I want to upgrade from my Eibachs to coilovers. I checked Ground-control and their pieces are very well made, but they don't tell you prices. And for the 320 you have to ask if they have something....
Then I saw Ireland Engineering website and they have a coilover for the 320. It is $130 for the threaded sleeves and collars and $110 for the 2.5" diameter race springs, my choice of height and rate. $240 for the coil overs, does this seem too good? Do I need special upper mounts? like the camber plates?
Jbob, Nic, and GJ any opinions?

Thats most likely $240 per axle. You will need that setup twice so $500. From what I've heard IE is the shiznit.

almost all ground-control coilover setups are $399 (including the E21's)....includes the collar w/ adjustable lower spring perch, upper spring perch for the front springs, this soft urethane spring pad for the rear springs, a few other misc things, and Eibach Race Springs in your choice of length & spring rate (i'd highly recommend the following spring setup w/ either koni adjustables or bilstein sports: front: 6" 350lb.....rear: 7" 250lb). when u call GC to order it, be sure to say that it's for your bilstein sports & specify the spring rates & lengths you want.

yeah, that $240 price from ireland is per axle. $130 for a pair of adjustable collars & $110 for a pair of 2.5" race springs.....so u'd be looking at $480 for the whole setup.

w/ the GC kit, they supply you w/ the front upper spring hat (it just replaces the stock spring hat)...just be sure there's a spacer/washer between the GC spring hat & the strut bearing. if you would like to lower the front a little more, have a solid mount rather than the strut bearing, and be able to adjust your front camber, then go for some camber plates (ireland engineering also sells these for e21's...just gotta call them).
for the rear, you keep the stock upper spring hat and just use that soft urethane piece that comes w/ the GC's to replace the upper spring pad.

hehehe, if & when :D u get the GC kit, let me know if you need any help.

I think i'm going to go the Ground-control route, their kits look more complete. Besides, If I get in a "whats this?" I know who to contact for help.
Thanks Jason, and E21 pilot

For coilovers to work correctly on E21's, some modifications are necessary to the front struts. All the coilover kits on the market are great, however none of them give you all the details as to what exactly is necessary to be done to make them work on your vehicle.

The rear struts are a very simple installation, however the fronts become a lot more complicated.

On E21's you really should have the Early 77 Struts, or the Euro 323 Struts to make the coilovers work better. You will also need a set of short racing shocks and cut and section the strut housings to make the shocks fit. You will need the Early Struts for the Shocks, since the Shocks won't fit in the Late Struts. This also means that you need the larger hubs, with the larger bearings, and get to use the vented brakes, so all in all it becomes a rather large expense, but its worth it in the end. With the GC Coilovers you can't run much lower of a ride height from stock without bottoming out the front struts on the towers. You will need the Camber Plates to go with the coilovers. The reason why all this is necessary is due to lack of suspension travel. If you want to run a lower ride height you will need to cut the struts and make them shorter to give you more suspension travel.

I've almost spent about $3k on suspension parts from GC to get the entire suspension setup correct. The coilover kit just gets you in the door, however unless its done correctly it won't be right.

BMW club racer: I would like to hear more about all of the suspension mods you have do to make this GC coil-over set-up truely work. could you do a write up for us or something if you have some spare time... or if you want i can contact you through PM
thanks!!

In that brief paragraph,ClubRacer nailed the issues dead nuts.

1) Get 323i/'77 320i strut tubes, bearings, hubs, rotors, calipers, caliper brackets.

2) Measure the drop to be sectioned off.

3) Buy your coil overs, buy camber plates. Measure twice, order once.

4) Bandsaw cut, weld up shortened strut tube.

5) Install, and go ride.

DId I miss anything?

i was just unclear about the whole cutting of the strut tube part. sorry for my minimal comprehension on this. Where do you cut, how much and why? i have never heard of this before. from what i understand you want to cut off of the top of the strut tube so that there will be more travel allowed. approx. how much has to be cut for this to be successful? What gets re-welded the lower spring perch in the new position?
thanks in advance try to become more knowledgeable on these things

i think to make things a little easier, u would have to cut the strut tube either in the middle or at the bottom...then weld it all back together. because if u cut off the top, u also cut off the threaded part that the gland nut threads on to (the gland nut holds the strut insert inside the strut housing).
but i guess if u have a big enough thread die (i think that's right word for that tool?) u could just make new threads on the outside the strut housing & use the earlier gland nut (as the later gland nuts thread inside of the strut housings)

