My 3 series sucks, help.

Joshy said:
Are you still on standard anti roll bars?

They'd be my first port of call of ridding a car of excessive bodyroll if it already has some form of uprated suspension.
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It's a Sport thereby the ARB's are massively uprated compared to the base model already. That's not to say it's not something worth looking into still, for now though I'd sooner have hard springs in there.

Gaygle said:
Sorry, only just saw this.

On my E46 FCAB were a must. I also did all of the ARB bushes and the RTABs. The RTABs on the E36 were meant to have an even short life expectancy than on the E46! RTABs and FCABs reduced the tramlining/high speed "instability" i had significantly. Then getting rid of the Bridgestone tyres eliminated it altogether.

Also, i had a leaky rear shock by 65k and 8 years old and replaced both rear shocks and top mounts as a precaution. Also i replaced the front drop links which were like £25 for both and took a whole 5 minutes for the mechanic to fit - definitely worth doing.

Should be able to get ALL of this done for around £300. Quite a bit less if you can do everything yourself. If your E36 has never had any bushes etc changed, the difference should be massive.

EDIT: Sorry, only just read about your friendly mechanic :(
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Thanks, I've been looking into the bushes today. RTAB are easy to get, Meyle HD ones should do I think, not sure if I should go for Powerflex polyurethane ones.
Front ones seem tricky though, they are solid eccentric bushes on the Sport (being solid, you'd think there's limited scope for wearing out, but whatever..). Can't find Meyle HD ones, although you can buy them as part of a control arm kit easily. Will continue looking.
 
Clarkey said:
It's a Sport thereby the ARB's are massively uprated compared to the base model already. That's not to say it's not something worth looking into still, for now though I'd sooner have hard springs in there.
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I think leaving the ARBs alone and focussing on other things is indeed a good idea.

Clarkey said:
Thanks, I've been looking into the bushes today. RTAB are easy to get, Meyle HD ones should do I think, not sure if I should go for Powerflex polyurethane ones.
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Speaking from experience with my E46, the Meyle HD ones came recommended. Don't quote me on this, but i seem to remember people who powerflex bushes noticed everything being a bit stiff and choppy.

Clarkey said:
Front ones seem tricky though, they are solid eccentric bushes on the Sport (being solid, you'd think there's limited scope for wearing out, but whatever..). Can't find Meyle HD ones, although you can buy them as part of a control arm kit easily. Will continue looking.
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Not sure if they are the similar to the E46 ones, but the E46's ones looked solid but were filled with oil, and placing the worn one next to the new one, the difference in their appearance became quite apparent!
 
So, update on this.
Found a company called express car parts which sell all the Meyle catalogue for very nice prices. Ordered Meyle offset FCAB, and Meyle/HD RTAB.
Ordered HSD HR coilovers (m3cutters group buy ***, great timing).

Done some research on geo settings for it, decided on
F
Camber -2'15"
Caster 7'00" <-- still some question over this, I will have adjustable caster, lot of people say it's best to go for as much as possible, others say 6-7 (standard M3 setting) is fine. Currently running 5.
Toe 0 - 0'06"

R
Camber -1'40"
Toe - 0'12"

This will please the purists, bought a set of standard Bosch headlights. I'll be dismantling and fully cleaning them before fitting.

Just a waiting game now for all this stuff to arrive. Excited.
 
Take this the right way, what made you choose those figures, do you have _ANY_ idea how that will feel to you?

I've had 'fast road!!!11' settings put on a car before that just didn't suit me, if you are picking these figures as a base template, great, but to a point, set the car up for how YOU want it to feel. Those figures might be epic for one person, and be fail for another (may feel over/under sensitive, etc).

Looking forward to hearing more. Are you changing the wheels and tyres also?
 
I have some idea yes, it's a pretty similar setup to what shoes is running on his track car. Driven that on the road and it's great, really direct and responsive and gives you the feeling that the front end will never let go. Drove a wet and dry session in it on Donington too, and it's lovely and neutral.

Aside from that, there's a huge thread on bimmerforums recommending that setup for street use, trackculture have also recommended a very similar setup. It's also basically the same as the M3 Sport (whatever that actually is?) factory settings.

Basically the idea is that 1.5 rear with a small toe-in gives it good grip and traction, and because the camber gain on the McStrut is much less than the double wishbone type rear you need to run a degree more static camber up front to dial out understeer. Getting rid of the factory front toe-in livens up the steering feel, but 0 toe can cause inner tyre wear from highway driving so a hint of toe-in helps counteract that,

Hope that gives you an idea where I'm coming from with it, but as you say it's just a starting point. The car will be adjustable in every respect so there's always room for tweaking.

