Coilover options.

[Skippy_the_Bush_Kangaroo]

I may have to put coilovers on the rear of my car as part of an S14 upgrade.

What have people done in the past? I'm looking for off the shelf upgrades if possible from other BMW models, but failing that any help is appreciated.

TIA,

Skippy.

[TMK-001]

I am interested too... as far as I know there is no coil over kit - you have tog et inserts abnd chop and weld stuff - not really something that interests me... or within my technical relm. If you have not had a look see www.bmw2002.com - Ireland Engineering... they are supposed to do their own stuff, but I have never seen pictures.

Can you order a set from a company like Bilstein or Koni that you just order and it is delivered and not stuff around chopping etc?

Can someone please help us Aussie n00bs!?! Pics would be great - of the shocks and of the car with them fitted :-)

Todd

[Guest Anonymous]

Ireland sells good quality stuff. There aren't any real coilover kits for the 2002 for a few reasons. The stock suspension setup ie. the strut housing and the way it integrates with the hub, brake mounting points and the pitman arm or steering control arm (the thing that bolts to the bottom of the strut housing).

The easiest thing to do is to take a strut housing, chop off the spring perch and weld on a section of threaded tube. It's simply that easy. Ireland does not sell a "stock" coilover setup because if you are in the process of moving over to a coilover setup you should know enough to have a conversation with them about a few things:

1. Location of the threaded section or where to weld the threaded section - Are you going to be running stock height or the shortened VW Rabbit bilstein inserts for use with a lowered car?

2. Degrees of camber you want pre-bent into the housing - could be stock could be whatever you want.

3. Spring choice - spring rates, spring length, etc.

Ireland lists out all of the labor prices as well as materials prices so you can choose what you want and they will do it. On the other hand if you want to do the work yourself they will simply sell the materials to you. Give them a call - 1(626) 359-7674 not sure how you guys dial the states but be mindful that he's open "Regular hours are 9:00 am to 5:00 pm PST Monday thru Friday. Most of the time someone is here on Saturday if we're not racing. We accept all credit cards, and can also ship COD or prepaid."

They REALLY know their stuff and have the ability to send you a nice box with a complete bolt on coilover kit inside - all you have to do is supply a CC# and a little direction.

Hope that helps!

[Ian]

I've had the Ireland coilovers for the past 10 years, and have been quite happy with them on the street and on the track.

Ian

'76 M2

[TMK-001]

Cheers guys.

So the option is basically building up a set of Ireland coil overs with your own struts that you cut down and modify yourself or ordering a complete set with your choice of shortened or standard length plus camber...

Can you get standard camber and get strut top adjustable camber plates or is that not possible in a 2002? Or is the ammount of camber you can dial in with these not enough?

Are the back as complicated in chopping and fitting?

Todd

[Guest Anonymous]

Most pre-bend the strut housing to achieve a total of about 3.5 degrees??? (1.5 deg with the strut housing and the rest with camber plates) may be wrong with those numbers. This would be a setup for a track car though. I would assume but I don't know myself that camber plates would be enough for normal street use. If you are going to have the camber plates set in the same place all the time I'd still look into bending the strut housings and going with a fixed strut top mount just as a suggestion.

It sounds like you should do a little more research into this before you jump into a coilover kit. I found that a coilover setup would be too harsh and too low for my 100% street car. If you're not running bilstein sports and stiff shorter springs right now I'd suggest going to that before making the giant leap to coiovers. Unless you are building a track car.

As for the rear, I know that most guys don't even bother because you NEED to strengthen up your rear shock towers before converting to coilovers. It takes a LOT of work and a big desire to want rear coilovers.

What is the intended use of this vehicle?

[DB]

I have coilovers on the front of my 2002 and the parts were purchased locally. There are based on short strut arrangement - the plans for which were posted on the board recently. I used early Golf (Rabbit) inserts. Springs are 63mm with Kings tender springs.

I picked up the coilver hardware from Sydney Bilstein and Toperformance. Noltec also have coilover hardware.

