Member
12" front springs? Wowser. Out of curiosity, what's your ride height and front travel?
Yea, you may have quite a change in camber curve rate over a large travel.
Member
Where do you want me to measure to for the ride height? I have a ton of travel but I've never measured it. What's the best way to do so?Originally Posted by aeronaut
To lower the ride height, I can just adjust the coilover adjusters or I can install shorter springs. I'm guessing I should keep the 12" springs to keep all my travel? Or is it possible to have too much?
Member
For dirt, I have no idea what the right answer is. I'd guess the right answer is, "just enough travel".
For ride height, us road guys measure at the jack points, floor to chassis. OR, center of wheel to top of fender arch (but then some of us have fender flares).
Mean Mr. Cone
Mind you, track / autocross specific, I run around 650 up front and anywhere from 550 to 800 in the rear. Generally, speaking, yeah... 150lbs stiffer in the rear is perfect (600-650/800 is an awesome setup for the street/track/autocross). I also run a H&R bar up front and no bar in the rear. Your sway bar setup cracks me upI know why you do it, but it's no less humorous! I know a few REALLY powerful STis that run no FSB #becauseAWD I would love to see what you car can do without the rear sway bar, honestly. I know that would induce a bit more understeer, but having seen your videos, I would also be much more aggressive on the throttle and try to hold the slides between turns (get that pendulum effect to work for you). I could see a little more camber up front helping you, but I'm also not 100% sure how drastic that changes things on the dirt vs. asphalt. A little shorter spring might put the car on its nose a bit more and I see that being helpful, but do you ever bottom out in the front?
WUTCONE?
Member
I ran with no FSB and RSB for one race and swore I would never do it again due to crippling understeer, but I was still running regular coilover (non-beehive) springs in the rear and they were coil binding on every bump. I suppose I could try again now that I have beehives in the rear. I do know some of my E30 competitors run with no bars at all, but their cars are a lot lighter than mine.Mind you, track / autocross specific, I run around 650 up front and anywhere from 550 to 800 in the rear. Generally, speaking, yeah... 150lbs stiffer in the rear is perfect (600-650/800 is an awesome setup for the street/track/autocross). I also run a H&R bar up front and no bar in the rear. Your sway bar setup cracks me up
Regarding my conservative driving style, yeah, I know there's room for improvement there. But for rallycross you add up all your times for the day, versus autocross where you just use your fastest time, so every cone you hit adds up really quick. And I'm just not sure how to drive more aggressively without hitting some cones. It's very hard to win an event if you hit more than one cone. It can be done, but it's hard. Hence me driving the way I do.
I can't tell if I actually bottom out, or if I just get tire rub on the fender liner. But I do get tire rub on the liner on hard bumps, and at the last event it was so rough that my front bumper was smashing down on stuff and breaking mounting clips/fog lights.
Oh, and a reminder that I'm running Subaru top shock mounts up front to get more upwards travel. So I should have an extra ~1" of upwards travel over any other E36 front suspension, plus a ton of extra droop travel. I'll try and get some measurements sometime.
Mean Mr. Cone
They also have rear trailing arms vs the 5-links. I would say that it's worth at least disconnecting things to see if you get the same understeer (not necessarily fully removing the bar).
Oh, I know RX scoring...so I totally understand. It's a comfort thing. Makes sense since it's more than just driving fast... driving clean also. Just thought I'd throw that out there
Have you tried the zip tie trick? Wrap them around your shock and see how far they get pushed up at the end of the day (or maybe after each run). That'll give you a more definitive answer as to how much of your suspension you're using.
Did I miss some images of the shocks and how much travel you have? By the way, what kind of shocks are you using? Is the bottom connected to the knuckle by the same style of connection (ie. E36s and Subarus have similar connecting points)?
THANKS!! Great thread, by the way. Love to see a real go at using an E36 for RX!!
WUTCONE?
Member
They also have rear trailing arms vs the 5-links. I would say that it's worth at least disconnecting things to see if you get the same understeer (not necessarily fully removing the bar).
Oh, I know RX scoring...so I totally understand. It's a comfort thing. Makes sense since it's more than just driving fast... driving clean also. Just thought I'd throw that out there
Have you tried the zip tie trick? Wrap them around your shock and see how far they get pushed up at the end of the day (or maybe after each run). That'll give you a more definitive answer as to how much of your suspension you're using.
