Rear Strut Installation on Year 2000 ///M Roadster.
The whole installation took about 30 min, not including jacking up the car. I spend more time buying a 1/2 in. 150 ft. lbs. torque wrench. I think that you can install the strut even without lifting the car, as the mounting is very close to the side of the car. Jacking up the car allows you to see better how much clearance there is between the exhaust and the strut. I hope this is of use to those of you thinking about the rear strut installation.
A summary of the performance improvements is at the end.
Please Note: You don't have to jack up the car, but it makes it easier to photograph.
Take all the precautions necessary for your safety when jacking up the car. I use a hydraulic jack under each jack point and then make use of a jackstand beside the jack. The wood block that you see prevents the jackstand edges from denting the subframe.
Butt up in the air!
This is the rear view of the car without the Butt Strut.
I use the torque wrench set to 110 ft. lbs. to remove the nut. This gives me lots of leverage.
The arrow points to the location of the Strut mounting stud on the frame. The OEM nut has now been removed.
This is the hardware needed, other than a torque wrench. The shims are supplied by Paul Ebeyer and the sockets by yourself. The arrow points to the OEM nuts that are removed during installation. Notice the large bolts with the torque sticker on them. They replace the the OEM parts.
Sorry for the bad focus. Look on the left for the shiny bolt head. The the Strut bar is sandwiched between the small round washer and the thick square washer. The torque setting is 90 ft..lbs. as indicated by the small red stickers on the new bolts. I will check the torque setting again after a few weeks.
This is what the final clearance works out to be. Notice the nice finish on the bar.
I think that I could reduce the thickness of the square washer to reduce the gap to increase road clearance but the extra 1/4 in. is not worth it.
Performance summary:
The front Strong Strut was installed already last year. With the installation of the rear strut, I notice that the back of the car feels much more solid especially when driving over transverse ruts on the road. On railroad tracks it feels more like a 3 series sedan in that the rear quarter panels behave as one piece. But most of all, when pushing the car fast around corners can you tell that it working. The reaction on the suspension from throttle lift is almost absent. Now it feels that the springs and anti-sway bar are too soft! I am very happy with this modification.