where to start?

[Amphilophus]

I am wanting to start modifying my 1996 M5 v6. I was thinking about all the stuff I could do (exhaust,intake,gears etc.) but I cant even get traction with the stock set up. what can I do to really hook as far as suspension goes that would help my 1/4 times? thanks.

[ellik]

my first thought would be that you need tires. is there any tread left on the ones you have now?

you could put on a set of LCA's (lower control arms) and panhard rod fairly inexpensively that would help to plant the rear end a bit better.

usually most people do intake and exhaust work first ... before they need to do suspension work

[Linxs]

Originally posted by Amphilophus:
but I cant even get traction with the stock set up. what can I do to really hook as far as suspension goes that would help my 1/4 times? thanks.

If you are having a hard time getting traction it sounds like a tire issue.... What kind of tires (and size) do you have? As far as moding I'm in agreement with Ellik do intake and exhaust first, if your car can not breath then how do you expect it to go faster.

[Amphilophus]

I have new tires I am not sure the exact kind but they are kumho's. they are the wider tire i dont remeber the size but when I bought them I wanted the widest tire I could fit on it so thats what they gave me. any time i punch it i spin and bounce all over. the panhard rod I have done that before but how hard is it to install the LCA's? whats a good kind to get. thanks.

also I have a flowmaster catback but I cant see the point of making more power when I cant get what I have got to the ground.

[black98V6]

the lower control arms are easy and they will help you keep the back end planted, I went to a set of 1LE arms from slp, or if you want to go more extreme check out our sponsors they have some made by BMR, pretty good stuff for the price IMO, I just went with the 1LE because i got the panhard, lower control arms and front sway bar really cheap from a dude who just had the stuff taking up space in his garage. otherwise would have gone with bmr

[Linxs]

Originally posted by Amphilophus:
I have new tires I am not sure the exact kind but they are kumho's. they are the wider tire i dont remeber the size but when I bought them I wanted the widest tire I could fit on it so thats what they gave me. any time i punch it i spin and bounce all over. the panhard rod I have done that before but how hard is it to install the LCA's? whats a good kind to get. thanks.

also I have a flowmaster catback but I cant see the point of making more power when I cant get what I have got to the ground.

When you floor it are you talking about "poping" the clutch to spin the tires? or are you flooring it from a roll and your getting wheel hop? Are you still on original shocks and struts? I know what you are talking about but it's been so long since I have had wheel hop I forget what the best fix is or what I did to minimize it...

[ July 07, 2004, 04:13 PM: Message edited by: Linxs ]

[Amphilophus]

Its from a stop and a roll(slow roll) I dont pop the cluthch I sort of feather it out. I am not sure about the shocks and struts just got the car not long ago but they are fine doesnt bounce. should I look into new ones?

[Linxs]

I was just talking to a friend, "basically wheel hop is the tire geting traction and loosing traction and the suspension is unloadign in between, therefore makign it hop" I quoted him. I would find out how old the shocks are and replace them if it's been a while. I replaced mine this past December and I noticed a huge difference, I replaced the stock ones. I would start with the shocks first and move on from there. My car is only a year younger than yours. I can floor it and I don't get wheel hop any more and you can see the mods I have done below. I recently replaced the rear end; I had the original axel with drum brakes and no LSD (3.23 gears). I did not get wheel hop a lot (I did get it some) before I did the swap. I honestly do not remember getting wheel hop since I did the swap (about 1 month ago).

[ellik]

is the car lowered? From the sounds of it, I thing I would throw on a set of LCA's and relocation brackets. Wont cost you a fortune and should be a good improvement from stock anyway.

[Linxs]

Originally posted by ellik:
is the car lowered? From the sounds of it, I thing I would throw on a set of LCA's and relocation brackets. Wont cost you a fortune and should be a good improvement from stock anyway.

I sure am glad someone else does that (I bolded the word above that I am talking about)! sorry Ellik not trying to be a jerk. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ellik]

LOL.... yeah.... spell check is my friend, except... umm... i always forget to use it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Amphilophus]

whats a good shock to get? thanks for all the input.

[ellik]

price vs. performance, cant beat Bilstein HD's

[DarkEcho]

heres a really easy thing to follow and it wont leave you in dillema situations trying to decide between parts....
go from the ground up and then front to back, thats what im doing,

i got wider rims and wider tires, then i got shocks and spring *bilstein hd and eiback pro* LOVE those, and then you get to all the underbody junk, id get the sway bar in front and back, then the one for the engine bay, then get some subframes and then control arms and that kinda thing.... suspension will make the car fun to drive while you are building up the funds for the power adders. exhaust is also fun but its really hard to decide lol... get a whisper lid too....suspension isnt really all that expensive as far as individual parts go, it wont dent your wallet too much while your saving up and most of the stuff you can put in yourself to keep you satisfied... i did the rear shocks and springs with a buddy... did them seperately though, only took us like 1 hour both times, it was cake, just do it at the same time, the whole process for shocks nd the process for springs is like totally the same, only difference is that when u do shocks, you remove one more bolt, so dont waste your time doing it twice... the fronts are a dif story... it took me (very inexperienced) 10 hours alone one night afterwork/the next morning befor work lol. i got it done though and im glad i did, only reason it took me so long was because i kept screwing up when compressing the springs and forgetting parts, then had to recompress decompress yadda yadda, oops didnt alight those two parts, decompress recompress decompress lol it was a pita...but if you follow a good guide its pretty simple... just takes a while.

[Lionel'z Camaro]

so first get rims, low profile tires, springs/shocks, sway bars/strut tower brace, subframe connectors, lower control arms and relocation brackets, then what? Does that sound like a good order 2 go in? I didn't mention upper and lower A-arms(lighter weight one's). Does that sound like a complete suspension set up also?