XYZ Racing Tarmac Rally Coilovers — BMW 8 SERIES E31 8 CYL φ55 welding 1990-1999

The E31 8 Series carries a lot of car over its front axle – a heavy, water-cooled V8 sitting ahead of a long wheelbase that BMW tuned for motorway comfort, not for hairpins linked by loose gravel and painted tarmac. XYZ Racing’s Tarmac Rally coilover was built for exactly that mismatch: sealed-stage events where a big coupe still has to change direction fast, load a wheel hard over a crest, and put power down cleanly out of the corner.

This is not a fast-road or track-day spec. The Tarmac Rally kit trades outright low-speed compliance for control through repeated big hits, the sort of mid-corner compression a stage throws at a car this size, while keeping the 8 Series’s chassis settled enough that the driver can feel what the front axle is doing.

What this coilover does for your 1990-1999 Bmw 8 Series

Fitted to an E31 running the 8-cylinder BM113 chassis code, this coilover changes how the car deals with mid-corner compressions and crests taken at speed. Damping calibrated for tarmac rally use controls the body’s vertical movement over broken surfaces without translating every ridge straight into the cabin, so the chassis stays composed when a stage surface changes from smooth tarmac to a patched section mid-corner. Traction off the line and out of hairpins improves because the damper is tuned to keep the tyre loaded and in contact rather than skipping across a bump. For a car of the E31’s mass, that control over wheel movement is what keeps the nose planted under trail-braking into tighter stage corners, rather than the front end pushing wide as the body rolls onto the outside tyre.

About the Tarmac Rally coilover

The Tarmac Rally range is XYZ Racing’s damper built specifically for sealed-surface rally stages, where the road is rarely as smooth as a circuit and rarely as broken as a gravel special. The valving is set to absorb impact from uneven tarmac and patched sections without the body kicking back at the driver, and to soak up bigger hits – a crest, a pothole, a mid-corner ridge – without the shock forwarding that jolt straight into the chassis. That control keeps the contact patch loaded through the hit, which is what actually preserves tyre traction rather than letting the tyre skip. The result is a car that stays stable and predictable through a stage rather than one that reacts differently every time the surface changes underneath it. XYZ built this valving from its own tarmac rally programme, setting it against real stage conditions rather than a lab bench.

Fitment for the Bmw 8 Series (1990-1999)

This kit is specified for the E31 8 Series 8-cylinder cars (chassis code BM113) built between 1990 and 1999, using a φ55 welding-type strut top mount for installation. Confirm your car is an 8-cylinder E31 rather than a V12 variant before ordering, as the two use different strut architecture.

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Spec is chassis and cylinder-count specific on a car with this much variation across its production run, so check your BM113 code before you order – configure your Tarmac Rally set for the 8 Series below.