[Giak]

Great! I am glad I opened this thread and it is interesting for many users here.

I suggest you to wait for the black Friday week, they will have a big sale. I am waiting for that to place my order.

If you use the car mostly for track days/spirited driving you could go with the offset bushes. I am considering if I should do the same for my application also, or be more conservative with sealed non-offset bushes. I would like to know the opinion of the experts here.

Can I ask you why you moved from rwd to xdrive? What's your impression with xdrive?

[SLE3PER]

Originally Posted by Giak

Great! I am glad I opened this thread and it is interesting for many users here.

I suggest you to wait for the black Friday week, they will have a big sale. I am waiting for that to place my order.

If you use the car mostly for track days/spirited driving you could go with the offset bushes. I am considering if I should do the same for my application also, or be more conservative with sealed non-offset bushes. I would like to know the opinion of the experts here.

Can I ask you why you moved from rwd to xdrive? What's your impression with xdrive?

Did SS confirm a BF sale? If so, I’m getting SS rear toe arms. I would add endlinks but I’m thinking of getting coilovers, which are already included. So I don’t want to buy twice essentially.

I already have Millway monoballs and camber plates so I wouldn’t need the CS+ handling pack.

[Giak]

Yes, they confirmed me the BF sale.

[M4Rhino]

Originally Posted by Giak

Great! I am glad I opened this thread and it is interesting for many users here.

I suggest you to wait for the black Friday week, they will have a big sale. I am waiting for that to place my order.

If you use the car mostly for track days/spirited driving you could go with the offset bushes. I am considering if I should do the same for my application also, or be more conservative with sealed non-offset bushes. I would like to know the opinion of the experts here.

Can I ask you why you moved from rwd to xdrive? What's your impression with xdrive?

The 2023 was my first BMW and it was actually bought for my wife. We saw it and picked it up off the lot without knowing anything. It was dravit and silverstone carbon buckets. RWD, non lasers, no executive package, etc. I really really liked it once i inherited it...but it was missing some items i really wanted. My plan was to get a CS but loved the dravit and silverstone buckets. So I just built one, waited 4 months and got it exactly how I wanted. Now i can build from a platform that I really love. Yes, I lost some money but we can always make more... we cant make more time so might as well enjoy it!

[Giak]

Originally Posted by Giak

I am finally taking the route of ordering both the CS+ Hanlding pack and the front control arm bushes.
I have a doubt between offset or non-offset bushes. I will already have more caster from the camber plates, will I need the extra caster from the offset bushes also?
Another difference between the offset and non-offset bushes is that the non-offset ones have sealed bearings, while the offset version runs uncovered. Could that difference have an impact on lifespan, considering this is my daily car and I don’t want to deal with noise or issues in the long period?

Any recommendation about that? In a week I will make the order

[Hit_Apex]

Originally Posted by Giak

Any recommendation about that? In a week I will make the order

More details needed about your front geometry - are you lowered, if so how much? Have you altered the offset either with spacers or lower offset wheels? Are your front control arms and tie-rod ends stock? What is your front toe setting? Do you drive in the rain a lot?

In general, more caster is a benefit but depending on your setup it may be even more helpful in steering feel, centering than the added protection of sealed bearings.

[Giak]

Originally Posted by Hit_Apex

More details needed about your front geometry - are you lowered, if so how much? Have you altered the offset either with spacers or lower offset wheels? Are your front control arms and tie-rod ends stock? What is your front toe setting? Do you drive in the rain a lot?

In general, more caster is a benefit but depending on your setup it may be even more helpful in steering feel, centering than the added protection of sealed bearings.

Actually my suspension setup is 100% stock.
Probably I will install coilovers in the future, but I decided not to install lowering springs in the meantime, I am afraid the car could handle worse and the oem shocks could suffer more.

I tried spacers (15mm F, 12mm R) but I removed them after 2 days because they introduced a lot of understeer and I experienced more body roll. If I will buy new wheels I will take them with lower offset for sure, but only for an aesthetic reason.

This is my only car and I use it in every weather condition. I don't drive it daily, but I use it in the rain, even in the snow (very rarely), whenever I need.

Actually, toe in is +0°05' in the front.

Installing the control arm bushes is a PITA, then I don't want to have any issue in the future and need to do the job again.
Thank you

[Hit_Apex]

Yes, RWD is a huge pain I know first hand. Given what you said it’s really dealer’s choice on which caster bush to go with but I’m leaning towards the neutral sealed for you.

