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| 12-27-2024, 02:25 PM | #1 |
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Help Needed MCS 2NWR Track Spring/Damper Setup
Trying to utilize the knowledge of the community for some adjustments on my MCS 2NWR with 600F 900R 2.25 HyperCo Springs and 275/35/18 RE71RS. Car is just under 3400lbs without me in the car. The car sits just above the top of the tire (not even a finger width between the fender line and top of the tire. Initial Damper settings were a bit messy with Front Compression 9 and rebound 11.
My first two events I noticed the car was WAY too low and is prohibiting the damper to travel enough. The car is not happy with curbs so I know I need to adjust the ride height. Question #1 Is there a good starting ride height you've noticed to increase suspension travel but not over lift the car? Question #2 I have reset the Front Compression to 8 and Rebound to 12. Rear Compression to 6 and Rebound to 10. Does anyone have a better suggestion based off experience? Appreciate any insight with people running similar setups and tire. Rubin |
| 12-27-2024, 09:29 PM | #2 | |
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Major General
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#1 - using the bottom center of each jack pad measured on the chassis (jack pad bottoms are not all the same or the jack pads may be damaged), you want the front measuring point to sit 3/8-7/16” below the rear measuring point. This gets you close to a corner balanced setup minus the cross weight adjustments (all four ride heights typically end up being different after a corner balance). Set the rear ride height first with roughly a ~2-2.5 finger gap. After setting the rear height (and rolling the car forward and back to release the tire stiction so the suspension is sitting properly), set the front height by using the front measuring points described above and setting the front rake 3/8-7/16” below the rear measuring points. #2 - this is a bit more challenging to set the independent front and rear R/C damper settings because they are track dependent. However, it’s possible to find a compromised damper settings that will work well at most tracks but you’ll be leaving more lap time out on the track. IIRC, the 2WNR has 14 clicks of compression/bump settings and 18 clicks of rebound settings. Recommended starting points are front and rear 8R/4C. Remember C damping adjustment is when the single adjuster is in its popped up position and the R damping adjustment is when the single adjuster is in the pressed down position. However, your spring rates are a dual-purpose street-biased setup whereas a track-biased setup would be F/R 700-800/1000-1100 lbf/in spring rates (divorced rear). The recommended starting damper positions are on the high damping settings for F/R 600/900 lbf/in. What do you mean by front 11R/9C and rear 11R/9C being “messy”? I was going to suggest front 11R/8C and rear 10R/9C. Another option would be to start at the front and rear 8R/4C and increase the number of clockwise rebound clicks in 1-2 increments until you find something with higher R clicks that feels good to you. If 1-2 incremental clockwise adjustments in R feels like it’s too large of a change, switch to 1 click increments. Next, do the same clockwise increments of 1-2 click adjustments in compression until you find what feels good to you. If you feel less confident making C adjustments, change it to 1 click increments at a time. If you get lost, go back to the MCS recommendations or my recommendations and then re-try making R and C clockwise adjustments in increments of 1-2 clicks (or 1 click). Don’t be afraid to adjust your 2W dampers because it’s difficult to create a 2W damper setup that is too dangerous to control/drive. |
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| 12-28-2024, 01:49 AM | #3 |
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Drives: 2009 E92 M3 Dakar Yellow II
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M3SQRD How is bump steer on these cars when lowered as much as OP?
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| 12-28-2024, 06:53 AM | #4 |
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I have not driven a f8x with less than a finger gap front and rear. I’ve driven one that had ~2 finger front gap and ~1 finger rear gap with all stock suspension arms. There was minimal bump steer but with a no finger gap it’s probably much worse. I’m not a fan of SPL arms especially their bump steer correction. Too many failures.
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| 12-28-2024, 11:59 AM | #5 |
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get your car on quick jacks or jacks in general, and use a floor jack to jack up the tire to check for suspension travel and adjust your ride height based on your preference.
