Coilover Recommendation

[duracellttu]

I've got a set of TCK SA dampers for sale if anybody is interested.

[Altaran]

Any recommendations for a 90% street 10% track setup?

Just trying to see what's the best I can for the money. I've had my eyes on ohlins, kw clubsports (but no caster adjustment. Is that really required?), tc kline SA?

Öhlins.

Caster adjustment is not necessary if you leave your other suspension components stock. Also since you are 90% street, you are likely not looking for the last 0.01 seconds on a lap time.

If you are going for aftermarket front strut bushings, may as well get camber and caster adjustables, because why not. Certainly doesn't hurt.

Gesendet von meinem LON-L29 mit Tapatalk

[///m325i]

Any recommendations for a 90% street 10% track setup?

Just trying to see what's the best I can for the money. I've had my eyes on ohlins, kw clubsports (but no caster adjustment. Is that really required?), tc kline SA?

[Ob917]

This makes me happy. Bilstein club sport setup with Ground Control sways. Has that familiar Billy feel. On full soft it’s a perfect aggressive street setup. I’m still messing with compression rebound and sway bar settings.

[Obioban]

[*]Lower 65mm Ohlins spring perch (It is M52x1,5 thread, thus fits perfect H&R and so would Bilstein and KW)

This is awesome to learn. Will be doing this, as well!

[Tbonem3]

Awesome! It's fun to see more people modify their setups!

[maupineda]

Just to close the loop on some of the work suspension I did to my car recently so it is useful for others trying something alternative.

Below is a photo of my final setup

What you see is an H&R Coilover front strut with swift "Standard" spring, which is mildly "soft", I say soft as most kits go crazy with rates for street applications LOL.

This is what I went with

1. H&R Street CO Front Strut
2. Swift 8" spring in 250# rate
3. Swift spring thurst sheet kit
4. OE Mounting hardware with some changes in the Mix (I used two of the smaller washers from the OE setup, as opposed to a big and a small one), the washer is there so it provides some coverage from road grime to the radial bearing, you can see it in the image below, the OE uses a similar washer, but bigger in diameter (with the 2.5in spring it just does not fit).
5. A few washers to space out the top hat and reduce preload, I got 0.8" of preload which is appropriate for the strut assembly (you don't want crazy preload as it affects roll)
6. I cut my upper spring pad so it "dresses" the turner upper spring seat and aluminum hat, it looks factory (if I could of cutting it perfect LOL)
7. Upper TMS 2.5in spring perch
8. Lower 65mm Ohlins spring perch (It is M52x1,5 thread, thus fits perfect H&R and so would Bilstein and KW)
9. Modified H&R internal bump stop (shortened about a 1in)

The final assembly



Assembly Notes: The above yielded me a strut assembly where the 8" spring is preloaded to 0.8in or about 200# of force, with these the car would theoretically lower 2.7in, however, in reality, it lowered 2.8in, so I was not far off.

Please consider that to the 2.8in displacement you have to reduce the preload distance, in this case, 0.8, so the car just lower 2.0in when sat on the floor.

The spring has a total of 4.9in of usable travel, so at this ride height I still have 2.1in of usable travel, and according to Swift, these bind at 5.6in, so I am good as I won't ever bind the spring (even if I go max suspension travel including compression of the stops), the strut will compress the bump stop fully before that. This was a key balance for me during my part selection

Here you can see the modified bump stop

Before


After


This all means I now have (at ride height) 1.5in of travel before engaging the stop, and I assume another 1in before fully compressing it to a solid block state.

I took the car for a spin, and on smooth roads, the car rides like butter, but, the issue remains with the shocks, they are very stiff and continue to make the ride jittery, so the only solution is an FCM valve job, or maybe change my struts/shocks to a normal B6 design from Bilstein, which may improve things a bit, but that is, unfortunately, a shot in the dark without having shock data.

