E30 Zone

Just had wishbone bushes changed to M3 offset BMW type - about to have tracking done do I get it set as normal? Or is there special setting?? Help please

slightly off topic but where's the best place to get them from?

Direct from BMW - £44.00 for a set of two

mattqf77 wrote:Direct from BMW - £44.00 for a set of two

Almost the same price as a pair of poly ones...

Set the tracking up as usual,just a touch of toe in.

daimlerman wrote:

mattqf77 wrote:Direct from BMW - £44.00 for a set of two

Almost the same price as a pair of poly ones...

Set the tracking up as usual,just a touch of toe in.

I paid just over £20 for a set last year from BMW

I always thought they had to be slightly toed out??

leeparkes wrote:I always thought they had to be slightly toed out??

An E30 that is " slightly toed out" will dart all over the road.
2mm toe in.

Is that 2mm toe in at front of wheel?

44 quid they have doubled in price since i bought mine robbing gits

Cotswolds did a zoner them for £38 delivered about 1 month ago

1 year ago i paid £22 delivered. Thats some rate of increase

Pretty much all rear wheel drive cars should toe in on the front wheels

I set E30's to 1.5mm toe in. They should be weighed or strapped down for perfect adjustment. I have found the above setting dials out most of the understeer without wearing tyres.

£37 from my local dealers for these today with a small discount.

Remember everything is 2.5% more expensive than this time last year because of the fookin VAT

The toe should be set to the specifications of an E30 M3 with 16" wheels.

re

mattqf77 wrote:But doesn't BMW E30 M3 have different front top shock mounts with offset camber? I have 15" wheels on car with 205 50 R15 tyres, new M3 wishbone bushes, Bilstein B8's & -30mm springs. Just want to get car steering right - have had it tracked at 1.5mm toe in but steering still seems to wander??
Or is it my rack that's playing up??

No the M3 have standard top mounts from the factory.

The only offsettop mounts available from BMW are camber correction mounts which are meant to be used to bring suspension geometry back in to spec on slightly damaged cars. They have two settings for +/- camber.

People use them as a mod to give more - camber.

When i fitted the eccentric control arm bushes to my E30 i also had -35mm springs and B8's with the same size wheels and tyres as you. I did the 4 wheel alignment on my car to M3 settings with 16" wheels.

You need to do this are the eccentric bushes were designed to move the bigger 16" wheel forward in the arch by increasing the castor. This was primarily to clear the 16" from contacting the body work on the M3 but it also improves steering feel, more so on a standard E30 as the M3 has a quicker rack which massively improves steering but in a different way.

Do you know what the M3 / 16" Wheels settings are Baz ? is it 1.5mm or 2mm toe in ?

I want mine set up properly once its all done - standard top mounts, B4's, -35mm Eibachs and Eccentric bushes, Standard E30 rack, 205/55/15's - how should I ask them to set it up ( bearing in mind my local place will never have had an E30 M3 through their doors so will have no idea of the correct settings

Do you know where I could get hold of M3 E30 alignment settings? My steering is terrible - wondering if it's also down to the cheap alignment done at Kwik fit..

Any place that has wheel alignment equipment should have either a book or on an Autodata CD specs for all cars.

I can find out all the correct settings on tuesday.

Most places will just set it to parallel.

bss325i wrote:Any place that has wheel alignment equipment should have either a book or on an Autodata CD specs for all cars.

I can find out all the correct settings on tuesday.

Cheers Baz - might be useful if this could be stickied somewhere as the eccentric bushes upgrade is so popular

DanThe wrote:Most places will just set it to parallel.

Seriously Dan ????

i swear toe is measured in degrees not mm?

randomspeedfreak wrote:i swear toe is measured in degrees not mm?

Either or.

Toe is measured in degrees, but linear distances are easier to measure than angles, so mm are often used. It's true that for a given angle, the toe measured in mm on a 14" rim will be different from that measured on a 16" rim. The difference, however, will be very small, and well within the + or - 0.6mm tolerance.

re

BMW alignment specs are done in degrees and minutes.

You'll find all the alignment spec's here

http://www.bmwtechinfo.com/repair/main/941en/index.htm

0.27 degrees = 16.2 minutes.
Toe (one side only) = radius of wheel X tan 16.2 sec = 200mm (16" rim) X 0.0048 = 0.96mm.
Total toe in = 0.96 X 2 = 1.92mm.