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| 12-29-2024, 10:33 PM | #6 | |
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Running excessive forward rake alters the steady-state balance of the e9x M. Zero finger gaps front and rear is far from ideal for the track and is not close to a proper corner balanced car + cross weights. A properly corner balanced car has minimal forward rake. My two corner balanced + cross weighed e92 M3s fall within the 3/8-7/16” forward rake recommendation at 0.42” and 0.41”. A corner balanced + cross weighed f82 has a forward rake that falls between the 0.40-0.50” forward rake recommended range. My f82 forward rake is 0.46” which falls within the recommended forward rake range. This is not directed at you. The handling characteristics of a car properly corner balanced and cross weighed are so much better than a non-corner balanced car or a car with excessive forward rake to match front and rear tire-to-fender gaps. However, form over function is widely used by both track and stance groups. Track groups that upgrade to 2-3 way adjustable dampers, adjustable anti-sway bars and adjustable drop links, full monoball suspension arms, precise suspension alignments yet they completely ignore corner balancing and/or run excessive forward rake primarily for looks, not performance, doesn’t make sense to me. You’d get more handling performance out of your car by just properly corner balance than converting all suspension arms to adjustable monoball arms. |
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omgzirra_exe3058.00 |
| 12-30-2024, 12:49 AM | #7 | |
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From my experience, running excessive forward rake absolutely killed my braking performance. (To be fair, this was right after I installed coilovers and hadn’t dialed them in before the shakedown.) It overloaded the front tires and made the car feel sketchy under heavy braking. When I switched to a more neutral rake, braking performance improved, and the car felt much more balanced overall. For track setups, a slight forward rake combined with solid corner balancing can really tie the suspension and handling together. But honestly, matching tire-to-fender gaps front and rear just for looks is more of a "stance" move and not something I focus on for performance. Now, about corner balancing—this might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it’s that important for the average HPDE driver. If you’re out there just to have fun, there are so many variables that can mess with your left-right and x-weight distribution anyway. Things like fuel level, passengers for laps, and other things. For example, if you corner balance with a full tank and then burn through most of your fuel, your balance is already off. Same goes if you set it up solo and then take a passenger along. So, stressing about "perfect" corner weights feels overkill unless you’re chasing lap times or running in a competitive environment. That said, corner balancing does have its benefits. It makes the car more predictable and consistent by evenly distributing weight across all four tires, which can give you more confidence behind the wheel. But honestly, it’s not some magic fix for handling. As long as your alignment, suspension, and geometry are dialed in, you’ll be fine without obsessing over corner weights—at least in my opinion. One other thing I wanted to throw in: bump stops. They don’t get a lot of attention, but some people swear the E9X M3 performs better when it’s slightly riding the bump stops. The idea is that they act like a progressive spring rate when you’re pushing the car hard. Personally, I don’t really follow that principle, but I do use a floor jack to simulate full compression and check if there’s enough suspension travel when the tire tucks under the fender/quarter panel to avoid bottoming out over curbs, dips, elevation transitions, etc...which is why I recommended that earlier when setting ride height. Maybe one day I’ll fix my rake and get everything properly sorted. But honestly, I haven’t even been to a track day in 2024, so it’s not at the top of my list right now.
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| 12-30-2024, 07:33 AM | #8 |
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omgzirra_exe
I may have misunderstood your original response when you said to run whatever ride heights you like because the OP had stated he had less than a one finger gap front and rear. We’re in agreement with the amount of forward rake and it gets you close to being corner balanced minus the cross weights. I cringe when I see setups that have the same minimal fender gaps front and rear. As you stated too much forward rake ruins handling balance, braking (decelerating) and even accelerating. We definitely disagree on the importance of corner balancing and cross weights even with change in fuel load, with/without passenger, etc. Having the car corner balanced (which for this discussion includes cross weights) with a 1/2 fuel load removes the car is on “three legs (tires) of a chair that rocks back and forth on only two legs” feeling and you get predictable handling in both the left and right directions. More/less fuel and/or with/without a passenger you still get a benefit from corner balancing which has been my experience. In 2004 I ran out of time when I was building my e46 M3 track car and I had to make a trip to Summit Point without corner balancing. The car felt terrible and was unpredictable in cornering and braking. I had another trip to Summit Point one week later so I had the car corner balanced with a 1/2 fuel load and me sitting in the driver seat. Once we were done with the corner balance we added fuel and passenger weight to see how the numbers changed. Surprisingly, the changes weren’t as large as I was expecting them to be. Back at Summit Point (SP) a week later, I had James Clay