When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Stay away from Rebuild Master Tech. Purchased an air strut assembly from them a few years ago. It had their lifetime warranty on the product. The product failed and they tried to tell.me that a blown air strut was caused by a manufacturing defect from Mercedes. I said WTF BS! How can a leaking hydraulic shock cause an air bladder to fail? Even if it could, I purchased the entire assembly from RMT. They wanted to charge me $100 due to their core being defective. Again, WTF? Anyway, after letting them know they are full of crap, there was no way I'm paying anything, and letting them know they did not want to go that route, they gave in and waived the charge. In addition, I had to pay for return shipping, they were not willing to send me another one, and they don't have one to replace the defective unit so now I have to wait until they can get a suitable core and build one.
Had an issue with an Arnott strut. Totally different experience. They shipped me a new one, paid for return shipping, and never gave me any grief.
The moral of this story? I will never buy anything from RMT again.
Hi PM: Sorry--I didn't see your question. Also, with comments like those from ctravis, who don't know much, never have questions, but are always in Attack Mode, I'm really not interested in being a part of it any more. Thought I could add something here, but apparently not. I do have a life outside of this site.
I purchased the Syncro Thrust Arms sets through FCP Euro, who had them custom made by Syncro. Here is the first email from Kyle Bascomb. He was instrumental in making it happen. I would contact him:
"Thank you for contacting FCP Euro. I currently have some sets in for other Mercedes chassis (203/209/171/204/211) however I do not have anything for the your 215 chassis. I would be happy to make a customer set for you, the time to fulfill the order could be up to 3 weeks.
Best Regards,
Kyle
Kyle Bascombe
Mercedes Benz Catalog Manager
Quality & Service, Guaranteed for Life
155 Hill Street, Milford, CT 06460
Hi PM: Sorry--I didn't see your question. Also, with comments like those from ctravis, who don't know much, never have questions, but are always in Attack Mode, I'm really not interested in being a part of it any more. Thought I could add something here, but apparently not. I do have a life outside of this site.
I purchased the Syncro Thrust Arms sets through FCP Euro, who had them custom made by Syncro. Here is the first email from Kyle Bascomb. He was instrumental in making it happen. I would contact him:
"Thank you for contacting FCP Euro. I currently have some sets in for other Mercedes chassis (203/209/171/204/211) however I do not have anything for the your 215 chassis. I would be happy to make a customer set for you, the time to fulfill the order could be up to 3 weeks.
Best Regards,
Kyle
Kyle Bascombe
Mercedes Benz Catalog Manager
Quality & Service, Guaranteed for Life
155 Hill Street, Milford, CT 06460
Great ! thank you very much
I'll get in touch with him
[QUOTE=BayArchitect;7747738]Hi PM: Sorry--I didn't see your question. Also, with comments like those from ctravis, who don't know much, never have questions, but are always in Attack Mode, I'm really not interested in being a part of it any more. Thought I could add something here, but apparently not. I do have a life outside of this site.
/QUOTE]
Don't be negative, you see, with your find you found a new friend, freaking internet is like that, sometimes you can be nervous or not in a good mood, then you write something a bit aggressive and it's too late
but think that sometimes it doesn't always reflects the person who wrote it
sorry
and thx again !
feel free to pm me questions if you need
[QUOTE=BayArchitect;7747738]Hi PM: Sorry--I didn't see your question. Also, with comments like those from ctravis, who don't know much, never have questions, but are always in Attack Mode, I'm really not interested in being a part of it any more. Thought I could add something here, but apparently not. I do have a life outside of this site.
/QUOTE]
Never ask questions? I had to ask 3 or 4 times as to your spring rates
just trying to be objective, and get to the bottom of this, nobody seems to be able to directly explain how sway bars would help with bounce. Instead of answering simple questions like that, I get these backwards explanations about how one shouldn’t expect to slap on a yellow speed kit with no suspension maintenance otherwise and expect decent results. My suspension is up to date, could use some new subframe bushings but they are not “failed” , just showing signs of aging
people ask me what suspension they should install, almost weekly I get asked. I want to know if there are safe alternatives besides strutmasters, I’m just having trouble considering this yellow speed kit 100% passable. It’s tight and aggressive, sure but I’m not even sure I prefer that over the other, more stable kits I’ve tried
w215 is a car that is a pleasure to cruise the interstate at high speeds, this bobbing at high speed over road dips is just a little unsettling
edit: I’m even going to try switching to w220 control arms and fitting a sway bar as well, and possibly add the rear sway bar when I replace my rear subframe bushings soon..