Did I miss some images of the shocks and how much travel you have? By the way, what kind of shocks are you using? Is the bottom connected to the knuckle by the same style of connection (ie. E36s and Subarus have similar connecting points)?
THANKS!! Great thread, by the way. Love to see a real go at using an E36 for RX!!
-Yeah, I would like to see how the car behaves with no RSB on course, but since we no longer have test and tune days, I would have to try it during competition, which I'm reluctant to do.
-I use the driving clean/no cones as an excuse for not driving more aggressively, because I know I can't! You were absolutely correct to call me out on it.
-I have not tried the zip tie trick, care to describe it?
Here are some pics of my suspension. These are oval track Bilsteins custom valved for my application. They use normal E36 attachment points below, and a Subaru top mount above (shock towers hacked up and reinforced to fit new top mounts).
Cutting shock towers:
E36 mount on the left, Subaru on the right. Note the size difference as well as how much extra upwards travel it provides.
Reinforcement plate
And welded up (any gaps in the welds were filled in at a later date)
And here's how much droop travel I've got up front:
Mean Mr. Cone
Those are beefy! I love it. That's a great formula.... where did you get them?-Yeah, I would like to see how the car behaves with no RSB on course, but since we no longer have test and tune days, I would have to try it during competition, which I'm reluctant to do.
-I use the driving clean/no cones as an excuse for not driving more aggressively, because I know I can't! You were absolutely correct to call me out on it.
-I have not tried the zip tie trick, care to describe it?
Here are some pics of my suspension. These are oval track Bilsteins custom valved for my application. They use normal E36 attachment points below, and a Subaru top mount above (shock towers hacked up and reinforced to fit new top mounts).
I saw the chopped up towers, but it didn't occur to me you just need to make sure the spherical to fit in the Scooby mount... which is pretty easy with a sleeve at most. Makes more sense as to how pseudo-plug-and-play it is.
As for the zip-tie trick...
Grab a 10" zip-tie. Wrap it around the shock right above where the spring mount is. This will essentially "push" the zip-tie up as the suspension compresses. At some point, the zip-tie will end up against the top of the strut tower (the suspension has bottomed out - assuming the shaft it shorter than the overall body) or somewhere between resting and that "highest" position. This will tell you how much compression travel you've used. You can do that front and back and generally get a good idea of any issues caused by bottoming out. Worst case, keep them on the shocks and "reset" them before each run. If you bottom out once, a possible fluke. If you keep bottoming out a non-trivial number of times, you might need stiffer or longer springs.
WUTCONE?
Member
My suspension was made by JVAB, he specializes in off-road/rally stuff.
Alright, so I pulled the car in the garage and took some zip tie measurements. First up, a pic of my droop travel:
From static ride height, I have 3" droop travel in front and 4" in the rear. I'll measure "up" (?) travel later.
Here's how it sits on the street.
Here are my ride height measurements
From ground to hockey pucks
F: 6.25/5.75?", R: 6.5"
From middle of center cap to wheel arch
F: 14.5", R: 12.6"
What are these measurements supposed to look like when the car is stock? Is there a thread I can peruse to see what other people are running? I'm interested to know what's the preferred front to rear rake. I've heard these cars like it with the rear a little lower than the front, is that accurate?
My front wheel wells have clearly met the tops of my tires many times:
I'm thinking I may need to get some stiffer/taller bump stops to prevent this. The stiffer front springs should also help.
Then I decided to have a little fun and get silly. I've been interested in making a driver's side headlight intake, but quickly realized I had no interest in swapping out headlights at events. So I decided I would try the next best thing and use my (unused) DS brake cooling duct as some sort of CAI thingy. This is definitely a dumpster engineering kind of project, as I just used some old fender liner plastic and some old dryer tubing stuff I had lying around. If I decide to keep it, I'll probably paint the inlet of it black so it won't be as visible. Aside from how ugly and terrible it is, do you think it will work? I can't imagine it poses any risk to getting water in the intake. Thoughts?
It comes up right under the intake, but it's hard to see here.
