I have ordered this for my car and will put it in shortly after It comes in. According to the spec's it lowers the stance up to an inch... increases spring rate by 48% over stock suspension or about 30% over sport suspension. Price was reasonable for such an upgrade ~$1400 including ~ $170 shipping... the performance kit has to be shipped from Germany so that added $110 to the shipping bill. I have a CPO with stock suspension and wanted a sport suspension package but could not find one with all of the other options I wanted so settled for stock suspension. With this I can upgrade at least the suspension. My son and I have done enough suspension upgrades to other vehicles to know it will take approximately a day's labor to install everything ourselves. The kit includes 4 shocks with all hardware. The yellow performance springs are purchased separate from the kit... and may differ for each model. I will come back eventually after I've had some time with it and rate this upgrade. Chuck
I have been considering this upgrade for my non-sport e90. Very curious to hear how you like it over the non-sport stock suspension.
Where is the BMW Performance suspension and brake kit are for the E92? I would love another 1" drop a little more brake on my 335is, but nothing is available for the E92. The E92 comes with a BMW "sport suspension" from the factory but it's not the same as the BMW Performance suspension. The 335is marketing concept was to add as much aftermarket stuff to the car so you wouldn't have to go after-market. BMW is still loosing a lot of $$$ to big brake and aftermarket suspension manufacturers like H&R, etc.. I think there might be more products coming but BMW is really S-L-O-W rolling out the performance products line.
I beleive it covers that as well... It's only supposed to drop the sport suspension about 10 mm. Here's a link to the web page... http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Accessories/BMWPerformance/BMWPerformanceSuspensionKit.aspx The kit covers (sedan) E90 E90N (coupe) E92 E92N, it does not fit the convertible's. (I could have the number wrong since it is from memory, E92 vs E94) This info was listed on the specific part number for the kit... which is sitting on my desk at work. The springs vary from car to car, though the set for the 335i is supposed to be the same as used for the 335d... anyways that's what I ordered since 335d was not actually listed for the springs. Chuck
best info I could find... http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partxref.do?part=33500444832 This shows what models the kit will really work on. Chuck
Isn't the "s" really a sub part of the "i" to denote it has the sport package? If so then they don't list the "is" because its really an "i" for the purposes of this upgrade. If you want to check for sure, call up someone and give them the part number 33500444832 and your vin and they will tell you if it is compatible or not. I'm sure you can re-sell the sport components you remove to recoup some of the cost for the performance upgrade. I don't think that will work as well for me with a stock suspension. I doubt I can sell the springs, and even the shocks/struts with 25K on them will be difficult to sell since so few of this series has enough miles on them to need them. I'll just keep them in my shed along with the other parts I have until a market develops for them. Chuck
It's in... It arrived on Fri and was in by the end of Sunday. I had it quick aligned this morning. I will schedule a normal alignment with my dealer in the near future. To be properly aligned it needs to have 150lbs per seat plus a full tank of fuel. The first wheel (front or rear) was a learning experience and the second wheel was a breeze. It took us about 6-7 hrs to complete, but if you were already familiar it should take 3-4 hrs. Front trick, drop the front suspension as far as it will go( remove sensors wires and the control arm position sensor arm before you do) and then use a spring compressor to compress the spring enough to tip the whole wheel/shock assembly outward out of the wheel well (support with jack after it is out to not stress brake lines). Once the clamp for the strut is spread( I used the end of an automotive pickle fork) the shock slides right out. Set up the new one (assemble shock, spring,etc) before you slide it back in to the clamp then remove the spreader. Now its short enough you should not need the spring clamp to rotate it back in. Lift each rotor with a jack enough to pre-load them before tightening back up the bolts.Pay attention to adjustment points and mark them before you loosen them. Of course there are a bunch of simple wrenching steps omitted, to put attention on the steps that were not necessarily obvious and took us a bit of futzing around to discover. We did not have a shop manual or TIS for this vehicle to help us. All the same it was pretty straight forward. Rear trick, loosen the suspension points, remove control arm position sensor arm, release the shock, then remove the bolt from the wheel side of the lower control arm to completely release the spring. (put a jack under there to control its release...) Swap springs and reassemble with new shocks. Again mark all adjustment points especially the inner control arm bushing as this adjusts the rear wheel alignment. Regardless of how careful you are it will need a new alignment just because of how much it has been lowered. I had to find an alignment shop that was willing to deal with lowered vehicles... it's a bit of a challenge to get them on the alignment jig. RF lowered 1.375" LF lowered 1.5" RR lowered 1.375" LR lowered 1.5" ( I was measuring by 1/8" increments to the top of the wheel well) It rides well, not too stiffly for the road... but it's pretty low, caution around speed bumps and angled entries. Corners much better and the body roll is considerably improved. My son has pictures and either he or I will post them shortly. Chuck
335is suspension I also am in the market for the suspension upgrade for the E92 in the is, i also wonder if any of you guys know whether i can upsize my tires to 265/30 R19, and 235/35R19 over the stock tires which are 255 and 225
After a few weeks Chuck, how is it working out? From your measurements, it would appear that it would drop a sport pkg car perhaps about 1/2" or tad more. Have you driven a sport package E90 to compare? Of course, if you don't have the 18" runflats of the sport package that will figure into the comparison I suppose. Where are the pictures?
