Ride Hights

[chet3215]

I am looking for suggestions as to a good ride hight for an autocross setup. the car will be driven on the street but only to and from autocross events. Also what differances in ride hights front to back is normal to get the corner waights as good as can be.

[AlarmedBread]

Dump it on it's nuts!

[chet3215]

that doesnt help. i ran autocross events last season with 1.5 degrees front and .5 degrees negative camber with good even tire ware. I will be adding 450 and 500 lbs springs so im thinking lots of camber gain is not needed. Ive heard lowering the e30 causes lots of negative camber gain at the rear and i am trying to get advise on a good ride hight that takes advantage of a lower cg with out pushing the suspension geometry to far. I am also trying to find out what differances between the front and rear ride hights might exist on a stock waight e30 that has been corner waighted using coilover adjusters.

[gearheadE30]

I really can't help you too much for your personal setup because you probably don't have an M42, but I run 12" ride height, measured from the center of the centercap to the lip of the fender front and rear. My suspension is softer than yours, with 350 front and 475 rear.

For the plates, with a strut brace I run -3 ish degrees. Without, I run -3.5. Just FYI, camber gain cannot be adjusted. What you are doing is changing static camber, which we do to try to make up for the crappy camber gain on the factory front struts with a low car.

[chet3215]

Im running 16" rims, for me thats leaves about two inches, tire to fender clearance. that is hardly lower than stock on my car. What are your ground clearances and how has your suspension geometry been effected?

[AlarmedBread]

search, there is a thread about ride heights where it is discussed extensively. There are no easy answers as there are many variables and personal preference involved.

[z31maniac]

If you are really looking for optimum, then go to a good race shop and have them corner balance the car.

Then dial in as much negative camber as you can in the front. When I was exchanging emails with Vorshlag, they run around 4° on their STS 318.

[gearheadE30]

4 degrees?! That's pretty crazy. I've found that anything much past 3.5 just causes the front to scrub more, but they are probably running a stiffer setup than I am.

[z31maniac]

4 degrees?! That's pretty crazy. I've found that anything much past 3.5 just causes the front to scrub more, but they are probably running a stiffer setup than I am.

570/570 with no rear bar, he told me they ran those rates since they couldn't change the rear bar they just set it up to run no bar.

[etta325]

that doesnt help. i ran autocross events last season with 1.5 degrees front and .5 degrees negative camber with good even tire ware. I will be adding 450 and 500 lbs springs so im thinking lots of camber gain is not needed. Ive heard lowering the e30 causes lots of negative camber gain at the rear and i am trying to get advise on a good ride hight that takes advantage of a lower cg with out pushing the suspension geometry to far. I am also trying to find out what differances between the front and rear ride hights might exist on a stock waight e30 that has been corner waighted using coilover adjusters.

ya it does give alot of neg. camber when you lower the car extremly far. me and my dad were talking about it and you can fix it i just forgot how. and if you dd it then you will shred through tires like crazy

[themitchster359]

i just got my alignment done (toe set) and my stats with 60/40 fk springs, my camber was 2.1 degrees, and my rear was 2.4. my ties are wearing pretty well. i have rotates them and i am only seeing little camber wear.

[Fidhle007]

This whole thread is an English teacher's worst nightmare. There's this thing called spellcheck you know, mine is actually built right into my browser and alerts me of errors as I type!

[Money$hit]

"Me fail english? Thats unpossible!"

-Ralphy Wiggum

[Fidhle007]

"Me fail english? Thats unpossible!"

-Ralphy Wiggum

Stop following me around, isn't getting banned off this board once enough?

[Money$hit]

Following you? Where?