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Thread: E36 M3: Caster and Camber uneven (Control Arm bent?)

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    E36 M3: Caster and Camber uneven (Control Arm bent?)

    Hi guys,

    I have a 1997 M3 sedan and after about half a year of tracking the my car in mostly stock form, I decided it was time to upgrade to nicer suspension, wheels and tires.

    After installing my new coilovers and wheels/tires, I took the car for alignment and found found out that I could only go -2.9 on the passenger front versus -3.7 on the other side (I was shooting for -3.0 camber in the front). I also noticed that my wheel sits further forward in the wheel well compared to the drivers side causing my tire to rub where the plastic bumper meets the metal fender (actually, metal piece that wraps around holding the signal lights, headlights and grill).

    I heavily suspect that it's a bent control arm (car has been towed before, I suspect the tower may have bent the arm securing the car to the bed) but would like a second opinion before I start throwing money at problems. Is it possible an improper coilover install would make that much difference in alignment (alignment guy seems to think my coilovers are properly installed)? I can really only think of installing the camber plates in the wrong rotation. The only other thing I can think of is that the frame isn't straight (crosses fingers). The car has a clean title, but you never know being the 4th owner of an over 15 year old car...

    If it is the control arm, I'm considering getting the Meyle HD arms. From my understanding, these are based on the 92-95 geometry and I would need to change to offset bushings (I have a 97).

    This is the parts I bookmarked to purchase:
    1. Meyle HD Control Arms
    2. Meyle Offset Solid FCAB


    Are these the correct parts? Reading on Bimmerworld, all the E36 Meyle HD arms are the same geometry (92-95 geometry) and the extra caster is achieved with offset bushings.

    Thanks in advance. I'll upload the pics in the following post so this post doesn't get so long.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Drivers side front


    Passengers side front (notice how close the wheel is to the bumper)


    Rubbing problem (passenger front)

    Camber plate drivers side (-2.9 degrees camber)


    Maxed out camber plate passenger side (also -2.9 camber, but maxed out)

  2. #2
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    The issue is the camber plates do not adjust caster at all.... You need to run shims on the struts with that type of suspension/camber plates and you can easily get -3.0 to -3.5 degree's.

    You need to get a set of offset bushings and flip them 180 degree's to pull the wheel back. It will change caster some but not terrible I set up a 99 E36M3 with ISC suspension, has the same basic camber plate set up, and when we used flipped offset bushings it put the wheel/tire almost perfectly where it needed to be. On track the car feels fine I have driven it numerous times.
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  3. #3
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    I'm not saying some tow-monkey isn't capable of destroying your car, but bending them seems unlikely to me. I would think you are more likely to be suffering from mis-matched parts.

    The '96+ parts are designed for a strut mount that has had the caster increased by moving the point of rotation rearward and those camber plates have a centered (base 3-series) geometry, which would move the wheel forward in the wheel well.

    It's almost as if you have a '96+M control arm on the passenger's side and a base model ('95M) control arm on the driver side, for the wheels to center up like that. Or you have one offset bushing and one centered one.

    The 96+ spindles have more camber than the 95 spindles and you should be able to get more than -3* of camber with them. With swapped hats on my '99, I had -3.2* of camber and some good camber plates should have afforded me even more than that.

    I would check that the spindles, bushings and control arms are both the right type first and then plan from there.

    I don't know what your ultimate goals are, but I wrote a lot about suspension geometry and caster/camber effect in the thread linked in my signature line if you're trying to max out the performance.

  4. #4
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    Thanks for the help guys.

    Quote Originally Posted by GGray View Post
    The issue is the camber plates do not adjust caster at all.... You need to run shims on the struts with that type of suspension/camber plates and you can easily get -3.0 to -3.5 degree's.

    You need to get a set of offset bushings and flip them 180 degree's to pull the wheel back. It will change caster some but not terrible I set up a 99 E36M3 with ISC suspension, has the same basic camber plate set up, and when we used flipped offset bushings it put the wheel/tire almost perfectly where it needed to be. On track the car feels fine I have driven it numerous times.
    GGray,

    I noticed that the camber plates were designed for a 92-95 E36 a couple days after the original post. I realized the struts sits in the middle of the strut tower as opposed to towards the firewall like the 96+M. I suspect this will be a common problem with most of the mid range 1000-1500$ coilover setups that include camber plates going on 96+ M3's as most seem to ship with camber plates designed for struts to be centered in the strut tower. I am running Fortune Auto coilovers for anyone wondering, the design seems similar to your ISC (I assume all of the casing for all of these are made in the same factory in Taiwan or Korea then sent out to the individual suspension builders).

    Quote Originally Posted by FastFabM3
    I'm not saying some tow-monkey isn't capable of destroying your car, but bending them seems unlikely to me. I would think you are more likely to be suffering from mis-matched parts.
    The '96+ parts are designed for a strut mount that has had the caster increased by moving the point of rotation rearward and those camber plates have a centered (base 3-series) geometry, which would move the wheel forward in the wheel well.

