I know the lack of LSD is limiting and the RF tires are not optimal....but anyone messing with autox? How is it performing stock?

I also wonder what it would be like with nothing but the addition of some R compound tires and a little TT action?

i still think it will be too heavy to be a serious player. certainly has the power. NO LSD kills it.

I have an E90 335i and run against M3's in the local BMWCCA autox. So far I have not been beat by a stock M3 in 2 races. The lack of LSD only comes up on the tightest turns. The tires are the weak point.

It seems to me you would want wider front tires to get better turn in and reduce the understeer inherent in the staggered set up. I haven't got many miles on mine yet, and haven't played with tire pressure or alignment, but I have more understeer than I'm used to.

I'm sure that would help but getting a set of non-rft's would help too. It is harder to fine ture pressure adjustments due to the stiff sidewalls, the tire just doesn't change like a regular tire would for the same amount of adjustment.

It seems to me you would want wider front tires to get better turn in and reduce the understeer inherent in the staggered set up.
There's really not a lot of fender clearance for wider tires up front, at least not on E92 ZSP. :shifty

i may do auto-x when i go up to gainsville to visit a couple friends in summer-B . i definitly plan on dyno's so ill let you guys know how it goes.

We have talked to someone that wants to campaign a E90 335 in SCCA FStock. We're working on an AST double adjustable 4200 kit for these using 60mm coilover springs, but if we get more interest we will put more effort into the stock style spring version. The nice thing about the E90 is it shares suspension with the upcoming (for US) 1 series, so it will get the attention it deserves... eventually.

I really really wish BMW would offer an optional LSD for people wanting to race in classes where a swap is not allowed. It can and will hurt autocross performance greatly when driven to the limit. Anyone racing with the traction control turned on is going VERY slowly. :D Whenever I drive an open diff crippled BMW, especially ones with soft stock springs and bars, I can tell by the first corner and start a string of German profanity belittling the BMW engineers. In any class where you CAN swap in an LSD into a BMW that came without, this should be modification NUMBER ONE.

I also wonder what it would be like with nothing but the addition of some R compound tires and a little TT action?
I've only run it once (4 laps) in an autox, but I was almost exactly 1 second behind the leader (who ran 8 laps), and who had years of running her M3 and was (supposedly) known as a good driver. (I've been autocrossing for about 5 of the last 9 years, all of it in my 1993 Supra Turbo.)

The 335i is sloppy compared to my (recently traded-in :)) Supra, but the Toyota had quite a few mods (springs, shocks, and strut brace were the suspension mods).

Overall I'm happy with the 335i in stock trim. I overheard other drivers making comments about "the 335i" and the driver; they were fairly impressed. ;)

If you're going to get serious, there's no doubt that R-compound tires will take 5% off your lap times (they did in the Supra before it was modded), so a 60s lap becomes 57s. That is a HUGE difference on an autox course.

Then spend some money upgrading the driver. :cool You can do that best with lots of seat time, a driving school, and lots more seat time. :)

After that, look into the other hardware components: springs and shocks, then LSD, and last -- the horsepower mods. In an autox, the last thing you need is power -- finesse will trump power any day and I have plenty of eyewitness stories that I can tell to attest to that.