[AdonisP91]

Giak

What are your tire pressures and what does the tire wear look like? The only way to know if you need more camber is to look at the tires. Adding tons of extra camber if you are not rolling over the tire and getting excessive outer edge wear won’t improve anything and will just come with compromises.

If you are rolling over the tire, then sure the sudden breakaway in grip can lead to less steering feel but if you aren’t pushing the car that hard adding more camber does nothing at all to improve steering feel.

Similarly, while more positive caster is always good, it increases self centering force and improves dynamic camber, the stock setup is already aggressive at ~8 degrees. Installing camber plates with caster offset and only gaining 0.5 degrees will do very little at expensive costs and potential increase in NVH.

As others have said your best bet is do monoballs on the front thrust arms first. You can also add some spacers up front, the extra track width will also increase self-centering force and give a little more feel (make sure to get high quality hub centric so you don’t get vibrations).

Also rear traction arms will help mostly with wheel hop. Rear toe links are needed if you have very aggressive track alignment. You can get close to ~-2 to ~2.2 negative camber on the rear stock toe arms using the eccentric bolt before you can’t adjust the toe anymore. Unless you are running over -2.8 camber in the front (which you won’t for a street setup) there is no need for rear toe arms yet. You will just increase NVH with little improvement.

ETA: You want to improve steering feel you need to tackle the deflection in bushings.





Top mounts (via camber plates) when done right will have minimal increase in NVH.

Thrust arm mono balls will help a lot longitudinally under braking and acceleration and a bit under cornering. Will add a little NVH.

Front Lower Control arms will tackle a lot of the lateral slop but will add quite a bit of NVH.

Do all three and you really tighten everything up and significantly improve feel but the combined approach will introduce a lot of NVH.

[Giak]

Originally Posted by AdonisP91

Giak

What are your tire pressures and what does the tire wear look like? The only way to know if you need more camber is to look at the tires. Adding tons of extra camber if you are not rolling over the tire and getting excessive outer edge wear won’t improve anything and will just come with compromises.

If you are rolling over the tire, then sure the sudden breakaway in grip can lead to less steering feel but if you aren’t pushing the car that hard adding more camber does nothing at all to improve steering feel.

Similarly, while more positive caster is always good, it increases self centering force and improves dynamic camber, the stock setup is already aggressive at ~8 degrees. Installing camber plates with caster offset and only gaining 0.5 degrees will do very little at expensive costs and potential increase in NVH.

As others have said your best bet is do monoballs on the front thrust arms first. You can also add some spacers up front, the extra track width will also increase self-centering force and give a little more feel (make sure to get high quality hub centric so you don’t get vibrations).

Also rear traction arms will help mostly with wheel hop. Rear toe links are needed if you have very aggressive track alignment. You can get close to ~-2 to ~2.2 negative camber on the rear stock toe arms using the eccentric bolt before you can’t adjust the toe anymore. Unless you are running over -2.8 camber in the front (which you won’t for a street setup) there is no need for rear toe arms yet. You will just increase NVH with little improvement.

ETA: You want to improve steering feel you need to tackle the deflection in bushings.





Top mounts (via camber plates) when done right will have minimal increase in NVH.

Thrust arm mono balls will help a lot longitudinally under braking and acceleration and a bit under cornering. Will add a little NVH.

Front Lower Control arms will tackle a lot of the lateral slop but will add quite a bit of NVH.

Do all three and you really tighten everything up and significantly improve feel but the combined approach will introduce a lot of NVH.

Thank you for your honest opinion.

My usual cold tyre pressures are 2.3 bar front and rear, for street use. When I go to the track, I start at 1.9 bar cold, which gives me around 2.3 bar hot.
Michelin PS4S*

Front tyre wear is almost even, with slightly more wear on the outer edge. After a track session, the outside shoulder shows more visible wear, up to the Michelin lettering.

After installing the SS camber plates, I wouldn’t go for excessive negative camber — just about –0.60° more than stock, reaching around –2.4/–2.5°. Combined with the +0.5° caster, that should already be a solid improvement.

Front control arm bushes are on the list as well, most likely the sealed non-offset version.

I tried wheel spacers last year (15 mm front / 12 mm rear), and I had to remove them because they caused unwanted understeer. I don’t really see how running front spacers only would be beneficial.

