Alright! They are ON, the car is ALIGNED, and HEIGHT is adjusted.
Photo attached.
As you can see I didn’t drop it too much from a base M235i but there still quite a bit of room to go down on them. Yes, I know one of my wheels is curbed, long story, but I do have a replacement wheel in my garage and it will become my spare soon enough
I am NOT a professional reviewer of this stuff, I haven’t had many coilovers before, but I can say I’m usually a fan of a good set of Koni Yellow struts with good springs, and I don’t shoot for super stiff because I hate losing traction in corners on bad asphalt.
Installation
As I have detailed in previous posts, the packaging was very bad…
The plastic protecting connectors was shattered, there’s paint scratches, and the bracket that holds the brake lines on one side was bent at 90 degrees. Thread was damaged, and there are scratches on the « adjustment spin-thingie » (sorry for using highly technical terms). My (awesome) mechanic took his time, cleaned up the thread, slowly bent the bracket back, etc.
What I will do this fall is shoot some antirust oil of some kind to protect them, because I don’t want to go through winter with exposed metal on this.
In the meantime, the distributor is working with Bilstein for some kind of compensation.
A friend got a set of Ohlins for a different type of car at the same time I got mine. The difference in how they were packed and protected and how great the finish is on them is night and day.
Ride Quality
Definitely feels better than my OEM suspension with about 53,000miles on Quebec roads (well…technically a lot of those were on the track and 1500 were in Germany - but the rest is all very bad roads. Think Michigan if you’re from the US, it’s pretty much the only comparison).
I was worried that it might be a bit too hard for daily driving, but it isn’t. In fact, I think I would prefer slightly stiffer springs or damping. Someone coming from a stock 228 might see a bigger difference in stiffness, but from a M235i all I can say is the very scientific « Yes it’s stiffer, but it also feels more solid and more comfortable ».
I went with 0 toe up front and about -2 camber all around. The car now chases down « tracks » on the highway a bit more than before but the steering feels more alive. I have not driven the car much yet but the most obvious improvement is in transitions - there is less body roll and the car reacts faster.
I also put on adjustable Hotchkis end-links in the front, set to the lowest amount of « pre-load » for now. I’ll probably get the same in the back (and probably change the swaybar at least in the back before the next alignment).
Overall it does not feel like an obvious « aftermarket suspension » - it just feels like a more solid OEM, which is nice.
Track
I’m not a great driver, and I only do 3-4 events a year usually. It was not worth measuring times before/after as too many other variables including my own consistency would make a much bigger difference anyway.
I am going to the track tomorrow for the first time with them, I’ll report back.
I’m expecting a reduction in body roll, faster transitions, and hopefully the ability to put the power down a bit earlier (don’t have a real diff yet), so you will get my anecdotal data on that in a few days.
Bottom line
The shipping problems left a sour taste in my mouth. Maybe it was bad luck but looking at this thread and how they pack their stuff… I am not sure I would buy them again.
If we ignore those issues though, it seems like a solid package to get better suspension on a F22 while remaining streetable even on bad roads and eliminating wheel gap.
I changed my top plates while I was at it to get new ones with bearings, and now that I have about -2c camber everywhere I will look and see if I can fit a wider square setup when these tires are done.
Damptronic is nice, but the effect is not so pronounced that I would hate the car if it was always on the hardest setting. I think I would be totally happy with a manual version of this and electronic suspension delete. Then, I would have more settings to try.
So TL;DR: Are they worth it? If you receive them in good shape, yes.
Would a manual version be worth it? Yes, if I could save the money and just go with the manual version now I probably would.
Are they streetable: Absolutely