solid-mounted rear beam on E30 gravel car?

[Kevin]

Just talked to the cage builder about solid-mounting the rear beam to the cage as on the bruvs' car:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1865&start=45#p17859

In his opinion it doesn't make sense on a gravel car, said I will spend more time changing rear arms than rallying.

Does anybody have any experience with that set-up on gravel? Rear arms will be standard, spring in the standard position.

Cheers
Kevin

[bruvs1]

You hear mixed reviews on the arms but you don't change the beam on a regular basis? There strong and solid mounting it can only benefit. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4083 We've just strengthened a full z3m rear including arms that will be used with pigtail springs in the standard position, gusseted different to a group A type arm, we'll get some pics upload.

[Kevin]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I run standard arms and standard beam at the moment, all powerflexed. The cage picks up the boot floor on top of the diff ear mounting. I do have to change the rear arms after approximately 10-15 rallys, whenever camber exceeds 15°
Seems like the problem is the arm hitting the bump stops and twisting longitudinally (hence too much camber), but toe doesn't seem to suffer at all. Therefore I'm led to believe that solid-mounting shouldn't affect arm life span too much, because it doesn't affect the bump stop situation. The front beam is solid-mounted as well and gets a lot of abuse via the sumpguard without any severe consequences. Am I missing something here?

[bruvs1]

Correct about the beam, seems constant bottoming out on gravel bends arms, standard bump stops seem good but a little long? but what dampers are you using?

[Kevin]

Bilstein, standard length and bmw bump stops.