Rear toe arms are important not only for static alignment but also to prevent toe changes under load.

NVH increase shouldn’t be very noticable with the three planned mods:
– SS Camber plates + caster
– SS Monoball front control arm bushes
– SS Rear toe arms

What you’re saying is theoretically correct, but are you speaking from direct experience with the G8x platform?

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by Giak

Thank you for your honest opinion.

My usual cold tyre pressures are 2.3 bar front and 2.4 bar rear, for street use. When I go to the track, I start at 1.9 bar cold, which gives me around 2.3 bar hot.
Michelin PS4S*

Front tyre wear is almost even, with slightly more wear on the outer edge. After a track session, the outside shoulder shows more visible wear, up to the Michelin lettering.

Ok excellent. This is the critical info we need.



Take a look at this photo, and the triangle/arrow marking built into the ps4s*. If you wear past it (like if it disappeared), you need to either increase pressure or add more camber. You can increase pressure only so much before the tires get greasy. The PS4S*’s sweet spot in my experience is around 2.3 to 2.5 hot on track.

If you are wearing below it (only half gone or not even reaching it), too much towards inside of tire, you can decrease pressure or decrease camber to let the tire use more contact patch area. The ideal pressure and ideal camber front and rear will not be the same.

After installing the SS camber plates, I wouldn’t go for excessive negative camber — just about –0.60° more than stock, reaching around –2.4/–2.5°. Combined with the +0.5° caster, that should already be a solid improvement.

Blind folded I doubt someone could tell me they had 0.5 more or less caster. But sure, the camber plates with spherical bushing will be a very nice upgrade limiting a degree of freedom in the wheel’s deflection, as you saw in my gif I posted.

Front control arm bushes are on the list as well, most likely the sealed non-offset version.

I tried wheel spacers last year (15 mm front / 12 mm rear), and I had to remove them because they caused unwanted understeer. I don’t really see how running front spacers only would be beneficial.

Suit yourself, I was just mentioning different ways to increase steering feel which mostly has to do with the front axle. Also there are many ways to fix the understeer, tire pressure, alignment, sway bar stiffness, square vs staggered tires, etc. If the goal is to tackle one thing at a time, then adding steering feel could result in also add NVH, or changing the balance, etc. those can be tackled next.

Rear toe arms are important not only for static alignment but also to prevent toe changes under load.

Of course, I was merely pointing out one doesn’t need all the upgrades all at once. Your earlier posts mentioned you wanted to go slow to see the changes one at a time, now you seem to want to slap a whole bunch of stuff on.

NVH increase shouldn’t be very noticable with the three planned mods:
– SS Camber plates + caster
– SS Monoball front control arm bushes
– SS Rear toe arms

I hope you are right but a bunch of people on the g87 forum have reported otherwise. They said those changes made the car far more predictable but it didn’t add speed (better lap times) and the ride was much harsher. In one anecdote the wife asked the person what the hell they did to the car it was much harsher just from the rear toe arms alone.

What you’re saying is theoretically correct, but are you speaking from direct experience with the G8x platform?

No, I am speaking from looking at all the reviews and complaints on the g8x platform and noticing I have all the exact same issues on the g42 platform, only in my case my stock camber and toe is even worse. The Suspension Secrets video series on the G87 is really illuminating and it directly parallels the series they did on the GT4 platform.

Aside from steering feel, a lot of these issues are just fundamentally about changing the factory configuration which is severely biased towards understeer and daily driving.

Same pattern repeats itself, start with dialling in the alignment for track or aggressive driving, now you notice the car with all the extra grip suffers from too much body roll, so you lower it and stiffen it up. Now you notice it really exposes the play in rubber bushings, so you go full spherical/monoballs.

Next after you maxed out mechanical grip it is time to slap on some aero kits for down force, but then you need more power, etc. Eventually when you reach the end of the line on the platform so it is time to move to the next platform and start the process from scratch.

[M4Rhino]

Suspension Secrets black friday sale is live! (UK time difference FTW!)

[Giak]

I have placed the order right now.
Hope that NVH will not be too much noticeable.
This is my outer edge, tyres have 19kmiles anda total of 3 sessions {25min each) on track. It seems I defenitely need more neg camber.

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by Giak

I have placed the order right now.
Hope that NVH will not be too much noticeable.
This is my outer edge, tyres have 19kmiles anda total of 3 sessions {25min each) on track. It seems I defenitely need more neg camber.

