You clearly have detailed knowledge. I was sharing my first hand experience. I wish you had been around when the dealer was selling me the fixed suspension for my 88 635 as a repair to the SLS. It was my first 6-er and I didn't really understand the a lot about the suspension and took the dealer's word.

Talk about learning the hard way.

You sound a little fired up at this post.

Yeah...maybe I did go a bit over board. Sorry 'bout that.

I just asked the UUC Digest about those bumpsteer spacers, and Ed wrote back saying that Bavarian Specialties in PA makes them. They have an A-Mod E28 with E34 M5 engine that rips. He (Bav Specialties) was the only one who could keep up with Chuck Stickley's E36 M3 at Summit last Fall. Too bad he went off and bent a fender into the tire!

What those plates also do is lower the lower A-arm to hub joint. This will raise roll center height, which reduces the distance between it and the CG of the car (which is what you're actually looking for for handling purposes, not just lowering CG. Lowering CG is a method to shorten the distance between roll center and CG, but lowering a car per se will not necessarily reduce this distance, which is something people forget. Lowering a car will lower CG relative to the ground, but because the suspension geometry is different at static ride height, the roll center of the suspension is now different.)

Not to mention that the camber curve changes during bump, allowing more camber gain. Ed succinctly says this on his website: "Lowering these cars moves the front suspension out of the best part of the dynamic camber gain curve. Once lowered, the car gains very little camber. When the car rolls slightly in turns, the outside wheel does not camber enough to offset body roll. You can always set the car up with static negative camber to compensate but then you have too much negative camber while traveling in a straight line which wears out the inside shoulder of the tire."

And I agree with you on the damper/shock misnomer. I'm guilty of using the wrong term there. A so-called "shock absorber" actually transmits shock. The spring is what absorbs shock. We 'muricans can get important details messed up all the time. Bugs me to no end sometimes!

I think we're all guilty at one point or another of using the misnomers. I know I am. :-(

Dampers affect the ride quality more than any one part of the suspension!! If your ride is too harsh, your dampers are too stiff! If your car wallows like a Lincoln Continental, your dampers are too soft. Hard springs DO NOT jolt your car as bad as most people think. That's why I'm going with relatively heavy springs (300-450lb/in) to tame body roll, squat, and dive. I am also going to downgrade the anti-roll bars (Gasp!). I'm confident that the ride quality will not suffer, but handling will be vastly improved. If I'm wrong, I've only lost time and gained experience!

James, sorry to sound a little off a high horse, but there are really a LOT of factors that affect suspension behavior. Generalizing things like this (i.e. springs do this and dampers do this) is not necessarily the best thing to do, especially in a forum like this, where if you generalize things, some can take it as complete truth. But, everything you say is true - to an extent. And of course, everything is dependent on geometry of the suspension of the particular car, components, and so on and so forth. I guess what I'm saying is to be careful when generalizing or saying things; or write out long, 10 page, messages with exact and specific information. :-)

Later.

Chris Graff
www.m535i.org