New to E30's

[JinormusJ]

M10 power never sours




Do it. I love M10 cars. They go for days and you can toss them around like a go-kart. Handle moderate boost pretty well too, but you'd need to upgrade to Motronic 1.3 Fuel Injection over the carb; unless of course you want to run a built N/A Carb'd M10, which being in AUS, you might have to do to reffing. I've seen some 2002 guys get ~160CHP/140RWHP off of just bolt-ons, chip, and a tune (that's around $2-3k spent on upgrades though)

At that point you're looking at M20 power with half the weight and double the fuel economy



Keep in mind, the M10 block was the backbone to the M12 engine BMW was running in F1 back in the 90s: 1100HP (Yes, that is One Thousand, One Hundred Horsepower) off of an M10 block with a high flowing head and a huge turbo

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[JinormusJ]

Keep it!

I've driven a couple modded m10 2002s and was amazed at how much of a go-kart it was and how much power the little engine can put out. I'm sure with a nice coilover setup, a modded m10 would be equally as tossable, and equally as surprising.

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[Kershaw]

damn, that e30 looks sweet.

[JinormusJ]

If you're looking to do it right, some forum members actually shorten stock struts and convert them into coilovers and leave that join point untouched. All they do us cut the spring perch off and weld on threads for adjusters. Brandon (F34R, one of the mods here) does pretty solid work

Ground Control also sells similar converted housings and include a whole kit with springs, adjusters, adjustable Koni shocks, and camber plates. They're pricy but come with warranty and build quality is top notch. Once you go GC, you'll never go back

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[Cletonius]

Just had a look at the GC stuff seems to be good quality, I really don't mind spending a bit more money as long as it's good

I've got the full GC kit on my daily with 440/650# spring rates. It's very livable and fun to drive. The people at GC are awesome to deal with and will help you pick the appropriate rates for your usage.

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[Cletonius]

GC are height adjustable...

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[Cletonius]

Yeah, it does change preload.

Dunno, my car seems to ride about the same with the adjusters up/down or anywhere in there.

[Roysneon]

The fear of 'adjusting spring preload' should not outweigh the quality comparison between BC's and Ground Control kits.

Alternately, I'm running German Engineering coilover sleeves with off the shelf Bilstein Sports. The ride is great and height adjustability is still there. I think at the height I'm running I will blow out the front shocks by the end of the season, though.

[Northern]

Honestly, a preload compromosed ground control setup is still going to vastly outperform any chinese bc/megan/d2/cosmos setup. The gc camber plates alone are worth the price difference, and rebuildable koni shocks/struts instead of arbitrarily adjustable noname shocks should be a no brainer.

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