Hi guys, finally got around to lowering the gp and corner balance it. I had driven the car for the past couple weeks to get a feel for it prior to lowering to see the difference. Since I use this as a road car most of the time, I didn't want to go to the lowest setting so decided around 15mm would be good. There is 21mm of adjustment. Without anyone in the car the diagonal corner weight is very balanced from standard factory setting, we adjusted the balance with my weight in the car to get it right for me. In the end we lowered the car 18mm at the front and 14-16mm on the rears to get it balanced. Car with a full tank, fire extinguisher weighed in at 1183kg.
Been driving a couple days to get a feel for it, through the twisties and everyday normal roads and I can't say I notice a difference. I have no electronic data as I haven't tracked it yet but seat of the pants says it feels pretty similar, which is a good thing. Only thing that I've noticed so far is the plastic lip in front of the tyre now scrapes on big bumps, and the car looks slightly better.
I'm off tomorrow morning to re check the alignment to see if there has been any change, if so I'll have the alignment done as close to factory settings as possible as I love it this way.

Has anyone else lowered their gp and has any feedback, please feel free and let me know if you could notice the difference or just your experiences would be great.

 

Hi,

Did you measure the alignment before lowering, if so do you sharing the specs? I'm interested, as there was a difference on my cars as delivered from the factory!

I did a comparo on the track. Ran fully lowered F&R, then put the front up 10mm (which took me 10 mins) then went straight back on the track. The car felt like a speedboat! Less feel on turn in, less precise and more mid corner understeer. That was on a smooth track though. I agree it is hard to feel a difference on the street.

One other thing, you saw my video with the car bottoming out in a couple of places. I have now seen lots of other cars video in the same place, and they nearly all bottom out in the same spots!

 

Hi robbo, we only measured the corner weights on scales prior to lowering and after. This data I have. The alignment specs (camber, etc) weren't checked prior, they were as is from dealer delivery. You said you lowered the car all the way down, then raised the front 10mm? Interesting you say this, going by data if the front is higher than the rear then that most likely caused the understeer. I'll see the alignment specs tomorrow and if they are far off from standard specs I'll post em.
Ok standard corner weights from dealer delivery without driver.
Left front 364.5/391 right front
Left rear 229.5/198 right rear

Specs after the lowering without driver,
Left front 369/388.5 right front
Left rear 226/201 right rear

Specs with me in the car after lowering and balance.
Left front 382/420 RF
Left rear 240/241 RR

Lowered in mm to get these specs from full height, for my weight in car.
Left front 18mm/19mm right front
Left rear 14mm/16mm

I think from memory originally the diagonal corner weight with driver was around 52.5%, final diagonal weight percentage with me in the car is now 51%. We are going to raise the right front another turn next week to get it closer to 50/50. Ran out of time but it's an easy fix.
Also thanks for checking that footage of the other vehicles.

 

Had bmw do an alignment this morning after lowering it. I asked them to get it as close to the original specs the gp comes standard. The rear toe was slightly out and this may have been like this from factory and not because of the lowering. Interesting is the "target data", I called bmw back to clarify as the specs indicate its from the John cooper works data, they said they don't have any gp2 specs on their system that indicates a different alignment. Waiting to hear back from bmw on this as I was under the impression the jcw and gp have different alignments. Anyone know more about this?

 

Sorry sideways photo, not sure how to change it.
And some pics of the slightly lowered gp.

 

One more pic