some cool flamey shots as normal of the car, but unfortunately a little bit of destruction happened. Well, a little bit at the back. Oh yeah, and then to make it even better, I'd cleverly bought the turn down with me and then something happened, didn't it, Jay? Yeah, I snapped the V-band, so that went really well. Didn't it? I spent about an hour trying to make that fit again. It was just an absolute disaster from the moment we got it. Yeah, so the V-band that we use here basically, Jay just tightened it, which is what you do with V-bands. You over tighten them and then they snap. And then the nut falls off. And then the nut falls off. But anyway, anyway, anyway, that's like insignificant. Yeah, so probably actually, we did get the gearbox working well enough. The shifter's still not reacting quickly enough. It's kind of doing its own thing and really delayed. We had in the previous week spent a huge amount of time trying to get the paddles working with a coil wire on the column that you can see here. And as much as it looks very nice, we couldn't get it working in time. It was right down to the last minute. So yeah, using the shifter, which goes through a can or something, it was super slow and really annoying and not changing gear when it was supposed to. So we still got that to work out. But I did get a few laps with, there was a few guys in M3s there in E30s. So I did get a few laps with a really nice black one owned by a guy called Nian, who's is a very quick car. Very, very serious. Got an S54 in a carbon air box and I think he's on Intrex and all sorts of stuff like that. So yeah, we had a few healthy laps in with that. I also made the slight error of thinking that I knew what Silverstone GP circuit was. Yeah, I had no clue where the hell I was going. So we're well used to sort of national straight, well the national circuit. So national straight and Brooklyn to Luffield and stuff like that. And back past the old pits. But then kind of after that, I had no clue where I was going. I said to someone like, we've got no idea on this new track. It's a new track, it's about 10 years old. But yeah, we don't do super expensive GP circuit track days. But yeah, have a look at these laps with the black M3 because I think they're super fun. I haven't checked the footage yet, but it was an enjoyable few laps. So yeah, onto the bad bit. The bad bit. We haven't investigated yet. We are going to, in this video, just put it on the ramp and have a look at what's broken. It kind of, damage like this always looks pretty bad because it's kind of snaps. There's a tension rod on the lower arm there that's aluminium. And once that snaps, the wheel just basically gets rammed into the back here of the door. But again, I did have a camera in the car pointing in the right direction when this happened. I'm not mad about this. I kind of have been expecting to have some damage on this car at some point. It's kind of why I built it five years ago really when I started. Whenever I decided that track day in a GT3, the blue GT3 back in the day was a little bit too expensive and too risky, I decided to build this, which is basically, if something does happen, it's less drama. It's easier to fix. It's slightly more homemade and yeah, it's kind of done exactly that. I'm not overly fussed about it. I'm a bit wounded by having a huge project to do again when we're already super busy and well behind on some of the other cars. And I know you guys are really craving V10 M3 footage, which is sitting up there on the ramp being all dusty and stuff. But when I bought that car back to sort of restore and make better, the rule was that it would never get in the way of existing projects, otherwise I wouldn't buy it back. So yeah, we've got to be a little bit patient with that. I still absolutely love the car and can't wait to get it working. It'll probably be a bit more of a winter project though. And yeah, where this fits in with fixes, I just don't know until, well really, until we get it on the ramp and have a look. But yeah, onto the crash. Essentially, a guy in a 996 GT2 was behind me on a straight section. I think he was being followed by some kind of Ferrari Challenge car. They were super quick and he overtook me on the brakes into a corner, which is like number one big no-no. I'm not super mad about anything because once he'd done that, he basically stepped sideways and I thought that was pretty cool. I thought he was doing a little drift. And at that point, what I really should have done is just given him all the space in the world and put the brakes on hard. I should have probably just braked really hard. But that's not what we do when we drive with our friends. We're not used to people spinning out I suppose. No, no. We're used to seeing our friends in front of us pulling a big skid and my brain just, I guess, just thought, okay, that's pretty cool and didn't slow down as much as I should. And then basically he over-rotated and where, if you're sort of drifty experienced, if you over-rotate, you keep your boot in real hard so the car spins kind of right out the way of what's behind you, but this guy, obviously you can't expect everybody to have drifting skills or anything like that. And I just made the mistake again of thinking he was going to do a full spin. He didn't. It coasted around, stopped and then just came backwards across the track, completely sideways across the track into my path and I just basically collected his rear quarter. Like I said, I'm not mad about it. It's just one of those things. I was actually really gutted to see a GT2 smashed up like that. So I was really sad for the guy. I obviously have a significant amount of work to do to fix this, but we just kind of have to chalk it down to experience and one of those