BMW E46 — Daynom Templeman (Pro)
Switching to the E46 chassis for the Daynom Templeman was a decision based on the availability of off-the-shelf steering components, something his old FD RX-7 lacked (at the time). Championship proven, the Wisefab kit has shown its worth straight out of the box. The kit comprises of custom lower control arms, and bolt-in roll centre adjusters, while utilizing the factory knuckle to achieve a zero Ackermann setup. The rear uses the factory BMW trailing arms, while Wisefab adjustable control arms replace the factory items. This removes the lower spring seat, forcing the conversion to a true coilover.
The lower arm mounting points have been altered to mimic Formula D style, which prevents it from travelling on an arc, creating a straight up and down motion.
Brendon from BNR Engineering set everything up, telling us “When we first started to do the wheel alignment for the Wisefab in the front, they said you have X amount of caster, but we wanted it to return faster, so we just upped the caster. It’s now maxed out and the only way to change that would be to change the angle of the strut itself, which becomes hard with regulations.”
They haven’t tried to dial in a lot of mechanical grip, as much of it is occurs naturally at the rear, even with the mammoth amounts of power being put out by the 2JZ. The Fortune Auto coilovers run a 5kg spring in the rear for a soft squat, and custom rear sway bars are switched out to suit different tracks. These range from 16–32mm, with the smallest being run at Tauranga, and the front uses a 32mm option to suit the lock set-up.
“It really all comes down to the throttle. If you want more drive forward, you just stand on it and it will smoke the rears, then you have the steering bits to catch it when it comes around.”