Lowering 1986 E30 316

[DopeE30]

Shut up you ******* lame, bet your a middle aged broke ****, that sits at home bashing of this forum. Go to work and spend your whole months wage on your shitty car....Again. And my car is 10 times cleaner then yours you prick. And who said i was going to cut original springs anyways ? Dick.

Not quite sure what your point is, but I understand you're angry. That's fine, let it all out. And breathe.

We're trying to save your life here, and that of others. Bodging a car in the way you're asking about is playing with fire. It's nothing to do with penis size or shiny paint or being an internet hardman.

But talking with that sort of mouth won't do you any favours.

What the fuck are you talking about? Im 17 years old and asking how to lower my first bmw. Im not asking for a lecture on road safety. ^o)

[hennared323i]

Well this quickly went down the usual route

Out of curiosity, who has cut springs before and had a bad experience?

Me,

Bought a 325 touring that had the standard front springs cut by a coil and a bit, fine on smooth roads but a pig on rough ones with the wheels crashing into the arches (it had many other issues as well).

cutting a coil off a standard spring makes no difference to the rate of compression. If it needs 50mm of compression to absorb a given force before cutting the coil it will still need that 50mm after cutting except that now there is less spring length available hence the wheel/strut will be closer to hitting parts of the car they are not supposed to be.

[scjimbo]

Shut up you ******* lame, bet your a middle aged broke ****, that sits at home bashing of this forum. Go to work and spend your whole months wage on your shitty car....Again. And my car is 10 times cleaner then yours you prick. And who said i was going to cut original springs anyways ? Dick.

Not quite sure what your point is, but I understand you're angry. That's fine, let it all out. And breathe.

We're trying to save your life here, and that of others. Bodging a car in the way you're asking about is playing with fire. It's nothing to do with penis size or shiny paint or being an internet hardman.

But talking with that sort of mouth won't do you any favours.

What the **** are you talking about? Im 17 years old and asking how to lower my first bmw. Im not asking for a lecture on road safety. ^o)

It wasn't a lecture on road safety you goon. You actually said you were going to cut the springs. The man was just trying to explain it was a bad Idea. Maybe he was a little harsh with his comment and he obviously upset your delicate sensibilities. Dont come on a public forum, ask a question, then start swearing at someone giving you advice.

[scjimbo]

Compression Spring Design General Considerations:

The following design procedure (and associated formulas) should be used for all compression spring designs. Following these general guidelines, there are more specific guidelines for dealing with the individual design cases.

Select the appropriate material for the spring design. Take note of the shear modulus (G) and tensile strength (TS), as these numbers will be used in future calculations.
Calculate the Dm and ID (or OD) of the spring. Compare the ID of the spring to any work over rod requirements. Remember to incorporate the low side of the OD (or ID) tolerance when examining the work over rod requirements.

The diameter of a compression spring will increase when compressed. This increase is a function of the pitch. Calculate the OD expansion and compare this to any work in hole requirements. Remember to incorporate the high side of the OD tolerance when examining the work in hole requirements.

Calculate the pitch (and therefore coils per inch) and the spring index. Verify that the pitch of the spring is not greater than the OD, as this will result in coiling difficulties. Also, take note of the spring index.
End Type
Open
Open/Ground
Closed
Closed/Ground


If the spring index is not between the range of 4 and 10, further examination and considerations are required such as:

Special tooling (pencil arbors for tight index springs)
Special packaging (for flimsy or slinky type high index springs)
Stress relieving (would either not be applicable for springs with indexes over 25 or would require special handling to prevent distortion)
Tangling issues
No grinding (because grinding high index springs will actually worsen squareness)
No additional operations, such as plating or tumbling (because of tangling issues)

Using one of the following five methods, establish the corresponding design criteria:
Design based on physical dimensions
Design based on spring rate
Design based on two loads
Design based on one load and spring rate
Design based on one load and free length
Once the spring rate (R) and number of active coils (NA) has been established, calculate the number of total coils (NT). (This does not apply to designs that are based on physical dimensions.)
End Type
Open Open/Ground Closed Closed/Ground

Calculate the solid height (SH) and verify that any customer requirements are satisfied and that any load heights are above solid height. Allow a 3% variation to the nominal solid height value to calculate the maximum solid height.
End Type
Open Open/Ground Closed Closed/Ground

If the design has load requirements, the stress at these load heights must be calculated and compared against the tensile strength of the material. If the percent stress (see below) at any load height is greater than 40% (and the spring will not be compressed more than this particular height) then a set operation or allow for set should be considered. If the percent stress is greater than 60%, a re-design must be considered.


