Effects of lowering on tyre wear?

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MrDazzle
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:48 am

As per thread title really.

Lowering will increase (well...increase negative...reduce I suppose!) your static camber. How much do you find this increases tyre wear? What about grip...obviously you get some advantage from lower CoG but you also fiddle with BMW's oh-so-carefully-arrived-at geometry...

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Zayyan
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:54 am

I've gathered that the extra tyre wear on the front is negligible up to about 60mm lower than standard and that on the rear you won't notice a difference in wear if you lower up to 40mm or so.

If you look at pics of E30s lowered 60mm you can actually see the negative camber on the rear. This obviously means that the inner half of the tyres wear very quickly and you would assume that grip is reduced as there's less tyre in contact with the road.

Therefore I'm lowering 60/40 :wink:
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kam-325i
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:55 am

When mine was lowerd, i found that it chewed thru the inside of the rear tyres alarmingly, from new, the rears were down to the thread in about 5-6000 miles, but the grip in the corners was amazing....
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MrDazzle
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:56 am

TBH I'm not a fan of lowered cars. It only looks right when you have wide track, no interior and a comedy riveted on race body. Otherwise you just look a wannabe IMO...

I was more concerned about buying a car, since finding one on stock bouncy bits is quite hard!
oguz327
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:57 am

how much is ur e30 lower by cam?
Zayyan
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:59 am

MrDazzle wrote:TBH I'm not a fan of lowered cars. It only looks right when you have wide track, no interior and a comedy riveted on race body. Otherwise you just look a wannabe IMO...

I was more concerned about buying a car, since finding one on stock bouncy bits is quite hard!
I see. A lot of people will lower the car slightly because the E30's stance is very high compared to modern cars.

A 40mm drop all round will improve the stance slightly (making it appear more "normal" height than overly low as it's high in the first place), improve the handling but won't give you any trouble with tyre wear or speed bumps etc.

Kam, how much is yours lowered by?
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MrDazzle
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:01 am

I'd go along with that, it's just when I see cars that have the wheels right up in the arches I can't help but think the suspension's collapsed :wink:

Not too concerned about grip either. Grip is for race tracks, a lack of grip is for the road :wink:
oguz327
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:06 am

mines lowerd by 40mm on 17s and seem fine so far.
i used to have a an e30 323i in the mid 90s and when i brought it the guy must have cut the springs cos it was so low. handeling was awsome in the dry and it did look business, however i got thu tyers like no bodys business, also smashed the sump and on anouther occasion shatterd the stearing rack and bent the sub frame hiting on of the lockable parking bars while it was locked 8O down
kam-325i
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:07 am

oguz3001 wrote:how much is ur e30 lower by cam?
I think it was about 60mm, but i have changed the rears back to is springs now, as it was way to low for a dailey driver with a family of four !!

Pic of springs. The red ones were what was fitted before, the black ones are from a 318is which are fitted to the car now.

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With is springs fitted
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m-dtech
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:36 am

bmws wear on the inside rear anyways they are notorious for it ?!

i have just dropped the 5 series its sitting on 235 wide tyres and it looks good :cool:
Zayyan
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:37 am

m-dtech wrote:bmws wear on the inside rear anyways they are notorious for it ?!
Last time I had my rears changed the wear was perfectly even....
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kam-325i
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Post Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:39 am

m-dtech wrote:bmws wear on the inside rear anyways they are notorious for it ?!
I would say that for a standard BMW.......

My previous BMW's had no problems with inner tyre wear....
Pete don't care about colour, He would shag a rainbow if he could find the end of it....
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