Rubbing with new suspension

[wake74]

Well I finished putting my Bilstein sports and ACS springs on late last night. This is combined with new control arms, offset FCABS, etc.

Went to pull out of garage and thought I heard rubbing. The steering is also way off center and the car pulls horribly to the left. I did count rotations on the tie-rods during replacement.

I know I need an alignment now but I wasn't expecting it to be off this much. So I just turned around and took the Sequoia to work.

I have 16" E46 wheels and nothing crazy for tire sizes. It is definitely not rubbing on the fender lips.

Anyone offer any insight?

[BimmerBum]

Offset LCAB's change a lot.

Did you replace the complete tie rods or just the ends? Even if you matched the length of the old tie rods your lower ride height and increased caster will throw the toe out anyway so your stock tie rod settings will not be much use to you.

Take it for an alignment and you should be fine.

[wake74]

Thanks. I am assuming rubbing would not be normal with this setup?

I may string it to get it closer to make the drive to an alignment shop a bit more pleasant and safe. I shouldn't have sold the camber gauge with my FF race car.

[wake74]

So I had it aligned at the local auto / tire place. The process was painful at best, and the alignment tech (kid) didn't seem very confident.

Anyways, attached are the after measurements. While it is way better than pre-alignment I still have two issues:

1. The car seems to have a bit of a pull to the right. It is very sensitive to road camber, a bit of road slope to the right, makes it worse.

2. I get a "clicking" type noise from the front right on slow speed turns, like doing a 3 point turn out of my drive-way.

The car is certainly tighter, with fresh suspension components! No more see-saw type motion in stop / go traffic.

Any thoughts on the above?

[Tommy Samuels]

I took the 98 M Sport in for new tires last week and was wanting to go to a higher profile (225/60/16) on the 16" style 18's

The front tires wouldn't even turn with the 60's on as the tires were rubbing near the struts. Had to go back to 225/50's

Don't know if my experience is typical, but there isn't a ton of extra room in e36 wheel wells. FWIW, I had a similar issue on my Z3 with rubbing near the struts

[wake74]

I don't think I'm rubbing the struts, or anything else for that matter. I think my previous rubbing sounds were just the alignment being massively off, and one of tires chirping, as it pulled backwards against the direction of the wheel.

The car definitely feels like it is pulling slightly to the right though. I'd like to get some input as to possible causes.