Unless the working range is specifically known, the stress at solid height must be examined. If the percent stress (see below) at solid height is greater than 40% then a set operation or allow for set should be considered. If the percent stress is greater than 60%, a re-design must be considered. If an overstressed situation is presented, the customer should be contacted in order to gain a better understanding of how the spring will be used.


Tolerances should be assigned to all required design criteria. Commercial tolerances should be used whenever possible. Tighter tolerances should be compared against the calculated process capability (CPC) for that feature. Generally speaking, a dimension can be held to its CPC value without generating scrap. Once the tolerance is below the CPC value, it is certain that not all parts will be within tolerance. Rework operations, stricter control over the manufacturing process, or allowances for scrap must be taken into consideration.
Diameter Tolerances

OD commercial tolerances chart:

.025”a to .050”a O.D. ± .001”a
.851”a to 1.125”a O.D. ± .020”a

.051”a to .100”a O.D. ± .003”a

1.126”a to 1.250”a O.D. ± .025”a

.101”a to .250”a O.D. + .003”a - .005”a

1.251”a to 1.480”a O.D. ± .030”a

.251”a to .500”a O.D. ± .008”a

1.481”a to 1.750”a O.D. ± .040”a

.501”a to .850”a O.D. ± .015”a

1.751”a to 2.000”a O.D. ± .055”a

CPC values:


Free Length Tolerances

Calculate the commercial tolerance using the following formula:


(Note: If the Free Length (FL) value is less than 0.500 inch, substitute 0.500 inch as the FL value in the above calculation.)

CPC Values:


Rate Tolerances

A tolerance of +/- 10% is the standard. Anything smaller than this must take into account the factors that influence the spring rate (the spring diameter, feed, and wire size variation). Generally speaking, the feed and wire size vary negligibly. Diameter variation is what primarily controls the variation on the spring rate.

The following formulas should be used to calculate the commercial rate tolerance and rate CPC, if necessary.



Load Tolerances

A tolerance of +/- 10% is the standard. Anything smaller than this must take into account the factors that influence the load (the spring diameter, feed, free length, and wire size variation). Generally speaking, the feed and wire size vary negligibly. Diameter and length variation are what primarily control variation on the loads.

Use the following formulas to calculate the commercial load tolerance and load CPC, if necessary.



Squareness

A tolerance of 3° maximum is standard. For any requirements that call for tighter squareness requirements, particular attention must be given to coiling and grinding setup hours (and frames).

Number of Coils

Generally speaking, the number of coils is not a dimension that will have a tolerance placed on it for manufacturing purposes. This is because it is somewhat difficult to measure the number of coils within a certain degree of accuracy. It is easier to put a tolerance on the spring rate, which is indirectly controlling the number of coils.

[Gert_8]

Agree. It was only advice - good advice too!!

Ps. No need to be a potty mouth, either.

[Green]

Just cut a coil off then if that's what you want to hear, it won't cause any major death on the road or anything but I wouldn't be comfortable driving around for a long time like that.

Personally either get some E90 top hats for about 10mm more, or invest in some coilovers like I did and wind them down to as far you want. I'll warn you now though too low and you'll have issues with the tyres on the inner archers and actually catching the arch doing a fast, hard turn.
Bushes, balljoints etc will wear out faster, I've had both my lower arms changed and the actual lolipop bushes holding them in FELL out.


I don't think it's everyone's intention to give you shit but to be quite frank it does seem these are the most common threads coming around recently and it seems the "search" function it pretty much never used.

It might be just a good idea not to lash out at everyone back so quickly if you think they're being a dick because a lot of people on here are able to help you and you'll be stuffed if you're in need of some emergency advice and no one wants to give it to an ungrateful little fook.

This is a picture on my E30 with 60mm's and one coil removed evenly from each side





It drove just fine and you wouldn't have thought any part of the suspension was cut.

I opted for coilovers on the front, not cheap shitty ones either. so it now sits as so:



Ride is much better and firm and advisable over 60mm springs on standard shocks with a couple of coils missing.

This is my advice to you through experience of lowering my E30. I'll mention though that your sump on the 316 I believe is a lot lower then a m20 so to be careful. Now running that low with the M52 which is also very low to the floor I raised it with spacers on the mounts to give about 10mm more room from the floor. I may op for a sump guard but so far I rarely ever scrape my sump.

