BMW 330 ZHP alignment and data + Pics

[danewilson77]

Yes. Wear and life span will definitely be different. You'll be lucky to get 20k miles out of PSS's at the camber. Zero'd out as much as possible may yield 25k miles, but it really depends a lot on driving style as well.

S7 Edge, out

[Ernest]

Thanks Guys both great points. Will complete the suspension refresh over the winter and then take it in again. Glad I found a good professional alignment shop.

[holyc0w]

I checked under the car and discovered dry rotted right rear tire so replaced all 4 Pirelli's (from PO)

Sounds familiar...how old were they?

I had set from the PO that they mounted in the beginning of 2012. I noticed some dry-rot on the rears when changing tires for Winter last year. Recently I found a bubble on the front left and changed them to Continental DW's.

[Ernest]

The dry rotted tires had a June 2009 mfg date. They only had 3k on them, but succumbed to old age in tire life. I didn't think of checking the tire date when I bought the car so a lesson learned.

[holyc0w]

Mine had 2011 dates

[jsfbmw]

This is the story: Earlier this year I had good luck and won a free alignment with one of our Chapter's sponsors, Shade Tree Garage. I have an '06 ZHP Coupe with 162k miles and was planning to refresh the suspension, so getting an alignment was on the list. For options, I read up on this site, talked to other club members and based on my goals, I went with Koni Yellow (set to 1/3 stiff) with Eibach springs and had the shop do the alignment. Below is the printout from the Hunter machine and it seems quite good.

Turn-in response is much quicker but seems non-linear and road bumps are a touch sharper; all of this is OK with me. I also have new rear PSS and the FCBs were replaces a year ago. The questions here are: why the non-linear response and also, in high-speed sweepers the car needs a steady hand like it is on the edge, when it should feel planted. Ideas?

[kbcons]

Alignment time!

Done 7/7/2016 at Bullet Performance in Costa Mesa. If you need a PDF of this, just click the image.



Ken...

[holyc0w]

Since the dash is crooked, does that also mean the steering wheel shouldn't be in line with the dash when centered?

[ZHPizza]

Y'all. After wearing out the Firestone lifetime alignment package, I've finally found a setup that I really like.

First, I took it in and had them align it to BMW specs. That shit was terrible. BMW calls for a ton of toe-in, front and rear, which is safe (woo!) because it makes the car plow straight down the road and not want to turn (not so woo). I hated it.

I studied up on why the BMW alignment specs are shit and what affects what, then, I went back and had them zero out the toe, front and rear. No tire wear, no plowing. The car was super responsive and eager to go wherever I pointed it, but not so confidence inspiring at speed. It was great at low speed, not so much on the highway and long stretches of track.

So, I studied up on alignment specs that the old "I been driving BMW's on the street and track for 20+ years" guys like and went back to Firestone for this:



AND I LOVE IT

The zero toe in front means the car goes where you want it to go. There's no resistance to turn in and also no tramlining. The rear toe in gives it the high speed stability that makes you accidentally speed in a BMW -- it gets more and more stable as the speed creeps up.

Caveats:
- While the rear toe-in will cause some inside tire wear (still less than OE specs), it's worth it for the high speed stability and putting power down out of a corner. I'm running a square setup so I can rotate front to rear as the outside of the fronts get worn on the track and the inside of the rears get worn on the street.
- I slotted out the front strut towers and knocked out the alignment pin on the mounts to get my front camber to -1.5. Ideally, you would want the rear to be about 1 degree less cambered than the front, but I don't think my wide ass wheels/tires would fit in the back at -0.5 camber. My ideal setup would actually be -2.5F, -1.5R, but I'll need camber plates for that.

[johnrando]

Good info, thanks for posting.