    It's almost as if you have a '96+M control arm on the passenger's side and a base model ('95M) control arm on the driver side, for the wheels to center up like that. Or you have one offset bushing and one centered one.

    The 96+ spindles have more camber than the 95 spindles and you should be able to get more than -3* of camber with them. With swapped hats on my '99, I had -3.2* of camber and some good camber plates should have afforded me even more than that.

    I would check that the spindles, bushings and control arms are both the right type first and then plan from there.

    I don't know what your ultimate goals are, but I wrote a lot about suspension geometry and caster/camber effect in the thread linked in my signature line if you're trying to max out the performance.[/INDENT][/COLOR]
    FastFabM3,

    Bookmarked your link, thanks. Briefly read through and will go through it more in-depth. I was originally reading another good post on the board "The Definitive M3 Alignment and Suspension Guide".

    Changing the FCABs was one of the first things I did on the car, they're both centered, so there's no mismatch there. I'll double check if the arms and spindles do match. It looks like I may have to change arms anyways, or at least flip around offset bushings like GGray did as my camber plates are designed for a 95M and not pushed back towards the firewall like a 96+M. I'll end up eating the cost of the centered bushings I installed a few months ago.

    The car was originally my fun daily driver, doing track days with the car stock and very minimal upgrades (better pads, flywheel/clutch, seat/steering wheel, Koyo radiator). The slippery slope happened and I got a good deal on coilovers and wheels/tires, which is where I am now. After I sort this through though, I feel I'm 90% done upgrading the car, the rest will be spent on continuing maintenance and more track days. I'm used to driving an AE86 Corolla GTS at the track and I feel like the M3 with a moderate suspension upgrade is more than fast enough for bimonthly HPDE car.
    Last edited by hellatj; 05-22-2015 at 06:13 PM.

  5. #5
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    '95M strut mounts did have more caster as seen in this photo, but did not have the camber adjustments that the 96+M mounts have.


    Other than checking everything over like you say, you might also consider upgrading the camber plates to something better. I know that's a lot more money than swapping the bushings, but I bet the results would be better than you have now, as you could center the wheel more by increasing caster, rather than by decreasing it, which should help your performance.

    If you read through my post, I mention my results with both swapped strut mounts and the 95M mounts +offset bushings and camber shims. By increasing the caster and decreasing the king pin inclination, I ended up with nearly the same dynamic camber (when turning), but with over 1/2* less static camber when the wheels are straight. Not too many people pay attention to what happens when the wheels actually turn, and it's a shortsighted approach to the problem.

    Just stuff to consider.

    Sean
    Attached Images Attached Images

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    Ended up replacing the control arms to the Meyle HD ones and changed to offset bushings. It ended up pushing the wheels back to center of the wheel arch. Originally I had about 1/2 of the width of my finger between the tire and the area where the bumper meets the fender. Now there is about 2 widths of my finger.

    Interestingly I also got more usable camber back, especially on the passenger side. I had to dial the camber back down to -3.0 as the camber shot up to around -3.6ish, -3.8ish once the car was back on the alignment rack.

    FastFabM3,

    I may consider nicer camber plates in the future (like the GC ones) but at least changing the arms/bushings fixed my main problem of the wheel being pushed too far forward and the discrepancy between left and right plates. (I still lose some caster angle compared to the 95M mount though)

    If anything, I could probably have a fabrication shop cut me new upper plates similar to the TRM design (theirs is further offset towards the firewall as well as thicker, similar to the mount you posted) and reuse the bottom pillow ball half from the existing Fortune Auto camber plate. Adjusting camber does become a little more annoying though as half of the hex bolts end up hidden under the sheet metal of the strut tower.

    What do people with GC/Vorshlag/TRM camber plates do to adjust camber anyways? Do people end up cutting a hole? Or do people always have to unbolt the top three strut tower bolts and lower the whole assembly whenever they adjust camber?


    TRM Plate


    Ground Control Plate

    Thanks for your help.
    Last edited by hellatj; 05-29-2015 at 09:58 PM.

  7. #7
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    With the Ground Control, you have to drop it down to adjust the caster, but you just loosen the three main ones and slide it to adjust the camber. Glad you got your main problem sorted out so far, how doors it drive now?

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    Quote Originally Posted by FastFabM3 View Post
    With the Ground Control, you have to drop it down to adjust the caster, but you just loosen the three main ones and slide it to adjust the camber. Glad you got your main problem sorted out so far, how doors it drive now?
    To be honest, I haven't really pushed the car since I put in the suspension/tires yet. I'll be going down to a Laguna Seca track event about a week from now and easing into the new car setup. It should be a dramatic difference, the tires alone should make a big improvement, my car originally had Sumitomo HTR Z-III from the previous owner, which I have been using for track days. I will be running BFG Rivals now.

