Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 20:38:56 From: "Ron Buchalski" Subject: Re: [E36M3] Am I destined to hate my car? [long] LoweSeaton writes: > >Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 02:42:57 EST >From: LoweSeaton@aol.com >Subject: Re: [E36M3] Am I destined to hate my car? [long] > > >I wonder if Bilstein recently changed the valving to make it stiffer? I've >ridden in other M3's with Bilstein and H&R springs. Those M3's were MUCH >softer than my M3. I almost think I have the wrong part numbers. On these >other Bilstein equipped M3's, you can push up and down on the front bumper >and move the car up and down. Not mine. You can bust a blood vessel >trying but you won't move my bumper up and down more than 1/4 inch. Who >needs sway bars with Bilstein's? There is NO body roll with my M3 and I >have stock sway bars. Lowell, It sounds like your Bilsteins are running on the bump stops. JimC and others have said that when you use Bilsteins and shorter springs, you need to trim the bump stops. Of course, this immediately voids your Bilstein warranty. If you go to http://www.bilstein.com/index2.html you'll see where the bump stop is located (at the bottom). The shorter your spring is, the closer the tube will be to the bump stop. I had this same issue with the Eibach/Bilstein combo that I put on my E30 318i. The handling was great, but when the front of the car hit ANY bump, the force of the impact travelled throughout the car. -rb Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 04:42:37 EDT From: LoweSeaton@aol.com Subject: Bilstein Saved!! Or maybe I should say "Bilstein - The End" because I am tired of messing with them. If I am not happy with them now, they are going in the garbage. A little background. I put Dinan springs and Bilstein Sport struts/shocks on my '95 M3 about 1 year ago. I purchased the Dinan springs separately from Dinan. I would have purchased the Stage I kit including shocks but I wanted Bilstein. Dinan now only sells Koni SA shocks with his kits. I purchased the Bilstein Sports from Zygmunt Motors (www.bimmerparts.com) for $512 - free shipping. The cheapest source I know for Bilstein. At first, I loved the ride. Very firm, very little body roll, very good handling on SMOOTH roads. It was a huge improvement over my stock 41,000 mile suspension. The BMW OE Boge struts are junk. In less than 35,000 miles, they are worn out. I promise you. It is unbelievable how much stiffer new Koni SA or Bilstein struts are compared to 30,000 mile OE struts. However, my love soon waned. Hard to believe because I have always loved stiff suspensions. Stiffer the better. The problem was my M3 was so damn "bouncy" over small bumps. Ever see a "slammed to the ground" Honda Civic driving? My M3 felt the same way bouncing down the road. Drove me nuts! Something was amiss. I know Dinan used to sell Bilstein struts with his springs several years ago. No way in the world would Dinan's customers be happy with the choppy ride I had. Many people have complained about Bilstein/H&R Sport combination. I've noticed over the last couple of years, very few people like the Bilstein. Almost unanimously, everybody has said Bilstein is "too stiff for the street." Let me tell you why. After I almost went insane on a 3 1/2 day - 1,500 mile trip, I began a crusade to reform the Bilstein or else I was going to take a sledge hammer and beat the damn things to smithereens :-) It was a fight to the death. I have probably removed and replaced parts of my suspension 14 times in the last 4 months. Unbelievable. Numerous people have suggested, recommended, etc... that cutting the Bilstein bumpstops will improve the ride. Easier said than done. I know of only ONE man who has done it!! Jim Conforti. He said it made a huge improvement. Well, being an engineer, I just had to research this. Initially, I did not think my Dinan sprung M3 was lowered enough to affect the bumpstop. So I conducted an experiment to prove this hypothesis. After removing and replacing the front struts twice I discovered I was sitting EXACTLY on the bumpstop at static height!! Shit!!!! This meant I had ZERO compression travel on the struts. No wonder I was bouncy all over the road. This meant the bumpstops were history. However, to get at the bumpstops, you have to disassemble the struts. Not easy with conventional tools. Took me two more remove and replace efforts since I didn't have enough tools the first time. :( Finally got the Bilstein struts opened up. I quickly saw the problem. The bumpstop is 2 7/8" long but there is only about 5" available travel. Once the strut compresses a couple of inches due to the car weight, you are sitting on the bumpstop. I threatened to totally remove the bumpstop but everybody said don't do that. Fine. I chopped it down to nothing. It is now 1/2" vs 2 7/8". I gained over 2" of available compression travel. The rear was much easier to access since it is external but less of a factor too. After my experiment, I learned the rear was not quite sitting on the bumpstop at static height. It had about 1.5" of compression travel available but it did bounce off the bumpstop during moderate sized bumps. Good enough for me. I was chopping it down too. OK - Results? How did it ride after chopping the bumpstops? OH MY GAWD!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!! 1000000000000% improvement!!! Incredible!! I wish I had known to remove the damn bumpstops from Day 1. The grief I went through. My M3 is like a different car. The front is so supple now I can't tell if I even hit a bump. Bumps and RR tracks I used to flinch for are soft as a feather. No more crashing noise. I had a bump hardness meter before. Ever since I put the Bilstein on a year ago, my driver's window would creak whenever I hit a moderate sized bump. Never made a peep before Bilstein. I drove 100 miles today, not a single noise!! The pot hole in my alley always popped the window. Not any more! Amazing improvement. The rear is not so much better. I still think it is too stiff but it is livable now. Cutting the front bumpstop probably increased the relative rear stiffness and increased oversteer. That can be a good result. We'll see how the handling is effected. I do have a bit more body roll now but nowhere near what stock was like. Bottom line? If you have Bilstein struts, I've got one word for you. "Get the damn bumpstop out of the strut!!!!" You won't believe the difference. The other conclusion is I think whatever engineer designed the Bilstein M3 strut screwed up big time. I don't want him working for me. Stupid design. Or the M3 strut was clearly NOT designed for use on the M3. Perhaps it was designed for the standard E36 and just cosmetically reworked for use on the M3? It was a screw up any way you look at it. It obviously needs a much higher riding vehicle to work properly. And even if it was designed for the M3, then it was an incompetent design. The standard Bilstein MIGHT BARELY work on a stock sprung M3. The stock ride height might just be enough to keep it off the bumpstop all the time. However, anybody designing aftermarket struts for an M3 has to expect the car to be lowered. Bilstein should have designed its strut to work with potentially shorter springs. They didn't. I'm not happy with Bilstein. I will call their office to give them my comments. I couldn't care less about the warranty. It is a poorly executed design. I'll post pictures of my bumpstop and gutted Bilstein struts. May even send them to Suzy to post on her MPower web page. Lowell Seaton '95 M3 Dallas, Texas