Removing car interior

[hillbilly]

I am striping the interior from my 635 in preping for JP club racing. I was wondering if most of you remove all the electrical that is not critical or just leave it functioning? If you remove all the non critical things such as windows how do you make them operate. The things I was wondering about the most is the windows, power locks, power mirrors, AC Electrical, Radio wiring, Check control system, OBC wiring...

I have removed the radio, speakers and such but when I trace out the wires they end up going into a bigger harness somewhere else.

Next, what about the sun roof frame. I have removed the sunroof track, motor and such but thier is this big frame that sticks down about 3" into the cabin and if removed it would make the roll bar higher. Also, what about misc brackets that hold up the rear seat tops or interior lights. Can those be cut out?

Thanks.

Michael

[Terry]

HillBilly,
Regarding the sunroof shelf: Definitely remove this before you do the rollcage. If you remove it afterwards the rollcage will lose its effectiveness as there will be a 3" gap that will allow for momentum of an inward-traveling body when you do roll over. Make her tight.

There is always a big deal on what you can and can't remove in Prepared. You need to talk to your local steward and let him know what you're going to be doing before you do it. Usually they'll point to the rulebook....you need to follow this through in and throughout. However, doing this allows you to take advantage of some of the wording. The sunroof shelf is an important issue...I know my local steward wouldn't mind me removing it for prepared IF I did take up the extra space by making the cage tight up against the roof.

As for wiring....there's LOTS of Spaghetti in our cars. You need to trace the wiring back into each harness and go about it that way. Lots to remove...but be patient.

Where are you located? I'm in Southern CA and wouldn't mind showing you some tricks of the trade when building a cage. My race shop is in San Clemente.

Take Care,

Terry
Motion Engineering

[bmhappy]

extra metal from the sun roof the adhesive used to hold it in place is a [Oops!] to remove all extra brackets the same cut cut cut the window will operate by hand with small handel wireing harness usualy needs to be custom trimed with knowledge of systems how much can you remove for jp? good luck what type cage are you using? the goal is to make it as lightweight as possible

[hillbilly]

The cage will be custom built using 1.50 X .120 I "calculated" the cage to weigh about 190# or so. I may be making it too stiff and therefore heavy.

[PeteK]

What club(s) are you going to compete in? You need to buy a rule book and find out what's allowed to be removed for the class.

One big thing that you can do is remove all of the sound dampening stuff that seems to be everywhere in Bimmers. I took about 100lbs of it out of my 325e and would guess that a 6er would have a lot more than that!

Be careful before you start ripping out the wiring harness! In IT in the SCCA you need to run with the stock harness intact. If you can unplug a section of it (and it doesn't disable anything you need), then it can come out.

[andrem5]

I have never tried to do this but will be attempting it this month. The folklore seems to be that you can use dry ice to make the asphalt compound brittle then hit it with an impact hammer.

True? Or is there a "better" way?

Thanks.