Forgive my dumbness here so zero toe in would be the wheels running exactly parallel, and 0.96mm per side means that the front edge of the front wheels is 1.96mm closer together than the back edge of the front wheels ?

The setup/weights section of that link makes interesting reading - surely all that lot can only be properly beneficial if all suspension components are as new - the second you introduce any element of wear into the bushes/balljoints etc won't those weights all be wrong or is there plenty of tolerance built in to allow an acceptable amount of wear ?

Would a BMW dealer go to all that trouble with the right weights etc for the wheel alignment or would they just use the normal 4 wheel laser gear ?

This is all you need to align E30,experts like Brian can make do with a bit of string,I prefer this;

capri_rob wrote:The setup/weights section of that link makes interesting reading - surely all that lot can only be properly beneficial if all suspension components are as new - the second you introduce any element of wear into the bushes/balljoints etc won't those weights all be wrong or is there plenty of tolerance built in to allow an acceptable amount of wear ?

Would a BMW dealer go to all that trouble with the right weights etc for the wheel alignment or would they just use the normal 4 wheel laser gear ?

Alot of BMW's need to be weighted down to get them to the correct ride hight before checks and adjustment can be made.

And yes, a KDS done at a BMW would weight the car down to the correct height as the adjustments would be wrong. The KDS system is a step by step process and when you input the ride heights it tells you how much weight and where to put it.
Once you have added the weight, check the height and add/remove to set the height.

You can bet you ar5e that pretty much all tyre places, people with track right or bits of wood and string will not or have not done this.

daimlerman wrote:This is all you need to align E30,experts like Brian can make do with a bit of string,I prefer this;

That may well work (if the car is weighted to the correct height) to adjust front toe which is the only adjustment on a standard E30 but some people have fitted things like adjustable front top mounts and/or modified adjustable rear beams ala DanThe so proper four wheel alignment is necessary.

Even if an E30 doesn't have these other adjustable items a four wheel alignment is also use full to see if there are any issues with the geometry like excessive camber from bent trailing arms, struts or wishbones etc.

I got saloon, saloon M-technic and M3 with 16" wheel specs today. Will upload tonight.

This just gets more complicated by the minute !

So what do I need to do ?

Standard car other than M3 Eccentric Bushes and a 30mm ish Drop - does it need to be weighted down further to set up properly ? or does the fact that its already lower remove the need to be weighted down ?

Where is the best place to get this done by someone who knows how to set this up properly ( other than the credit card-melting main dealer ) ?

capri_rob wrote:This just gets more complicated by the minute !

So what do I need to do ?

Standard car other than M3 Eccentric Bushes and a 30mm ish Drop - does it need to be weighted down further to set up properly ? or does the fact that its already lower remove the need to be weighted down ?

Where is the best place to get this done by someone who knows how to set this up properly ( other than the credit card-melting main dealer ) ?

When whoever does the alignment measures the the height from the top of the wheel arch to the bottom of the rim. This should be done weather the car is lowered or not.

BMW and other manufactures use these,

http://www.pro-align.co.uk/proalignproducts/aligner

http://www.beissbarth.com/tryit/index.p ... LG=E&PGR=1

but quite a few independent garages and larger bodyshops are now buying systems like this, Bexley Motor works, CPC are a couple off the top of my head.

Just google pro wheel alignment and your area and see what it throws up.

Reckon on about 1-2 hours labour to check and adjust. It can be done in under an hour some garages will quote more.

Cheers Baz - would be a shame to go to all this trouble with new bits and then have it not set up properly

It to simulate someone being sat in the car. Every bush, springs, shocks etc are all new on my car. I can never be arsed to fook about weighing cars down. I set all E30's to +1 to +1.5. This is after years of messing about with them, both my own and customers. I find this setting perfect, dials out most understeer and doesnt wear Tyres.
You can make it as complicated as you want. I like to keep things simple and cheap. You feel free to pay £100+ for someone to undo a bolt and wind in or out a threaded bar.

Dezzy, i guess we'll have to agree to disagree but the car should be weighed down if specified to be.

A KDS at BMW is nearly £300 at the full rate but then were not doing E30's.

There is a garage local to Pacerpete that does full four wheel alignment and i think its less than £50 for essentially the same thing!