E30 Zone

As most of you know. The E30 hasnt really been used by me in the last 4 years i have owned it,

Today i fitted my exhaust and took it for a drive, and the car feels sluggish and sloppy everywhere really, especially the suspension and steering.

Just wondering what the cost is and time involved and who ha done this?

Im thinking of changeing everything, inc shocks aswell and all bushes, possible polly bush?

I have done the rear subframe bushes not so long ago so there fine.

Thanks
Josh

Poly bushes will ruin it. The bushes that I could feel the benefit from in driving the car were the diff bush, prop guibo, control arm bushes - fit some offset M3 ones instead, engine mounts and gearbox mounts (maybe change the track rod ends too, or complete tie rod if they are worn).

How long they take is really dependant on the type of equipment you have handy and how stubborn the bolts are, when you are trying to get things undone.

After you've changed the shocks and the control arm bushes, drive it around for a bit to let it all settle, then get the tracking reset correctly.

Cost of all those bits can be priced up by you matey. I assume you are going to do the work yourself.

Lowering springs, do they take you fancy?

cheers toby...

its already on lowering springs -40mm - what about the steering linkage / bush coupling thingy haha, will that make a difference?

poly bushes on my car feel nice and tight.

certainly it has not been ruined...

Depends on if you want it to drive right or look right!

I have fitted poly bushes to several of my E30's now and like the result. Do not fit polybushes to the rear beam,though,I understand it effects the designed in rear wheel steer that helps to tame the tail happy rear end.

I have used the eccentric polybushes on the front wishbones,poly anti roll bar bushes front and rear,and rear trailing arm polybushes.They do transmit road noise,but at least you can hear the suspension working.I ran one pair of cars with eccentric fronts on one and concentric on the other,even the wife commented that the car with eccentric 'steered better'....

I have replaced the rubber steering column guibo with a solid link on both cars,it eliminates that last little bit of free play,but can make the steering feel 'nervous' until you get used to it.

Some will tell you that the two piece wishbone bush will fail in use,but as yet,no-one has posted proof that these fail.

two piece wishbone bush?

josh-hocking wrote:cheers toby...

its already on lowering springs -40mm - what about the steering linkage / bush coupling thingy haha, will that make a difference?

If it's worn or soft then it will make a difference - sorry to state the obvious, but it's a difficult question to answer unless you check out its condition. Maybe get a second opinion on it.

I've driven quite a few E30s with poly bushes and I'm sorry to say I don't like them. The E30 is a noisy enough old turd anyway without transmitting more noise than absolutely necessary into the cabin.

I think it's more 'educational' to change one set of bushes at a time so you can try to notice the difference and easier to spot anything that has potentially gone wrong with installation.

asmith88 wrote:two piece wishbone bush?

That's right.
The polybush comes in two parts,one bit presses into the 'lollypop' bracket and the other slides over the pin on the end of the wishbone.Dead easy to fit DiY.Use the supplied copper slip between the two bits.
If fitting ecentric type,do check very carefully that you are fitting the correct bush to the correct side,one set that I bought were definately marked up for the 'Irish' market!

Remember also Josh that you have been driving around in a fairly new RX8, the E30 steering will feel slow as hell

Have you fitted these Josh?



Well worth doing especially as you have replaced the rear bushes recently.

Those with M3 eccentric wishbone bushes and some new rear strut tops should make it nicer

Mine has polybushed all round and I love how much tighter and more responsive it feels. Certainly hasn't spoilt it in any way.

It's certainly not become a dangerous sideways monster since doing the beam bushes, if anything it's a lot more controllable and predictable as you haven't got to wait for the beam to wobble about and load up on direction changes like the soft rubber bushes do.

Eccentric bushes go this way round by the way...

Dan - what are them?

lee... yeah i thought about that but still thought it shouldn't be as sloppy as it is, you could be right though.

cheers for the pic toby

Void fillers for the rear mounting bushes, stiffens them up nice and prevents wear without compromising ride quality

toby wrote:Eccentric bushes go this way round by the way...

Look how clean that is

I've had all the bushes changed to M3 ones , had b4's installed and new springs and the difference is amazing.

Why not put a faster steering rack in while your doing the bushes and kill two birds with one stone.

fingerman wrote:

toby wrote:Eccentric bushes go this way round by the way...

Look how clean that is

Anyone would think it lived in an oxygen free bubble

Ahh cheers dan... where can i get these? and i guess i can fit them without removing the bush ?

Look at Dans sig Josh. They can be fitted by just unbolting the big nut and removing the washer