.I tried the 16kg shorter rear springs, and while less bounce at some speeds, other speeds were just as bad, maybe worse? I didn’t like the shorter length of the spring either. So today I switched back my 14kg springs, with my dampening settings 2 clicks from hardest, and it was ok usually just not very predictable feeling over road dips
Last edited by ctravis595; 05-05-2019 at 10:31 PM.
Just updating this threat
forgot this
The S600 arms for sway bar come with bigger holes for bolts
the bolts they request are 16 mm
w215 bolts are 14
so or you make your sub frame holes bigger and buy 16mm bolts from MB
or you find a piece of stainless tube, that fits perfect and center your bolt, no play
of course, hammer them in the arms before you fit them
remember that these bolts just center the arm, the arms do not move, the rubber does, so no real friction
My car is lowered reasonably to not touch as on picture
for this setting and with Yellowspeed coils, do not worry, use ONLY tthe center position for all 4 adjustable arms
this has been tested and the car camber/caster is like MB specs for CL65 AMG, so fine for all other W215's
this is another thing, due to the lower coil spring attachment change (more outside on the S600 version for Sway Bar)
so more stress
this part might be dead earlier then normal
I started getting an noise when turning steering and found that with microphones listening
It is not something 100% sure as I buy aftermarket arms, the arm I had might have been crap
just that you know where to search if you get noise
I replaced both arms and noise is gone
What do you mean by the center position of 4 on the arms? Is that for sway bar links?
i have recently replaced my control arms with those for a CL500, but instead, tomorrow I’m replacing with s600 control arms so that I can later one day install a front sway bar to see if that helps the ride any
Also trying to track down a “pop” noise from the front subframe/suspension area, perhaps like you mention in this post. I thought it would go away with new lower control arms, no luck. There is no play in the front suspension except a very minor bit of slack coming from what seems like the strut assembly. Tomorrow I am changing the upper control arms when I change the lowers to s600 arms hopefully that will help
I thought I would find loose/broken subframe mounting bolts in the front but all seems ok. Otherwise I have not been able to definitively track down this noise. Seems to be getting worse. I’ve heard of this issue being attributed to brakes but idk. I re-torqued the 4 front subframe bolts and the engine mount bolts. We will see if that helped tomorrow when I test the new parts
edit:that worked! Turning the 4 subframe bolts and the two motor mount lower bolts resolved my odd suspension noises, car may even feel a bit tighter now but I partially attribute that to the new upper control arms in the front
Last edited by ctravis595; 05-14-2019 at 01:16 AM.
we are really beating a dead horse here. About a 5/6 year horse at that. You say you’ve read all the comments on these forums regarding the sway bar conversion, so you’d have noticed I was the first to document trying coilovers on a w215 besides perhaps strutmasters company themselves, and we all know how “forthcoming” businesses can be when trying to sell a largely untested system. Of course they will say it’s works, it was up to the DIY community to give honest reviews
lots of people said the lack of sway bars on a w215 coilover car was absurdly and disastrous. I kept this in mind while doing the strutmasters conversion, and held onto my old struts etc in case I needed to switch back
after doing the strutmasters conversion (as it seems you’ve read? Maybe not) I reported that the ride quality was surprisingly nice, the strutmasters pieces were beefy, high quality coilovers and that I was largely satisfied with my conversion. And did not plan on switching back to abc as it kinda seemed like a safety hazard to have an unreliable suspension on the car
the only two issues anybody ever had with strutmasters were that some people experienced a higher body height than they preferred(unchangeable because the kit was not adjustable) and some people complained a tad about body roll if they had large rims(20’s for example) because this could introduce some scrubbing in very tight turns
never, and let me reiterate this for the 20th time in the past 5/6 years, did the strutmasters kit feel dangerous or unstable even WITHOUT sway bars (hey perhaps smartadze is keeping track of how many times I’ve said strutmasters or sway bars?!?please update if so).
