E36 BMW chassis parts list

Quote
john vanlandingham

You really ought to a) fold the very leading edge up maybe the last inch give it an angle so it never is lower than horisontal--ie with suspension fully collapsed. and b) zap a hunk of 3/8 x 1.5 aluminum bar right in front of those exposed bolt heads as a deflector so the bolt heads don't get destroyed or cleaned right off. Hack the front , the leading edge so its has an angle..

Unless you enjoy fighting with rounded mangled bolt heads.

Quote
phlat65
Highly recomend doing the rear subframe attach point strengthening kit to any E36 driven mildly hard. We have fixed 3 or 4 at my shop that have torn the mount out. Street driven, 2 were 325's, adult owned.

Quote
DaveK
General wisdom on BMW forums is that if you had a 6-cyl you needed a medium case diff. Jari told me that most of the cars overseas keep the small case diff so that they have access to the higher ratios without getting into "M" parts. That was what prompted my supra diff swap and a 4.3, but I would never recommend the hassle of that swap to anyone after driving the car.

I'm not convinced that these cars need crazy high rear end ratios since the gears are a bit wonky. With a 4.44, I was launching the 328i in 2nd gear at 100AW and transits with 65mph speed limits sucked (1:1 5th gear). On stage, I used 2nd-5th gears.

I'd need to pull out a gearing calculator, but I sorta wonder if a low 3.xx would be nicer. Hopefully you'd be able to launch in 1st gear, and use 1st-4th on stage and then have 5th gear for transits.

If your car came with solid front discs (the 1995 and 1996 Ti models did), the quick upgrade is to the vented discs and rotors that all the other E36s came with (excluding the M3 since those won't fit under 15s). At hilclimbs they brakes don't see a ton of abuse, and at rallies I'm not going deep enough into the corners to really put the hurt on the stockers yet.

Dave

Quote
bttmotorsport
I´m again against you all =)... In europe , Finland, Sweden Germany i really don´t know anyone who would drive higher gear than 4.45, in Xtreme cup that´s the ratio used, in grF most use 4.75 to 5.17, or even lower. And the roads really are not that much slower than here. When i drove with Daves BMW, we hardly ever got to 4th gear, And i dont think that ratios should be chosen by considering how nice and quiet the car is on transits (unless you drive 2000 miles on interstate ). You dont win rallies on straights driving 100+ mph, accelerating from the corners is where the difference is made.... For example most R5 cars have top speed of 105mph. No need for more in 99% of the cases...

Quote
DaveK

Quote
bttmotorsport
I´m again against you all =)... In europe , Finland, Sweden Germany i really don´t know anyone who would drive higher gear than 4.45, in Xtreme cup that´s the ratio used, in grF most use 4.75 to 5.17, or even lower. And the roads really are not that much slower than here. When i drove with Daves BMW, we hardly ever got to 4th gear, And i dont think that ratios should be chosen by considering how nice and quiet the car is on transits (unless you drive 2000 miles on interstate ). You dont win rallies on straights driving 100+ mph, accelerating from the corners is where the difference is made.... For example most R5 cars have top speed of 105mph. No need for more in 99% of the cases...

I learn something new every day. Surprised that you were hardly ever seeing 4th gear...makes me wonder if I'm shifting too early? The new motor doesn't have the M3 cams in it yet (but still running same tune as before), so sorta falls flat over 6000rpm. Wonder if that might be the culprit?

Dave

Quote
DaveK

Quote
bttmotorsport
I´m again against you all =)... In europe , Finland, Sweden Germany i really don´t know anyone who would drive higher gear than 4.45, in Xtreme cup that´s the ratio used, in grF most use 4.75 to 5.17, or even lower. And the roads really are not that much slower than here. When i drove with Daves BMW, we hardly ever got to 4th gear, And i dont think that ratios should be chosen by considering how nice and quiet the car is on transits (unless you drive 2000 miles on interstate ). You dont win rallies on straights driving 100+ mph, accelerating from the corners is where the difference is made.... For example most R5 cars have top speed of 105mph. No need for more in 99% of the cases...

I learn something new every day. Surprised that you were hardly ever seeing 4th gear...makes me wonder if I'm shifting too early? The new motor doesn't have the M3 cams in it yet (but still running same tune as before), so sorta falls flat over 6000rpm. Wonder if that might be the culprit?

Dave

Quote
NoCoast

Quote
DaveK

Quote
bttmotorsport
I´m again against you all =)... In europe , Finland, Sweden Germany i really don´t know anyone who would drive higher gear than 4.45, in Xtreme cup that´s the ratio used, in grF most use 4.75 to 5.17, or even lower. And the roads really are not that much slower than here. When i drove with Daves BMW, we hardly ever got to 4th gear, And i dont think that ratios should be chosen by considering how nice and quiet the car is on transits (unless you drive 2000 miles on interstate ). You dont win rallies on straights driving 100+ mph, accelerating from the corners is where the difference is made.... For example most R5 cars have top speed of 105mph. No need for more in 99% of the cases...

I learn something new every day. Surprised that you were hardly ever seeing 4th gear...makes me wonder if I'm shifting too early? The new motor doesn't have the M3 cams in it yet (but still running same tune as before), so sorta falls flat over 6000rpm. Wonder if that might be the culprit?

Dave

Gearing is usually much different in an auto box too.

Quote
bttmotorsport
Gearing is usually much different in an auto box too.

Quote
Doivi Clarkinen
Keep in mind that 1996 and later M3's already have these reinforcements.

Quote
Andrew_Frick

Quote
Doivi Clarkinen
Keep in mind that 1996 and later M3's already have these reinforcements.

Dave thank you for your contributions. Any other tips you are willing to share based you experiences with Hintz car?

I remember seeing some pictures of a log being used as a suspension spring after a trailing arm failure. Was that just a case of stuff breaks if you hit something hard enough or is there some inherent flaw with multilink BMW stuff that caused the issue?

Quote
bttmotorsport

When you move the rear spring from its original place to coilover, it is more likely to break the shock mount in original trailing arm. Hardly ever seen it when using the original setup..

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
bttmotorsport

When you move the rear spring from its original place to coilover, it is more likely to break the shock mount in original trailing arm. Hardly ever seen it when using the original setup..

I see this said--and repeated.. And I cannot begin to understand the reasoning since the spring does not create any stress, only the shock does.

Please explain.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
bttmotorsport

When you move the rear spring from its original place to coilover, it is more likely to break the shock mount in original trailing arm. Hardly ever seen it when using the original setup..

I see this said--and repeated.. And I cannot begin to understand the reasoning since the spring does not create any stress, only the shock does.

Please explain.