I don't know about the wheels are tyres, eventually I plan to change them but for now I can't be bothered with it. I'm a little confused about the clearance issue though, the wheels are 8j et38 with 235/40 tyre. The factory setup is an 8.5j et41 with 245/40 tyre, this is actually wider and gives less arch clearance than what I have now. If the car can run with -2 from the factory with a wider tyre then I can't see why I couldn't run -1'40" with a narrower set. I'll just tell the alignment guy to disregard the clearance issue and do it anyway.
 
So, since last time I changed out the springs and shocks. The Bilstein B8 I can only assume were original, o/s/r was totally blown.
Posh HSD coilovers were fitted.
IMG_20120401_164144.jpg

Criticisms.. Inner clearance is hopeless, I guess that's just the price you pay when using full body coilovers. Spring rates could be higher, it's actually a bit softer than stock on the softest settings, but it feels too slack like that. Crank them all the way up and it's crazy stiff, back breaking stuff. I played with the damper settings a bit before alignment but it drove like a dog regardless so I'll disregard any findings and will experiment more now. There will be a nice middle ground between comfort and responsiveness, I will find it in time. It has been said in this thread that the HSDs were an ass to adjust the fronts because of the inverted strut design meaning the knob is on the bottom. It's a bit of a pain, but really no big deal, they can be adjusted just by putting it on full lock and reaching under.

I took it for alignment today. Actually I took it to have the bushes changed first but the guys told me the existing bushes are solid as a rock and it would be a waste of time. Will probably change them in time, I have them sitting in a box anyway.

After 2 hours of alignment work, it looks like this..
IMG_20120405_164059.jpg

Like I say, it drove like a dog before, so this is a nice improvement.
Before, it had an incredibly planted front end, but the rear was stupidly loose, absolutely no traction at all. Now it's got a load of traction, steering reacts better, no more rear end wobble when swerving. I have lost a certain amount of the awesome front end grip I has before though, maybe I will have some of the camber put back in.

Even after all this, responsiveness is not as good as my shonky old Colt. Next step I will replace the steering column guibo (can I get a solid one? what a stupid thing to have), look into new tyres (AD08/F1AS2/CS5??) and maybe replace the rubber mounted outer balljoints with solid M3 style ones from the Meyle HD range.

Also, the noise from the grooved brake discs was getting right on my nerves so I put a pair of brembo plains on there, blissfully silent braking now :) They came in a pretty red box so here's a picture of it.
IMG_20120404_123955.jpg
 
Presume you're commenting on the 'alineyourcar' spelling fox? Rather than align....

The company is called A-Line, hence the website address. They are very good, full hunter equipment, alignment and tracking is their main business rather than just happening to do tracking as an addition to tyres, exhausts etc. Had my last two sets of tyres fitted there, and tracking. Great service and good staff, the people who run it are real enthusiasts.
 
Will said:
Presume you're commenting on the 'alineyourcar' spelling fox? Rather than align....

The company is called A-Line, hence the website address. They are very good, full hunter equipment, alignment and tracking is their main business rather than just happening to do tracking as an addition to tyres, exhausts etc. Had my last two sets of tyres fitted there, and tracking. Great service and good staff, the people who run it are real enthusiasts.
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I have both of my cars aligned here too and the service is second to none IMO.
 
Ok, today I had a set of Yoko Advan Neova AD08 tyres fitted to the car F 225/45 R 245/40.
To put it simply, I take back anything derogatory I said about the car. This is a proper tyre and the car feels amazing now, steering is very tight and direct now just like my old Colt was. Pretty surprised how much better it feels over a well regarded tyre like a Conti CSC3. That's before you even get to the grip level which is frankly astonishing.
Had a rear toe adjustment too, the last setup I had resulted in a nasty snap oversteer, back to a known good setting. Damper settings were pretty shoddy with the new tyres and didn't match at all, tweaked tonight and seen an improvement but it started raining so will continue messing another day.
Pleased with the wear on the old tyres, fairly even despite running what could be considered a lot of camber.
 
AD08s are something I'll be looking getting when my tyres need replacement. I'm actually going to A-Line tomorrow (today) so I'm sure I'll have a similar print out to yours :)
 
0'20", this gives excellent traction with no nasty surprises. The previous setting was 0'28" and it was treacherous to say the least, especially in wet conditions.
 
Yes, seems like a small change I agree, but if there's one thing I've learnt from having so many setup tweaks it's that small toe changes can have a profound effect.
Tempted to go for 0 toe in the front but apparently it accelerates inner shoulder wear when running the likes of 2.5' camber.
 
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