Southerner

Yea the GSR struts are bigger diameter strut tube and brakes, but will also require lowering springs to get it to sit lower im guessing. Also with building coilovers you have to shorten the strut tube, measure it and cut out a section and weld it. Then put a threaded sleeve over and weld top and bottom. Dont know how this gets on in the cert process as i sold mine in bits and brought a e30 BMW instead.

How pricey are these shackles that you found? i might be keen depending on how excessive they are

I havent found any solutions either, mine has the air shocks aswell that i pump up when i put in heavy loads or go on long journeys. Theres isnt a easy way around it, just cheap tyres really.

Been awhile since iv had this car going, Methven Rodeo was on over labour weekend and i thought it would be a good roadtrip in the triumph so got my old man to get a wof on it and picked it up on Friday night for the weekend. Got up on Saturday morning and put the roof racks on that i recently purchased and headed for methven. Heres a few pics of the trip Heres one of my mate driving Got to Methven later on in the evening and the camping ground owner offered to buy my car when we pulled up. Went up the Mt Hutt ski road for a scenic drive on Sunday morning, battery mount came loose so tightened it up before we headed back down Woke up on Labour Day to find a good dumping of snow so headed home before it got to deep On the way back down south forded a river Over all the car performed well but need to reseal the front windscreen and sort out a knocking noise in the rear end. Also lowering it a couple of inches and maybe finding some other wheels for it Let me know what you think http://oldschool.co....showtopic=31783

Mine says 30psi max, doesnt take long to get them that tight either as its only a small cylinder. I usually have like 5psi in mine as it sits quite abit lower with next to nothing in it, i just pump in up when im hauling round a trailer or got fatties in the back seat.

I quite possibly might show in my e30 if its welcome, its pre 89 but i still wouldnt class it oldschool haha my triumph would be better but thats sitting down in invercargill. Will bring a camera and a couple of mates who are into cars, will be good to meet a few of the dunedin folk.

Surely it wouldnt go any worse than a 2.5? Im keeping an eye out for a newer engine aswell so if one comes up ill grab that instead, trying to do this as cheap as possible, and the stroker seems cheap for abit of extra power You're right! It's no worse than a 2.5. But that little bit of power really is a _little_ bit of power. Is there anything you recommend to make it go better than, a little bit of power? Perhaps a turbo manifold from the states? Apparently these motors seem to make decent power with a turbo strapped on the side, and manifolds arnt to pricey either

Yea im keeping an eye out for one, just a matter of time before one comes up locally it think. I have a 885 head in the car at the moment, it used to be a 320i and someone did a 25i implant into it and it hasnt been finished. So im slowly tracing through the wiring to get it going. So when i don ill build up a stroker for it. Surely it wouldnt go any worse than a 2.5? Im keeping an eye out for a newer engine aswell so if one comes up ill grab that instead, trying to do this as cheap as possible, and the stroker seems cheap for abit of extra power

ill keep that in mind, however i could be keen on the crank if your stripping it down that much?

Here is my long term project, 320i with a msport 2.5 motor in it. Has an auto box behind it though so tracking down a gearbox and pedal box. Plan to stroke it out using 320i conrods and crank out of 525e i think. Already have the conrods which cost me nothing. Just fitting a facelift bumper onto it

Found this in his shed the other day, was even painted black, so gave it a quick sand and fitted my AA badge i had off another car

yea i suppose i could keep an eye out for some a set of wheels more suitable for max low, im not to worried about scrapping on the odd thing

Yea they run a bit of negative, im not to worried about tyres as i only use it over summer, not my daily driver. Im running the standard 'S' mags with high tyres, so i may have to cut abit more off aswell. Its good to hear about the crossmember isnt to low

Sweet, thats the height i want mine to be at, ill get the bosch a new disc tomorow and post up pics soon. Cheers for all the help

If you could post a pic thatd be great. How much did you lower your one? Mines a manual one, so has the lower gearbox crossmember, thers also alot of shit thats hanging down, like bolts for swing arms etc which means i really cant slam it to low. Im not worried about swapping springs back and forth or it riding on bump stops.

