I've got an '05 Sedan w/OEM Sport Suspension. I've been frustrated from the beginning by the fairly significant understeer - even on mild cornering there's a strong sensation of centrifigal force "pushing" away from the turn. Hate it!

Anyway, I installed some Stillen Sway Bars to start addressing this issue. I set them up soft/medium (front/rear) and, while this seems to help, I still don't feel enough control through turns and ramps.

What spring (and damper?) setup would help eliminate this? FYI, my standard for suspension and handling was my '99 328i (Sport Pkg), which just seemed to "lean into" any corner no matter how fast - I NEVER felt this "pushing" sensation. How can I come close to reproducing that awesome "lean in" feel?

Help me, gurus...please?

-T

PS In the spirit of "full disclosure", I'm still running the OEM 18 Sport wheels and godawful Turanza ER33's. These will be upgraded soon, but I'm trying to get suspension handled first.

 

I hvae no direct suspension suggestions to make, however I offer one point of comparison to your old bimmer: weight.

According to internetAutoGuide(http://www.internetautoguide.com/car.../bmw/3-series/ ), the 1998 3 series had a curb weight of 1124 kilos(don't know which 3 series, or if that was a coupe or sedan, or if that includes packages such as performance suspension). 1124 kilos is roughly 2500 pounds. Although I find it hard to believe that your car was 2500 pounds, your G is right at 3500 pounds. That's a lot of weight to toss into a corner.

Just go down and watch a local autox sometime. You'll see absolutely stock miatas putting down better times than *real* sports cars, like vettes, vipers, and nsx's(at least they do here). It's all about the weight.

 

I work for a major OEM (actually have worked at 2 of them). All NAFTA vehicles are set to a slight positive front Toe. This is so that the average joe does not get into trouble in a turn and spin. The quickest wayto get rid of teh understeer is to set the front toes to either 0 degrees +/-.06 or go slightly negative. I would urge, however, not to go past -.25 deg since your car in the wet will have a tendancy for the rear to be the front when you go around a corner

I would also look at the rear toe and set individual toe to the 0 deg +/-.1 and a total toe of no more than .12 deg with a thrust angle of less than .8deg

 

toe would help, but he needs stiffer springs and dampers.

try some D-Specs, setup at 4 from full hard front and 2.5 rear and
see where that takes you. my car is using much higher spring rate
on the rear (vs my front) so it helps significantly and don't need to stiffen up
the rears that much. i posted my setup a while ago, so run a search.

while using lowering springs, there a many contradictions and you need
to play around with it to find your sweet setting.

Mine won't corner like my Cooper-S but corners very well.

 

Is this adjustable with the OEM Sport Suspension set up, or will I need aftermarket parts to accomplish? -T

 

The 1998 BMW has a completely different body style/chassis from the 1999 (e36 vs. e46). The only e36 that could have weighed so little was probably a base model 318ti.