Hey there fellow BMW people, I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. First some info about me and my ride: My name is Alex, I'm 21 and located in Southern Germany. Driving and drifting an E36 328i Sedan for about 8 months now, drifting only during rainy nights and on relatively safe mountain roads until now. The car has a stock BMW 25% clutch type LSD (rather worn I think), cheap coilovers, E36 M3 Evo top mounts reversed, E36 M3 excentric lower control arm bushings. So at the moment I have in the front: - 3 deg camber around 7 deg caster slight toe out Also I have stock steering lock and I'm already hitting the inner frame with 8x17 ET35 wheels on full lock. So I want to increase my steering lock now. Sure this issue has been discussed a thousand times already. But I haven't found just what I need to know in my specific case, yet. I don't really trust cutting and welding cast iron parts and then driving on the Autobahn at 200+ km/h (125 mph)... Also I think a full Wisefab kit or similar is a bit over the top for my street car and also very obvious and flashy, officers will notice that and I might get into trouble... Germany is not easy on car mods. So my idea is to get some good lock adapter brackets, 4mm rack spacers, E46 lower control arms and bushes for the E36 lollipop and then to flip around the E36 M3 Evo top mounts to correct side to counteract the silly camber from the E46 LCAs. Of course the lock adapters are more obvious than welded knuckles but as I said, I don't really like the idea of welded knuckles. My questions are: - Do the lock adapter brackets work in this combination or is bump steer, Ackermann correction etc not working at all anymore in this setup? - Do I hit the late, wider E46 LCAs with the wheels with increased lock? Early slim E46 LCAs seem to be hard to get... - What camber will I get with E46 LCAs and M3 Evo top mounts mounted on the correct side? - What wheels do I need for fitting under the fender and the mods in track width and camber not being too obvious? Is this even possible with standard fenders? Any pics anyone of wheel fitment and steering lock with this combination or similar? That's all for the moment, thank you very much!
You'll have to roll your arches if the cars low and buy 30mm spacers preferably better offset wheels though to stop wheels hitting/rubbing the arms and inner tubs. Again depends on how low the car is and tyre size.
Hello Andy, thank you very much for your response. I know that it will be a tight fit and that I will need skinny wheels and tyres. But I was hoping that someone drives exactly this setup and can provide some more or less precise info. I am sure there is somebody... So you say I will hit the E46 arms without massive wheels spacers? In this case I might get my E36 arms elongated rather than dealing with 30mm spacers.... Again, I am planning to use: - E46 lower control arms, maybe with excentric rear bushes - E36 M3 3.2 top mounts installed correctly, not reversed - lock adapter plates plus maybe 4mm rack spacers - let's say 7J x 16 ET20 wheels or similar. And I would like to know if there might be any problems like wheel rubbing on E46 control arm, rubbing on frame rail or still too much camber and if I have a chance to fit the wheels beneath the stock fenders... Thanks in advance!
i have a 99 m3 and I have 18x9.5 et22 wheels up front. I have wider fiberglass over fenders for clearance. I can say that with et22 wheels, I do not hit the inside of the fender well at factory full lock. I just received my e46 control arms today but am still waiting on my offset condor bushings to arrive. I also have lock adapters to install at the same time. I figured I may as well install them at the same time to save myself the trouble of having to cut the inner and outer tie rods and then having to replace them when I installed the e46 arms. So im just going to do them all at once. I have megan racing camber plates on megan racing coilovers with bc racing springs inside and I noticed your running evo upper top hats. I cant comment on the difference in adjustment made by rotating the evo hat around. Sdeems like if you were to try to rotate them anyway other than full negative camber, then you would be adding positive camber but also drastically changing caster in the other two positions. The only way for you to find out is to rotate them around and see what it does. My guess is that would would have to opt for either adjustable camber plates or a centered top hat (not familiar with mot regulations). If my offset lollipops show up this week then I will most likely be installing all of it this weekend, unless its just to hot outside to bear it (its been 105*f lately). I can post a few photos of the set up and let you know how much wheel well clearance I have. I did a lot of research and there are quite a few youtube videos of folks installing e46 arms on stock e36s. One guy even has go pro cameras mounted to show how much of a difference it for lock and negative camber. IMHO I think without adjusting camber at the top hat, the final result will be too much negative camber for your liking. It looks to me like it is around 4-5* of negative camber from the video. In response to your question about ackerman and bump steer with lock plates. Bump steer is related to how low your car is and what angle your lower control arms are. If they are at an upward angle going to the knuckle then you will have bump steer. If they are flat you are in the neutral stroke of the control arm allowing the suspension to travel freely. From the looks of it, the lock spacers dont add much of a "spacer" under the knuckle. As to where something like the SLR kit bolts to the bottom, the drift works one goes on top of the knuckle. as for ackerman, It looks like the drift works one positions the mount of the outer ball joint farther inward than the factory outer ball joint mount. Thus, adding pro ackerman. As I said earlier, I have the same style kit as the drift work kit. But didnt learn till a few days ago how to adjust ackerman. I am not happy that this kit adds pro ackerman, bc I familiar with driving cars with less or anti ackerman. When I install the kit I will Look at the differences between factory ackerman with the m3 control arms. Then I will look at how much ackerman the factory location has with e46 control arms with offset condor bushes. Then see how bad the ackerman is with the DW lock kit. Finally Ill test drive it and see how the "return to center" or "self steer is". Ill let you know what I find out.