I had a local engineer do the cutting and welding. Email me if you have any questions at dsm2002 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

[TMK-001]

Thanks for your reply.

I am aiming to build an M2 - like skippy - I am just researching at the moment, but it will be used for a mix of road and track...

I currently have Koni Racing shocks and King (an Aussie brand) springs... the car handles nicely as it is, but I was thinking with an M2, I would like to be able to play with it further to dial in all the right things to get the car to really hook in around the corners.

I plan on getting adjustable sway bars and all new bushes shortly - as well as a rear strut brance and battery relocation kit from TEP.

I am early days with the M2 (I dont have a motor yet!) and coilover plans and am interested to know more about them, I was hoping I could find some info on here before going to Ireland (rather than asking them a million questions!)

My aim was to get the suspension (adjustable camber plates, coil overs), tires and brakes (Get one of Lees massive brake upgrades with the Wilwood superlites), then get the motor, in stages over the next two years....

The car is my only car, but I dont drive it every day! (our roads are pretty good too :-P)

Todd

[TMK-001]

I have coilovers on the front of my 2002 and the parts were purchased locally. There are based on short strut arrangement - the plans for which were posted on the board recently. I used early Golf (Rabbit) inserts. Springs are 63mm with Kings tender springs.

I picked up the coilver hardware from Sydney Bilstein and Toperformance. Noltec also have coilover hardware.

I had a local engineer do the cutting and welding. Email me if you have any questions at dsm2002 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Thanks mate, I am interested to know how much stuffing around it took and what sort of $$ it cost you? Or what should I budget? If I am going to save myself $50 and take me two weeks of running around to organise. I would prefer to make a few emails to get it sorted than run around trying to find engineers, etc.

[DB]

Half the enjoyment for me was working it out and I have a good engineer who I trust. There's a lot to recommend getting a sorted off the shelf item from a quality supplier. It you have any questions, by all means send an email.

[TMK-001]

Thanks mate, sometimes I get into this stuff and bite off more than I can chew and it ends up doign my head in :-P I do it far too often as well hahaha.

[steve k.]

A few thoughts from my side.

There are in reality three reasons to run coilovers on a car.

1. more available camber due to smaller spring.

2. ability to change the spring rates due to high availability of springs

3. height adjustment for corner balancing

I have gone through 3 different set ups in the 5 years i have owned my car. I had full length Ireland Engineering Coilover, Shortened Strut Ireland Engineering Coilovers, and the current set up is Ground Control. I'll write about GC a little later.

Here is the difference in the IE shortened vs. full length.

If you are not looking to drop your car too low to the ground a full length will do. Both have about 6" of adjustment available. With a shorter strut you have to make sure that your tire, that was able to clear the strut in the past, will be able to clear the lower spring perch and the spring. You don;t need to worry about that with the full length design.

car with the shortened coilovers and 205/60R13 tires on turbines

The reason i ended up going to the Ground Control was because i wanted more adjustability out of the shocks. The shocks used in my current set up are Advanced Design and have both compression and rebound adjustments. The shock made does not fit standard 2002 tubes. They are too small for most shocks produced these days. What Ground Control did was cut off the standard tube and install a 50mm tube that will fit one of their shocks. I believe they do the same thing for their new set up for 2002s with Koni shocks.

The set up with Advanced Design shocks looks like this:

The quality of product from both companies is great. But it all depends on what you are looking to achieve. If you have $2000 to spend on your front coilovers that will be race used go with GC with advanced design shocks For the rest, it's bilsteins vs. konis.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

steve k.

[TMK-001]

Thanks Steve... it sounds like I have some head scratching to do.

Nice shocks BTW! Does your car have the Massive Brake kit on it as well?

Sorry about the thousands of questions!

Todd

[steve k.]

nope, no brake kit. not allowed in my class

steve k.

[Skippy_the_Bush_Kangaroo]

I'd be really interested to know what you think of the rear setup.