in the car with me the entire day (switching between driver and passenger) while we dialed in the Moton 2-ways they planned on selling as a kit with GC race anti-sway bars. The car felt significantly better after the corner balance even with a full fuel load and James in the car. By midday, we had everything dialed in and I beat my SP Main PB by over 2 sec. I know it wasn’t all due to the corner balance but it definitely contributed to a measurable amount of the 2+ sec (almost 3 sec without James who’s the size of a college linebacker!!) improvement in lap time. I don’t believe in using bump stops to intentionally progressively increase spring rate. I do believe in bump stops limiting travel to protect the dampers from being damaged due to the piston valve/shim stack running into the bottom of the damper body! BMW tunes their suspensions with minimal bump travel and use bump stops to control/limit bump travel. For example, I’d prefer a linear setup where I would allow the springs to just coil bind at max travel with a thin linear bump stop vs. a large highly progressive bump stop that’s being used to intentionally alter the spring rate during roll, pitch or heave primary sprung weight motions because now it requires more damping to provide the same level of control of primary chassis motions due to the rapidly increasing spring rates. So bump stop-spring damping / spring damping = sqrt( Kbump-spring / Kspring ). This means you now have too much damping in corners or braking zones where the bump stops aren’t compressed much or not compressed at all. I don’t have bump stops installed on all three of my MCS 2WR setups and on my JRZ RS1 setup. |
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omgzirra_exe3058.00 911r1077.50 |
| 12-30-2024, 08:28 AM | #9 | |
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Thank you VERY much for the detailed suggestions. To answer your questions or follow ups see below: 1. I do adjust from the softest position like MCS suggests so we are on the same page. I have their two pager cheat sheet for initial setup that I have in my car's setup binder. 2. What I meant by messy is that the settings were a click off between the front and rear. I don't have my notes by me but one Front Driver Compression was at 12 and the Front Passanger Compression was 11 if memory serves me. Hope this makes sense. My biggest issue right now is that the car is so low I feel the car isn't getting enough suspension travel. See pictures for current ride height. It's not a fan of most curbs right now and I suspect that I need to 1. Raise the car and allow more travel 2. Upgrade next offesason (rebuild time is due on the suspension) to a more track focused spring rate I really appreciate the insights! Funny you mention James Clay, I race in AER and WRL against him over the years. He always has the sweetest setups. |
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| 12-30-2024, 11:02 AM | #10 |
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wait you bought Jimmy's e92 m3?
if that's the same car, that's a really dialed in build.
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| 12-30-2024, 11:31 AM | #11 | |
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For these folks, the priority is often just to have fun, enjoy the experience, and maybe drive home with a good story to tell. Left-right weight distribution and precise cross weights are probably not on their radar because they don’t spend enough time on track to appreciate or even feel the subtle improvements corner balancing provides. Sure, it makes for good cars-and-coffee conversation, but the guy who’s only done one track day likely isn’t going to understand—or care about—what corner balancing really offers outside of the cool-sounding “50/50 weight distribution” talk. You brought up how a corner-balanced car can still perform well despite changes in fuel load or passenger weight, and I don’t doubt that for a second. But from a practical perspective, for someone who’s just dipping their toes into the world of track driving, this level of optimization doesn’t feel necessary. They’re probably not running $5-10k dampers or obsessing over every tenth of a second—they’re just out there to enjoy their car and the experience. So, stressing over corner balancing, in my opinion, doesn’t offer enough ROI for the average Joe. Now, if someone does get bitten by the track bug and starts doing 4–5 events a year, then yeah, it makes sense to invest the time and effort into things like corner balancing. That’s when you start chasing consistency, predictability, and every little performance edge. But for the once-or-twice-a-year crowd, I’d argue that focusing on proper alignment, decent ride height, and a solid brake and tire setup will provide far more noticeable benefits without overcomplicating things. It’s not that corner balancing isn’t valuable—it absolutely is, especially for serious drivers. But for the casual track-goer, it’s probably not going to be the difference between a fun day at the track and a bad one. The focus should be on enjoying the experience, learning the basics of car control, and coming back with a smile on your face. For most people at that level, dialing in perfect cross weights is just shop talk at a cars and coffee event when someone ask "what suspension they're running and if they go to the track". But I do agree with you on the bump stops. Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t really buy into the technical idea of intentionally using bump stops to create a progressive spring rate. For me, as long as I have enough suspension travel and I’m not damaging the shocks, I’m good with the setup. It’s just one of those bits of information you stumble across online. Some people swear by it, but in practice, I think it’s more of a niche tuning philosophy that really only applies in specific cases, like with lowering springs.
