Isawelvis

I am replacing all for springs on my 1991 190 E 2.3 I see several sets of four. One set has standard front springs with HD rear springs. The other set has all four springs as standard. The set that has standard front and heavy duty rear cost about 75.00 more. YOUR THOUGHTS?

dolucasi

What brand? I opted to change mine a few years ago to mercedes tuned sportline springs and mercedes sportline sway bar. I was happy with the W124 sportline suspension I had in the past.
Mercedes ships them from Germany. There are other equivalent spring makers that are a lilttle less expensive but I did not want to experiment. Plus my car is all mercedes stock parts except some consumables like battery, sparkplugs etc., wanted to keep it that way.

The Mercedes sportline springs are a little shorter and stiffer, cuts back on the body roll but the ride quality is not effected by that much,

Cheers!

lsmalley

Also keep in mind the ride height factor. When you replace the springs, your ride height might change. Consider purchasing the spring pad insulators as well so you can adjust the height. I think for every 10-12 mm of height in either direction, your camber will also change by about 15 degrees as well. Good luck.

dolucasi

Yep, as Ismalley mentioned, when I replaced with sport springs, I purchased all 3 versions of the pads to adjust height. That is needed but remember the new pads settle around 2-3mm or so over time.

pwnzor

I recently replaced all four springs with H&R lowering springs. The ride quality is much improved, in my opinion.

dolucasi

Great!. It migth be the picture angle but your rear looks a bit lower than your front. Might need an adjustment there.

Maybe thicker pad in the rears? or thinner pad up front?

pwnzor

It's actually level when I measure the distance from the frame to the ground.

dolucasi

On my OEM sportline spring set-up with equal rubber spring bushings in front and rear I measure that the frame sits 1.5 cm taller in the back measured from ground to body moulding.

If measured from the top of tire rim to bottom of the fender I see mine 1cm more in the front compared to back. So reversed.

So it is a fine balance for looks. You can lower the front a bit or raise the back. Or leave it be.

I do not like my car too lowered because the exhaust starts hitting aggressive speed bumps or scraping driveway ramps.
And my floor jack does not have clearance for front if lowered. It does look better lowered of course.

If you choose better looks I would lower the front. For convenience I would raise the back. From the pic I think 1cm either way.

If it is the looks you are after, I would also invest in a EVO1 gullydeckel 16" rims to fill the fenders. But that also requires a slight pushout of the front of the fender with an AMG kit.
Or you can use 15mm spacers but that requires new lugs and I do not like that just for the looks.

Here is my car as a reference on the stance. By no means mine is perfect but this is just for reference for you.

pwnzor

My other car is significantly lower than this, so avoiding speed bumps is just second nature.

dolucasi

Nice! Since you can get in and out of the roadster you are a whole lot younger than I (:-)
So for the looks I would recommend lowering the front but for it to look better you probably need to fill the fender more with wider 16 inch rims.

But I am nit picking here, your call looks great as is.

Cheers!

pwnzor

It's actually going to the same race shop where I take the Spyder so it can get alignment done properly. I trust them and most likely they will make some other adjustments along with adding some kind of sway bar. The body roll is greatly reduced from previous, but it's still there.

dolucasi

Seems you are doing the suspension upgrades in steps like I did. Every upgrade helps a bit and the final touch is the sway bar up front. That + sports shock was the biggest improvement for me. Even the wider rims seem to have helped a tiny bit.

I would go with the roll bar that matches the springs. Mine was OE sportline but yours should probably be H&R to match the springs.

Technically the rear swaybar should also be changed but oddly that one is made weaker in sportline opposite to common sense.

I have one but it is waiting for me to replace the rear subframe bushings as it is rather not possible to do without replacing the rear subframe.

You will be happy with a front roll bar replacement. Rather easy to do as well.

- Cheers!

dolucasi

Just remembered why I was not too keen on replacing the rear roll bar. My rear shocks are OE sachs regular ride not sports.
The rear sway bar is made weaker to match the sportsline rear shocks which are stiffer. That is why my rear sway bar should stay standard until I also change the shocks.
I only have 30K miles on the sachs shocks.

My son likes to take his Miata to the mountains here every week, one time he took the benz instead and took this photo. I'm sending you for the stance and a different set of rims.
These are 7.5 inch wide 16 inch 1997 E420 rims. Only produced one year, I found a couple of them in a junk yard. Two identical silver W210's parked side by side with the unused spares in them. Great find for <$50 each but I had to chuck the unused Michelins.

tires that had no miles but 20 years on them.

Even the wider rims seem to improve the roll a tiny bit because it changes the mechanical forces on the suspension.

Isawelvis

how bout sport springs on front and standard springs on the rear, Woundnt that lower the front and keep the rear higher. Not sure how this would effect the handling

dolucasi

The suspension on these cars are carefully tuned by the manufacturer, especially the springs.
Probably best to use the as sets springs, shocks, roll bars. I think is is preferable to just use different pads to adjust height.
Total play there is 1.5 cm

No pad,
5mm pad
10mm pad
15mm pad.

Otherwise it is experimenting, it may work for handling it may not.

pwnzor

That takes me back a ways... Kings Mountain, Half Moon Bay, that whole loop down through Bellvale - Good times...

I still have a lot of family around the Bay, but I'm in Georgia these days. We have some amazing roads here, right in my back yard are the equivalent of Angeles Crest, Palomar Mountain, Azusa Canyon and Ortega Highway - all in one place, and connected directly to each other!

You lucked out finding a set of MB wheels in decent shape for any kind of reasonable price - people around here are mighty proud of them. These stock wheels are hard to clean, so my thoughts have drifted towards powder coating them black.

dolucasi

Yeah I also ended up with a set of unused W124 rims pretty cheap too. I sold my originals that were starting to show their age and the W124 rims are 1/2 inch wider.
Mercedes should have just switched to the 6-1/2 inch W124 rims after the introduction of the W124 in 1986. These can take 185 or 195 or 205 tires easily so they are more versatile.

I hear you about cleaning the Gullydeckel rims, they do collect brake dust rather quickly especially after the clear coat ages.

My son seems to ride the summit road HWY-35 and HWY-9 in Santa Cruz mountains, they are only 10 minutes from his and my house.

Strange that he wanted nothing to do with cars only 5 years ago and believed they will be obsolete in 10 years and everyone would just uber around.
Now he has 2 gasoline cars and is building electric trucks. Go figure.

His concept city truck is called Telo. Check it out.

Cheers!