And since the season is over, I did a thorough cleaning of the whole car so it's nice all winter.
Oh, and these are the alignment specs I'm aiming for once I tweak things a little bit. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Front
Camber: -1.5 deg (per side) Toe: 0.10-0.15 total toe out
Rear
Camber: -1.5 to -2 deg (per side), Toe: 0.20 total toe in
Member
That's really close to factory suspension ride heights. Measured from wheel arch to center of wheel: ~14" front (cant remember exact) and 12.75" rear.
I'm surprised you not a touch higher. It looks like you're rubbing quite often up front, and I'd think you should consider stiffer springs or higher ride height rather than a stiffer bump stop. For a track car, when measured at the jack points, rake should be rear 1/2 to 1" higher than front, and is a significant adjustment for handling.
Member
I think a fair amount of that rubbing occurred at the last event when there were some very rough sections of the course. I plan on ordering some 300lb springs to replace my 250lb springs. Why do you think I shouldn't get a longer bump stop? If my tires are hitting the body before my bump stops are touched, shouldn't I try to find longer bump stops that prevent that from happening? I can get progressive bump stops, which I would think would be more forgiving than the hard stop of the body of the car. Generally speaking, what does raising/lowering the rear compared to the front do for handling balance? I'm concerned that increasing the front spring rate will also increase understeer, so I may need to adjust the rear to compensate. I'm at max height in the rear, but I can drop it if needed.
Member
IMO, the use of bump stops is to protect the shock (and other parts) in extreme or relatively rare cases. For example, full braking then accidentally hit something or bumpy off track excursion. The "shiney-ness" of your inner fender tells me your maxing out suspension travel relatively often. I'd fix that with spring rate or ride height. Some longer travel suspensions will have fancy bump stops (hydraulic based, for example)
Rake makes a noticeable difference in understeer and oversteer characteristics. Lowering front moves static and dynamic weight bias forward, reducing understeer. But correct, none of ride height, rake, suspension travel, or spring rate can be adjusted independent of each other.
Mean Mr. Cone
This. Goal is to NOT use the bumpstops. Suspension should be to handle 99% of what you're likely to actually see in a rallycross. I'd start out with what you said (300# springs) and then go from there with tuning after you have results.
You have what looks to be a good rake, imho. If you were tuning an autocross or track setup, I'd worry about rake more. I don't see anything wrong with the current look.
WUTCONE?
Member
So I did something unexpected a little while ago. Normally I would spend months and months agonizing over every little thing, trying to decide if this or that was the right decision. Do I really need this? Should I get something else? Is this the right one? Do I need to sell that? But I was browsing Autotrader one day, and stumbled across something that looked like a great deal, and I made the completely unnecessary decision to buy something that had been on my list of cars to own at some point. Did I need it? Nope. Did I know what I was going to do with it? Nope. But I knew these cars and the market well enough to know it was a pretty good deal, so I made a rash decision and just bought it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you my newest (and also oldest) car...........
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A single-owner, garage kept, bone-stock, rust free (!) 1995 1.8L Miata!
Now, I know this will generate some speculation and questions, so let me try to head them off.
Q: Will this replace the M3 as your rallycross car?
A: No, I think it's too nice for that. And I've sunk way too much time and money into the M3 to just get rid of it. Plus, it makes fun noises.
Q: Are you sure? I mean you did just get thoroughly destroyed by a few Miatas at Nationals. You expect me to believe that had nothing to do with your purchase?
A: I know how this looks. But I've wanted a Miata for a long time, and they're only going up in value. Before I make any sort of decision about replacing the M3, I want to get a feel for these things and see how much I like them. This thing feels like a toy compared to the bank vault the M3 is.
Q: So you are considering replacing the M3?
A: Look, I'm not an idiot. I know that a properly set-up Miata would probably be faster than the M3 in a lot of venues. But I'm not sure I want to build a car just on the off chance Nationals are ever held East of the Mississippi again. The M3 does fine at local events.
Q: Fine. So what are the plans for the thing?
A: It's bone stock, and aside from some maintenance items needs pretty much nothing. Both of my other cars are (way too) modified, I think it might be nice to just have a basic-ass car that needs nothing but gas and oil. I'll probably just tidy things up and drive it.
Q: Is that it?
