Our BMW Gets Low

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Update by Tim Suddard to the BMW M235i project car
Apr 29, 2015

We spent a few days before the Classic Motorsports Mitty at the BMW Performance Center in Greer, South Carolina, doing some more testing and modifications on our project BMW M235i. After some baselining, we had a “dealer-installed” limited slip differential put into the car. In our August issue, we’ll let you know the results this change had on our car’s lap times. Suffice to say we were very happy with this modification.

From there, we worked with James Clay and his crew from BimmerWorld and installed an MCS-based suspension system with Ground Control camber plates.

Our next modification was to play around with our tire and wheel combination. Working with TSW Alloy Wheels and Continental Tire, we were able to fine-tune the look, ride and driving characteristics of our newly-lowered M235i.

Again, we will have the full report in an upcoming issue of Grassroots Motorsports. You can sign up right here.

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Comments
iceracer
iceracer PowerDork
4/29/15 5:20 p.m.

Won't that change the angle of the LCA ?

irish44j
irish44j PowerDork
4/29/15 6:15 p.m.

most basic MCS price: $2650 (up to $7400).

doesn't sound very grassroots..

dean1484
dean1484 GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
4/29/15 6:27 p.m.

Grassroots and cheap are not the same thing. GRM has a vast audience whose disposable income varies greatly. Not every build can be based on duct tape and crazy glue.

SnowMongoose
SnowMongoose Dork
4/29/15 6:29 p.m.

In reply to irish44j:

Neither do most things involving the terms 'BMW' and '2014'

irish44j
irish44j PowerDork
4/29/15 7:51 p.m.
dean1484 wrote: Grassroots and cheap are not the same thing. GRM has a vast audience whose disposable income varies greatly. Not every build can be based on duct tape and crazy glue.

Neither here nor there since I was just being sarcastic when I said that.....but the actual definition of the word "grassroots" (in a non-political sense) is "ordinary" or "basic" according to Webster's and Princeton But whatever...again, it was just an offhand sarcastic comment.

I'm far from being someone who builds $2000 challenge cars (I think the suspension on my WRX was about $1200 for the Bilstein Cup/Racecomp setup, just for daily driving and occasional trackdays), and I'm not "cheap" by any means. But there's a massive gap between "duct tape and crazy glue" and active suspension systems.

Sure, we all know that GRM is being given all this stuff for free, so the quid pro quo is that they have to then promote it to us and say it's great. Duh, that's how the world works. But the snippet here was basically "we want a sportier stance, so we slapped on some $2600 baller suspension stuff, because one of our big advertisers gave it to us in exchange for us promoting them." This kind of product-for-promotion is as old as dirt, but in GRM it used to be a LOT more subtle and less "in the reader's face" where they at least pretended to consider (or try) multiple options for performance parts rather than just jumping immediately to the top of the line stuff from a sponsor/advertiser.

I've loved GRM builds for the last decade+ I've been reading GRM, whether they're beaters, classic cars, or an M235. But when it starts to feel like a big advertisement, that's when I stop reading.

irish44j
irish44j PowerDork
4/29/15 7:52 p.m.
SnowMongoose wrote: In reply to irish44j: Neither do most things involving the terms 'BMW' and '2014'

touche!

chiodos
chiodos Reader
4/29/15 8:05 p.m.

In reply to irish44j:

Im glad im not the only one that feels grm is falling out of touch with the grassroots part

jstein77
jstein77 SuperDork
5/1/15 8:43 p.m.

Then how do you explain the $500 Lemons Muata project?

Tom Suddard
Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Associate Editor
8/25/15 10:42 a.m.

Have you guys read the October issue yet? The print version of this story goes into detail about why we chose this (expensive) suspension setup.

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