I'm trying to collect a little info on style 37 fitment for E32.
They debuted on the e34, so I don't buy the argument that they look out of place on the e32. More importantly, I don't care - I like them, and that's it.
First, I'd like to ignore E39 fitments - I'm not interested in running hub rings. It seems like the E34 M5 fitment is the best, but those will be relatively hard to find, thus the E38 wheels seem the easiest to source and use.
Most of the discussion on this I've read in the E34 forum, with occasional comments that E32 is similar. This thread is the most informative of what I've read: https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...tyle-37-thread
I've read that you can run the stock staggered fitment or run the fronts square, but not the rears square, but no reasons were given. Why not? If it's a strut problem you could solve with a spacer. If it's a fender problem, that's a much different story.
Ideally I'd like to run the rears square with a 265 or 275, but given how perfect my car is (63k and so perfect) I'm not willing to even roll the front fenders - I'll just make do with the staggered fitment. The original 15" wheels will be relegated to snow tire duty, but given I live in Austin, they'll realistically just go into storage.
But I'm just curious what the limiting factors are.
Anyone have experience?
-Josh: 1998 S54 E36 M3/4/6 with most of the easy stuff and most of the hard stuff. At least twice. 271k miles. 1994 E32 740il with nothing but some MPars. 93k miles.
Hey bud -- I think a lot of people put the m pars on E32s, I don't think it's that controversial
On my old E32 I used to run an E39 wheel for the longest time with rings. The rings were very annoying indeed, but the wheels were unique and I loved them. Anyway.
I believe I ran 265 rears without any crazy mods before. I think it was 245/40R18 ft and 265/40R18 rear. But not positive, it's been 8+ years
1989 BMW 750iL (prod 08/88) (vin: 2768675)
Gone but not forgotten: 1994 BMW 740iL (prod 10/11/1993) (vin: *DE89667) 6spd swap, 2001 BMW 740i Sport
That's the standard fitment I've seen as well, though some fit 275/35s in the rear without issue too.
I'm mostly curious what it would take to run the rear wheels in the front for a square setup. I'd prefer to be able to rotate all 4 corners, and would also prefer to preserve the current balanced setup (given I'm running 225s at all 4 corners right now).
The issue on running rear widths on the front is when using a spacer wide enough to clear the front strut you'll probably have issues with rubbing the fender or fender liner. The 1995 E34 M5 had 245/40r18 tires on the front (8" wide style 37) so that should fit the e32 front as long as you use the wheel with the correct width and offset. 245 tires are about 9.8" wide; a 9" m-parallel will be about 10" wide lip to lip, so you might be able to use the e34 9" rear m-parallels as a square setup without rubbing at the front. From what I remember, you'll need to have an offset of ET8 to fit a 9" wide wheel on the front of the e32 to clear the strut.
Note that the e31 and e38 rear m-parallels are 9.5" wide so I doubt they would fit on the front of an e32. Any width m-parallel from e34/e38/e39/e31 should fit the rear of the e32 without having to roll the fenders. I think the front m-parellels of all chassis are 8" wide and the rears of the e39 are 9" wide like the e34.
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