e46 M3 suspension setup, or how to not downgrade your car with suspension mods

[repoman89]

repoman89 Oh, yes it's possible I have it backwards lol. Embarrassing. I'll have to play around with ride height and see what happens to the droop.

You don’t even have to play around with it. Just put the front in the air — no matter what preload you set the shock will be at full extension == full droop. For me that was about 15” hub to fender distance IIRC with the 3DM kit and my Turner camber plates. Then you have 92mm or almost four inches to full compression (really 92mm divided by the ~0.94 or whatever it is motion ratio making it pretty much four inches). Split four inches into 60:40 desired bump:droop means you want the ride height to be somewhere around 13.5” in my example.

[Thoglan]

What is the total metal to metal travel of the ohlins in the back?
I know the front is 92.5mm and have set bump/droop at 60/40 accordingly. Puts me at about 13.25" hub to fender which I'm happy with. Just wondering if the rears have the same travel as the front?

[Obioban]

What is the total metal to metal travel of the ohlins in the back?
I know the front is 92.5mm and have set bump/droop at 60/40 accordingly. Puts me at about 13.25" hub to fender which I'm happy with. Just wondering if the rears have the same travel as the front?

143.5mm

[DropTopKingM3]

I'm running 350 front left, 325 front right, 700 rear left, 628 rear right (which results in the same frequencies left/right with just me in the car).

The Ohlins don't have much travel up front-- you should set your ride height solely by bump/droop ratio, to make the most of it. They have 92mm of total travel, so I like to set the ride height at 32mm of droop (giving 60mm of bump travel). If you have US spec kingpins, combined with pretty much any camber plate on the market, that's going to put you low (too low for optimal handling). When I had US kingpins, I was running spacers on the shock mount to get the car sufficiently high. Now that I'm on CSL kingpins, they're no longer necessary. (side note: 3DM now sells spacers for this purpose).

My guess is that Ohlins developed their setup with Euro kingpins, which have the same shock mounting location as the Euro ones... but the US ones are different. Or designed without consideration for camber plates. Either way, non US Kingpins or the spacers above or the spacers I designed all address the issue.

Because I'm still running spacers of my own design (just now milled down further, since I got the CSL kingpins), I tweaked them so my 32mm of drop travel happens and exactly 13.5" up front. Rear is 13", and the the Ohlins have plenty of rear travel and let you set the bump/droop travel independently of ride height-- so I'm at 60% bump, 40% droop (143.5mm of total rear shock travel).

I’m about to have a set of ohlins road and track installed on my car. I won’t be using camber plates. I will be running 19x9.5 BBS LM in front. Would I still need the spacer ?

[Obioban]

I’m about to have a set of ohlins road and track installed on my car. I won’t be using camber plates. I will be running 19x9.5 BBS LM in front. Would I still need the spacer ?

Yes— you can only get it from 3DM, AFAIK.

[lvm3sm46]

I’m about to have a set of ohlins road and track installed on my car. I won’t be using camber plates. I will be running 19x9.5 BBS LM in front. Would I still need the spacer ?

Fellow NY'er selling these. Not mine but I just saw them.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/489687292501519/?ref=search&referral_code=marketplace_search&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A9cfcbcf5-8fc7-40e6-9c23-f32fe771d58a

[DropTopKingM3]

Fellow NY'er selling these. Not mine but I just saw them.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...3-f32fe771d58a

Yep I’m meeting up with him tomorrow. That’s why I asked in here. Appreciate it bro.

[Fresh1179]

For those wishing to access the link regarding "how to use" contained within the spreadsheet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ci...orsports%2CInc.

Thank you for posting this, extremely helpful.

[DropTopKingM3]

Fellow NY'er selling these. Not mine but I just saw them.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...3-f32fe771d58a

I picked these up earlier tonight from Frankie Onefastsicilian 👍

[Wernd]

Shaikh, effects of high damper gas pressure ('jerk')

Is the gas pressure article still available somewhere?

[K-Dawg]

Shaikh, effects of high damper gas pressure ('jerk')

Is the gas pressure article still available somewhere?

https://web.archive.org/web/20190219100658/http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showpost.php?p=1067876267&postcount=60

[lvm3sm46]

Would Ohlins with a 300# front spring both L&R and stock Ohlins rear at 630# in the rear L&R with Turner bar at soft which gives me 74.4 L&R FRC and bounce frequency of 1.10 L&R be a good starting point to try Flat Ride?

[Obioban]

Would Ohlins with a 300# front spring both L&R and stock Ohlins rear at 630# in the rear L&R with Turner bar at soft which gives me 74.4 L&R FRC and bounce frequency of 1.10 L&R be a good starting point to try Flat Ride?

Yes.

[lvm3sm46]

What length springs up front should be used? 7" or 8" or 7.5" vogtland?

[Obioban]

What length springs up front should be used? 7" or 8" or 7.5" vogtland?

That depends on a lot of things :P

How long and how stiff is your current spring? Where is it on it's adjuster range, and are you at your future desired ride height?