Shock Talk, lets have it!

[IronFreak]

It's something you hear about but never actually seen one with the deformed tower. Still, cage it, double skin it, or even rebuild with thick metal out back and give some more room the wheels.
No way you can use the standard mounts on there. Several options if you go true coilover, either inverted shocks (more room) with something like this:

Or just a good solid aluminium top mount, doesn't need to be as fancy as this but:


Something to bear in mind, standard e30 with true coilovers, not that much room for tires in the back. so think big flares.

Regarding threaded shocks, it's the same for 4 or 5 lug applications, the trailing arm is the same/similar.
But you should be able to find one easily that's threaded, on budget, it's another story. :)

I actually have DTM Fiberwerkz flares I'll be putting on the car. See my build thread, "Midwest Moster" in my sig. You'll get a feel for the direction of my car. I planned on completely rebuilding the shock tower for upgrades down the road.

[acolella76]

Without some sort of structural support between sbock towers you aren't going to really have any performance advantage with CO rear.. but you won't blow out your shock towers either.

Also I am sorry for any confusion but I am not running BC

[IronFreak]

Without some sort of structural support between sbock towers you aren't going to really have any performance advantage with CO rear.. but you won't blow out your shock towers either.

Also I am sorry for any confusion but I am not running BC

There will be shock tower support, as well as a "V" brace that will tie into the subframe through the floor. My bad, now that I think about it it was FLG that has the BC CO's.

[bmwguy325is]

That's weird that they did that.....

Its what they asked for so I told em. I was happy in the end.

As for the true coil in the rear. I dont see the real advantage (in my opinion which isnt very valid most times) for all the extra work you have to do. Now if you do a custom rear suspension with new arms and stuff then ya go for it.

[Eric]

Rear coil overs were used on the old M3 race cars to easily replace damaged parts or quickly change spring rates during a race.

People like us do rear coil overs because we think its cool. There is NOT a huge advantage to doing it and the added expense is pretty significant. The loss of wheel well space is a problem too.

[IronFreak]

Rear coil overs were used on the old M3 race cars to easily replace damaged parts or quickly change spring rates during a race.

People like us do rear coil overs because we think its cool. There is NOT a huge advantage to doing it and the added expense is pretty significant. The loss of wheel well space is a problem too.

That's interesting. So would it make sense then to upgrade to say an Afco or Pro-1 shock that would allow double adjustment in the shock and keep the spring location in the same area?

Side note, I was doing some research and for out that if you wanted externally adjustable rear Koni shocks you can use some from a 1977 Porsche 911. Apparently it is what TKline sells, they just rebrand the part number. If you go through KoniMarket its about $380 somthing a pair with free shipping.

[acolella76]

Usually a 4 to 5 inch spring plus helper springs on an inverted shock will allow enough clearance for most 17" wheels on E30s.

And yes I tested a standard eye-to-eye shock (like a QA1 or AFCO) with the spring in the stock location. You just need a double shear bracket to mount it to the stock location (or since you are making your own strut bar you could make your own bracket as well)