A: Get off my lawn.
Member
Congratulations on your new rally-x car! K- swap it is!
I think the fact you added the dialogue at the bottom speaks volumes to the mindset haha.
All Joking aside. Super clean car. I'm sympathetic to wanting new projects.
Member
Fun thread! Not sure what happens when a Miata and M are in the same garage.
Member
Lol, pretty much. Yeah, having something new to work on is exciting. I love planning things out and learning the ins and outs of a new platform.
Oh, that's easy. The garage can only hold one car, and it's currently my I30It's getting a minor restoration (it turned 25 this year) so I'm cutting out and replacing all the rusted metal in the back of the car. I had it fully PDRed this year, and will be getting the bumpers and spoiler repainted shortly. I swapped it from a 5 speed to a 6 speed earlier this year, and I'm having a custom 6 speed built at the moment. Then it's on to its 3rd motor swap and something approaching 300 NA whp!
Member
S52-swapped Miata it is.
Member
Long time no update, time for something small and stupid. I can't do anything interesting since my I30 is squatting in the garage and won't leave until I decide to get it painted, so in the meantime I have to do what I can do the other cars while they sit in the frigid driveway. So I decided it was time to modernize my stereo a bit in the M3 and install a new head unit that can do Bluetooth and USB sticks. The current one was originally used in my I30 for a decade or so, and apparently was from 2006. If I wanted to listen to music on my phone or music player I had to plug into the long aux cable that had to be run from behind the HU through a hole ahead of my shifter, like so:
Not very classy.
Not to mention the old HU didn't exactly match with the factory orange interior lights:
Thankfully the new one has infinitely adjustable colors, and one of the presets is close enough for now.
While I was in there I did a permanent mounting of the seat heater button. The original location seen above didn't work for very long since it required me to trim too much material off the body of the switch, which apparently weakened/ruined it. So the replacement switch couldn't be mounted in the same factory location and I decided to just drill a hole and be done with it. I also removed all the unless other switches/lights/buttons from ahead of the shifter (alarm indicator, TC button, PS seat heater) and filled in the holes with blanks, which gives the center console a much cleaner look that I'm quite pleased with.
And I was pleasantly surprised with the sound from the new HU. Like the old, it's got 4V pre-outs to the amps, but there's a lot more adjustability in tuning it, and the bass boost button actually does a pretty decent job without muddying things up too bad. Hooray!
Member
Wow, MUCH cleaner! Feels good to knock out some little things that have been bugging you, I'm sure.
Member
Yeah, at this point only the little things are left!
Member
So my rebuilt diff will be back home soon, and I'm considering upgrading the diff cover while I have the chance. Last thing I want is for the diff cover to break and potentially ruin my "new" diff in the process. I came across this product in another thread, where a guy has built a VERY nice LS E36. Now before you laugh, yes, I know Dorman isn't the first brand you think of when you want high quality parts. But it seems like they have built a strong E36 diff cover for a pretty reasonable price.
https://static.dormanproducts.com/document/697-550_oe-fix_case-study.pdf
https://www.dormanproducts.com/p-106957-697-550.aspx?make=BMW&origin=keyword
For $165, I think it might be worth the peace of mind. Can anyone think of a reason I shouldn't get this thing?
Member
I say go for it! (of course, it costs me nothing.
Seems like a reasonable thing. I wish they'd added some additional cooling surfaces while they were upgrading the design.
Member
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...6#post30295406
I have it on my car. The only issue I ran into is that the rear mounting holes didn't line up, to the point where I had to cut and re-weld the subframe mounting points.
My subframe may have been bent from the abuse that broke the old diff, I'm not sure. No issues with it in two years of abuse.
Member
Sounds good, order placed.
I'm currently running AKG 95A (medium-hard) diff mounts in my car, along with aluminum subframe bushings. I have a set of AKG 90D (hard) diff mounts sitting in a box. Would it be okay to run the harder bushings for the diff cover, while still running the softer mount for the front diff bolt? Or should I not be lazy and just press out my current 95A bushings and press them into the new Dorman cover? AKG mentions on their site that diff and subframe bushings should be of the same material, but I was under the impression that only applied to E30s where the diff is a stressed member. Can anyone comment?
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