Like mentioned before I’m in Florida where we don’t have many mountain roads, we do however have many bridges with expansion gaps that can create “dips” in the road surface before and after the bridge
so forgive me for quickly understanding this matter of sway bars or not has literally nothing to do with any issue of “bounce” because quite frankly I’ve driven a properly equipped coilover w215, and it quickly becomes clear the yellow speed struts just aren’t cutting it with such a heavy car.
I never once had any of these issues with bounce etc with strutmasters and that was even 5 years later when one of the struts started leaking
strutmasters was a very smooth and stable ride. I could see myself being bothered by the body roll with strutmasters IF I had lots of mountain roads but I do not. Strutmasters kept the feel of an expensive mercedes and not a quirky corvette, like how I feel about yellow speed. Sure the body roll was annoying for some but they should have looked into sway bar retrofits themselves. I never needed it
The yellow speed kit is stiffer and the minor issues with body roll are improved with this stiffer kit. However like I mentioned, body roll was never my big issue with any of these kits.
it sounds like you’ve invested a lot of time and work into replacing all of the suspension components on your car... Perhaps not admitting to the bounce effect nearly everybody besides smartadze and Bayarchitect are experiencing with this kit lends itself to a matter of pride? I’m really not sure, but if you have videos of your w215 yellow speed transversing large road dips without any adverse “bounce/launch” id be glad to entertain the fact I am missing something.
Even the yellow speed distributor in Florida complained about the bounce problem. Never once have I heard of anybody rectifying “bounce” issues with sway bars on any car, let alone w215
sorry if I sound argumentative... I just find it largely irresponsible to give this frankly unsafe suspension a passing review knowing some 17 year old is gonna slap on one of these kits and hurt themselves because they got their hands on a cl55k or v12 they couldn’t handle. I only recommend yellow speed for experienced drivers who understand what they are getting themselves into. There’s more at stake than your pride here guys, in the coming years many people will visit these threads to make their decision on these matters and so far I’ve found way more people having issues rather than not
I completely agree with your opinions on strutmasters vs yellow speed and actually tried both of them before you made your original conversion post, which I followed closely for updates and advice. I had an 03 CL600 and I cant even count how many times I added or reduced preload, changed springs, changed dampening, adjusted ride height. Nothing I did fixed the bounce in the rear. With 20k springs on the front I never had much of an issue with the front, my problems were always with the rear. I agree the strutmasters weren't AS bouncy when compared to YS but they still had enough bounce and roll the car felt unsafe at high speeds (100+ mph). I was initially extremely pleased with YS because the ride height was normal again and the body roll was DRAMATICALLY improved. I could drive all day on twisty backroads and never have a problem. But when I started driving long distances on the interstate (WA, OR) I realized I had a big problem with the bouncing rear. I looked into adding away bars but never installed them because I assumed, like you, they would only improve body roll which wasnt an issue whatsoever. I would always notice a huge difference in the bouncing rear when I would make an adjustment, but it always felt like picking one of two evils. Too stiff which would not allow the strut to compress enough, causing a harsh [nearly airborne] rebound. Or too soft making the strut practically bottom out and then rebound harsh after the deep compression. I don't believe that adding a sway bar.. aka anti ROLL bar is going to help with ANYTHING besides ROLL, contrary to what some are posting here. I upgraded from the 03 CL600 to an 05 CL65 in spectacular condition with fully functional ABC and I can tell you that SM and YS dont hold a candle to ABC. There's no comparison, not even in the same ballpark. The first thing I did was flush and change the ABC fluid after driving off the lot. I've put 10k miles on it since without a single ABC issue. I'm going to flush and change the fluid every year or 15k miles, whichever comes first. From what I've read the main issues with ABC originate from not flushing out the dirty, used fluid often enough. I can keep y'all posted on the reliability. Because I'm keeping the car indefinitely and I'll never go back to coilovers again.
