Hi, I have looked over the e30 forums, and I haven't seen anyone mention this particular topic on lowering. If this has been addressed, I apologize in advance. I just puchased 4 Bilstein Sports, and H&R Sport Springs (50407) made for the IC. Someone recommended that I purchase Top Hats for an e90 to work out any negative rake. Does anyone have advice or experience with this? Do I need to do this? I was told by some from Pelican Parts that I could pretty much install what I have, and align with no problems. The guy from Pelican Parts had not heard of anyone using e90 Top Hats (or is it Drop Hats). I have also searched other forums, but found only a few people who have done so, and I'm assuming they used them due to more drastic lowering. I would appreciate any advice that is given on this. I'm going to try to do the install sometime over the next week or two.
Any reputable maker of sport spring sets for the E30 should, I would think, engineer and design them to uniformly lower the car so that the front of the car would not be higher than the rear. Rake, apparently, refers to a height difference between the front and rear of the car. I wouldn't think there's any reason you need 'drop hats', I wouldn't bother. There are negatives to over-lowering your car, too; the constant risk of scraping the front spoiler on driveway curbs will be just that much worse, for instance, and the oil pan is just about the lowest thing on the underside of the car, there's little reason to put it at further risk of taking a hit from anything. A much better solution than drop hats would be a full coil-over suspension with adjustable spring perches, but unless you're making the car a race car, there's little reason to go to that extreme, unless you don't mind forfeiting that much more of your ride quality. Just get your suspension installed, and see how it feels to you. Rake, as far as I know, wouldn't affect your alignment significantly; if it did at all, I'd think it would affect camber, and probably not much at that, by affecting the front/rear weight bias. Putting lowering springs on a BMW typically adds some negative camber, which would potentially change your alignment some. Removing the front struts for new strut inserts and springs can change your front alignment, which is why you would want a new alignment after installing your new suspension parts. If your goal is ride-quality-and-all-else-be-damned, body-1.5-inches-off-the-ground-regardless (you wouldn't want to drive on public roads like that, but that's another story), yes, I suppose drop hats could be incorporated. Coil-overs would be better, however - and then for more lowering you'd get into silly stuff like re-welding the shocktowers higher, and possibly even trying to gain oil-pan clearance with taller engine-mounts so the engine would sit up a little higher, assuming that taller engine-mounts would work at all.
Cool. Thank you for your advise. My goal was to just fill the wheel area a little and have some improved handling. The front seems to have more negative space than I care for. I thought the 1.5" front, and .75" rear drop would not be too drastic. I have researched the drop and it seems to get pretty favorable reviews for the street. This is a second car in all original condition. One of the front struts is pretty much shot, which prompted me to do the upgrade. I have the factory wheels on the car now, but I hope to upgrade them after my tires wear out. I will let you know what happens when it get this set up, hopefully this week, without the drop hats. Thank you again for your reply and time.
I have an 92 e30 cabrio, about a year ago I got the H&R kit from Turner Motorsports , looks and works great ! It's well made , all from H&R....springs and shocks.....
