CoupeCrazy03

I've heard a lot of praise with Vogtland springs. I believe you get an awesome drop and similar ride quality to Eibach springs. No personal experience, but if I were to get springs again I would check those out.

Blake P

Dropping with springs on stock shocks is lame and your ride quality will suffer. If you opt to do it right with springs + aftermarket shocks, you might as well just get TEIN Basic coilovers for a couple extra bucks and get the drop just right.

quadoptix

thanks for the response guys. i was just asking about springs. i know what coilovers can offer but i'm not looking to get coilovers, just springs. i'm personally not a big fan of tein either. my friends at JIC maybe looking at making a coilover setup at a later date, but i just need springs for the meantime for a catalog photoshoot as to why i asked specfically for springs =) thanks all for the replies

drexappeal

Oohh...JIC. They gonna charge similar prices to what they charge on JDM's though? Cuz if that's the case, I'm sure there are plenty of Benz owners that would go with KW or Bilstein over JIC.

Well, if it's just for a catalog photoshoot. Go with the TEIN S-tech's. It'll give you the most amount of drop for just springs and the most affordable brand new.

quadoptix

pricing on jic im not sure on at the moment, but i know they are aiming to be reasonable. i peronally have had jic setups on some of my other cars. i love those coilovers.

any idea how much itll drop my 07 sport sedan on the stechs?

drexappeal

Yup. JIC makes great coilovers. Very popular JDM setup, but the JDM setups are in the range of where Bilstein and KW's are and I can almost guarantee that the majority of people would go with those over the JIC's. Now, if they tried to compete with TEIN Super Street pricing, that may be a different story.

Whatever it says the drop is for a 230K SS on the website is pretty much what it would be for your car. My car was the R&D car for the 230K SS and I had updated sports suspension for 2004.5, which was maybe 1/8 inch higher than your car currently at most.

quadoptix

ahh coool thanks for the info man its greatly appreciated =)

quadoptix

im looking at the site and im scratching my head lol its the same part number for all the springs. i guess now the question would be how much does it lower?

drexappeal

Yeah, they haven't updated yet, but they changed the spring length on the 320+ engines (at least for the coilover setups).

But the springs are definitely different. They tested the prototype 320 springs on my car and the front looked like I was about to take off compared to the OEM sport springs.

BMW 3

"springs will hurt your stock shocks" is a total myth if it's only an inch drop.

I called H&R and they said there is no problem with my bimmer running on stock shocks with their sport springs.

quadoptix

ic ic how much did the stecs for your 230 lower the car?

drexappeal

Never saw them, but it's whatever it says the drop is on their website. When you click on the link for the setups you'll see the details and you'll see pics of my car (well, 2.5 years ago).

quadoptix

i just realized you had the 4cyl s/c model mine is a v6. hmmm i called tein and they were of absolutely zero help lol. the guy jsut kept reading me whats on that site. i said i have a 2007. and explained some detail he still was clueless. awesome

drexappeal

Yeah, but didn't you read what I had mentioned above. oem suspension setup was very similar 2004.5-2007 230 (whether i4 or v6).

They wouldn't know the answer to that because the R&D on it was done before the v6 230 came out. I mentioned that above also.

Okay, so to go over it 1 more time, once and for all, no repeats:
2003-2005 vs. 2006-2007
- weight distribution is very similar (very small change if any)
- mounting points are same across all chassis (possibly not the c55 - but not positive on this)

- Only reason the 230 vs. 320 was WEIGHT distribution and 320 was heavier (obvious reasons), therefore different parts for heavier v6 engines. And yes, the 320 is heavier than your v6 230.

Okay, that should eliminate anymore doubt. If you want more answers, search for the TEIN thread that I had started way back when I first did R&D.

Again, I mentioned this in another thread - Last time I went into TEIN to have my prototypes adjusted, they mentioned that the compatibility between the 230K coupe, sedan and 230 v6 model should be the same. The heavier v6 (320, 350) should be the same.

Blake P

This is absolutely not true. No offense, but it does no good comparing your BMW suspension to ours. What might not make a difference to your shocks may make a difference to ours. FYI - I had Eibach springs on my stock shocks and the ride felt very much like stock at first, but began to get harsh after a few months, then my shocks started squeaking and the ride was awful. I've been running TEIN Basic coilovers (matched spring/shock combo with exactly lowering FTW) over a year now without any problem. You obviously don't know much about W203's, so PLEASE don't act like you know what you're talking about and give out bad advice to the n00bs.

splinter

OE W203 dampers are essentially impotent for any spirited encounters. When higher rate or reduced ride height springs are factored in the performance equation, we’re even more SOL.

If only one could install a prepped E46/92 M3 suspension on an AMG…

drexappeal

bumb to merge

TruTaing

Okay, i posted on a different forum and got no response.... Maybe posting here will yield some responses.

crazy question:

w209 and w203 share the same suspension, right? I know the brakes can be swapped over, but can CLK 63 black series suspension be swapped over? :x

Blake P

Only one way to find out!

drexappeal

Interesting thought. Only thing is, I do know that would be $$$$.

Blake P

Exactly, probably better off buying PSS9's or KW V2's anyway.

TruTaing

Its not so much for the ride height. More for the added width. IMO at least. That and the fact that it would be an "oem mod."

Blake P

This makes no sense, unless you're gonna widebody your car.

drexappeal

Adding the CLK Black series suspension (if at all possible), wouldn't change the body dimensions/wheel wells of the w203, so you'd still be subjected to the same setups for width.

Like Blake said, only way to increase the width would be to go widebody.

sdsilverm3

The CLK BS suspension are just KW coilovers anyway. Do you really want to pay the OEM markup?