ZHPizza's red car

[ZHPizza]

New project: top adjustable Koni yellows

The E46 never got a top adjustable rear in the Koni yellow kit because the little bitch baby OE rear shock mounts only accept a 10mm shaft which is too small for the adjustment mechanism to fit through and Koni is too cowardly to sell a 12mm rear shock that only works with aftermarket RSM's.

That or they realized they'd lose more money on returns by idiots than they'd make selling a dozen of those shocks a year to people that actually want to adjust them idk

Anyway, I wanted Koni yellows but knew I'd never touch the adjustment if I had to remove the shock from the car. BUT one night deep in the bowels of the internet I found some dudes on bimmerforum or roadfly or club penguin idk talking about how TC Kline used to sell a top adjustable shock for the rear of the e36 m3. Turns out it was just a rebranded Koni yellow for an old Porsche (maybe - they claimed it was custom valved but some of the penguins called bs).

I found the Porsche part number and gathered enough data to feel good about trialing this bad boy:

Koni Model	Part Number	Price	Adjustment	Extended Length	Compressed Length	Stroke	Diameter	Type
E46 FSD/Special Active	8245 1024	$110	None	23.4in	14.8in	8.6in	50mm	Hydraulic
E46 Yellow	8040 1271	$110	Internal	23.4in	14.6in	8.8in	42mm	Twin tube gas
E36 M3 Yellow	8240 1115	$118	Internal	24.3in	14.6in	9.7in	50mm	Twin tube gas
E46 TC Kline Yellow	8241 1200	$268	External	?	?	?	?	?
Porsche Classic	8210 1159	$167	External	23.3in	14.7in	8.6in	55mm	Hydraulic

Ordered the shocks, tucked them in a corner of the garage, and got started on the project two years later, not even remembering that I had put that data in an old email draft and going in blind, taking fresh measurements along the way:



Ok cool, no deal breakers. The 14mm lower bolt hole sucks, but I can sleeve that unless...





Ohhh yeahhh. these bushings pressed right out and the dimensions between Koni and OE are the exact same, so no major issue getting the OE parts to fit in the Koni hole.

(You obviously don't want to go in dry)







Hell yeah.

Then I lubed up a fresh OEM bump stop and mashed it onto that fat shaft:



You can see here that the yellow has an extra inch of travel until you hit the bump stop, which I thought about adding a spacer for, but then saw that Koni included a bump stop that was about an inch shorter on their E46 FSD kit, so I guess they want the extra travel?

Good enough evidence to convince me to skip a step!

Next up was dealing with the 12mm shaft up top. The plan was to drill out the washers on my repair shop RSM's:



...but Koni included these bits with the shock so...





Yessirrrrrr


All assembled, I threw the shock in the car and THOUGHT I was up shit creek for a minute there with the dust cover contacting the upper arm, but it juuuust cleared it once I jacked it up into place:



Yes, that's a metal dust cover. Must be a Porsche thing because the rear engine would melt a plastic one.

Note that the OE plastic dust cover does (barely) fit over the fat body of the yellow, but kind of scrapes down the side. I figured the scraping wasn't worth the few ounces I would save over the metal so I rolled with it.

Money shot:




No wait it needs the knobby:

[sillieidiot]

Posting a big thanks to @Galapolis for his help a few Saturdays ago. Dude drove 2.5 hrs, worked his ass off for like 7 more, then drove back. Hell I didn't even feed him.

We got my solid aluminum subframe bushings changed out to polyurethane though. I had a clunk that I don't think was the bushings now but too late.

Note to others: just lowering the subframe to swap the bushings really isn't much less work than dropping the whole thing out. Just bite the bullet and drop that bish.

[IMG]http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220502/8eb1541c73c03a417b4b6fe6fb27e931.jpg[/IMG

Man, you didn't even feed him? what kind of monster are you? lol

Nice work though. Any reason why you went away from the solid bushings? NVH?

[YoitsTmac]

I loved this car so much when I was younger, I love reading the updates now.

I didn't see your Mason comments until now. Honestly, so many people on E46F were like "oh man it's the best. I can't describe it but once you buy it you can't go back," but what you describe makes it sound like a much more minor update. I haven't installed mine yet personally.

Also liked to get the vehicle weights! I can't do Lithium but I applaud your weight savings.

Any reason you didn't go poly for the diff? Also curious why you went back solid subframe mounts. And my gosh, I'm shocked to see you haven't reinforced the floor, especially if you had it lowered! Props on the Yellow, Koni's, they look sexy! That's a lot of dedication but seems to have worked out. So the rears are adjustable, but what about the front?

[BMWCurves]

Nicely done! I'll never do this, but I'll tuck it away in my "cool things I wish I had time, money, or actual will power to do for my car" document. I remember the TC Kline modified Koni Yellow Porsche shocks that would fit the E46, but also remember there being something along the lines of an 80% price premium over the stock Koni Yellows.

As you said, I have made exactly zero adjustments to the rear shocks since I installed them and have no intention of ever doing so. Maybe the Koni Special Active (Reds) will be in my future. Did you ever have those?