Im planning on lowering my mk2 triumph. Ive searched for how to do this and there doesnt appear to be much out there, or either im looking in the wrong places. Ive seen Snoozin and beaver's project threads and from what they have done is just cut there springs and replace them with standard ones for wof? If so how much do you cut off so it is at a good hieght. Or is getting proper lowering springs better in the long run? This car is just my summer cruiser so it doesnt need to handle like a race car as such. Are the springs captive once this is done? Ive got adjustable air shockies in the rear end of the car, am i better off looking round for some that arent adjustable to swap in instead? Any help would be appreciated in how to lower my car a few inches towards the road. Cheers

Yea im getting the gaurd vent comment alot haha it is right through the gaurd though, which means i cant just rip them off. One day ill remove them

my car hasnt had any of those symptoms as of yet, but if it starts playing up ill use those ideas. One thing it does do, when its cold and you first start it up, it surges between 500 and 1700ish revs? But once its warmed up, which i do anyway, it goes away? Im pretty sure this is the idle control valve? And for the steering rack im gona track down a e36 3 series one, but heard that z3 ones also work and have even better lock? There is quite alot of info on the 3 series convertions, including writeups, so ill probally just use one of those.

Yea thanks for all that helpfull info. I have done a coolant flush already, as i didnt trust the stuff that was in it for winter. Ive done research on the shift link bushes and that will be the problem so ill hopefully do it these holidays when i have abit of time. On the suspension front, i actually brought 3 other bmws off my old man for bugger all. One is a mintish 320 with a 325 motor which i am going to build up as a track car and ill post up pics in a few weeks of it. Between the 3 cars i brought, i got one set of H&R springs and a set of eibach springs, which im pretty stoked about. So might combine them with some nice shocks. I brought a m20b20 motor for its conrods the other day and scraped the block so the the conrods cost me nothing. Im going to build up a stroked motor in the track car im hoping so if anyone has advice on that id be keen to hear it. Took it for a decent run the other weekend along the top road to portobello in dunedin, had some serious brake fade towards the end of it the i was quite worried about so the brakes will be looked at in both the cars, and the track car will get steering from a newer 3 series and no e46 hidious chrome things which are unfortunately on mine. Its also not a msport, just has a lsd in it, which im planning on doing these holidays aswell. Pics will be included next update.

Just shortened the strut tubes, then put in shorter shocks out of a celica.

yea i shortened the strut itself and used the inserts. I presuming if all the welds are done nice and neat then it should pass cert, and therefore wofs

Yea the easiest way as Damien! said is Ex lancer top hats on starion struts. You can use starion control arms aswell as the knuckles for more length(worked out to give me negative camber in my car). If you shorten the struts you can use KYB inserts out of a celica to give you more travel. Then just put a threaded sleeve over the top. Check out my project thread on how i had mine setup. I pretty much followed Seedy Al's guide on how to do the struts http://www.oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=26443 Or just use the search function to find more info

Yea im starting to think that aswell, it is marked LSD on it though, ill take a photo tomorow, is there any other way i can tell without actually pulling it out?

Cheers for all that! Yea ive checked most of it for rust, the only place seems to be the lip on the back gaurds where some mud has caused it to go a wee bit rusty, other than that its pretty sound. The diff its pretty shagged i think, could just need a tighten up? Do you know if they are hard to do? I agree with the ugky M3 grills, it came like that and arnt easily removed so will be ther for awhile. Im probally gona get some better suspension for it soon, already handles pretty good. The motor is pretty decent and takes the little bit of abuse ive thrown at it so far, needs a new clutch soon though. I think im pretty right for parts at the moment, but will keep it in mind.

Well ive recently sold my ex lancer 4g63t project as i live away from home and cannot see it being completed anytime soon so thought i should buy a car that had some potential. Was looking round at e30's for awhile and set myself really wanting a 2 door coupe version, 320i or a 325i, which had to be manual. Went a drove a 320 that was pretty rough so kept waiting for a nice tidy one to get. Saw a nice 325i 2 door driving round dunedin and then really wanted my own, a week later the exact car showed was for sale. So here it is, 1986 BMW E30 325i Its a manual 325i, with a lsd in the back, tidy interior, lowered slightly, custom headers with a 2.5inch straight through exhaust which sounds awesome. Now from doing some research on the vin plate i found out that it used to be an automatic but the conversion must of been done extremely well. Also think it may be an msport as it has all the good bits like a lsd etc, and it has msport colours around the gearstick and handbrake boots, it also has AC Schnitzer side strips along the front doors, can anyone help me find out how to tell? And how hard is it to tighten up the rear diff? Ive jacked it up and it only spins one wheel with the other wheel not turning at all. It is stamped LSD and sometimes gets 2 marks going if its in the wet or on gravel. Let me know what you all think