mfletch69

I had a set of Vogtland progressive springs on my '98 S420 and they were great. Lowered the car about 1.5" and still had a smooth ride.

Have any of you tried them on an E55? Here is the link to the spring that goes with the car:
http://vogtlandsuspensionusa.com/Spo...duct_info.html

Thoughts?

AMS Performance

They are a good quality progressive rate spring. Their ride quality is comparable to Eibachs, but with the drop of an H&R spring. For the road they are the best compromise of comfort & performance & ride height drop (Other than Euro Springs).

hope that helps

mfletch69

Just got quoted $496 for euro springs (shipped) by Gert Carnewal.

maxwerks

I never understood what is the reasoning behind the euro springs being that much lower than the US version ones !!! In Europe they are more stringent in their regulations than in the US, yet US MBcars are always sitting 1" higher!!

AMS Performance

It has to do with headlight height regulations, so instead of modifying the car, they just basically put bigger springs & pads on the car. Its stupid honestly but that's the way they do it. I have euro springs, and IMO its the best looking drop with regards to ride height, comfort & etc. Its not perfectly tucked but with thinner spring pads & wide tires you could probably get the perfect look.

Eibach is a great alternative to euro springs and are almost the same in ride height & comfort but cost significantly less (1.0" drop). The Vogts & H&Rs are both 1.4" if I am not mistaken. You can always fine tune with spring pads.

Hope that helps.

CTE55AMG

I tried buying Vogts from Shox.com and they would not sell me them for the E55. I ended up going with H&R.

fabbrisd

I have a set of Vogtland springs with matched Biltsteins a guy in California ran for 3K miles, before he wanted custom for even lower.

The guy bought the spring/shock sets from Vogtland when they were providing valved Bilsteins with their spring set.

PM/email me if you're interested and I will dig them up out of my garage.

I decided to stay with the stock springs, and at 120K bought new Bilsteins all around (and note on Bilstein replacement shocks about every website shock reference for W210 E55's are WRONG for the replacements, which really fricks things up).

maxwerks

What do you mean by " Bilsteins are listed wrong " , are you referring to the
front and rear shock part numbers being reversed ? I have seen two schools of thought.. one says follow the part numbers and the other say reverse them. All and all , I personally am not convinced that Bilsteins sports with the H&Rs are the best setup.. even though I had that that setup for a while , I think neither the Sports or the HD , are an exact match for the E55 nor do either one is the OEM...I just ordered the Konis latest FSD for the E55 & will
report as soon as I have them installed .

Rareamg

I have them on on my E55 with stock shocks the ride is not bad at all. The drop in the front is 1.6 I think....

AMS Performance

Bilstein + H&R is a rough setup but as far as handling performance goes its the best combo. If you want ride comfort you need to go with a progressive rate spring. Bilstein HD or Sports with Euro Springs are perfect.

mfletch69

so the stock shocks with Euro springs sounds pretty good too

AMS Performance

They are ok, having had that setup, its decent but the newer Monotube bilsteins are much better than the original OEM design which is a twin-tube design. They may be more comfy but they are inferior when it comes to performance. Bilstein does this with their OEM line, they will use twin-tube for comfort but almost all of their aftermarket line is Monotube for superior performance (both HD & sports).

If you have euro springs, the bilstein sports are a better bet b/c of 1" shorter tube. The valving is "supposedly" the same between HD & Sports on most of the MBs, the cartridge is just 1" shorter to accommodate for aftermarket springs (or in this case euro springs).

hope that helps,

ProjectC55

Vogtland + Bilstein sports ALL THE WAY! Get camber arms for the rear if you go this route as well.

rennwerkes

Can you elaborate a bit on the camber arms?
Thanks!

maxwerks

Here you go they are adjustable camber arms , you can do a google search for " Lensolo " or see if he is still selling them on Ebay , although I am not sure. I am sure there are others though .

rennwerkes

Ah, I understand, adjustable camber arms. These are also used on BMW's.
Thanks!

maxwerks

If you dont have them and your car is lowered they are almost a must to wear your rear tires evenly or as close to even as one can . Of course Kmac makes their version of that , but I am not familiar with them and I havent used them.