Hope you find this useful.

[pacerpete]

There is NOTHING wrong with cutting a standard non 'pigtail' coil spring. Moderation is the key , as with most things. On the other hand, cutting three coils off can only end badly.

A SENSIBLY cut stock spring is far superior to a £69 set of ebay one size fits all shiny red Chinese scrap.

[snakebrain]

May I suggest a Zone wiki is written to clearly run the new 'stance' based users through how to get an e30 to there desired ride height, but also indicate the side effects to a form over function ride height.

The only catch there is that the Zone wiki is managed (to a very high standard) by the guy this runt decided to mouth off at. I very much doubt there's going to be a helpful article coming his way now..

[Grrrmachine]

Thanks snakebrain. I try to remain impartial though, and I try to keep my own opinion out of things when writing the Wiki. If the OP had bothered, he'd have got to the Lowering section of the Wiki from the main menu in two clicks (one on Suspension, the second on Lowering) which would take him here:

http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/inde ... n#Lowering

I'm not the sole driving force behind the Wiki, and others have made a much greater contribution to it recently. But we did come to the conclusion that a Lowering Guide on the Wiki was a massive can of worms, and that the only real advice, as with every car mod, is Do It Properly, Or Don't Do It At All.

I'm certainly not going to be put out by a potty-mouthed spotty little oik with his baseball cap on backwards and his iPod filled with hip-hop

[DopeE30]

Just cut a coil off then if that's what you want to hear, it won't cause any major death on the road or anything but I wouldn't be comfortable driving around for a long time like that.

Personally either get some E90 top hats for about 10mm more, or invest in some coilovers like I did and wind them down to as far you want. I'll warn you now though too low and you'll have issues with the tyres on the inner archers and actually catching the arch doing a fast, hard turn.
Bushes, balljoints etc will wear out faster, I've had both my lower arms changed and the actual lolipop bushes holding them in FELL out.


I don't think it's everyone's intention to give you shit but to be quite frank it does seem these are the most common threads coming around recently and it seems the "search" function it pretty much never used.

It might be just a good idea not to lash out at everyone back so quickly if you think they're being a dick because a lot of people on here are able to help you and you'll be stuffed if you're in need of some emergency advice and no one wants to give it to an ungrateful little fook.

This is a picture on my E30 with 60mm's and one coil removed evenly from each side





It drove just fine and you wouldn't have thought any part of the suspension was cut.

I opted for coilovers on the front, not cheap shitty ones either. so it now sits as so:



Ride is much better and firm and advisable over 60mm springs on standard shocks with a couple of coils missing.

This is my advice to you through experience of lowering my E30. I'll mention though that your sump on the 316 I believe is a lot lower then a m20 so to be careful. Now running that low with the M52 which is also very low to the floor I raised it with spacers on the mounts to give about 10mm more room from the floor. I may op for a sump guard but so far I rarely ever scrape my sump.

Hope you find this useful.

Thanks alot fella, thats all i wanted to know . I am cutting a modified spring anyways. Some people are just arrogant i was never rude to anyone.

[kangman]

Thanks alot fella, thats all i wanted to know . I am cutting a modified spring anyways. Some people are just arrogant i was never rude to anyone.

Welcome to the zone, you gotta get use to the abuse. its all harmless banter and you need a thick skin to survive. We got people like nobby who will only give you information if you surrender a pic of your gf or sisters knockers.

Get use to it, eventually you'll be on the band wagon

[snakebrain]

i was never rude to anyone.

Delusional little prick!!

[DopeE30]

i was never rude to anyone.

Delusional little prick!!

LOOOL Fuck Yourself

[snakebrain]

i was never rude to anyone.

Delusional little prick!!

LOOOL **** Yourself

Don't talk shite and people won't mock you!

[Duke137]

This is one of those 'going nowhere' threads full of different opinions

[snakebrain]

[Andyboy]

. I am cutting a modified spring

Have you not listened to a word that's been said?

[Rav335uk]

. I am cutting a modified spring

[Morat]

Thanks alot fella, thats all i wanted to know . I am cutting a modified spring anyways. Some people are just arrogant i was never rude to anyone.

You definitely were rude, and your behaviour is unacceptable. Count this as a public warning.
All the info you need is in the Wiki.
Threadlock applied.