selling my 73' CSL

I fess up Yannick! I wrote a few things that should not have been written. Looking back, there were certain things that I wrote in haste and in the heat of the moment without fully understanding the situation. I won't be so quick to judge again. Yannick, I fully apologize to you and welcome back!

Bert
 
Hey Yannick, good to see you back here - I must have missd the trouble that caused you to stay away!

I will try and make the classic but I am going to the le mans 'normal' in a fortnight in the yellow csl with a few friends. Never been before and the csl will have to be on her toes as thy are all driving 997's and 996 turbos so while thy are effortlessly bumbling along at 100mph I will be watching the temp gauge like a hawk and keeping a distance so as not to pick up their stones in my windscreen.
 
This thread really makes an interesting read. Seems every Internet board I´ve ever visited has a "chicane". Somehow I allways wonder what such a person might be like in real life.

But back to the point. The thing I really stumbled over in that german document was the deletion of the sway bars.

Now, surely that is taking the weight reduction too far!
I have an E3 with no sway bar at the rear and a small one up front. Compared to another E3 I used to own with the biggest sways front and rear that were available, the cornering could not be more different. With the big bars, the E3 corners well with still a lot more swaying than a modern car.
With the deletion of the rear bar and the smaller one up front, the E3 sways like the MS Cougar Ace with drunken captain (still pretty swift around the bend, but not a pretty sight).

So no sway bars at all for the CSL?

Surely, if Mr Neerpatsch was not pulling an Aprils fools joke on his buddies, there must be an explanation. I´ve never heard of the CSL cornering like a Citroen 2CV...

Anybody have an explanation?

As for the sunroof discussion:
BMW was allways in the business of making money. To do so they try to make great cars. Not the other way round. The CSL was at the time BMWs top product. So if some industrialist big shot said: "I want the best! But with a sunroof!", they cartainly would have built a CSL with it. And painted it mauve if the customer cared for it. Just as they would have mounted a gold plated loo into a 745i turbo for an arabian prince in the eigthies. And as they will sell an M3 convertible with a steel roof these days (what a travesty, but hey, if it gives BMW the extra profit to develop the next CSL, thats just fine with me...)

Trivia fact: Who knew, that later Mr. Neerpatsch would help a certain Mr. Schuhmacher into the drivers seat of a Sauber Mercedes Group C?
 
My experience with the 2 early production CSL's I have owned is that they indeed did not come with sway bars at all--and did NOT sway and roll as one would think. Also the shocks were very soft (mine now has 2000CS comfort setting Bilsteins on the rear and custom valved front Bilstein motorsport struts in front) as were the progressive rate coil springs. Very counter intuitive, as everyone knows the first thing you do with a CS/2002/E3 etc... to make it handle better is to do just the opposite.

I have since added a stock 15mm bar to the front of my Ultralite and a similar stock 15mm rear and am pleased with the results. I also prefer the ride with the original 14" Alpinas, hard as it may be to find appropriate rubber for those anymore, over the handsome but rougher riding 16" staggers.

ps/ck
 
i have a set of unused 195-70 vr 14s wxw's on that i was thinking of trying just to see the ride difference over ther 16s. but if they're NLA i suppose mine could be quite old. any idea for how long they've been NLA?

thanks
 
Hi Yannick,
Quite agree. All tyres sold in the UK have to be EU compliant, plus they have to make the legally required British standards, for the various speed ratings.
However the speed rating is different to a quality issue. For example a H rated tyre (up to 130mph ~210kph) has to "perform" as well as a V rated tyre (149mph ~240kph) Thus an H rated tyre quality is as good as V rating up to the speed limit specified.
I was simply showing that there are several people making the size of tyre required.
Another thing to remember is some of the famous tyre companies make the same tyre under different names. For example Continental make tyres under the name Sportiva.
As you may know the speed limit in the UK is 70 mph (~114kph) so there isn't much point fitting V rated tyres IMHO, even if I occasionally :wink: exceed the limit.
The UK MOT requirements are simply for the correct sized tyres to be fitted on the same "axle" thus you can have wider tyres on the rear. The rating is not taken into account. Thus I could use H rated tyres. Other tests in other countries as you point out take the rating into account.
However if I knew that I was able to do a lot of high speed work at +100 mph I would fit V rated tyres.
Malc
 
I´m running a recent set of Fulda Carrat Assuro 195/70 VR14 on my 3.0S. The german TUEV is very strict. Since the car is rated at 230hp because of a tripple weber conversion (pure theory, it´ll be hard pressed be pump out 200hp) and because those 230horses would carry it over the 210kph mark, I need the V rating. And that leaves only the Fulda and the even more expensive Vredestein currently available. Funny thing is, I could put a nasty, cheap regrooved winter tire not worth its weight in scrap metal with the lowest possible speed rating on the car. As long as I would put a sticker on the dash reminding me not to go over the rated speed, that would be just fine with the TUEV. But only if those tires have a winter profile. Go figure that logic...

Now, where was I, what did I want to say?

Oh yes: The Fulda is a surprisingly capable tire. Very good in wet and dry. No hollywood drama when cornering hard (i.e. squeking at the sight of a corner), good ride (no surprise at a 70s sidewall).

I once tried to follow my own 3.0S with a friend driving it in my 2005 E90 330i. Boy, was I surprised. I was wringing the E90 to the 7000rpm mark just not to fall behind. The 3.0S would roll and sway like an old boat, but it certainly made me work in the 330. Both in acceleration and in cornering it gave me quite a run. Up to about 120kph that is, then there was no denying that the E3 has the aerodynamics of a chapel...

So I definitely can recommend the Fulda.

And for my two cents, the E3 and the E9 look too much trying to be more modern on anything bigger than 14 inches. The visible rubber of the E9 and E3 stock tire sizes is part of the visual appeal to me.
Just think of a Ferrari Daytona. Would you put that on lower profile tires? Or a Ford GT (the real one) or a Mustang. Or the (250) GTO?

Besides, the higher profile tires give not only a more comfortable ride but also a much softer breaking point. These cars were built to be driven sideways (just look at about any conteporary picture) and that´s the more fun, the softer the transition from sticking to sliding is.

I think I´m getting carried away here...

All IMHO of course.

P.S. The only thing keeping me from really using that V-Rating by V-maxing my old boat for more than a few lustfull minutes is that you very quickly go deaf from the wind noise. Other than that the old thing still sings quite happily to the godess of 130mph. The M30 really is an amazing motor. And the chassis way ahead of it´s time (think how popular the beetle (the original) was at the time our cars were built) But I do cruise at 100mph. At 100 I can still hear the radio - just.... ;)
 
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