Mr. Belvedere 1981 BMW E21

[Oxer]

Amazing sir! Deff. Fav. e21 of all time! And the gold Ronal's are those the ones?! As in THE ONES?! lol

Yes, they are THE ONES OFF RUSTY.


<3

[TheNeek]

Well the arms kept hitting the subframe so we pulled a play from my buddy Chris' playbook and shortened the front subframe:









My good friend Ryan is the expert welder. I'm going to roll on this with stock control arms for this show season, then we will do the custom ones over the winter. Should be much more simple and more like the factory pieces, but with track adjustment.

The next gen control arm will just have a bushing carrier on in the inner control arm mount, rather than a heim. No need to adjust the distance of the swaybar to the inner mount. All the adjustment will be on the outer section to the strut. I also recessed the hardware that holds the subframe into the car so it won't be in the way of the control arm.



Hoping to be at Leavenworth, with a few other tricks in my bag.

[1badg35]

awesome work on that subframe. looking forward to seeing how much it helps the front end


We have to do the same over here asap.

[TheNeek]

awesome work on that subframe. looking forward to seeing how much it helps the front end


We have to do the same over here asap.

The pan is gonna sit on the ground now, so it's probably an extra inch. I'll shorten the sump at some point. It improves handling when low and gives the struts a ton more movement. The engine needs to be lifted for an M10 car.

[The_Sauce]

Ryans work on the subframe looked Phenomenal!!! Cannot wait to see this thing!! Need to get my Bimmer finished.

[TheNeek]

Ryans work on the subframe looked Phenomenal!!!

.

[montgomery]

The best e21 just keeps getting better. I would choose your car over ANY supercar. Beautiful work man.

[TheNeek]

I test fit the subframe over the weekend. It's a good fit, just one hole to widen out a bit then it's ready for powder coating. Which is a crime because the whole thing is beautiful.





Here is a photo for height difference. It's almost exactly an inch, maybe a thirty-second shy. We added a 1/4 plate to the top to make it more rigid.



The control arm bottomed out again on the new shortened subframe, but it's so much lower now.





With the car fully aired up the control arms are fairly flat and I've got 4 inches or so from where that photo shows it bottoming out. I'm thinking it'll handle really well at a cruise height.

Comparison to before:


It doesn't look like much but these cars are not very happy going low in the front.

[Zic]

Very nice work.
Have you thought about bump steer spacers / strut spacers. To get even more drop?

[MommysLittleMonster]

So much gusta. The character of this car just keeps getting better as the story progresses.

[TheNeek]

Very nice work.
Have you thought about bump steer spacers / strut spacers. To get even more drop?

It's a possibility. The strut spacers would be fairly complex as the control arm has a very large spindle in it. Once the custom arms are done we may do some spacers, depending on if the steering rack hits anything.

[Kielan]

Amazing work.

[Queef|Chief]

This car is so amazing! I need me a vintage bimmer now

[andybob]

Those welds on the subframe. Me Gusta.

Looks really good so far. Interested to see how it lays out.

[Rob&co]

Love