Further

I tracked at VIR this weekend and did a fair bit of reconnaissance for my want list. I'd like to focus on the said topic for this discussion.

I have decided to run square 18x10 for the ease/benefit of tire rotation and to mimic the 302r in the Grand Am series. I have seen this thread from Jscheier*https://themustangsource.com/f813/st...-force-502882/.
In that thread, he refers to the Vorshlag D-force wheels. http://www.vorshlag.com/product_info...roducts_id=505

I believe you can purchase the same wheels at Bimmerworld.http://store.bimmerworld.com/d-force...4690-p894.aspx. I believe they are the same wheel as they are the same price and have the same offset.
In addition, you can have them mount used Continental Challenge track (Hoosier) tires in "average" condition for $75 a pop, and the mounting is free.
I believe these are virtually the same setup as the Grand Am Mustangs and M3's


My concerns are:
Are these the same wheels and are they compatible with our S197? Is it the same bolt pattern and thickness? Will it require a spacer?
Is it safe to get those tires? And, will a 275/35R18 fit right with a similar wheel diameter? They stand by their word that they have plenty of wear left. I met a guy with an e92 M3, who was running this setup. He required no spacers. He did cord them that day.

Moving right along, my understanding is to install a stiffer front sway bar, evening out the body roll of the front end, diminishing the front tire grip a bit to even out the inherent under steer a square set up will cause. I believe this Strano front sway bar was recommended by Jscheier: http://www.stranoparts.com/partdetai...200&ModelID=35
Is it reasonably easy to install?
What concerns me is that he said it cost $189 in his thread but it only costs $179 on the Strano site and the Back sway bar costs $189.
Also, the car overseers enough coming out of the apex. I hope I'm not getting in over my head with an oversteering race car. Is the sway bar enough for the correction?

Please feel free to correct any of the above comments, and by all means, answer my questions and forgive the lengthiness. Maybe I should stick with the staggered set up.

Thank you.

*Mike*

BMW are 5x120, I believe. Different bolt pattern

Further

Aren't the wheels from Vorshlag the same as the Bimmerworld wheels?

*Mike*

same company, and bimmerworld may be able to order them for you, but the ones they stock will be 5x120 and not 5x114.3

JScheier

Same manufacturer, but only Vorshlag has the S197 fitment (they stepped up and funded the development / build). The ones at BW are BMW Fitment (5x120 with 57.1mm bore).

You will also want to purchase their 17mm lug nuts as the wheel lug space is pretty tight when trying to get a 21mm socket in there for the OEM lugs.

18x10s clear with the 275x35x18s no problem. They are actually are on the small side. Those tires are an endurance tire... and thus take a little more time to heat up. When they do, they work great. I have a set of those on the car right now and they worked well for two weekends and still have plenty of rubber left. Should only have about 10 heat cycles on them... so they should start dropping off soon.

I run a Strano bar front and rear. Both are adjustable (which is why I bought them).

For my setup, I'm running the front Strano bar on full stiff. Rear is on full soft. I did also pick up a set of adjustable front end links and am thinking about moving the front bar to Medium Hard (3 holes on each side, but with adjustable links you can go full hard on one side of the bar and Medium on the other... giving more adjustment range / fine tuning). With this current setup, the car is very neutral with just a hint of mid-corner push (aka: under steer).

Front install is a pain only because you have to deal with removing undertrays and getting the stock swaybar mounting tabs off. Rear is pretty straight forward other than swapping the direction of the panhard bar bolt on the passenger side.

So, the basic gist is that when you go to a square setup with zero changes, the car tends to oversteer more (rear end is loose) than when it is on a staggered setup (OEM). There are two options:

1. Soften the rear of the car (softer spring rates <or> softer rear bar)
2. Stiffen the front of the car (higher spring rates <or> stiffer front bar)

My feeling is that on the track, the car is already too soft, so why would I remove roll stiffness to correct an over steer problem when I can increase roll stiffness to correct the same problem.

I didn't really need the rear bar, but I'm planning to up my suspension dollars and the front and rear adjustablility of these bars, along with the quality of the bars at the price-point Sam is selling them at makes it a key purchase for me.

Now... If I could just get those DDP Double Adjustable Motons shipped I would be smokin!

Call Terry at Vorshlag and order a set... I'm loving mine (as is my back!).

Fair

John is right - Vorshlag has the only 18x10 D-Force S197-fitment wheels, for the foreseeable future. Eventually D-Force will make more batches of these wheels (it took 6 months to get our first batch built) and other dealers might someday stock them. We have a couple sets in silver and I think 5 sets in flat black left. 19.5 lbs each. We put a set on a 2012 Boss302 LS last week with 275/40/18 NT-05s at all 4 corners and these were 11.5 pounds per corner lighter than his stock wheels and tires. Dropping over 40 pounds in wheel and tire weight is a lot. And unlike a lot of the cheap 18" wheels out there these actually fit the S197 chassis -aren't some hold-over from the SN95 chassis- or a heavier than stock "reproduction" wheel. Tons of caliper clearance to the 14" Brembo calipers, for better brake cooling.



I used a set of these 18x10" wheels this last weekend mounted with Nitto NT-05s in 295/35/18 at the Optima Faceoff at HOT ROD Power Tour, which included several competition events like an autocross, speed-stop challenge, and a time trial at Eagles Canyon Raceway. Square set-up with the 295s front and rear, fits great. We used our normal set-up of Moton Club Sport doubles with DDP pistons, VM camber plates, totally stock motor with headers and cold air. A little aero (LS splitter + APR GTC-300 wing, with our 10" spoiler for autocross), and little else.





This 100% street-legal daily driven car bested them all in the autocross and was 3rd quickest on the road course, with a 200-300 hp deficit to many of the cars in attendance (modded LG ZR1, ZL1 Camaro, LPE Camaro, etc). Having a good wheel and tire set-up was key...

Cheers,

Further

thank you for your most excellent answers. The write ups were exhaustive and filled with nice pictures. I will refer to this thread many times until my setup is right.

I'm going with the D force blacks and smaller lug nuts, front Strano bar only, and Conti 275 35R18 set. May try the Niitos later.