Well yesterday we went to the BMW club autox at Pennington Field for a little shake down of Goldmember and it went great.....eventually. This was my our first opportunity to see how the AST 4200's would be versus the previous Bilsteins. When we first unloaded we noticed that the right rear shock was hanging down and not connected to the trailing arm and the bolt was no where to be found. So after a quick run to several hardware stores in the area with no luck some one mentioned that the wheel studs were M12x1.5 so we removed one rear wheel stud and used it and a lug nut to attach the shock back. So glad we had just installed our new Vorshlag 75mm studs so strength was not an issue. The car handled incredibly right off the bat. After my son Sean's and my morning runs we were 2nd and 5th in class F. What a difference. With a little push on corner entry we dialed out 4 clicks on rebound and it was amazing how it made just the right difference. We did not have to make any compression changes since the car showed no hop or traction issues on exit, just throttle controllable over steer if needed. The AST's were so consistent throughout the day (16 runs combined). So end result is with a string line alignment and very little prep we finished with Sean in 4th and I was 2nd in class F with an E46 M3 the only car that bettered our time. To give this perspective, every other car in class was an M3 versus our 1992 E36 325 with an M50. Now with some true prep before the next autox I can only imagine... A big thanks to Terry and Brian for all their help to this point.

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