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| 12-30-2024, 11:38 AM | #12 |
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former 240 s14
1. Great! The MCS instruction document is useful. 2. Got it. It’s best to follow MCS/BW recommendation of always resetting all R and C to zero before setting the new R and C settings to minimize the chance of having offset damper settings. I would try setting the forward rake like I recommended above. You only use the plastic jack pads to find their center point on the bottom of the jack pad and transfer that point to the actual chassis. Set the rear height first and then set the forward rake by adjusting the height until the front jack pad chassis point is 3/8-7/16” below the rear jack pad chassis point. The pic below of my f82 has the front jack pad chassis point is 0.47” below the rear jack pad chassis point (f82 is 0.4-0.5” jack pad delta). This car hbeen corner balanced so the cross weights have the lowering heights off a bit from one another. I don’t have any great e92 M3 pics but I’ll throw in a pic or two. Plus a f22 m240ix that does a good job of showing fxx forward rake. Setting the forward rack properly will address your front-to-rear ride height differences. It will address your two points. It will give you more suspension travel and, even with stiffer springs, you’ll want to run this same amount of forward rake. All of our cars are set with the proper forward rake for the e9x M and f82/f22. I’m running F/R 700/1100 lbf/in (divorced rear) on my f82 MCS 2WR setup. My e92 M3 I’m running either F/R 700/1000 or 600/1000 lbf/in (divorced rear; different rates for different tracks) on my MCS 2WR setup. The last 2WR setup is on my wife’s f22 m240ix street setup with F/R 500/800 lbf/in (divorced rear) with reservoir N2 gas pressures set at either 85 or 100 psi (100 psi if driving more aggressively in the twisty mountains, no cavitation felt). Street damper settings are Front 4R/4C and rear 5R/5C (from 0 or min damping) and she absolutely loves it. I’ve actually created a cornering monster! I had the 2WNR on my f82 for six months while they were trying to address the valve closing on the rear damper. A different coating on the valve fixed the noise issue. I then switched to the 2WR. I thought about 3WRs but went with three 2WR setups. BimmerWorld/James always have the best builds with the best setups. The custom welded-in roll bar on my e46 M3 track car looks like it was professionally built for the Speed |
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| 12-30-2024, 01:53 PM | #13 |
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I found a picture on the forum that’s very close to the forward rake for a e9x M3 (e90 in this case). My f82 pic was taken on an incline so the rear is raised a bit. It would look similar to this on a flat surface.
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| 12-30-2024, 05:45 PM | #14 |
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Good eye, I did buy Jimmy's car and the thing is a beaut. Jimmy knows his stuff better than most but he did not get to track it more than 1 time at Ozark. I talk to him almost daily now and he knows what I am fighting in terms of suspension.
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| 12-30-2024, 05:49 PM | #15 | |
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Front physically looks higher than the rear even though you reco it to be 3/8th to 7/16th lower than the front. Is it just the way the fender is cut? Last edited by former 240 s14; 12-30-2024 at 05:51 PM.. Reason: additional info |
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| 12-30-2024, 07:30 PM | #16 | |
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| 02-11-2025, 12:24 PM | #17 |
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Welp I go the car ready to go for Barber this weekend. Car is cornerbalanced and suspension was raised based upon all your guy's feedback. Car weighs 3430 with a full tank and no driver and is corner balanced within 10lbs. Will post video and results when I get back.
Thanks to M3 and the rest of the community. Rubin |
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| 02-19-2025, 12:33 PM | #19 |
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Back from Barber and wow the car was SO much happier with the ride height. Car performed splendidly and had zero issues all weekend. This track really shows the need for stiffer springs but I already knew that was an outage to be tackled this offseason.
Video and pics will be incoming, can't thank all of you enough for the help and engagement! Rubin |
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| 02-25-2025, 10:19 AM | #21 |
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Wow, I never actually realized how much angle of attack the front canards have. For some reason, I always thought they were way less aggressive in terms of angle.
Car looks great out there, and the videos are awesome!
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| 02-25-2025, 12:14 PM | #22 | |
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Car ran 1:38.x's all day long with traffic and very cool temps (mid 40's Sunday with heavy wind and cloud cover.) The brakes had a hard time staying in their operating window (DTC-60 and AP Essex kit) but luckily I am very aggressive in brake zones naturally, which helped. Rubin Last edited by former 240 s14; 02-25-2025 at 12:14 PM.. Reason: Formatting |
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