getting there!

[bmw318is1994]

First off I'm currently in college so this is taking a little while to complete.  I have an 94 318is and so far I have: koni sport shocks/struts, H&R sport springs, K-MAC camber/caster plates up front, new ball joints, and half the bushings so far have been replaced.  I'm working on getting the rear camber trailing arms, and thinking about sway bars but not sure.  What do you guys think about sway bars (adjustable or not) after I finish replacing the rest of the bushings?  Think they are needed for a daily driver, and maybe someday auto-x?

[sterz85]

a picture is worth a thousand words

[Nick_318is]

Go autox it and learn to drive the piss out of it before getting swaybars, you will be a better driver for it.  Plus for the cost of swaybars you can do a lot of autox.  On a daily driver i dont think it is all that necessary but if your tracking or autoxing the car i think it makes sense.

[e30 4cyl]

Do some track driving or autox and then decide.  If you choose to get swaybars, make sure you get the adjustable ones.  They will give you alot more freedom to set the car up to your preferences.  Remember that sway bars are more for the fine tuning of the suspension, many people get huge swaybars without upgrading the rest of the suspension only to find that they now have huge roll stiffness and lift the inside wheel in every corner which causes them to lose tons of grip.  I really like how you are doing so much suspension work, with some r compounds on your car few cars besides dedicated race cars will be as fast as you in the turns.  You may want to consider strut braces to stiffen up the chassis under the new loads it will recieve.  Let us know what you find and decide to go for.

[D. Clay]

I've tried three basic setups on my E30. I now have the car lowered 1.5". Front springs are 165 front and rears are 265 from a Tokico spring/shock set. These are soft springs compared to what most people run. Instead of Tokicos, I have Bilstein TC shocks and M3 tabs welded to the front struts. I have a M3 link on one side and an adjustable length link on the other.
Tires have a spring rate and are also a factor in body roll. 17's with low profile tires are the reason I use the softer springs.
I use the car mainly for a not so daily driver and it still handles bumps quite well. It has very littler body roll and turns in quick with a slight push. Once I had 300# front and 550# rears. I could feel the rear tires completely lose grip accelerating over the little transitions onto highway bridges. Try to ride in and if you can, drive cars with different setups. It's a bad feeling to spend money and do all the work to swap suspensions setups and then have to grudgingly admit that you don't like it.

[318idol]

D.Clay,

What do you think of the Billy Touring Class shocks?