rennwerkes

Came up these on Ebay.
I wonder if Lensolo is making these?
A bit more expensive though.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MB-Ar...item3ca8668c29

maxwerks

Dont know anything abou this guy .. he is obviously new to ebay , but the price is not that high if they are made as good as he says. I cant remember exactly what I paid for mine from Leonard ( Lensolo ) but it wasnt that much less than that .

mfletch69

Am I to assume you would need the camber arms if you only changed the springs BUT kept the stock shocks?

maxwerks

Very good question , The camber arms are very helpful when the cars are lowered... from what I gather , you chose to lower with the Euro Springs....do the Euro cars have different camber arms ? ( I doubt it ) , or somehow the camber adjustment is different on Euro cars ? ( I also doubt that ) the only thing I can think of is that the Bilstein Sport Shocks could be in fact shorter than OEM you might want to drop a line to Abalone in Sweden and ask him what he did for his Euro e55... at any rate .. I ran for six months with H&Rs . Bilstein shocks , rears that were 285 not 275 ... using only the OEM arms... with quite even tire wear, but grant you I never really pushed the car AND I was using #3 pad in the rear ... Now with the setup I have ... I couldnt get the rears straight without the adjustable arms.

maxwerks

This is another variation on the same concept .....
http://www.rdmtek.com/Rear_Suspension.html

from what I gather these are " remanufactured " OEM arms which I guess means that the OEM ones are just shortened, which obviously limits the adjustment. These guys did do a very good job on the front suspension towers on the W124 though.. I have seen these parts and they are very well made.

AMS Performance

The Camber arms are a must if you plan on lowering aggressively. There are plenty of camber arms solutions out there.

Type in "Mercedes Camber Arms" in ebay and you will see a bunch of auctions come up for the blue camber arms. They are good arms and installed a few sets on some customer
cars, they were very happy with the results. The best camber setting for best straight line traction & most even tire wear is roughly -0.5 to -1.0 degrees of camber on rear. (you may want to properly roll fenders if you want to run wider tires with more neutral camber)

There are more expensive options out there as well but be careful with uncoated arms, they can rust/oxidize as a few people have noticed.

With so many cost effective camber arms now on the market for the benzes, the days of using eccentric bushings (KMACs, etc) are becoming obsolete, get the arms its MUCH better & more accurate way of dialing in camber.

hope that helps

ProjectC55

I love the camber arms. From what I noticed the car launches harder and the ASC light does not blink nearly as much as it used to. The car also seems tighter and handles much better. The rear tires appear a lot straighter thanks to my alighnment guy knowing how to do the proper adjustments. He's a strict BMW guy and says that BMW's are his favorite cars to align. He did alot of custom mods on the suspension of his BMW X6 and he owns 1 of the only two that have been lowered in NY. He also put the new parts of my front end on for me( New OEM MB Center link,ball joints,steering damper and new front Bilstein sports.) I say don't go ebay with these specific parts. I ordered these thru my buddy who works in parts for my MB dealer.

He highly recommends the camber arms for MB's because of the fact that they do not come with rear adjustable arms like BMW's.

I tell you the truth the arms make a difference in the way my car now puts the pwr down to the grnd,especially with this 5.5L motor that I have in my car. Very little ASC light seen.
I owe Speedy BENZ $$ for these and they are fantastic. I have not installed the sway bar links as yet but I plan to in the Spring. I just don't have the adjustment info for the sway bar links.

I let a friend of mine drive my car(He owns a E39 M5) and he says that my car feels tighter and seems to handle much better than his. He has brand new Sachs shocks all around on his M5. I drove his car and told him that his car feels heavy and losey goosey compared to mines. He strongly agreed.

rennwerkes

You guys are starting to convince me that the camber arms are the way to go even if I don't drive aggressively.
My buddy with an E39 M5 was convincing me it wasn't needed.

On a side note, I emailed lensolo and lo and behold he emailed me back in no time. An even followed up with an additional email with some info in the time span of a few hours. What's up with that? I may just bite the bullet and order a set from him. From the feedback on this forum his camber arms are hard to beat.