e30 front and rear coil over setup

[323e30 0]

wanted

e30

coilovers

front and rear...

new or good condition used...

[email protected]

to suit racing............

[Gus 5]

will prob need to make your own up dude, never seen a set FS...

fronts are pretty straight forward, rears depend on how hardcore you want to go, whether you use the stock shock/spring position or go all hardcore and hammer out some space to do a proper strut assembly

[323e30 0]

i found a set of bilstiens but they were 2600$ for front and rears. with standard rear shock position.

[Gus 5]

sounds about right...you mean whole spring/shock/strut in front and spring/shock/height adjust perches on the back?

not cheap but i doubt you will find much cheaper

standard rear shock position is used, its the spring that moves...have not seen many (any in nz??) that have not used the standard spring position anyway..used on the dtm cars if you want to check s14.net for what i mean

[Gus 5]

first is the DTM style one (glenn has done something similar with the rear end, e28 stuff??)

second is normal rear coil over (talk to josh, he has made some up, look pretty good) cant really see the perch adjuster its just behind the brake disc

[323e30 0]

sweet, cheers for that, guess ill just have to fork out for them. Think ill go with the standard shock position ones.

[hybrid 1043]

Further to what gus said.

For the rear:

You use replacement adjustible shocks (H&R or Koni or Bilstien etc etc)

Adjustible rear perch (Ground Control etc etc )

'Can' shaped springs (Eibach works with the GC setup)

For the front:

Adjustible Front shocks insert replacements (H&R or Koni or Bilstien etc etc)

Ground Control front adjustible perch (need too cut OEM perch from strut and weld on supplied seating ring (any good welding shop can do this and make sure you get painted professionally) )

Barrel shaped springs (Eibach's if your running GC)

Good time to buy Adjustible Camber / Castor top plates .. (not really needed but a nice option)

Also a good time to upgrade your control arm bushes ..

another option for the front setup ... you can actually buy the Bilstein coil over strut replacements .. which are on the expensive side but worth it if your looking into 5 lug conversions .. something to think about.

We went the m3 strut / GC setup route .. about the same price.

You can start buying all sorts or extras but this is the main setup ...

The perfect spring rate bias on an e30 for street/track is:

Fronts at 100-175 pound less than the rear.

EG: we are running 525 pound fronts and 700 pound rears (this is hard as f*ck and not a good street rate and is mainly for performance driving / racing)

for street you would want something like 325 / 500 for normal street use. or maybe 400/500 depending on your driving style.

[Andrew 30]

Since when does it make more sense to have a semi trailing arm car with stiffer rear suspension?

[hybrid 1043]

research much ? lol

[Mike 1]

Since when does it make more sense to have a semi trailing arm car with stiffer rear suspension?

since the rear spring is under a 'lever' type action, ie between the pivot point and the wheel, whereas the front is right above the center of the wheel. Around 0.65 ratio supposedly, ie 6.5mm change in spring height will change ride height by 10mm, and a 500 pound spring is effectively only a 325 pound spring.

Edited May 16, 2007 by Mike

[hybrid 1043]

Mikes above info applies to the 'stock position' e30 setup ... if you were to run full coil overs weld new rear strut towers in to take a rear coil overs the almost 50/50 split spring rate would apply, such as andy's race car setup.

[Andrew 30]

since the rear spring is under a 'lever' type action, ie between the pivot point and the wheel, whereas the front is right above the center of the wheel. Around 0.65 ratio supposedly, ie 6.5mm change in spring height will change ride height by 10mm, and a 500 pound spring is effectively only a 325 pound spring.

That makes sense - cheers Mike.

What I was meaning was it is dumb to have a stiffer rear end but - it ain't really!