e36 328 ownership experience
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Lee36328
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Fine-tuning the ride and handling now.
First step, replacing the ageing H&R Sport springs and Bilstein B8.
Ride is instantly much better and more "one piece".
Second step, changing the setting of the rear anti-roll bar from 'comfort' to 'stiff', while keeping the front setting is "comfort". This helps the rear become more "active" while improving the grip of the front. The end result, easier to 'oversteer' the rear end around corners. But, try at your own risk, and only if you are familiar with how to counter when the tail goes out.. As always, be safe.
First step, replacing the ageing H&R Sport springs and Bilstein B8.
Ride is instantly much better and more "one piece".
Second step, changing the setting of the rear anti-roll bar from 'comfort' to 'stiff', while keeping the front setting is "comfort". This helps the rear become more "active" while improving the grip of the front. The end result, easier to 'oversteer' the rear end around corners. But, try at your own risk, and only if you are familiar with how to counter when the tail goes out.. As always, be safe.
Lee36328
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Exploring and experimenting with how to balance the chassis and dial out understeer by softening the front and stiffening the rear. Quite a lot of control and adjustment can be achieved by altering the spring, absorber and anti roll bar stiffness.
Lee36328
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As shown above, I set my anti-roll bar to 'soft' in front and 'hard' at the back.
Better, resists roll at the rear, but still not enough.
Next, I increased the front tire pressure slightly and decreased the rear by the same amount.
A ha! Rears tires began to sing into corners, allowing me to go wide and cut into the apex to feel the tail swinging round. The rear steps out nicely, not much, but enough to put a grin on my face.
Next, reducing the roll.
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And rear toe-in.
Remember that slight roll I mentioned earlier? This table give me a clue what might be causing it. I noticed increasing the rear toe-in from 0 to 1.5 mm helped improve the 'dead' feeling of the steering and the sluggish acceleration, but it added an element of roll during corners. So, am reducing the rear toe-in to 1 mm to see if it improves.
Also, I think the front toe-in and rear toe-in affects the car in a combined way. When I had to big a gap or difference between the front toe-in and rear toe-in, the steering felt sluggish and heavy, and the car felt slow. It improved immediately when this gap is reduced.
Remember that slight roll I mentioned earlier? This table give me a clue what might be causing it. I noticed increasing the rear toe-in from 0 to 1.5 mm helped improve the 'dead' feeling of the steering and the sluggish acceleration, but it added an element of roll during corners. So, am reducing the rear toe-in to 1 mm to see if it improves.
Also, I think the front toe-in and rear toe-in affects the car in a combined way. When I had to big a gap or difference between the front toe-in and rear toe-in, the steering felt sluggish and heavy, and the car felt slow. It improved immediately when this gap is reduced.
Lee36328
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rx8;848724 said:
Thanks, hope you found it useful.
Am doing this 'research' at a shop called AutoPex, located at Taman Perindustrian Batu Tiga. It's right opposite German Marque, both can be seen from the main road. Look for Ah San.
Meanwhile, back to more findings...
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Finally, putting it all together, courtesy of Mike Kojima.
Looking at this table, I noticed a couple of things:
1. The rear toe in is set at 1/8" (3.17 mm) and gets progressively larger the harder the driving.
2. The front toe in also gets progressively higher the more aggressive the driving.
3. As a rule of thumb, the front toe in is about half the rear toe in. Certainly, the front toe in is never higher than the rear toe in. This is an important clue.
4. The front toe in increases from about half, to finally equal to the rear toe in as we move up the aggressiveness scale.
Which explained what happened to me in my initial set up.
Initial Set Up
Front toe in 1.5 mm, rear toe in 0 mm.
Result: Awful. Steering felt stiff, heavy, unresponsive. Car was reluctant to accelerate, felt like it was dragging something. Body rolled into corners.
Changing the rear anti-roll bar from soft to hard helped a bit, but not enough. Roll persisted.
Set Up 2
Front toe in 1.5 mm, rear toe in 1.5 mm.
Result: Steering became alive again, light and nimble. Car moved freely, unencumbered. Some body roll in to corners. Understeer was reduced by adjusting front and rear tire pressures, but roll persisted.
Set up 3
Front toe in 0.6 mm, rear toe in 1.0 mm (remember the rule of thumb, front toe in is less than rear, about half)
Result: Steering nimbleness retained. Car now pulls even smoother, a 'one-piece' connected feeling.
