When I bought my E90 M3 I was given a couple of threaded pins by the previous owner. He said they were "pinion pins" and that he took them out to help handling when he autocrossed. I would like to put the pins back in their rightful place, but a search on "pinion pins" didn't turn up anything useful to tell me where they go and how to put them back. I would really appreciate guidance from anyone that can point me in the right direction.
That looks like the alignment pin that many owners tend to remove in order to dial in more front camber. ref: linky
Thanks! Yes, I managed to eventually figure it out, but have not yet consistently gotten a straight answer on whether removing them contributes to excessive tire wear.
It depends on how aggressive negative camber the alignment shop dialed-in post knocking out the alignment pins. More negative camber = more inside tire wear / / oomoo \ \ . vs . ___| | oomoo | | . Pardon me with the stick figures. If you take your M3 for an alignment back to factory spec then these pins will fit right back in.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm getting the front tires replaced tomorrow and the alignment reset to factory specs. I hoped that it would be easy enough that I would have the pins reinserted... the current alignment has worn the inner tread a lot faster than the rest of the tire, so it's time to get that fixed.
Well, I got the new tires installed and the alignment done. They said that they were able to take the car back to a perfect factory alignment without reinserting the camber pins.