I completely agree with your opinions on strutmasters vs yellow speed and actually tried both of them before you made your original conversion post, which I followed closely for updates and advice. I had an 03 CL600 and I cant even count how many times I added or reduced preload, changed springs, changed dampening, adjusted ride height. Nothing I did fixed the bounce in the rear. With 20k springs on the front I never had much of an issue with the front, my problems were always with the rear. I agree the strutmasters weren't AS bouncy when compared to YS but they still had enough bounce and roll the car felt unsafe at high speeds (100+ mph). I was initially extremely pleased with YS because the ride height was normal again and the body roll was DRAMATICALLY improved. I could drive all day on twisty backroads and never have a problem. But when I started driving long distances on the interstate (WA, OR) I realized I had a big problem with the bouncing rear. I looked into adding away bars but never installed them because I assumed, like you, they would only improve body roll which wasnt an issue whatsoever. I would always notice a huge difference in the bouncing rear when I would make an adjustment, but it always felt like picking one of two evils. Too stiff which would not allow the strut to compress enough, causing a harsh [nearly airborne] rebound. Or too soft making the strut practically bottom out and then rebound harsh after the deep compression. I don't believe that adding a sway bar.. aka anti ROLL bar is going to help with ANYTHING besides ROLL, contrary to what some are posting here. I upgraded from the 03 CL600 to an 05 CL65 in spectacular condition with fully functional ABC and I can tell you that SM and YS dont hold a candle to ABC. There's no comparison, not even in the same ballpark. The first thing I did was flush and change the ABC fluid after driving off the lot. I've put 10k miles on it since without a single ABC issue. I'm going to flush and change the fluid every year or 15k miles, whichever comes first. From what I've read the main issues with ABC originate from not flushing out the dirty, used fluid often enough. I can keep y'all posted on the reliability. Because I'm keeping the car indefinitely and I'll never go back to coilovers again.
thank you for the honest review. that cl65 you have with ABC is a really nice car. I'll bet the later years, and higher end w215/w220's probably had ABC systems that were actually cared for(flushed etc) as I completely agree, just a little bit of neglect on these ABC systems and they are toast. the early model cl500's are probably all toast in regards to abc at this point. it's cool to hear about someone else sticking with the w215 for this long, most people seem to move on after a few years but that's most modern mercedes it seems
the only thing I don't agree with you 110% on is that ABC is that much better than these coilover kits. but I'm willing to bet maybe i had one bad dampener, maybe a bad strut or something and that's why I never had the full "abc" experience. sure the car would stay relatively flat at almost all times, and getting to raise and lower the ride height instantly was stellar, but over potholes the system was very twitchy. almost like when a car has a failed control arm bushing lol
i didn't know much about these cars back then...the proof speaks for itself in the condition of my OEM paint and the rims I just had powder coated yesterday. With my level of knowledge and the seeming complexity of these cars, i took the car to Lokey mercedes of clearwater Florida and had them inspect my car and my ABC. they told me the system was fine, however it was painfully obvious i had a leaking rear strut and i think it was merely a few weeks later when my abc pump started failing. So who really knows if my ABC was ever working correctly. Each system has its drawbacks, strutmasters has body roll/ride height issues, yellow speed has the bounce issue, abc has the reliability issues.
in regards to your experiences with the yellowspeed kit in particular, i know exactly what you mean, i think the best way to describe my feelings towards yellowspeed is a love/hate relationship. like today i had to stop on a dime, doing 45/50mph in traffic to prevent an accident. the yellowspeed kit handled surprisingly well, this was probably my most intense emergency stop since installing yellowspeed, i was impressed. but it always seems like everytime im impressed with yellowspeed, give it 15 more minutes of driving and sure enough there will be another large road dip to make the car nearly launch off the ground lol. and then you are back to square one, wondering if you love or hate the kit lol.