Best of all, going into corners, the roll is much reduced. Once into a corner, car corners flat and level, giving me confidence to sling the rear around more aggressively if I felt the need.
I recall this table again. Here, even though the alignment mechanic may disagree, I think I've proven to myself that the toe in settings can indeed affect body roll, as the Kojima table above described.
The table also described that with too much toe in the car wants to grab traction and straighten out suddenly, something my car was prone to do in the past. I think I may have found the cause and the solution.
This is so far limited to a couple of laps around the Batu Tiga industrial park, as I am writing this from Desmond's new KLAuto outlet near the alignment shop. When I've had a chance to drive it more thoroughly, will report any further findings.
Looking at this table, I noticed a couple of things:
1. The rear toe in is set at 1/8" (3.17 mm) and gets progressively larger the harder the driving.
2. The front toe in also gets progressively higher the more aggressive the driving.
3. As a rule of thumb, the front toe in is about half the rear toe in. Certainly, the front toe in is never higher than the rear toe in. This is an important clue.
4. The front toe in increases from about half, to finally equal to the rear toe in as we move up the aggressiveness scale.
Which explained what happened to me in my initial set up.
Initial Set Up
Front toe in 1.5 mm, rear toe in 0 mm.
Result: Awful. Steering felt stiff, heavy, unresponsive. Car was reluctant to accelerate, felt like it was dragging something. Body rolled into corners.
Changing the rear anti-roll bar from soft to hard helped a bit, but not enough. Roll persisted.
Set Up 2
Front toe in 1.5 mm, rear toe in 1.5 mm.
Result: Steering became alive again, light and nimble. Car moved freely, unencumbered. Some body roll in to corners. Understeer was reduced by adjusting front and rear tire pressures, but roll persisted.
Set up 3
Front toe in 0.6 mm, rear toe in 1.0 mm (remember the rule of thumb, front toe in is less than rear, about half)
Result: Steering nimbleness retained. Car now pulls even smoother, a 'one-piece' connected feeling.
Best of all, going into corners, the roll is much reduced. Once into a corner, car corners flat and level, giving me confidence to sling the rear around more aggressively if I felt the need.
I recall this table again. Here, even though the alignment mechanic may disagree, I think I've proven to myself that the toe in settings can indeed affect body roll, as the Kojima table above described.
The table also described that with too much toe in the car wants to grab traction and straighten out suddenly, something my car was prone to do in the past. I think I may have found the cause and the solution.
This is so far limited to a couple of laps around the Batu Tiga industrial park, as I am writing this from Desmond's new KLAuto outlet near the alignment shop. When I've had a chance to drive it more thoroughly, will report any further findings.
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After driving the car more extensively, am pleased to note that the car is indeed noticeably more balanced entering a corner, nice and level, instead of 'rolling' into a corner. Once the front end is pointed correctly and the car is settled in nicely, there is a definite sensation of the mass of the rear slinging the tail around the corner. Quite easy to make the rear tires 'sing' through a corner.
There is an occasional light vibration in the steering in the straights. This is random enough to rule out tire balancing. The alignment guy suspected steering tie rod. Upon checking, it turned out to the a ball joint. That was soon sorted.
There is a drawback when I moved the anti-roll bar setting at the rear from soft to stiff - more vibration gets into the cabin and the old leader and plastic parts are rubbing and making more noise. But if it makes the car handle so much better, that's noise which I will happily tolerate.
Presently contemplating getting the e30 M3 aluminium lower arm, which will lower the unsprung weight. Will be reporting on progress.
There is an occasional light vibration in the steering in the straights. This is random enough to rule out tire balancing. The alignment guy suspected steering tie rod. Upon checking, it turned out to the a ball joint. That was soon sorted.
There is a drawback when I moved the anti-roll bar setting at the rear from soft to stiff - more vibration gets into the cabin and the old leader and plastic parts are rubbing and making more noise. But if it makes the car handle so much better, that's noise which I will happily tolerate.
Presently contemplating getting the e30 M3 aluminium lower arm, which will lower the unsprung weight. Will be reporting on progress.
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casio339;848938 said:
Kind words, tq very much.
Nothing major done inside, just re-wrapped the two front seats, so nothing much to photograph. Maybe soon... thinking about bucket seats, maybe forged race steering wheel... planning and dreaming....
Lee36328
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Now I know why Google is worth so much.