things, unfortunately. But yeah, I'm not mad about it. It's just one of those things. It happened on track. Everybody's alive, safe, well. I was wearing my neck brace. It was relatively low speed at that point. So yeah, just move forward and both cars will be back together and looking better than ever at some point soon, I imagine. So yeah, story over. Let's move forward and let's get this on the ramp and see what's up with it. See what needs replacing and probably see what I'm going to change with the excuse of having to fix a few things. Let's just start again. See you as a shell in a few weeks. No, no, we will not. No, we will not. I hope. As I said at the beginning of this video, there's just too much. We've got too many projects for me to start inventing too much stuff, but you know, maybe a few tweaks. So I had a quick nose so far. It's looking really good. So up here you can see quite clearly loads of extra structure that we put into this with Nixon Motorsport. It did the front end clearance for me because I'm always really conscious, especially about small cars, about exactly what has happened with this, which is basically the front wheel being pushed into the driver's compartment here. So lots of work was done to reinforce this area here. You can see that the tire has been smashed into it pretty hard, but there's next to no deformation at all. And you know, you get right down to here and again, you can see the tires been against it, but even, you know, I think this, I don't know what this standard part is. Do you reckon it was a jacking point? Even that, like it hasn't actually gone into it at all. It's peeled the side skirt and yeah, it's wrecked the door. And we need to obviously check what's going on with the hinges and these mounting points here that you can see that mount the wings, the front wings. They obviously need attention. We'll start peeling some stuff back off it, but I am, you know, very happy with the chassis so far. It's looking, considering what it could have been, it's looking extremely good. You can see there's just tire marks everywhere where the tire's smashed, but it's not really gone in. It's not intruded in any way at all. And then suspension, again, the suspension's held up really well. I mean, obviously it's completely wrecked and it's replacing, but the lower arm, as I thought, has snapped. It's not snapped on any of the welding that's been done here. It's literally just, I don't know whether you can see that, it just bent to the point that aluminium doesn't like and it's sheared that off completely. You can see the block where we have our anti-roll bar drop link mount is still in place and intact. Looks like no damage to the adjustable anti-roll bar, no damage to the drop link. We'll obviously check the bearings, the rod ends and stuff like that. The tow rod here looks straight from my eyes here, but we need to investigate further. All it's done is it's sheared the drop mount into the knuckle here. You can just see that. The knuckle itself is an E36 M3 Evo, I think, and it looks good. It's got a tiny little bit of impact just, where's it gone? Just there. You can see that, but I know that these are pretty damn sturdy. They're not chopped knuckles or anything like that, so not expecting to see anything untoward on the upright itself, the knuckle, but we will investigate further. The coilover is a HST Monopro. They are beefy as they are inverted monotube dampers, so it's extremely rare to see any damage even in a crash like this. However, the thing that you do need to check on them is the very top point here. In fact, Jay, can you just hold the camera so I can do a hand demonstration? See the top mount here, that's basically a pivot point, and because this wheel has been free and moved massively this way, you need to be absolutely sure that the top mount hasn't gone out of range of the bearing. It's got bearing in the top of it, because if it does, it could bend the threaded section on the top of the damper, and there's no adjuster that goes through that on these because they're inverted, the adjusters at the bottom, but that section there can get damaged in a crash, and also the bearing itself can get damaged, and there's a rotating spring plate at the top of it that stops spring behind. So we'll be disassembling that. I'll be checking it over absolutely thoroughly, and we do have loads of those on the shelf in stock. If I do need them, I'll obviously check the bracket as well, but it is looking really good. The wheel, a bit worse for wear. Obviously, it looks like it's smashed up there thinking about it, so that must mean that there's something bent here as well. Yeah, definitely need that further investigation. Oh, this was adjustable, wasn't it? The yellow mark there, not the camber adjustment out there, so it might just be that that's moved that closer together, and as the wheel scraped on the coil over, it's damaged it. The face of the wheel, you will never know until we get it on the balancing machine, which we're about to do. Let's just do that. Yeah, we're going to investigate now. Tire, I don't think it lives. Wheel, I don't think it lives. Yeah, I've only ever had one set of these AR1s on this car. They've stood up really well, but yeah, I don't think they stand up to a crash. I don't know whether there's a visible bulge. Obviously, that's where it's had some significant contact on the chassis, but yeah, unfortunately, the wheel looks like it's got too much of a bobble in it. I'm not sure we sell these work MCOs anymore, and it could be slightly problematic finding a suitable replacement because the huge alcons were kind of designed around those wheels, so investigation required on that one. Jay's masterpiece of a- Yeah, this got a bit broken. This took ages, and I've got plastic in my eye. Did you? Yeah. That'll live again. Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, yeah. Perfect. It came fine. It hasn't even damaged, has it? Oh, it's pulled the clip. Yeah, the clip's out of the back there, but it'll go back in. Yeah. We need to check really thoroughly things like have the hoses for the brakes been distressed in any way, gone beyond range, beyond angle, but I'm never going to say I'm happy about this because it's not a great situation, but it could be way, way worse, and like I said before, what I built this car for was to be less worried about it financially and repairability. As I said before, it's a bit of a wonder with the amount of work we've got to do, but such is life. The chassis is still straight, still strong. I didn't mention these front wings or fenders, as some people call them. It's a bit of a wonder because we'd redesigned these carbon ones that I had for the car. I really didn't like them, and we'd redesigned them using basically just skims of filler to shape it, to give it a shape that makes it look like an M3 still. It's a much wider wing and the wheels quite far forward compared to standard, but it just looked pretty obnoxious and horrible. It didn't look like an M3. It looked aftermarket before, so Gaz spent a hell of a lot of time shaping these for me, and the plan was that once they're done, we're obviously going to mold it and create some proper carbon ones, which we never got around to because it's always low on the priority list once it's painted and looking nice. Unfortunately, we've got the pieces. Gaz is an absolute hero, so I fully expect him to take this in his stride. I haven't spoken to him about the car yet, about the bodywork side of things, because I spoke to him last week randomly about something, and he is super stressed about his workload already and trying desperately to get on holiday with his family. I am not going to bother the guy about this for a while. I think what we're going to probably do, I don't know, Jay, correct me if I'm wrong, if you think this is a bad idea, shall we just crudely weld that lower arm back together? We know what we've got to order, roughly. We know what's broken, so if we weld that back together so it's mobile, we'll literally just push it out of the way now. You should probably also say if anyone's got a side skirt. I've said that on their Instagrams. If anybody's not seen my Instagram, I would like a genuine M3 side skirt if anybody knows of one. I mean, I'm not being ridiculous. Would that go again? I don't know. Gaz is your man, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. I really don't know how well they heat up and bend back. Nothing's missing off it, and it is plastic, isn't it? Yeah, I really don't know. Well, see if a replacement turns up that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would probably be easier, and yeah, I was looking for some carbon Kevlar doors or carbon doors or Kevlar doors, something, yeah, super lightweight because one thing, you know, I'm not going back to the drawing board with this car, but one thing I've always been a bit disappointed with is the actual weight of it, and I know that like with the DCT gearbox it adds loads of weight and stuff like that, but the car ended up being about, I think it was 1160 kilogram with a full 80 kilogram, a full 80 litre tank of fuel, which is 80 kilograms basically, so it's heavier than I would have liked. Saving a bit of weight here and there. If I've got to replace a door, I might look into, let's say, doing a bit of a carbon composite door. I think now that I've, I'm really happy with the shape and fitment of the rear quarter panels, I might have these blended in properly so it looks like a, you know, the real M3 that it is once again. They're much wider, but they don't, they're not obnoxious. Probably means you're going to lose the lovely carbon weave, but yeah, I think I might do that because, again, it's a lightweight panel, but with the hardware and everything behind it, it adds a bit of weight and it just doesn't, it's not a finished look for me with the M3, and other than that, try not to get too carried away. Try not, yeah, let's just put it back together. I think, yeah. It's not broken enough to take part, is it? No, no, it works so well. We've got a few things to sort out with the gearbox still, but you know, we've always got things to sort out with the gearbox. Why don't you put a sequential in it? Yeah, why don't you? It's only, you know, it's a pretty strong build, but you know. Yeah, it'd be about 15 grand and be worse than, be not as good as this when this works. Yes, I know it would work pretty reliably, but yeah, it's quite an expensive build. I'd have to redevelop loads of the car for it, and I just, you know, the DCT when it works is phenomenal. I think we're really close now, you know, the same really close as maybe three years ago. But yeah, anyway, there you go. I was a bit initially reluctant about even doing this video because, you know, it's never nice seeing a crash car, but I figured it'd be something you guys are probably interested in. Yeah, but I don't. And thank you to everybody for the consolations and kind words on my Instagram account and everything like that. It's very nice. And yeah, as I say, there's no hard feelings to the guy on the Porsche at all. He was a really nice guy. He came over afterwards and, you know, we'll just chalk it down to being one of those things that happens on track occasionally. We'll get the car back up and running better than ever and all will be grand. We'll see you back out on track with it next year. No, no, no, no. Soon, soon, soon. All right. Thanks for watching. Give us a like if you enjoyed the video and yeah, we'll see you next time. Cheers.