one thing ive come to further conclude in the past few weeks of driving, i'm really just not the biggest fan of this stiff of a suspension on a mercedes. everyone seems to agree the only reasonable dampening settings for this kit are really stiff. driving on long trips and i feel like my neck/body is tired from the effort/movement the suspension translates into the cabin. i didn't use to have this problem with strutmasters, it was super smooth, felt like a yacht (in a good and a bad way lol). another time, the road was very rough and because the suspension is so stiff the tires started to lose traction because they couldn't fully follow the road irregularities, this is another problem i don't remember having with the strutmasters kit. to further imagine what i'm talking about, envision driving over those "rumble strips" on the side of the highway that are meant to wake up truck drivers when they fall asleep, well imagine trying to also make a turn while transvering these rumble strips and because the wheel/suspension is too firm, it sort of makes the wheel/tire "skip" over the bumps instead of following them
keep in mind, some of my problems may be specific to my set up, I don't know many other people who run 20 inch rims on their w215 with coilovers. im sure a bigger sidewall tire would do better with a few of these problems
I also had ABC originally on my 03 CL600 and it was in "working" condition, or so I thought. I wasn't very impressed with the ABC. It seemed floaty like the car wasn't connected to the road. But my experience with ABC only lasted about 2 weeks because the tandem pump went out immediately after I bought it.. I first tried rebuilding the pump instead of buying a new one, but wasn't able to make the car rise after installing the rebuilt pump. right away I went with strutmasters because they were the only option at the time, other than repairing ABC which had failed on a car with 51k miles. I ran the strutmasters with rebuilt original pump for only another few weeks before the pump died again. Then I replaced it with a brand new Cardone pump. I was mostly satisfied with SM from Jul 14 - Sep - 16, my only gripes being the need to cut coils to lower it to normal ride height, the body roll, and after about 2 years of driving on them, the SQUEAKING. I'm not sure why but they developed an incredibly loud squeak on all 4 struts (the car was daily driven for 2 years). It got so bad I was embarrassed to drive in downtown Portland with people everywhere and my shiny v12 Mercedes squeaking like mad over every tiny bump in the road. I know the struts were the culprit because around the time the squeaking started I discovered the YS kit and ordered them immediately. The squeaking stopped 100% after replacing the SM's with YS.
The ABC experience with the CL65 is nothing like what I remember from the 600. The car feels very planted and connected to the road. Maybe the ABC on the AMGs is stiffer than the 600's because this is the most sporty suspension I have ever experienced on a w215. No body roll, no bounce on dips, and with the sport mode enabled you can feel every little detail in the road. I almost wish there was a comfort mode rather than just normal and sport because even normal is very sporty. It is this stiff and still takes potholes shockingly well. I hit a massive pothole on the interstate in Wyoming so hard it cracked the barrel of my original 2 piece wheel and bent the lip.Even with the wheel taking that much abuse I didn't feel very much inside the car. I kept driving for several hundred miles because everything seemed to be fine. I only discovered the wheel was smashed when I stopped for gas. That was 3 weeks ago and even with a bent lip and cracked barrel (unrepairable according to mercedes and a local wheel repair shop) it hasn't lost a single PSI of tire pressure and drives just fine. That's a testament to how well a fully sorted AMG ABC suspension handles potholes. To hit one so bad it destroys your wheel but because the jolt inside the cabin was so minuscule you think all is well.
btw I'm running factory spec wheels and tires. Original split spoke 2 piece 65 AMG wheels 19x8.5 +44 / 19x9.5 +60 with 245/40ZR-19 and 275/ZR35-19. The 3 other wheels are for sale in another thread if anyone is interested. They are in perfect condition. I'm going for a custom set of wheels rather than shell out $2700 for 1 original wheel in perfect condition.
That’s strange that you had noises with your strutmasters setup. I didn’t have any noises but after 5/6 years I think it was, one of the struts started leaking so I took that opportunity to try the Yellowspeeds because for some reason or another, multiple people kept saying yellowspeed were a great suspension setup. I find that a bit ridiculous and would not be surprised to hear of some young kid crashing his used supercharged/v12 w215 because the rear end bounce got out of control when he needed to make an emergency swerve maneuver and he didn’t have the driving experience to understand this suspension isn’t entirely safe or predictable
funny enough when i swapped to yellow speed, the stiffer suspension really exaggerated the aged condition of all the old control arms/ball joints/bushings. I have not yet finished replacing control arms, bushings etc, although I’m nearly finished.
It seems as soon as I figure out what’s making an unusual pop/knock noise from the front suspension, and fix it. A new kind of pop/knock starts happening. I’m mostly talking about a slight tap/knock/pop noise at this point when turning and entering/leaving steep driveways with large gutters, while driving everything is ok. As per my other posts, I had a loud POP noise coming from the front end that I rectified by tightening the subframe bolts, and engine mount lower bolts. Seems like every time I throw in a new set of control arms; another adjacent set of control arms finally starts making noise or failing
on another note, I finally got to drive the w215 I installed the cieka kit on, and wow with the 14/10kg spring rates that thing is super smooth while driving around town! However I still noticed the same rear end bounce/launch feeling after large road dips
yesterday i got to thinking....i think maybe we are looking at the yellowspeed kit the wrong way....it seems really nobody denies the front struts/springs work great.
