BC coilovers

[e21_lyf]

A few sets just appeared on eBay.

BR-RA part number. Any good? Any experience here?

[Jeroen]

Never heard of!

[Duracel79]

I'll ask Si as he fitted a set of BC coil overs to his.
They require the front struts to be cut down and the new ones welded in position.

[si.]

I have a set on my car and am really pleased with them for the money they cost I cant fault them,

ive had GAZ before albeit a long time ago but I really didn't like them couldn't get the adjustment right and they were a very crashy hard ride

so BC was pretty much the only other easy option as Ben said you will have to cut down your struts and get the coilover welded to it but other than that straight bolt up

they come with adjustable front camber mounts whereas with the GAZ coils you have to buy that separate @ ~£200 which makes the GAZ coils way more expensive than the BC's

haven't done much on track with them since I fitted them but a few laps of the ring showed me the difference from the SPAX setup I had and it was like night and day

[e21_lyf]

Thank-you for that reply Si.

A friend of mine got some BC's for his MX5 track car. I found them to ride well in that car and they are pretty competitively priced.
I assume fitted to your '82 316? They will be going onto my '76 316 with the m42b18, and would expect you to have noted any major issues?

Should be fine then, except that front strut cut & weld which is a small hiccup.
Is it on the body of the damper? Basically is my tig welding guy going to get funny about welding onto pressurised units hahaha

Regards

[Jeroen]

[Jason_323i]

BC are like a universal coil over, they all use the same threaded body which screws into a carrier specific for each car. So in this case you weld in the carrier then screw in the coil over body

J

[e21_lyf]

Thank-you J, that's good to know. Any idea if there's a significant difference in the strut lowers across the e21 range? I'm working with '76 316, but if spindle diameter etc the same and the welds nice - I'd be inclined to say makes no difference.

[splitty456]

As far as i know, there are 3 types of E21 strut (i'm sure someone knows better than me, however)

- 4cyl struts have smaller spindles wheel wheel bearings and 45mm shock bodies
- 320/6 has the larger spindles and wheel bearings, but still 45mm bodies
- 323 has larger spindles and 51mm bodies

Therefore, you need a lower from BC to suit the 45mm shock bodies on your car.

[brockzila]

As we have a McPherson strut in our cars the spindle assembly needs to be cut off the original strut and the new.assembly welded.on to what is.left of the factory strut tube. The coilover should have instructions on how to do this.

Get yourself a set of 323 struts and hubs.

as mentioned above the 323 has bigger struts. Bigger is better in this case. The 323 also has bigger bearings so Will.handle.the breaking and Corner load of the track work.

It will also mean that if you do ever upgrade to e24/12 hubs it will be a bolt on swap.

Once you have welded the lower on the shock you can't cut it off. So do the biggest best job that you can now.

[e21_lyf]

Thank-you for that information.

I'll get my hunt on for 323 hubs & shocks.