wheels and lowering

[terrierbulls baur]

hi ,, new to the forum and new to e21 ownership !

picked up my e21 baur yesterday with only 74000 miles , having only covered 150 miles in the last three years ,

the car is totally original in alpine white , drove it back from pontypridd to bristol and it never missed a beat , was well chuffed ,

so some questions for you experts out there . now the car is back i plan to garage her up for the winter and set to work on a few subltle mods ,

firstly lowering springs , lots of springs out ther ranging from 35mm up to 60mm including 60mm front 40mm rear , will this make the ride to harsh ? what experieces with lowering have people had ?

next on the agenda would be the wheels , currently running on original 13 inch alpina style alloys , what width can i run and what is the correct offset ,looking at either 14 or 15 inch bbs or borbet alloys , i will keep the alpinas for winter wheels as all 4 boots have over 5mm tread and the wheels are good condition with no dings .

thirdly it's a 316 with 1800 M10 , has had a shrick cam fitted and am looking at changing the carb to a twin choke webber , are these bolt straight on or is there some modding invoved ?

thanks paul

[e21-Mark]

Welcome mate. I lived in Bristol myself till a couple of years back and had a Baur 320.

I had it dropped on -60mm springs and loved it. The only problem was that there are way more speed humps here in London. Going down that much will ruin standard shocks if they're a bit tired anyway so I'd suggest either new ones or uprated items too.

Et13 is quite hard to come by but there are rims out there. MiMs, Mahles, & Fondmetals are about the most common ones that will not need spacers.

You can get direct replacement Webers ne or they come up second-hand for about £120 - £150 from time to time.

Anyway, got any photos of your car? We do love a photo on here.

[terrierbulls baur]

will get photos on here asap !!
thanx for the help ,,

[nas80]

small world - also lived in bristol - Bradley Stoke for quite a few years before starting Uni.

You can make higher offset wheels fit, you just need some spacers.

Defo buy the matching shocks and springs, -60mm all round will make it sit just right i reckon, without it being too much of a pain trying to get it over obsticles in the road.

Yeah defo post pics..

[terrierbulls baur]

shocks look fairly recent-ish ! so will the the springs alone be o.k ?

will 15'' x 8 be to wide , the ones i'm looking at have an offset of 25mm stud diameter 100mm , what spacers will i require ?

[Rav320uk]

You'll need 10mm spacers, your ET needs to be about 13/14 on a 15" wheel to clear the track rod end.