BTW, the stock H&R springs are progressive, and they give the illusion of being soft in the initial travel, but they are indeed stiffer than my swift springs, I noticed this as the car would really not roll at all before with the H&R springs, and now I can feel a bit of roll, but that is fine as it gives a natural feel to the car, and if I want to reduce it I can do it the right way going with a stiffer bar up front, but I am not after that as I don't track the car, and I still need to drive like a mad man on the street to induce enough roll to not like it, on the plus side, this setup reduces understeer at the limit.

The cool thing about this is the flexibility to try different rates within the limits of the suspension design keeping travel in check!! so flexibility is not really much LOL.

[maupineda]

Are you doing anything with the bumpstops? Your H&R coils are essentially Bilsteins so I imagine they've got internal bumpstops. Any idea about their rates and if you can tune them?

See some posts before, I took pictures of the bump stops. I cut them down by 1in. Yes, they are internal.

[r4dr]

If the flat ride theory holds true, I think you should be able to reuse your KW's until you feel you really need something else and try springs. that is what I am doing as trying springs is cheaper and will enable to test the concept.

Are you doing anything with the bumpstops? Your H&R coils are essentially Bilsteins so I imagine they've got internal bumpstops. Any idea about their rates and if you can tune them?

[maupineda]

Your comment about the bottom adapters fitting KWs had me interested, but I'm on the fence about putting new springs on these V2s or just dumping them for TCKs. I have a feeling I'd probably end up with TCKs anyway.

If the flat ride theory holds true, I think you should be able to reuse your KW's until you feel you really need something else and try springs. that is what I am doing as trying springs is cheaper and will enable to test the concept.

[maupineda]

Your comment about the bottom adapters fitting KWs had me interested, but I'm on the fence about putting new springs on these V2s or just dumping them for TCKs. I have a feeling I'd probably end up with TCKs anyway.

Hi, here are some images for future reference for anyone investigating cross-compatibility of springs and adapters

The black part is the Eibach adapter to fit a 2.5in spring to the 60mm perch (or 61mm KW perch as explained below)
The purple part is a KW spacer made to work with 61mm KW stock springs, however, the lip diameter for the KW spring perch is 60.9mm and the inner diameter of the Eibach adapter is 61.1mm, so the fit is perfect





The punch line here is that the Eibach adapter would work with H&R, Bilstein (60mm) and KW (61mm) coilovers saving you from changing the spring perch. the caveat is that you add 2.7mm to the spring stack, this is not much unless you are fighting the last mm to achieve the height you want. in my case I am, so I bought Ohlins 65mm threaded perch as I need those 2.7mm back 😋

[Tbonem3]

Softer springs don't make the car more bouncy, that would be stiffer springs because the dampers can't keep up (rebound). Dampers control the release of energy from the springs.

You're friend's konis probably just needed to have the rebound slowed down.

[TwoD]

I've been running TCKline DA coilovers for 5 years now. Ride great on the street and perform even better on the track. 550 front and 600 rear spring rates. A buddy (also has an E46 M3) installed GC coilovers and Koni yellows and felt the ride was a bit more bumpy than my TCK setup. For what it's worth I think he had softer springs which caused the car to bounce a bit more.

The thing I love about the TCK is that I still feel what's going on with the road but they handle expansion gaps and such nicely without knocking fillings out. The car doesn't bounce at all, just goes over a bump and settles.

[r4dr]

Your comment about the bottom adapters fitting KWs had me interested, but I'm on the fence about putting new springs on these V2s or just dumping them for TCKs. I have a feeling I'd probably end up with TCKs anyway.

[maupineda]

Gotcha. Eibach makes a 7", 275#, 2.5" ID spring (0700.250.0275) but that's as low as they go.

Edit: if you go 60 mm, I'd consider buying those Eibach adapters and Turner top hat adapters. PM me if that happens.

Will do!!!! let me take some measurements on the car to see how much it compresses once loaded and see if I can reach the height I want (OE). Will hit you if I need to go to 60mm springs.