4 Attachment(s)
Hidden Gem: Sachs Advantage + E36 M3 rears (defunct, see new thread)
Hi everyone,
Over the past few days I've been doing a ton of research on shocks. Obviously this topic has been discussed to death, but I believe I may have pieced together something new. The backstory is that I replaced my aging suspension on my 330i with Koni STR.T and H&R sport springs. This was the biggest mistake I have ever made on my car. Ride is horrible and handling is just meh. I also moved to Raleigh recently where the roads are awful, so I've been longing for more ride height.
While taking my sweet time and not rushing anything, I have slowly been collecting parts for a second attempt. Having already refreshed my suspension, my budget was low, but I knew I couldn't cheap out on parts this time either. Luckily, everything seemed to fall in place.
I found $80 Eibach Pro-Kit springs on FB marketplace in great shape. Unlike H&R, these are consistent in their lowering and much less aggressive. They won't be much lower than ZHP springs and will pair nicely with my Eibach sway bars (it's important to match springs and sway bars for optimal handling).
Thanks to ZHPizza, I also got some super cheap E36 M3 strut mounts. This will help dial in a healthy amount of front camber, even after raising my car. Add to that some Bimmerworld RSMs that were on sale for $30 and I've got a full set of upgraded mounts. Since I wanted my stance to be similar to the Alpina B3, I bought a double set of front spring pads to stack them.
Attachment 36989
Everyone runs stock bump stops on aftermarket spring/shock setups for our cars. But even after cutting mine, I was riding the bump stops (cursed be thee, H&R springs!) I did some research and found that the E36 M3 front bump stops were sold by Dinan as part of a complimentary package for using lowering springs on various BMWs. They are wider but only 2/3 as tall as the stock units. Combined with the expected ride height increase, they should be ideal for maintaining both performance and ride comfort. Fun fact: The Alpina FE 3 suspension uses these bump stops as well.
Attachment 36990
Not the cheapest at $19 a piece but absolutely worth it after my horrible experience. I also added some 6$ Üro rear shortened bump stops from Turner.
But one question remained: WHICH DAMPERS TO GET?
Reusing my terrible Konis was out of the question. B8s, Yellows or even new Special Actives were out of budget. ZHPizza offered his old FSDs since he wants to go yellow, but then a discussion about the stock M package shocks on our cars came up in a for sale thread here. I did some research, using the German forums as my resource, and pieced together this information:
http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showt...017#post598017
The TL;DR version is: M package cars (and by extension ZHPs) were praised for their amazing handling and ride quality, in part because they had Boge Turbo and Sachs Advantage shocks. The annoying part is that these shocks aren't made anymore! Well, sort of. The fronts became Sachs Advantage with the same part number and similar performance. Nice. But the rears became low performance Sachs Super Tourings. Yuck. They are 30% softer than the old ones according to ZF. So no good for my performance goals. ZHPizza also warned me against the FSDs for the same reason of lackluster performance.
Attachment 36995
Regardless of the downgrade, what's worse is that ZHP owners won't even find the M package shocks because due to how the part numbers are allocated, searching for ZHP (facelift car) parts will direct you to the post-2001 regular sport suspension for non-ZHP peasants. This is the case for pretty much all sites, be it FCP or Turner.
But if you search for the PART NUMBER as opposed to compatible parts, you will find that the current M package shocks, or MTech dampers as they are usually called (Advantage + Super Touring), are sold in America. On FCP, they only cost $330 for a full set!
Attachment 36993
(Pay attention to the red stickers, which denote the Advantage line, the high performance line for Sachs shocks. Low performance will have blue or white stickers.)
Using more German forum knowledge will shine some light on what I was going for. Here, stock shocks are usually avoided for lowering springs. But over in Germany, you will be surprised to hear that Bilsteins are built to a different (worse) standard and considered to be absolute trash that barely lasts 30k miles, while Koni is considered to be ricer garbage (they have no idea what they are missing out on, typical German narrow-mindedness). People still buy B8s and some people even buy Koni, the former out of necessity for performance and the latter because they might just want to be different.
Generally though, the number one recommended shocks over there for lowering springs are in fact the MTech dampers. Both for price and longevity (since Bilsteins don't last and Koni is very niche). Regardless of opinions, we can all agree that Sachs produces high quality parts. The Advantage dampers also have the short shock body as opposed to the standard length body of the Koni FSD/Special Active, making them a better fit than you might imagine for lowering springs like the Eibach Pro-Kit. According to some posts I've read around here, even the stock Super Touring dampers perform better than FSDs, so the Advantage shocks definitely have the performance pedigree. Fun fact 2: The Alpina FE 3 suspension is composed of Eibach springs and Sachs dampers. Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty good about my proposed Eibach Pro-Kit/Sachs combo.
The only issue are the rears, which are no longer Advantage line, having been replaced by softer Super Touring units. Then I came across this thread on E46F, talking about using the beefier E36 M3 rear shocks on the non-M E46. Compared to the E46, the E36 M3 rear shocks are about 9mm thicker (50mm vs 41mm) and the shock body is supposedly shorter too. Then it hit me. If E36 M3 shocks fit our cars in the rear, why not use the stock Sachs shocks from the M3 to replace the soft Super Tourings that we were given?
A quick check and they are only $8 more than the Super Tourings! I don't know how stiff they are, but they can't possibly have less performance than the thinner non-M shocks.
So here I am, about to pull the trigger on some Sachs Advantage struts with E36 M3 rear shocks. At $346 with higher promised performance than the FSDs and better lowering spring compatibility, how could I not? I will update the thread with more links and pictures in the near future. Stay tuned.
