E30 #2- '86 S52 Coupe Project Log

[Jb325is]

Well I've started working on this thing again. Wasn't a fan of the Bilstein/H&R setup, so I sold then and put together a coilover setup using the following:

51mm housings, shortened 1.5"
Koni 8641-1198SPORT Fronts (Corrado). These are ~3.5" shorter than stock
Koni 8041-1186SPORT Rears- Mustang SN95, top adjustable
600 (6")/800 (5") springs
IE coilover sleeves front and rear
Ground Control race camber plates
AKG spherical RSM's







Pretty big improvement IMO- Need spacers now



I've also been messing with these 5 lug pieces I drew up in CAD a few years back, forgot that my friend made them for me. They are a tight slip fit to the stock bearing surface, but also thread onto the spindle. The intention was to weld these on at the base of the spindle. Still need to figure out what brake setup I'd want to run with these... They add less offset than the other similar products on the market, but that means that you start running into issues with rotor clearance at the tie rod end. Just need to mess with this some and figure it out.







Also did a cut and polish. The paint is gone on this thing, but it still shines up pretty nice... Super thin in some spots unfortunately

[rzerob]

I love the style 21's reflecting in that last pic. One of the best wheels for an E30 in my opinion.

[Jb325is]

I love the style 21's reflecting in that last pic. One of the best wheels for an E30 in my opinion.

Me too. I think they're such a cool factory wheel, and the plan here is to run them with turbines on this car... I just don't like all of the compromises associated with cost effective 5-lug conversions, I want the car to function as a practical road car and don't want to have to run small tires or deal with rubbing.

First impressions on my coilovers: The rear shock valving is off with the Mustang shocks- It's pretty bouncy and it gets into the Koni bump stop pretty hard. I'm going to trim the bump stop down and crank all of the rebound into these things. It's worth mentioning that I do live in Downtown Charlotte and the roads are absolutely *terrible* here. Aside from that, pretty happy with this setup for the money, fronts feel perfect.

Maybe this is a sign that I'm getting a little older, but it almost looks too good to go 5-lug and put 17's on it

[Albie325]

I think it looks sharp as hell with the Ronals, sweet looking car

[gnmzl]

Hey, I love what you do to that thing, looks really great!

I used a similar setup for my 5 lug swap, like you did. Threads onto the spindle and mine does not add any offset.


I am running front brake discs from a MB 500SL type R129. The disc is 300x28 with a low enough ET. I have very little clearance to the stock tie rods, but just enough. If your 5 lug sleeve adds 3 or 5 mm you will have more than enough clearance. 300x28 is the dimensions of the e34 540i brake disc, so that's what calipers I used. They fit with a very simple adapter plate, but some grinding on the caliper support is required. I can dig up the drawing I made if you are interested.
Hope that helps a little.

[Jb325is]

Thanks for the info- A drawing for the caliper adapter would be great!

[gnmzl]

I just wrote a huge @ss info post but hit a shortcut key or something and it disappeared, stupid me.
So, in short: the below shown plate was specifically made by me for adapting an e34 540i caliper&carrier assembly onto an e30 strut AND be used with a brake disc from a Merc-Benz 500SL type R129 in the dimensions 300x28mm because if it's suitable ET. It can be only used with an adapter sleeve for the hub bearing which introduces none or a low amount of additional offset outwards. Please, note: only Lemförder or OEM tie rods will work based on my experience, as the other brands have for some reason larger ball joints and touch the brake disc.

So here goes, I used a picture of the carrier offered to the strut as a starting point in a Russian drawing software (no, I am not Russian, nor do I speak Russian, it's just a convenient piece of free software):



This way I could make a pretty decent calculation where the carrier should be ground.
Here is the result, which after this photo was taken needed a bit of fine tuning with the angle grinder to fit snuggly, you can kind of see it in the picture:



Measurements were taken from this now live situation and not a made up sketch in a Russian drawing software:



And a wooden prototype was created for the sake of simple testing and convenience:



With that, you can figure out where the plate needs to be ground down a little, to correct the position of the carrier. I used washers to space it out and then took the whole assembly to the machinist and asked him to make the same piece out of metal, BUT to make recess points in the plate on the opposite side of the washers, as deep as the washers stacked height. Does that make sense to you? It is done due to the fact the carrier and the strut mounting points do not allign on the same plane, because of the different disk ET to the original one.
As far as safety and rigidity goes - I talked to people employed in the field of metal stressing and they said that the adapter plate itself serves as a stiffening element now and it doesn't matter I took out some of the material of the carrier. I personally drove my car like this for 2 years, took it to the track as well. No signs of cracks or excessive pressure/tweaking as well.

But use at your own risk, of course! If you think this is unsafe, go another route.

Another thing to add - Style 5 16 inch wheels off an E38 fit without spacers, but the retaining clip for the pads needs to get a small cutout right in the center section.

Hope this helps you along or gives you some other idea that will fit your application better!

[LJ851]

^ Very cool info, thanks for posting that.

[amcp]

Maybe this is a sign that I'm getting a little older, but it almost looks too good to go 5-lug and put 17's on it

I agree with you. At some point you're messing with perfection.

[jeenyus]

17s only work on early models, but i agree that what you have there is pretty practical and perfect for practical.

[e30austin]

it looks too good to go 5-lug and put 17's on it

I agree. Nice looking little car. Leave it alone :)

[Digitalwave]

Too much effort (and $$) to go proper 5 lug, leave it as is!

[dude8383]

Totally unrelated but would you have stayed in Marietta if it weren't for the job?

I'm asking because I have friends that live down there and really like it... considering it because my fiance and I want to get the heck out of NY. Sorry for the O/T.

[Jb325is]

Too much effort (and $$) to go proper 5 lug, leave it as is!

Leaning in that direction currently

Totally unrelated but would you have stayed in Marietta if it weren't for the job?

I'm asking because I have friends that live down there and really like it... considering it because my fiance and I want to get the heck out of NY. Sorry for the O/T.

At the time, no. I needed to live elsewhere to appreciate what Marietta (and other Metro ATL burbs) have to offer. After living in Metro Charlotte and downtown, I definitely appreciate what I left behind and would consider moving back at some point for sure. Depends on what you're looking for, but IMO Marietta offers a nice sq. ft per dollar value and a really great downtown area with great food/bars/etc... Also not many bad areas that you need to worry about. I lived in West Cobb county, for reference

[Jb325is]

Update: Mustang Koni's do NOT work with 800 rears. Need to soften this thing up a bit. Probably 450/650 or something