Hello everyone, First post here, I looked for something similar in the forums, couldn't find anything. I have an e46 325ti fitted with hsd monopro, hidro handbrake and poly bushes all around, a budget friendly trackday project. I plan to detail the build in the projects forum, with all the problems I've encountered so far, but for now here goes: the hsd with the camber plates set to maximum gain offer only about 1.5 degrees camber. Does anyone have a relatively cheap and simple solution to find another degree, to go to about minus 2.5? In the e36 it is rather simple because the spindle bolts on to the damper and you can simply put two washers there and problem solved. Not the case with the e46. Any thoughts?
On my e46 saloon the holes for the top mount bolts are slotted - I got over 1.2 degrees just by fitting them as far towards the centre of the car as they would go with my top plates set at 0. Not sure if your compact has the same setup?
Thanks for your replies. That's what I knew, on stock dampers you should be able to pull over -1. This is the mount, on full offset and also the innermost position from the slotted holes. The m3 from what I know has totally different front suspension dimensions, probably the attaching points of the lca are different. People say you cannot put m3 suspension on non m3, never been under one to say for sure. {}
Looks to be mounted incorrectly... You should be able to push them in towards the centre of the engine - I think you need to jack the car up and lower the top mounts down and rotate them 90 degrees and see how you get on
Do you have a picture which shows the whole engine bay? We're pretty sure those are the right way around, but it's confusing to say for certain without seeing more of the surrounding parts. Also, what ride height are you running at? It can be hard to get negative camber if you are running very high
Pretty sure they are the right way round, unless compact strut tops are the opposite way round to other e46s
The top nuts are on the inside, towards the engine, as much as they'll go (one at least, the other is set to get the same camber). The ride height is aprox stock, I measured before and after, my target was to get the same heights as before. I attached one pic of the engine bay and one of the damper from below (as good as I could take it..). For the moment it started snowing, so it's not a big deal over the winter, I assume 1.5 is quite enough. I should get a bit less camber on the rear perhaps. But on dry tarmac the front is definitely showing the lack of camber, slow steering and not alot of grip. The dampers can't be turned 180, because the holes are not symmetric. I could switch left and right - did think about it. My logic is this: the top nut is concentric with the damper and maxed out in the camber plate, so probably couldn't gain anything by switching. Sitting on 18" wheels for now, 22 offset if I remember well. I'll switch to 16" and winter tires pretty soon Any thoughts? {} {} {}
Hi, The camber plates are correct. M3 lower arms do give a lot more camber due to the wider track, but if you only want 2 ish degrees neg, I'm pretty sure the issue is just ride height, as the car camber gains as it goes lower. Why do you want to run it at stock height?
