MiamiAMG

Has anyone installed the BRABUS sway bars in their E55? Curious to see how effective they are. thanks!

chiromikey

i thought that the brabus was an amg item they used to upgrade regular w211's...so it's the exact same set up amg's already have. anyone know for sure???

jangy

chiromikey is correct. I have been on the hunt for upgraded sway bars for ages and have run into quite the snag. The ones we have are already pretty beefy, which worries me. Making fatter ones is going to add mass weight and I don't know how effective they will really be.
That is why I stopped pushing so hard to get a set made up and am more focused on the airmatic bags for now.

Cylinder Head

iTrader: (1)

Rip out the air ride, slap some coilovers on, voi-la, your car now handles as well as possible and is worth JACK on the resale market.

jangy

Mine is already worth JACK on the resale market, so that is no issue. I'm hesitant to flip to coilovers. I've always had a liking for active suspensions that can counter push, rather than just lean. I'm not saying that the airmatic setup is anywhere near ideal, but i just feel like an active setup is a trend of whats to come.

Cylinder Head

iTrader: (1)

A trend that the E55's airmatic is at the floor level of. Everything I've ever put coilovers on has turned into an amazing machine. If you're serious about handling I'd really look into it, there are maniacs out there who would outfit your car with them. Besides, if you look at most supercars out there, they run coilovers 8 times out of 10.

Vadim @ FD

Brabus pulls airmatic out when they build autobahn burners. Coil-over might be the only solution.

CynCarvin32

Exactly!!

I know this is a stretch BUT I just got a free set of Falkin Azenis 612 tires and threw them on my E350 daily driver car for the hell of it and it now feels far more grippy and controlled than my E55 with PSII's. The airmatic car bounces up and down, feels wacky half the time, and does not like tight cornering but that E350 sure is not a bad car.

I bet the E55 has seemingly better control but put a real set of springs and shocks (old fashion coil springs that is) and I bet that E55 would be a far better car for spirited driving. AirMatic does an ok job bridging the gap but its not that amazing.

Same goes for ABC in my SL55. That system really is scary when being pushed hard. These computers simply can NOT keep up.

There is a reason why all real sports car use normal suspensions. It just is more natural, easier to drive and feel, and more predictable.

2MANYCARS

If the E55 had only come with coilovers, like the CLK63 Black Series, it would've been the perfect highway/track machine, but NYC is far from ideal to have coilovers setups, so sticking with my airmatic.

CynCarvin32

You bring up a funny point here with that post!

So this black edition car looks amazing and likely will be a wonderful car. I would love to get one but I have one issue with it (the rest I like). Why does it weigh in at nearly 4k lbs. You can take a lighter battery and stick it into the E55 and be with in 50 lbs of the black edition! The E has 4 doors, full equipment and is a great daily driver to boot.

With that, the E55 and that chassis has the ability to be a great car when done correctly but doing that aftermarket will be next to impossible. It would need 15k in mods and its just not worth it.

But I think AMG has learned its lesson and future cars will be closer in line with the offerings from say M Power and Porsche.

Yes a 4k lb car is a big pig but a big pig can still be nimble to a point. I spent a long time working with SMGC32 turning a W203 car into something capable of a 1:35.xx at willow springs lap after lap after lap (maybe even better if we threw caution to the wind). That lap time is pretty darn quick for such a heavy car and we scared so many people over the last few years blowing past them as if time were standing still.

That car was corner ballanced at a total curb weight of nearly 3900 lbs so I know an E55 done correctly, without that computer controled suspension hokey, could be a worth car.

But for what the E55 is its a good car. I stopped asking it to corner well and just use it to cover ground at warp speed when I need to do 200 miles of driving in a night for a dinner run etc.