No Personal Knowledge, But. . . (archive)

Several high performance (autocrossing) folks have told me that a bit less toe in the rear speeds you up in an autocross. It helps you "turn in" easier.

A friend of mine had eccentric BMW bushings installed in his rear trailing arms, and had them set at max (less toe-in, more toe out) in his Z3 coupe. He never admitted what his setting was, so we don't know. I would guess near zero. He is/was one of the fastest stock drivers in the country.

I would do this, but the cost is nearly $1,000. Too rich for my blood, with too little return. My car now toes in about .25", which is normal (M Roadster).

The downfall is that the car will be a bit less stable on the highway. All the BMW tech/service folks (3) I have spoken with on this have been horrified at the mention of doing this. My friend had no problems in his car. . .

Best arrangement for the street is stock everything. I autocross - a lot - and the more I autocross the less I care what I have on the street. You just can't tell, and you are NEVER at the limits, which is the only place a change would help you.

Now, for autocrossing. My car is slightly different from yours (M Roadster), but still has an M3 front suspension.

Get crash bolts for the front. Sorry, no p/n, search the archives. Parts guys will just stare blankly at you. $3 each, one for each side. They will allow you to get .4 degrees more negative camber. Have an alignment shop do this - they got .2 degrees more than I could alone.

Second, set your toe to ZERO. I ran toe out last year, as that is the usual recommendation. But at a test & tune this spring I found that zero toe was 1.6% faster on an autocross course. This was recommended to me by a BMW racer on Team.net. I could not feel any difference.

And you want an adjustable front sway bar. My Dinan was just $130, but it will be different for your car. Set it to full soft, which is the furthest hole towards the end of the bar. I ran at full stiff last year, but the test & tune showed full soft (the common solution to understeer) to be faster.

any feeling about rear toe? I just replaced a lower control arm on my '97. Before I started, there was a little more toe-in than after I finished. Right now, the toe is almost zero.

Thanks - Jay

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