Junior Member
Coupe or sedan will be equal performance. Some prefer the sedan as the B pillar ends up being about even with your shoulder so the theory is greater side impact protection. Best aspect of a good donor is no rust. Where the rear sub-frame attaches should be reinforced (many rip out) and having rust there will make this a miserable job.
Senior Member
Except, unfortunately, that's illegal.
Where the rear sub-frame attaches should be reinforced (many rip out) and having rust there will make this a miserable job.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Junior Member
Not if it matches the factory repair which has been close to an outright recall for the e46. At a certain point in their production cycle, both e36 and e46 chassis had this from the factory. Rust and wear can still wreck the factory reinforcements though. Not seam welding or anything along those lines, this is installing OEM parts. I don't think this violates item 8 under Suspension Mounting Points. I would not race an e36 chassis without these parts installed.Originally Posted by JeffYoung
http://rrtracing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=223
edit: Item H under 8. Body/Structure
All chassis/structural/electrical repair, if performed, shall be in concurrence with factory procedures, specifications, and dimensions. Unless specifically authorized by the manufacturer for repair or allowed by these rules, no reinforcement, i.e., seam welding, material addition, etc., is permitted.
Knew it was in there somewhere.
Last edited by Olson-RRT; 02-13-2009 at 03:21 PM.
Administrator
Administrator
https://improvedtouring.com...ad.php?t=12163Here we go again......
Start there.
BTW, the Autotechnica photo links on the first page no longer work. But, remember, nothing on the web ever disappears. Just add "http://web.archive.org/web/20050404233644" in front of the failed links, such as:
http://web.archive.org/web/200504042.../gallery/car11
Junior Member
Wow. Just, wow. Seems things were wound a bit tight five years ago. Got a few replies down and couldn't deal with reading any more.
They are reinforcing the subframe itself, not the chassis mounting point. The pics in the link to the old post are not the reinforcement, or repair, I am referring to. Again, please look here to see what I am talking about:
http://rrtracing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=223
Jeff, understand where you are coming from just a *bit* more now.
Administrator
Five years ago...? Well, I guess we've moved a lot of our tight-woundedness to the Sandbox...
Anyway...to summarize that thread, Matthew...I don't know enough about what I'm looking at to defend or contradict what you're trying to say. But, generally speaking, you can do whatever the factory did when they built the car, whatever your factory shop manual shows as an acceptable repair for the car, and whatever any technical service bulletins shows as an acceptable repair for the car.
The safest and most-legal action, of course, is to replace that whole ripped panel with a new one from the factory.
However, if at any time you perform a "repair" that deviates from original build or any of those official records, you are illegal. One thing that stuck out on that link you posted is "This is an E46 M3 Competition Package shown." Without further knowledge, that implies to me to be illegal to the IT rules.
Make it back to stock, and you're legal. Deviate from stock and you're treading on thin ice.
GA
Senior Member
So I think I read through all of that, and I've known about this repair for years from the BMW forums, but I still have never seen any factory directive about its use to reinforce cars that didn't come with the reinforcement from the factory. Near as I can tell, only M3s came with it from the factory. Not the 325i, not the 328i. Those reinforcement plates are not listed as superceded parts for anything either, since they are additional parts, not replacement parts. Seems to me that someone just "figured out" that the M3 had reinforcement that the non-Ms didn't have, so it became the de-facto way to repair this problem.
So quickly, did any factory documentation ever turn up?
Josh Sirota
ITR '99 BMW Z3 Coupe
Senior Member
Coupe or sedan will be equal performance. Some prefer the sedan as the B pillar ends up being about even with your shoulder so the theory is greater side impact protection. Best aspect of a good donor is no rust. Where the rear sub-frame attaches should be repaired (many rip out) and having rust there will make this a miserable job.
How's that.
Last edited by robits325is; 02-13-2009 at 03:10 PM.
Rob Driscoll
ITS 25
NER
Junior Member
That be better
Kinda like "may" and "shall"... Subtle yet quite different.
Senior Member
Sorry Ron, I know I shouldn't start. But, this one always irked me.
Did the cars come from the fact with the reinforcement or not?
If not, illegal.
Everytime this starts, we get a BMW guy first say "you should reinforce the subframe mounts" which after being pointed out as illegal, becomes "it's just a repair."
If it never came from the factory reinforced, it's illegal. The reinforcement kit, OEM or not, is illegal. If you are repairing it back to teh way it was when it came from the factory, that is legal.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Junior Member
Yes, they came from the factory "reinforced", the part used is intended to bring older or damaged cars to factory spec. Also see my edited post above.
Senior Member
Hmm maybe the E36 has bigger problems then I thought.
Jeff does that still apply if the factory has a recall on a car to change something? I would think that would become the new way a car is supposed to be fixed.
Mike Uhlinger
Senior Member
This thing has been hashed out here endlessly before. I'll give you my two cents on this, take it for what it is worth.
E36s have subframe mount issues. It's something that needs to be looked at on a regular basis, and probably proactively repaired, not reinforced. This is like many cars that have a weakspot/weakness.
However, it's become a de facto standard on E36 track cars of all flavors (NASA, BMWCCA, etc.) to reinforce the rear subframe mounts -- the old "everybody does it" argument. The argument is bolstered by claims that (a) this was done by the factory as part of a recall or (b) later E36s came with the reinforcement plate from the factory.
One at a time. On the latter point, no one has ever provided evidence of a 325is E36 coming from the factory with the plate. The anecdotal evidence suggests that it was installed only on late E36 328s and M3s. Click here:
http://www.bimmerwerkz.com/forum/3-s...ame-48392.html
If the anecdotal evidence is true; illegal.
On the former point, apparently BMW would take a look at the subframe mount and in some cases use the reinforcement plates but if the mount was in good shape, they wouldn't touch it. So, it wasn't a true recall in the sense that ALL cars were called in and retrofitted. The argument here is that "since the factory repairs it this way, I can" but in my view the GCR doesn't allow that since the car never came from the factory that way.
So it goes. I would never protest a BMW over this, but it does irk me, especially when the safety card gets played, because by spending dollars checking the mounts and repairing them legally and correctly -- i.e. spending money -- back to stock you will be just fine.
Last, full disclosure, I started racing in 2004 at the height of the unrestricted 325is E36 dominance in ITS, and I'm still smarting from that...215 rwhp and 2850........yikes.......so I'm not entirely unbiased.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Junior Member
Again, a repair not a reinforcement; very different meaning and the wrong word used in my initial text. And as in the edit of my previous post, from the GCR:
h. All chassis/structural/electrical repair, if performed, shall be in concurrence with factory procedures, specifications, and dimensions. Unless specifically authorized by the manufacturer for repair or allowed by these rules, no reinforcement, i.e., seam welding, material addition, etc., is permitted.
Rusted/weakend/torn bit cut out, OEM repair part welded in. Does this not meet GCR section above? And keep in mind we are talking about a few sq inch flat plate replacing an existing piece of flat metal plate. The point of the repair is to better spread the load of the weld nut in the improved design to the frame where it is mounted to prevent it from ripping out along with the rear suspension. This simply allows the mounting point to operate, as designed, and does not improve performance.
So perhaps I am confused in the sense that this offers no performance improvement and meets the GCR so why all the consternation?
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