    As far as revised control arms and bushings, the main thing that I do notice is that I don't scrub my passenger front tire against the bumper driving straight over dips in the freeway anymore, so that's a relief. I suppose turn in feels a little sharper and there seems to be a less of a dead zone in the steering when I wiggle the wheel left and right compared to the previous arms.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hellatj View Post
    Hi guys,

    I have a 1997 M3 sedan and after about half a year of tracking the my car in mostly stock form, I decided it was time to upgrade to nicer suspension, wheels and tires.

    After installing my new coilovers and wheels/tires, I took the car for alignment and found found out that I could only go -2.9 on the passenger front versus -3.7 on the other side (I was shooting for -3.0 camber in the front). I also noticed that my wheel sits further forward in the wheel well compared to the drivers side causing my tire to rub where the plastic bumper meets the metal fender (actually, metal piece that wraps around holding the signal lights, headlights and grill).

    I heavily suspect that it's a bent control arm (car has been towed before, I suspect the tower may have bent the arm securing the car to the bed) but would like a second opinion before I start throwing money at problems. Is it possible an improper coilover install would make that much difference in alignment (alignment guy seems to think my coilovers are properly installed)? I can really only think of installing the camber plates in the wrong rotation. The only other thing I can think of is that the frame isn't straight (crosses fingers). The car has a clean title, but you never know being the 4th owner of an over 15 year old car...

    If it is the control arm, I'm considering getting the Meyle HD arms. From my understanding, these are based on the 92-95 geometry and I would need to change to offset bushings (I have a 97).

    This is the parts I bookmarked to purchase:
    1. Meyle HD Control Arms
    2. Meyle Offset Solid FCAB


    Are these the correct parts? Reading on Bimmerworld, all the E36 Meyle HD arms are the same geometry (92-95 geometry) and the extra caster is achieved with offset bushings.

    Thanks in advance. I'll upload the pics in the following post so this post doesn't get so long.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Drivers side front


    Passengers side front (notice how close the wheel is to the bumper)


    Rubbing problem (passenger front)

    Camber plate drivers side (-2.9 degrees camber)


    Maxed out camber plate passenger side (also -2.9 camber, but maxed out)
    im having the same exact issue but I thought that the offset bushing would push the wheel forward more, and in your or OUR case we would hit and rub more.

    did you flip them 180 degrees??????

  10. #10
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    Uber thread bump here, but, I've got this issue too on my 95 Ti.

    I'm going to replace my old offset bushings with the POWERFLEX offset bushings and flip left to right and see what happens
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    I'm glad you bumped this thread. I've been having the same issue on my 99 M3. When I bought the car the ball joints were worn so I decided to swap in some parts I had left over from my 94 3 series, including, Treehouse Racing FCABs, TRM coilovers and a pair of new 95 geometry control arms. Since then (perhaps even before) my front tires have been rubbing the fender when turning (I didn't notice it prior due to running a smaller wheel and tire package.) This entire time I thought it was the mis-match of parts up front creating the issue. I was looking to get either 95 spindles or 99 control arms and bushings to attempt to correct it. After reading this, I feel like the problem may actually be the centered strut mounting location on the TRM camber plates. I think this thread may have just saved me $300+ on new spindles while likely providing me the opportunity to spend $440.00 on camber plates if any of them will fit the TRMs. It's a good thing I like my car!
    Last edited by bigpuppy; 05-05-2017 at 02:34 AM.
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    Ha! You've got a lot going on! Are you looking for camber plates with adjustable caster? What CAB are you running right now?
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    I am looking for camber plates with adjustable caster. I'm considering the GC Hybrid, Race, and the Vorshlags. It seems like the Vorshlags have the best reviews, however, I think I'm leaning towards the GC hybrids if they can be used with the TRM coilovers. I have the Treehouse Racing FCABs.
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    I own the GC hybrids (bought as part of their full kit with Konis). Only complaint is the needle bearing is exposed and needs to be cleaned and lubed at least a couple times a year, or more if you deal with lots of sand and grime. When it gets dirty and gummed up it'll start creaking during cornering, especially noticeable at low speeds. Cleaning isn't a major effort, just need to spin the height adjuster down so you can reach above the spring. You can also take the whole strut off of the camber plate, leaving the camber plate on the shock tower, if you want to work on the entire stack.

    Other than that minor annoyance, they're fine. There's no issues with them that affect drivability or anything like that. They do what they're supposed to do.

    If I had to do it over again I'd go with the Vorshlag plates since their bearings are all enclosed and you can more or less leave them alone. They might be a bit harsher than the GC hybrid plates though, probably more comparable to the GC race plates. The GC street and hybrid plates are probably more civilized for street cars.
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    I was having the same problem. I used flipped offset bushings and it brought the wheel back, but I’m still have issues with my camber adjustments. It’s set to -3.5 on both sides, but one side looks like it’s positive and the other negative. I’m running CAtuned coilovers on a 96+ M3 do I need to get different top hats to fix this issue?

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