the recurring problem seems to be the rears. I wonder now, how hard it would be to get a suspension component manufacturer to make some good rear coilovers for this car?? ive never looked into custom coilovers, but maybe its not such a bad idea anymore now that we have a kit with good front coilovers??? in the past, a lot of suspension companies avoided making coilover kits for these cars... they weren't sure about the sway bar situation, they weren't sure where to start ETC. Well it seems we have a much better understanding of coilovers and sway bars on these cars because of these MB forums and strutmasters and yellowspeed
Or maybe there is a similarly sized adjustable coilover already on the market, with a more suitable shock absorber, but just needs the yellowspeed top mounts swapped in????? and maybe some welding to fit the control arm end connection... not impossible
i doubt yellowspeed/cieka would sell just the front coilovers for these cars, but honestly i would pay $1000 for just the fronts alone. the fronts are great, it's really the rears that are problematic it seems
The ride will not be anywhere nearly as smooth as what your expecting, Just a FYI it becomes very aggressive. Unless *** you add both sways bars then you can soften up the struts considerably and the ride is decent. Still very sporty but not embarrassing at all.
To get rid of the RED ABC error you can just disconnect the CAN bus for the ABC system out of the Driver side fuse box. Then you get ABC display defective and you can clear the warning. There is no modifications for the rear sway all the mounting points are there. You just need to drop the subframe which is pretty labor intensive.
You can swap the pump, from a regular S500.
Hey so I’m tryin to do the whole converting kit swap on my 05 cl500 but I was thinking abt abc light and how to get raid of it . So taking the abc module out will clean the abc light ?
More proof of folks with yellow speed on their w215 that experience bouncing. This guy goes on to say the car is still bouncy with new sway bars installed. He installed front and rear sways. See photos.
Still waiting on proof of anybody with yellowspeed on a w215 that doesn’t have bounce issues over large road dips... until then I stand by my statement that installing and driving yellowspeed coilovers on a w215 can be unsafe. Sorry to hurt your resale value folks but I actually give a **** whether some kid kills himself at 120mph with his new yellowspeed kit because everyone says “it’s good”
Despite the bickering here lately, I think it’s worth mentioning
yesterday I changed out my front control arms for the w220 arms, I had already replaced these control arms a few months ago
and I must say the car handles surprisingly better with just this minor relocation of the strut assembly on the control arm, and I haven’t even installed the front sway bar yet
the car is more firm in the front, but not in the bad way I was expecting. Most surprisingly is that is almost seems like this upgrade for front control arms has helped with some of my bounce issue as well???? The bounce is still there, but my girlfriend agreed per our test drive last night, the car seems a little smoother now
the ONLY downside I have with these control arms, is that the steering requires just a tad more effort to turn the wheel. With the w215 control arms the steering was very easy, it’s not that it’s hard now but it’s harder
i agree with previous comment by Puerto Rick, avoid the cheap control arms if you can. My cheap thrust arms are already showing premature signs of wear and it’s been less than 6 months
Last edited by ctravis595; 07-05-2019 at 11:01 AM.
part of what I did when I found more satisfaction with these w220 control arms is I tried to get rid of as much excessive camber as I could in the front, I had one eccentric camber bolt already in my car from many years ago when I bought it
i figured I could modify the other bolts to have similar flutes/grooves to unlock the 3 different camber settings Pmercury pointed out existed. Be careful to match up the flutes as close as possible to the OEM eccentric bolts, I think I only found good success because I was able to compare my DIY eccentric bolt to the OEM mercedes eccentric bolt
sure I could’ve ordered some real eccentric bolts but they are overpriced, I don’t want to wait for shipping and seem to give you the same level of success I found
now I have dialed out a lot of my excessive camber in the front wheels, and I believe it’s part of why the car feels so stable now. I took it for some driving last night, high speeds, twists and everything is working great. No noises, no pops, the bounce issue is better as well it seems. Still not 100% satisfied but I haven’t tried adding sway bars yet either, still not sure how sway bars would help a bounce issue but I didn’t expect these w220 control arms to help with the bounce issue either..
sidenote- I have since aligned my front toe settings by eye/driving feel. But have yet to have it on a nice alignment rack. Maybe more satisfaction will come after that
I also found some staggered 18” AMG wheels to try, mostly to have some cheaper tires for road trips instead of constantly chewing through my low profile tires on my 20” wheels. I think the thicker sidewall/tire may just help some of the bounce issue as well
ive had a chance to try the car with the 18” wheels, the bounce is less significant but still not perfect. I don’t disagree that for $1000, it’s not a bad kit
What I have got is a bit of low speed noise from the rear struts like you can hear them going up & down ( a light rattle) it stops above 45mph. I've had both back coilovers out & cant see anything that would cause it.