Many years ago, I got a pretty decent player, component speakers, sub and amps. Blaupunkt Bremen, RS-Audio, Vanadium Rainbow, Sinfoni, etc. Even the cabling was not neglected, I recalled it cost a pretty penny.
And for years, I used to wonder why it sounded... well, not crap, but not what I expected, certainly a let down.
The bass was boomy and harsh, the sound staging was poor, everything dropped to the floor.
Sound staging was a mystery to me, how the sound can seem to all come from the front even though the sub is at the back. I thought, and was informed, that I need to cut a big hole in my rear parcel shelf to achieve that.
As for my poor sounding bass, the solution suggested was to buy bigger speakers in front. And I'll need to cut into the chassis to make room for them.
That can't be right, I thought. Spent so much and the conclusion was, I need to spend more? Yes, high end sound comes with a high price, I was told. There is no limit.
Right, since I do not have a no-limit budget, I decided to study the problem.
I took out the user manuals and product specifications for the player, speaker, amps and sub and started reading. And I Googled any concepts and terms I did not understand.
I learnt concepts/techniques/technologies like crossover, sound staging, slope, wave cancellation, crossover points, etc.
And I discovered what a versatile player the Blaupunkt Bremen is with such a great degree of control.
For components to sound their best, there is a way to set the cross over points to meld the front, sub, and tweeters seamlessly, using high pass and low pass filters, setting the right crossover frequency, choosing the slope, etc.
Fascinating to learn even the position of the sub woofer box and which way it is facing makes a noticeable difference in the sound because of the cancelling effect of overlapping sound waves. I got a real kick out of that, in both sense of the word.
Finally got the system to sound as high end as the component's price range. Also am amazed at how the whole system sounds when tuned properly. Shy that it took me so long to discover that. All the instruments are playing from the front, and at ear level, not from the floor, with nothing coming from the back. I am both impressed and pleased.
Bass is just loose enough to be warm, just tight enough to the punchy, in other words, sweet.
Now I am very glad I did not let any installer cut any part of my car to fit a bigger speaker, to let the sub play better, etc. There's a lot of improvement to be gained from setting it up and tuning it properly, instead of just throwing parts at the problem.
I must say I can't blame the installers, whose business model is focused on selling more expensive and bigger stuff rather than getting the best out of the system in question.
For us as consumers, if we do our homework and arm ourselves with knowledge, we can get more value out of any system or product we buy instead of passively relying on or being led by what the merchants tell us.
The internet is amazing isn't it? Thanks, Google.
Many years ago, I got a pretty decent player, component speakers, sub and amps. Blaupunkt Bremen, RS-Audio, Vanadium Rainbow, Sinfoni, etc. Even the cabling was not neglected, I recalled it cost a pretty penny.
And for years, I used to wonder why it sounded... well, not crap, but not what I expected, certainly a let down.
The bass was boomy and harsh, the sound staging was poor, everything dropped to the floor.
Sound staging was a mystery to me, how the sound can seem to all come from the front even though the sub is at the back. I thought, and was informed, that I need to cut a big hole in my rear parcel shelf to achieve that.
As for my poor sounding bass, the solution suggested was to buy bigger speakers in front. And I'll need to cut into the chassis to make room for them.
That can't be right, I thought. Spent so much and the conclusion was, I need to spend more? Yes, high end sound comes with a high price, I was told. There is no limit.
Right, since I do not have a no-limit budget, I decided to study the problem.
I took out the user manuals and product specifications for the player, speaker, amps and sub and started reading. And I Googled any concepts and terms I did not understand.
I learnt concepts/techniques/technologies like crossover, sound staging, slope, wave cancellation, crossover points, etc.
And I discovered what a versatile player the Blaupunkt Bremen is with such a great degree of control.
For components to sound their best, there is a way to set the cross over points to meld the front, sub, and tweeters seamlessly, using high pass and low pass filters, setting the right crossover frequency, choosing the slope, etc.
Fascinating to learn even the position of the sub woofer box and which way it is facing makes a noticeable difference in the sound because of the cancelling effect of overlapping sound waves. I got a real kick out of that, in both sense of the word.
Finally got the system to sound as high end as the component's price range. Also am amazed at how the whole system sounds when tuned properly. Shy that it took me so long to discover that. All the instruments are playing from the front, and at ear level, not from the floor, with nothing coming from the back. I am both impressed and pleased.