I pushed it back up 3/8" ... It was a bit too close to the ground... I rubbed a couple of times so I pushed it back up 3/8" with some simple modifications to save my front fascia. I've got an official BMW alignment (with weight in the seats and all) scheduled for tomorrow and I'm hoping that will fix any issues I have left. The vehicle definitely needs another alignment. The performance package is pretty stiff and the car gets banged around a bit by rough pavement. I've had some places that have made me really flinch. I love the cornering, but the stiffness is a bit much if you get on rough roads. Its fantastic on relatively smooth roads and it should be great for autocross. There's a lot of construction and potholes in my normal commute though :-( . With it set at the height I have, there is roughly about 1 finger of space between the tire and the fender, front and rear. I'm using the stock run-flats. A wider tire could cause issues with rubbing the fender in hard cornering. The modification was pretty easy... Ace had 6" square hard rubber for gaskets (2 pieces per package, 1/16" & 1/8") , I bought 4 packages and cut it into a pair of 3/8" thick inserts which I put in the rear cups that the spring goes into. It took a bit of care to get it in there and have everything settle properly but once it was right it was the perfect fix. 3/8" is about the maximum that should be put in there though. The front was simple, after loosening the strut up and pulling it out a little I used an aluminum 3/8" spacer between the "stop" tab on the strut and its seat... then simply tightened/torqued up the nut that keeps the strut in place. The car is dead nuts even with exactly the same space all around between the fender flare and the tire. It may change a bit after the alignment, but I doubt it will be more than an 1/8" either way. I'll know soon enough. Sorry about no pictures, I tried to post some, but they were too detailed. Eventually my son may put some of them up to see or I may get around to setting up an area somewhere where I can put the pictures and then provide a pointer to them. The bottom line is that I love the mod, but it is hard on the car. Chuck
Alignment also fixed a serious problem... The alignment fixed a serious problem and the car is much better now. I don't wince every time I hit a bump. Turned out a bolt in the rear suspension did not get tightened correctly and worked itself loose. This was the cause of the hard thump every time I encountered some "structure" in the road surface. It's a totally different car now and I'm falling in love with it all over again. It still is stiff but not excessively so. The bolt was missing so they had to put in a new one. I know we put it in and it worked well after the initial alignment, but started acting odd a while ago. I put it up on ramps and checked it out but could not find anything... It was obvious it needed an alignment and I had hoped they would get to the bottom of the problem as part of it. When they couldn't get the right rear wheel within spec they started searching for why and discovered the missing bolt. $19 for the bolt and $75 for the labor and well worth every penny. Obviously my screw-up for not tightening up that bolt properly. Now to get the tires rebalanced since I knocked off a wheel weight the other day taking off a tire to make the height adjustment before having the alignment done. Its time for me to sign up for an autocross and see how it really does stack up to its brethren. Chuck
yes Even the service manager thought that it was an expensive bolt. He winced when he told me its price... but mine was missing and it was up on the alignment rack where it stayed until it was fixed and properly aligned. I really can't complain, nor would I. They have been very good to me over the years, and I really don't seem to save a whole lot by doing things myself in the long run. This is a pretty perfect example... and I am pretty careful but sh^^ happens and I'm good at finding it and stepping in it. I tend to learn better from mistakes than from successes. Chuck
