i have cut springs (not done by me, bought it like that) has some bilsten shocks in the rear and some reg ones in the front, i welded with my friend the springs to the shocks/struts, the springs were a little bent, but ohwell, anyways, i'm having hell trying to get an alignment, the first place i brought it to said the springs were loose that they wouldnt do it, i go today to another place and they say they cant find the oem specs (suposedly calling a couple dealers etc..), then they get ahold of them, they say its an old car it needs to have a certaint amount of weight in the car to align it correct then, then they said since its lowered they'll never get it back to oem specs to not even bother, and they cant adjust the camber caster? WTF is this a bunch of BS of ???
can someone help me out so i can get a alignment on my car :( , i'm getting really really frustrated lately...

please someone help me walk into the place on friday with what i need so they cant say shi* and they can just do it. Do i need to buy special stuff to adjust the camber i guess? town fair tire said they can do only toe, the rear of my car is tilted inward alot and the front isnt much, but i just put new outter tie rods and i need a dam alignment, with new tires.

Thanks in advance, Alex L

You cant adjust the rears at all, unless you have a camber kit. The front only do toe via the tie-rods, unless you have a camber/castor kit.

A rear camber kit will only give you 3-4 degrees in either direction

how much is a front + Rear caster adj kit, and how hard is it to install? also how much more will it help me from uneven tire wear? what do you guys do? my rear tires are pretty much on an angle, pretty noticable.

can a kit be fabbed with basic welding/cutting skills :)

The rear subframe can be slotted to correct the butterfly effect when the car is "dropped".

Front adj. camber plates are about $275, check out IE
I got the rear adj. kmac camber kit from BavAuto for I think $250 (ouch)

your car pic looks about how mine sits i think. do you have a pic of what you are explaining to do? can the front kit be fabbed easy? got pics of what it is?

Let crookmiester chime in with his set up. He has pics of the slotted subframe.

Or you could always do a search

Let crookmiester chime in with his set up. He has pics of the slotted subframe.

Or you could always do a search

I can take pictures of mine if you would like to see how it works.
I am going to powdercoat it, and it has the dinan adjustable eccentrics welded in.

TEP also modifies subframes

let me know if u want to see mine,
Korman modified it.

Later,
J

my friend and i can modd almost anything i think, its just to see how its suposed to be done, or the kit installed pic etc..

got the alignment specs here if its right, i hope this is all i need,

http://www.bmwe21.net/specs.htm

I guess I'm cookmiester. You can slot the rear subframe yourself pretty easily. All you need is a die grinder/dremel tool and a carbide bit. The inside holes get vertically slotted for camber adjustment, the outside holes (if desired) get slotted horizontally for toe adjustment. The say you should weld washers to the subframe after you get the rear aligned so it doesn't move. I haven't done this yet and I haven't had any problems... yet.

do you have a better pic to see where this piece is, i have the book at hayens home, but if someone can post one it would be cool, my friend is looking at it with me and we dont see where this is.

Look closely and you can see exactly what Korman did on the subframe with the DINAN eccentrics. This was Dennis Cardiona's old subframe, that he had Korman modify.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00513.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00514.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00515.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00516.jpg

Ok? ;) :) see how its different from Cooks - you can do this own your own.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00517.jpg


Let me know if you want me to take more pics.

I have not powdercoated it yet. I was thinking of doing it jet black, or silver.
Dennis ran 16 inch custom HRE rims, and it was spot on straight in the rear with this.
Goodbye negative camber. :)

later,
J

This is the rear subframe. It spans the whole width of the car in between the fuel tanks and the rear wheels. It is what the semitrailing arms attach to and what the differential bolts to in the center. In the first picture, the attachment point 1 gets slotted vertically for camber adjustment.

ooh, nice pics Joe. I haven't seen it up close like that yet. That's a much better way to do it. I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time my subframe is out...

ooh, nice pics Joe. I haven't seen it up close like that yet. That's a much better way to do it. I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time my subframe is out...

The underneath of your car looks really clean. Props
You should see what it looks like under my 323i.
I dont know what the part is but in the second picture, it connects the rotor to the diff - these are trailing arms or something and there is rubber on either boots on either end and they are totally beat, and the diff cover is even rusty in my car.

There is lots of stuff that will need to be freshened up, before it ever looks as good as yours. Props.

By the way, due to my rep as Knife edge/stroker guy -I wont even tell you how much Dennis spent on this subframe,
but he also had to exchange his subframe as a core with Korman to get them to do this.

will this work with my 2.8l stroker?

Yes and it will work on the e21 320i as well, casue the rear subframes are the same, where the fronts are different.

Based on the pictures we have and the discussion on this thread, a good welder can modify the rear subframe of e21 like the one
I have so that rear negative camber is a thing of the past. And say byebye to Korman's outlandish prices.

Korman also offers a front adjustable subframe. But their prices, I need to clone myslef to even think of it.
And you can use Ireland Engineering's or KMAC's adjustable front upper strut bearings so IMO its not needed.