Bass is just loose enough to be warm, just tight enough to the punchy, in other words, sweet.
Now I am very glad I did not let any installer cut any part of my car to fit a bigger speaker, to let the sub play better, etc. There's a lot of improvement to be gained from setting it up and tuning it properly, instead of just throwing parts at the problem.
I must say I can't blame the installers, whose business model is focused on selling more expensive and bigger stuff rather than getting the best out of the system in question.
For us as consumers, if we do our homework and arm ourselves with knowledge, we can get more value out of any system or product we buy instead of passively relying on or being led by what the merchants tell us.
The internet is amazing isn't it? Thanks, Google.
Lee36328
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Further notes as I continue to learn and discover...
Crossover as hifi buffs know very well is the way to separate sound frequencies to send to the subwoofer, mid speakers and tweeters.
I used to leave crossovers alone because I did not understand them. Now I just discovered, if I don't set them correctly, the speakers will struggle to deliver frequencies not intended for them. Which is why my system sounded atrocious previously. Yes, I am late for the party, but I am glad I finally arrived.
The player may have a crossover. The speakers also will have a crossover. The amps also may have a crossover, or high pass/low pass filter. So my question was, which crossover do we use?
For the sub, I use the crossover at the player itself. I set the low pass filter of the sub's amplifier to maximum, allowing all frequency to come through. I use the crossover at the player to decide the crossover frequency for the sub and midrange.
But for the tweeter, I struggled to find the right crossover frequency setting at the player. It just didn't sound right, too sharp.
Then it occurred to me that my tweeter and midrange speakers are from the same brand, coming as a set. Which means the crossover within the speakers are already set at optimum. So I set the crossover point at the player for the tweeter/midrange to flat, and let the speakers' crossover sort it out.
The result was much better.
Next, the player has a subsonic filter. I always wondered what it was. Turned out, it was a way to cut off the low frequency sound. Subsonic means we can't hear it. My sub has a low end limit of 25 Hz. Apart from a subsonic filter, the player also allows the slope of the cut off to be set, from Q1 to Q5, Q1 being the most gradual, and Q5 being the most steep slope. The slope is how gradual or steep the sound frequency drops off.
I always thought since it was subsonic, it made no difference because we can't hear it.
Not true. Changing the subsonic cut off with various combinations of frequency (above/below 25 Hz) and slope made an audible difference to the quality of the bass.
The learning continues...
Crossover as hifi buffs know very well is the way to separate sound frequencies to send to the subwoofer, mid speakers and tweeters.
I used to leave crossovers alone because I did not understand them. Now I just discovered, if I don't set them correctly, the speakers will struggle to deliver frequencies not intended for them. Which is why my system sounded atrocious previously. Yes, I am late for the party, but I am glad I finally arrived.
The player may have a crossover. The speakers also will have a crossover. The amps also may have a crossover, or high pass/low pass filter. So my question was, which crossover do we use?
For the sub, I use the crossover at the player itself. I set the low pass filter of the sub's amplifier to maximum, allowing all frequency to come through. I use the crossover at the player to decide the crossover frequency for the sub and midrange.
But for the tweeter, I struggled to find the right crossover frequency setting at the player. It just didn't sound right, too sharp.
Then it occurred to me that my tweeter and midrange speakers are from the same brand, coming as a set. Which means the crossover within the speakers are already set at optimum. So I set the crossover point at the player for the tweeter/midrange to flat, and let the speakers' crossover sort it out.
The result was much better.
Next, the player has a subsonic filter. I always wondered what it was. Turned out, it was a way to cut off the low frequency sound. Subsonic means we can't hear it. My sub has a low end limit of 25 Hz. Apart from a subsonic filter, the player also allows the slope of the cut off to be set, from Q1 to Q5, Q1 being the most gradual, and Q5 being the most steep slope. The slope is how gradual or steep the sound frequency drops off.
I always thought since it was subsonic, it made no difference because we can't hear it.
Not true. Changing the subsonic cut off with various combinations of frequency (above/below 25 Hz) and slope made an audible difference to the quality of the bass.
The learning continues...
Lee36328
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ICEMAN 68;849391 said:
Always happy to help a brother if I can.
Do you have your current alignment settings? If you do, PM them to me to take a look.
Secondly, what is the current behaviour of your car in the corners - does it understeer/oversteer/sway to much etc?
And what is the behaviour you are looking for. Cheers.