On my car I'm using the front struts from a 79 Euro 323, with the larger bearings, hubs, and vented brakes. When I spoke to GC they told me I had to cut the lower spring perch and weld on a new one. At that time they didn't tell me that I would run out of suspension travel by using a lower ride height by doing that. So I got all the stuff put it all together and lowered the car. At that time they gave me 6 inch 2.5 id springs with rates of 325 lb front and 275 lb rear. So as I was driving around I started hearing the knocking sound over bumps from the front suspension. After a while I figured out that it was the front struts bottoming out. So I raised up the ride height back to stock height and drove the car. The noise over bumps at that point was gone. At that point I realized something else needed to be done to get more suspension travel at a lower ride height. The only way to do that was to get shorter shocks, and cut the strut tubes to a shorter height. So I called GC again to figure out what could be done to make that work. At that time I also told them I wanted to increase the spring rates and told them what I wanted to use that way they could get me the correct shocks for the application. They told me that it would cost me about $400 per shock for that application, unless they could find something else that could work. They called me a couple of days later and said that Koni Adjustables (yellow) from a 97 Chevy Camaro SS have a similiar shock rate to what you need and it will work. It will take more fabrication to get them to fit, but they will work great. So they sent me everything I needed to make them fit and I just had to do all the work.
They gave me a 3 inch steel spacer to put at the bottom of the strut to hold up the shock, and gave me a centering ring for the top of the shock. They said I had to cut the struts to get the right height for the shock. In order to do this, you would install the spacer at the bottom, install the shock, then install the centering ring and put the locking collar on top. What you do next is use a felt tip pen and mark the shock rod at the top of the strut, then lift up on the shock till it stops on the locking collar, then mark the shock rod in the same location. Take everything apart, then with a vernier caliper, measure the distance between the 2 marks on the shock rod. That distance is what you need to remove from the strut housing. In my case it was 1 5/8 ths of an inch. So I got the pipe cutter out and cut the strut tube a little more then 4 inches from the top of the strut. (Warning: the coilover kit gives you 4 inches of adjustment, you don't want to cut the tube shorter then 4 inches or you will effect the placement of the coilover) Then marked the other location and cut it.
After cutting everything, I reinstalled everything into the strut to check for clearance issues. Everything seemed fine, so I took everything apart again, cleaned the surfaces, preped the surfaces, smoothed it all out. Then reinstalled everything into the strut. I then tack welded the strut together in 4 locations around the cut. After doing that, I removed everything, then completely welded the cut. I then installed the new lower spring perch just above the cut and welded that in place, using the weld around the cut as a guideline. (in this case also making the strut tube stronger by welding over a larger area then necessary to include the spring perch)
After all that, I primed and painted the strut, then reinstalled everything, and installed it in the vehicle.

The basic sense of doing this is to lower the car. Initially I lowered the car and bottomed out on the strut. I was happy with the ride height it was at, but did not have enough suspension travel at that height. By shortening the strut tube it gave me more suspension travel. Originally I was at about 1 inch from the bottom of the coilover and it would bottom out. Now that the strut tube is shorter, I had to move the coilover to 2.5 inches from the bottom of the coilover to keep the same ride height.

that is a lot of work and money..... better save the money for my E30......

Hello,

I wanted to do a coil over setup on my 79 323i for a while.
But i a lost on the fact you have to cut the front strut housings.
I have Bilstein sports and racing dyanmics springs.
I want to get rid of the R&D springs and go with coil overs.
Its too bad you don't have a full write up with pictures to expain just how much Ground control coilovers use to cut the front housings.

Thanks

Joe G
79 323i

you don't necessarily need to chop down the front strut housings in order to use groundcontrols (i didn't)....but, like bmwclubracer said, if you want more suspension travel while still having the car a lot lower than stock, then choping the strut housings is something you would want to do.

Dont bother cutting the strut housings. I didnt and shouldnt have a problem with bottoming out. I have a 400 lbs spring rate in the front though. My coil overs only took me about 4 hours total to do all 4 corners (mind you my fenders were already off for body work so that helps). Its not as big of a job as you would think.

Hi all.

I quess I am very confused.

I was under the impression that you have to modify the strut housings for the ground control coil overs to work.

Now I heard that you dont.

Can someone shed light on the install of coil overs on the front of a e21 323i?
I know the backs are a piece of cake.

Some pics would really help out becasue I am going to coil overs and have the bilstein sports already.

Thanks

Joe

Not trying to get into the middle of this, but it sounds as if the GC coil overs work fine at stock ride height, but once you start lowering the car the fronts are bottoming out. If you're getting coil overs for the handling purposes, rather than the slammed look (easiest way to explain it, even though I KNOW that's not how this all started), then you'll be fine with them as is.

What about the LEDA's? Don't seem to remember those having to be shortened....

i have my GC's setup so i have about 3.75" to 3.5" of ground clearnce, and don't have problems w/ the shock bottoming out w/ the koni's set on full stiff...but i can't go much lower because then the shocks will probably bottom out from lack of suspension travel, and i'd probably be scrapping the exhaust over every speed bump.

AFAIK, LEDA chops off the whole strut tube & puts on there own strut....altho i'm not sure if they kept the height of the strut the same. oh nic....where are you? lol :)