Props on the Yellow, Koni's, they look sexy! That's a lot of dedication but seems to have worked out. So the rears are adjustable, but what about the front?

I can't remember what Nate has in the front for struts now (I hadn't realized he had taken the Red Rocket™ off daily duty ). If they're Koni Yellows, then they're easily adjustable in the fronts, as you probably know.

[Galapolis]

I loved this car so much when I was younger, I love reading the updates now.
And my gosh, I'm shocked to see you haven't reinforced the floor, especially if you had it lowered!

If there are no cracks and the top has been fully reinforced, then there is no need for plates. I run into SpecE46 guys at track days every once in a while and they always tell me that solid subframe bushings + top reinforcements are all you need. They race their cars with no problems.

[san]

I thought pizza man had the vincebar installed?


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[YoitsTmac]

Should have noticed from the top of the shocks he has some rear shock mount that’s likely tied with subframe. My bad! I replied at like 3am because I couldn’t sleep, so just wasn’t adding one and one

[Galapolis]

I thought pizza man had the vincebar installed?


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SME X-brace.

[san]

SME X-brace.

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[ZHPizza]

Man, you didn't even feed him? what kind of monster are you? lol

Nice work though. Any reason why you went away from the solid bushings? NVH?

I never posted about it but two years ago I dropped the whole subframe out of the car and rebuilt it piece by piece. Every bushing got replaced. I went with solid aluminum subframe bushings from partsshopmox and never really trusted them.

Not because there's anything wrong with the product, but because I had wire-wheeled the bejesus out of the pockets on the subframe to remove all the melted rubber left by the OE bushings. I likely removed a fat layer of powder coat and some base metal, so the solid bushings just slid in loosely instead of being a press fit.

I figured any tiny bit of slop would be taken up with preload from the 4 mounting points not being absolutely perfectly aligned. Afterwards I had a weird, loose sounding clunk when rolling over the lip of the garage with the clutch in. I also installed an LSD at the same time so it may just be the unloaded gears clanging around but idk it sounded like it was outside of the pumpkin. I also read one random comment on nam3f that said he had seen an instance where the subframe was able to move up and down slightly on the PSM bushings.

That comment lived in my head every time I heard that noise and I kept thinking about the less-than-press fit on those bushings and said f it I'll change them out for poly that I KNOW will be a tight fit. Haven't had a chance to drive the car yet and see if that was it.

I loved this car so much when I was younger, I love reading the updates now.

I didn't see your Mason comments until now. Honestly, so many people on E46F were like "oh man it's the best. I can't describe it but once you buy it you can't go back," but what you describe makes it sound like a much more minor update. I haven't installed mine yet personally.

Also liked to get the vehicle weights! I can't do Lithium but I applaud your weight savings.

Any reason you didn't go poly for the diff? Also curious why you went back solid subframe mounts. And my gosh, I'm shocked to see you haven't reinforced the floor, especially if you had it lowered! Props on the Yellow, Koni's, they look sexy! That's a lot of dedication but seems to have worked out. So the rears are adjustable, but what about the front?

The Mason pedal is pretty dope. The little ergonomic changes made a big quality of life improvement when driving this thing.

I didn't go poly for the diff because the consensus is that solid subframe mounts transmit little to no nvh, while any stiff drivetrain mount (engine, tranny, diff) will make your teeth chatter. Meyle HD was the choice diff bushing.

I think your other questions were answered below but I spent weeks conversing with Vince (of the bar) and others, tunneling through the rear chassis with a borescope, and drawing load path diagrams to determine the true failure mode of the RACP and how to address it.

Bottom side reinforcement is nothing more than a band aid to cover damage. The key is to anchor the subframe mount to the chassis rail by way of vincebar (best), x brace (adequate), or homemade solution (mine isn't great).

I did a mixture:

Nicely done! I'll never do this, but I'll tuck it away in my "cool things I wish I had time, money, or actual will power to do for my car" document. I remember the TC Kline modified Koni Yellow Porsche shocks that would fit the E46, but also remember there being something along the lines of an 80% price premium over the stock Koni Yellows.

As you said, I have made exactly zero adjustments to the rear shocks since I installed them and have no intention of ever doing so. Maybe the Koni Special Active (Reds) will be in my future. Did you ever have those?



I can't remember what Nate has in the front for struts now (I hadn't realized he had taken the Red Rocket off daily duty ). If they're Koni Yellows, then they're easily adjustable in the fronts, as you probably know.

I just looked up the TCKline ones and they're $268 each. I don't think they were even available 2 years ago or I may have considered it. They also look like they're using a mustang part number (8241-1200) that can be had for $165 so maybe there's a better solution than the Porsche shock now?

I wouldn't bother with the special actives. It's my understanding that they're the new version of the FSD and those just couldn't handle quick transitions.

I've had a company car for a year and a half so the red car has been driven like 1k miles in that time. In fact, it's probably spent more time on the lift than the ground