Need help troubleshooting my 5-lug swap...

[uflnuceng]

OK... its crunch time for me as I need to have this thing rolling no later than thursday. Here is my current setup:

1. Treehouse racing 5-lug swap which consists of:
- e36 ti rear trailing arms
- e36 m3 front knuckles
- custom koni/eibach coil overs front and back
2. 1997 E36 M3 control arms
3. Treehouse Racing offset Eyeball Arms
4. Staggered 17x7.5/17x8.5 front/rear e36 M3 forged rims which I now think are 41et as opposed to 38et which everyone else seems to recommend.
5. 225/45-17 in front, 245/40-17 in rear.

OFFSET ISSUES:
The rear is fine. I have to tune the springs to bring my ride height down but it clears the fender as is and moves fine.

The fronts are a little off. They are way out of center (more so than the typical out of center I have seen in the e36 5-lug swaps). And I can only turn a little bit before they start to rub the fender.

I read through the posts here and it seems that I should be running e36 97+ M3 control arms. That may push it out the 3/8th inch or so that I need to get clearance, or atleast to the point where I can bang on the firewall with a BFH to make it fit. Im also seeing something about an offset CA bushing. I can't seem to find what you guys are talking about in catalogs... any links possible? Would the Treehouse eyeball arms work if I got them?

The control arms have been rush ordered and will be here tomorrow and on my car tomorrow night. If I need to get CA bushings getting them pressed might take me past my deadline, but Im hoping these CAs will at least let me make a 90-degree turn without having to reverse half way through it.

ABS ISSUES:
Ok... the rears shouldn't be a problem as I soldered the e36 ti sensors onto the e30 wire. There was a black and brown wire in each, everything seems kosher with that.

The fronts, once again, are a little different. I read on the forums that you just solder them to the e30's wire, but when you get into any e36 front ABS sensor they all have 3 wires (black, brown, yellow). No surprise when I got the ABS error light on the dash. What ABS sensor should I be running here or is there no hope?

Thanks for the help.
Jared

[uflnuceng]

Welp... looks like I answered my own question. Talked with Jon at Treehouse racing and I definitely need to be running offset control arm bushings. Ordered a set of his eyeball arms and they should be here by wednesday:-)

Man am I going to need an alignment. Anyone recommend a shortcut to doing-it yourself? Like disconnect the tierods... creep the car up to a planted 6x6 and moving the tierods out till they match up?

[uflnuceng]

Answered my question again...

I called a couple of local alignment shops and they gave me shit saying that you ABSOLUTELY preload a BMW to do an alignment... umm... yeah... right. The dealership doesn't do it, Firestone doesn't do it... so I did a google search and found this handy link.

http://www.allpar.com/fix/alignment.html

Im going to give it a try tomorrow night. Wish me luck.

Later
Jared

[E30SRPower]

Enjoying your thread?

I haven't heard of people using M3 front knuckles or E30 control arms. I have seen e36 M3 lower arms with e36 non-M hubs. How did it work out?

Joey

[uflnuceng]

ABS still isn't working, but I upgraded to the THR Eyeball Arms and '97 M3 control arms and there are no alignment issues now.

According to the BMW dealership the ABS sensor that the M3 uses is the same for just about all E36 models. I got an email from someone way back that I need to reread, where he gives me a hint as to what he used, but doesn't say definitively.

Anybody else have insite on getting the ABS to work? I believe the rear is fine, its the fronts that are all screwy.

[uflnuceng]

Treehouse got back to me today and said that 99.9% of the time brown is ground in BMWs. This must not be so in this case because the yellow wire from the E36 sensor needs to get hooked up to the E30 brown wire. The E36 brown wire hangs in the wind, as Jon put it.

I will try this in a couple weeks and see if it works out.

[LowR3V'in]

So what happend?

[bender]

i had alot of issues with the sensors myself. It ended up being the distance between the sensor and the ring..

I hooked up my scope, and watched the output of the sensor until i got it right. I think i was running e30 sensors in the back that were shimmed up..

Standard e36 in the front, that i rewired.

was a pain in the ass, but i got it..

So are your wheels perfectly centered with the above setup?

[Jordan]

So are your wheels perfectly centered with the above setup?

Not even remotely.

[clavinZERO]

bump. thx.

[bimmer630]

i had alot of issues with the sensors myself. It ended up being the distance between the sensor and the ring..

I hooked up my scope, and watched the output of the sensor until i got it right. I think i was running e30 sensors in the back that were shimmed up..

Standard e36 in the front, that i rewired.

was a pain in the ass, but i got it..

So are your wheels perfectly centered with the above setup?

you arent running E30 trailing arms are you? are they 318ti arms with the spaced out E30 sensors? and you have no problems with the E36 front sensors? cool cause ive been reading about other guys having problems with them., and im about to do this conversion and dont want any additional headaches. leave the brown wire hanging and connect the other two to the e30 harness?