Yep definitely need more up front, and in the rear if they look the same as the fronts. Your pressures are good and the arrow/triangle indicator looks like it wore off completely (my tires look exactly the same). At least the tires look like they are wearing well, no chunking/cording yet.

[M4Rhino]

Order Placed. Was originally going to order the:
- CS+ kit
- Rear traction arms
- Offset caster bushing.

I spoke to SS (awesome customer service) and since I already have the KW HAS kit ready for install, they suggested to order the handling pack 1 which includes everything but adds the drop links and rear toe arms with Lock-out. I added the traction arms as well. This should keep me planted on my spirited morning coffees runs. HA! I also confirmed that they also include the set up sheet for fitting/adjusting for the service techs.

[SLE3PER]

Originally Posted by M4Rhino

Order Placed. Was originally going to order the:
- CS+ kit
- Rear traction arms
- Offset caster bushing.

I spoke to SS (awesome customer service) and since I already have the KW HAS kit ready for install, they suggested to order the handling pack 1 which includes everything but adds the drop links and rear toe arms with Lock-out. I added the traction arms as well. This should keep me planted on my spirited morning coffees runs. HA! I also confirmed that they also include the set up sheet for fitting/adjusting for the service techs.

So they recommended the Handling Pack 1 (fast road) with traction arms? I already have camber plates and Monoballs so I’m really looking to only add the toe arms. Not sure if I want to add the traction arms.

[M4Rhino]

Originally Posted by SLE3PER

So they recommended the Handling Pack 1 (fast road) with traction arms? I already have camber plates and Monoballs so I’m really looking to only add the toe arms. Not sure if I want to add the traction arms.

Yup. Not sure if it was because it was already in the previous order though. From my endless reading, its on the top of the rabbit hole if you're going down the parts list. Good addition if youre already back there

[Giak]

Originally Posted by M4Rhino

Order Placed. Was originally going to order the:
- CS+ kit
- Rear traction arms
- Offset caster bushing.

I spoke to SS (awesome customer service) and since I already have the KW HAS kit ready for install, they suggested to order the handling pack 1 which includes everything but adds the drop links and rear toe arms with Lock-out. I added the traction arms as well. This should keep me planted on my spirited morning coffees runs. HA! I also confirmed that they also include the set up sheet for fitting/adjusting for the service techs.

If you are not going to have a significant amount of drop from the has, there is no need for the droplinks

[Lykosis]

For those of you still following this thread, if the goal is to add more feel (at the expense of some NVH) on a road and sometimes track situation, do you think adding the camber plates and toe arms from SS would satisfy that itch? Similar to what Giak suggested above.

Or would adding front LCAs be worth while too?

I'm not lowered although perhaps in the future that might change a smidge, would prefer to keep the EDC.

[M4Rhino]

Originally Posted by Giak

If you are not going to have a significant amount of drop from the has, there is no need for the droplinks

Had the KW HAS on my 2023 g82. There's about a finger gap between the fender and tire. I took those off and will be running them in in 2026 g82 at the same height. Pics of my 2023 lowered, attached.

[Giak]

I am also considering to install the KW HAS kit, but i will set it to the minimum drop of 15mm front and 10/12mm rear.
In my opinion there is no need to install swaybar endlinks for such minimal drop, since it is not introducing any preload to swaybars. Only reason to have them is if you want to corner weight the car.

About KW HAS kit, do you consider it an upgrade from the performance point of view also? I mean lower bodyroll, better handling, etc.

[M4Rhino]

Originally Posted by Giak

I am also considering to install the KW HAS kit, but i will set it to the minimum drop of 15mm front and 10/12mm rear.
In my opinion there is no need to install swaybar endlinks for such minimal drop, since it is not introducing any preload to swaybars. Only reason to have them is if you want to corner weight the car.

About KW HAS kit, do you consider it an upgrade from the performance point of view also? I mean lower bodyroll, better handling, etc.

So the picture above is my 2023 rwd. I had the kit installed on that vehicle before I traded it in for my new 2026 xdrive. Honestly, the KW kit rides better than stock. Its a smoother ride surprisingly. The 2026 stock in sport+ suspension is harsher than the lowered 2023 in the same mode. Granted, the 2026 only has 700 miles on it but it was so stiff, I almost thought the dealership forgot to remove the blocks. I did track my 2023 with the KW once and it has zero issues outside of my own driving capabilities haha