Later,
J

Josh your under carriage shots make my GF panties wet. Anytime she’s pissed at me or not in the mood, I flash her the 8x10's of your car and it’s like she ate a bucket of oysters topped off with some Spanish fly and some balute on the side. My body aches the next day :alright

So how much does Korman charge to do that? Then you have to ship it to them and they ship it back? I swear that every person on this board with a dremel can do this, buy a bolt and a big washer and tach weld that SOB on and you have a completely adj. subframe. When you think about it, you know how much a rip off Korman really is.

Josh your under carriage shots make my GF panties wet. Anytime she’s pissed at me or not in the mood, I flash her the 8x10's of your car and it’s like she ate a bucket of oysters topped off with some Spanish fly and some balute on the side. My body aches the next day :alright

So how much does Korman charge to do that? Then you have to ship it to them and they ship it back? I swear that every person on this board with a dremel can do this, buy a bolt and a big washer and tach weld that SOB on and you have a completely adj. subframe. When you think about it, you know how much a rip off Korman really is.

CJ, take a quess? ok here goes bro...

Dennis sent his 320i subframe as a core. Its my understanding that he traded his stock one for this one.
So yes, in most cases you have to send them your subframe for them to modify.


With the core he had to spend close to 1K. (I paid about half of that, because Dennis wanted to recoupe some of his investment.)

And I am not pimpn you. A rip off - I agree :smoke3 :smoke3 Korman is so freaking HIGH :smoke3 :smoke3

1k for this:??

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00512.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00520.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00522.jpg


Heck it sounds like my condo Mgt company..that does not allow me to paint my own decks,
and then charges me 225 for each one...resulting in a 850 fee this month.

Thats why we are here, to help each other out. But without sharing the pictures of How they did it..we can't do it ourselves can we?
And I called Korman before I came across this - and they wont tell.

I am sure there are people on the board who could make these subframes all day long.

later,
J

thanks for the pics, doing this will make my wheels perfect or better? them seem kinda off, and i'm curious if this will fix 100% my prob, i might not attempt it unless it does it 100% or me and my friend can come up with another way for it to be perfectly straight.

thanks for the pics, doing this will make my wheels perfect or better? them seem kinda off, and i'm curious if this will fix 100% my prob, i might not attempt it unless it does it 100% or me and my friend can come up with another way for it to be perfectly straight.
You don't want 0 camber in the rear, there is supposed to be some negative camber. The problem is excessive camber when the car is lowered. This just makes it adjustable so you can bring things back to or closer to stock.

You don't want 0 camber in the rear, there is supposed to be some negative camber. The problem is excessive camber when the car is lowered. This just makes it adjustable so you can bring things back to or closer to stock.

Dennis had this set to perfectly straight.
Josh how much negative camber do you want in the rear...
what is considered excess and whats not...2 degress negative camber in the rear is optimum or something?

Negative camber is good for turning, bad for straight line acceleration and tire wear, to a point. 0 rear camber may give you better traction off the line (but not much as it will still go negative when squats on a launch) and will get better tire wear, but it will adversely affect handling, probably making the E21 even more tail happy than it is. The key is to find the setting that gives you a compromise on both. According to the Haynes and the Chilton's manual, stock rear camber should be negative 2 degrees, front camber should be 0 deg.

Top end performance recommends between 1.75-2 negative camber in the rear and 2.5 negative in the front for auto-x. The problem is that when you lower a semi trailing arm car like older bmws, vw's, porches, your camber goes too negative, sometimes between 3 and 4 degrees. Enter the adjustable rear subframe.

thanks guys for all the info, i'm going today to get an alignment and from what i read, i guess i'll be able to just get a toe alignment, i need anyways because i replaced the tie rod ends and its off, and theres wheel shake every now and then 40-50 mph. i think i'll leave it alone, i dont want to decrease performance in the summer for auto -x , i'll just get less miles out of my tires i guess ohwell, but i didnt pay that much for them it was like 350 installed, should last me a few yrs, hopefully. Alex L

For your rear, you can always rais your billies up to the top notch, cant you? That will ease some camber...

For your rear, you can always rais your billies up to the top notch, cant you? That will ease some camber...

The middle is too high IMO on my car, and raising up to the top spot is way to high. This is because with most lowering springs and sport bilsteins the car is "raked" and the front already sits lower than the rear.

I dont like how my 323i sits in the rear, this is how it sits now - before the coilovers that I will be building and on the middle perch.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/DSC00339.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/P6170005.jpg

TEP perfromance will machine extra groves in your bisteins to adjust the height. I had this done before for a buddy's car, and the extra groves I had put in where between the first and second groves.

Tyler's old car had the adjustable rear threaded colllars. Note how the car appears to be more ballanced then mine.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/jjgbmw323/P6170003.jpg


Besides slotting the subframe, the other thing you can do is get KMACs like CJ is running on the rear.

later,
J

i just got back, my car feels a lot better, the guy (best around for alignments) i asked him how the toe was, he said it was out to lunch :) but he also found my left front caliper is dragging, i called a couple places, nothing in stock, also they asked if its an et or somehting else, then another place asked if its vented or not? how do i tell? hopefully then my wheel shake will disapear after, i did notice the steering wheel will pull to the drivers side. anyone know where to get one quick online? someone have a decent one for sale? how hard is it to bleed after since the clutch fluid is tied into it? and special tricks? thanks in advance. Alex L