rear ballast removal

[wludavid]

Has anyone here actually removed the ballast underneath the spare tire? If so, what kind of advice can you offer for someone who wants to do it soon?

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

ballast?

Little confused as to what you mean? The undercoating?

Probably not worth the time to remove it.

[wludavid]

From other things I've read on the forums, BMW used a very heavy undercoating/sound deadening materieal under the spare tire on the 6-cyl e30s in order to balance the car's added engine weight. I believe I've seen posts that indicate there is close to 40 lbs of this stuff in the rear.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Try it and see how it feels..

[Dub-Dub]

I've taken it out... it is sort of a heavy metal thing wrapped in fiberglass. I've heard the same reason as to why BMW put it in, but I was putting down sound damping material, so I pulled it out... figure the weight of my subs sorta offsets it... but in reality I never track it, so would I ever notice?

I just used the short end of a pry bar and worked it out... it really is heavy... 40 is a good guess.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Hmm.. maybe I should take mine out...

[wludavid]

40 lbs- that seems about right to offset the weight of my now-removed a/c compressor and consensor.

[Dub-Dub]

Probably. Mine was an easy out... maybe bumpy roads or something made it loose or something. Took me under 5 minutes to do.