Do you have a sway bar on? If so, did you lube the inner diameter of the bushing with grease where the bar makes contact with the bushing? If not, this can squeak like heck as the bar tries to rotate inside the rubber bushing. May not be your shocks at all.
Just got my front sway bar in mocked it up to the subframe. Looks like the rivnuts placed in the mounting hole locations for the brackets are a smaller diameter than the mounting bolts for the sway bar bracket. Do you just drill them out and replace with the nut and bolt combination for the sway bar bracket? Looking at the bolts side by side (ones for mounting the lines across the subframe and the ones for mounting the sway bar) there’s a huge difference in size and length.
Just got my front sway bar in mocked it up to the subframe. Looks like the rivnuts placed in the mounting hole locations for the brackets are a smaller diameter than the mounting bolts for the sway bar bracket. Do you just drill them out and replace with the nut and bolt combination for the sway bar bracket? Looking at the bolts side by side (ones for mounting the lines across the subframe and the ones for mounting the sway bar) there’s a huge difference in size and length.
it is a perfect fit, nothing to boore or grind
just buy the parts I mentioned with part numbers and new bolts bolt-on plug-and-play
Just got the rear swaybar in! Didn’t remove the exhaust or anything. Just dropped the rear subframe and let it rest on the exhaust. Pulled all the lines and brackets and routed it in. It took some persuading with a long pry bar between the subframe and the underside of the body while maneuvering it through but I got it in. All with the car on 4 jack stands and completely alone. YellowSpeeds due to arrive on Thursday. I wanted to be able to just mount them up when they arrive. Only thing left from the ABC now is the line that goes over the bellhousing. I got all the bolt out except for one. Been playing twister under the car trying to get at it. There were 4 total.
it is a perfect fit, nothing to boore or grind
just buy the parts I mentioned with part numbers and new bolts bolt-on plug-and-play
The front factory swaybar mounting bolts from the S-Class are 1 size larger than what is used on the CL. They inserted threaded rivnuts into the holes to accommodate the smaller bolts that the CL uses to mount the lines. I drilled those out and am using the larger nut and bolt combination from the S-Class as they’ll be much stronger for holding the swaybar in place. Though it seems like most are reusing the smaller hydraulic line mounting bolts with no problem. Just FYI for anyone tackling this project in the future...
Just got the rear swaybar in! Didn’t remove the exhaust or anything. Just dropped the rear subframe and let it rest on the exhaust. Pulled all the lines and brackets and routed it in. It took some persuading with a long pry bar between the subframe and the underside of the body while maneuvering it through but I got it in. All with the car on 4 jack stands and completely alone. YellowSpeeds due to arrive on Thursday. I wanted to be able to just mount them up when they arrive. Only thing left from the ABC now is the line that goes over the bellhousing. I got all the bolt out except for one. Been playing twister under the car trying to get at it. There were 4 total.
I’ll also be replacing the rear/front subframe bushings and rear flex disk while I’m in there. Just ordered the tool to remove the bushings. Tried to use the method that I saw on YouTube to wedge something between the subframe and the underside of the car and use a jack to push it out. It started to lift the car. A little too sketchy for me. Especially with the car on jack stands.
Just got the rear swaybar in! Didn’t remove the exhaust or anything. Just dropped the rear subframe and let it rest on the exhaust. Pulled all the lines and brackets and routed it in. It took some persuading with a long pry bar between the subframe and the underside of the body while maneuvering it through but I got it in. All with the car on 4 jack stands and completely alone. YellowSpeeds due to arrive on Thursday. I wanted to be able to just mount them up when they arrive. Only thing left from the ABC now is the line that goes over the bellhousing. I got all the bolt out except for one. Been playing twister under the car trying to get at it. There were 4 total.
good to hear you got the rear one installed, I don’t remember hearing of anyone else installing the rear sway yet. I wonder if front and rear strut tower braces would do much on these cars once converted to coilovers...
05-03-2019, 08:35 AM
