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It all depends indeed, if you have bad roads etc than bigger wheels will not make you happy. Also performance gain due to less unsprung weight is always welcome
The W211 aren't light cars to begin with. Not to mention that bigger wheels are heavier, and your tires sidewall shorter. This offers less sidewall to absorb bumps and pot holes, thereby leading to more bent wheels. That is the reason I stayed with 19" wheels.
The E55's and E63's came with 18" wheels from the factory, that accommodated our huge calipers. Do you have aftermarket calipers and rotors? And that is why your require 19" wheels?
The E55's and E63's came with 18" wheels from the factory, that accommodated our huge calipers. Do you have aftermarket calipers and rotors? And that is why your require 19" wheels?
Yeah i have 6 piston calipers from the W204/212 AMG and 390mm rotors
Having to up the wheel size one up, was a fair compromise for the bigger brakes. Fun fact, the two piece 390mm rotor is lighter than the stock 360mm one. Brake performance is way better tho.
Having to up the wheel size one up, was a fair compromise for the bigger brakes. Fun fact, the two piece 390mm rotor is lighter than the stock 360mm one. Brake performance is way better tho.
Did you have to use a spacer shim, to get the adequate clearance between the caliper and the rotor?
He has 2 piece 390mm discs that saves a lot of weight compared to the 360mm 1 piece discs. Alternatively, the E63 also has 2 piece 360mm discs if I'm not mistaken:
Explain to me, how a 390mm rotor is little than a 360mm? Bigger has to be heavier... Also, what vehicles did the 390mm rotors came on?
Stock brake on the E55 is single piece 360mm. The E63 has two piece 360mm discs that are noticably lighter. The 390mm two piece discs are heavier than the 360mm two piece ones in the E63 nut lighter than the stock E55 discs.
Here's some cars that came with those discs. The CLS63 and E63 with performance package had the 390mm option too.
I'm going to tackle the rear this weekend. In the meantime, I just realized that I weighed the old and new front suspension units.
Note: I don't have the rear Arnott bags and OEM shocks out yet, so I'm using the OEM bags that I have laying around and I used the weight of the D2 rear shock for both before/after as the designs are similar (external reservoir) and I don't have have the old OEM laying around.
Basically, the coilover conversion makes the car about 6kg/13lbs lighter. It will be more when I remove the Airmatic pump, reservoir, etc... Not as big of a weight savings as I expected, but I'll take it!
About 10hrs later over 4 sessions and I've only got the two front in and one side on the rear. I got delayed last weekend. When I started buttoning up the first rear side, I realized that I forgot to order the OEM rubber tops for the rear springs. Had to wait a few days for them to arrive at the dealership. They are pretty cool. They come with 2 or 3 stack-able shims so you can fine tune the height by adding or removing them (useful for regular coil spring setups).
What I've learned so far:
This would all go a lot faster when using a lift instead of jack stands.
People who's coilovers are adjusted perfectly out of the box are incredibly lucky and should be grateful to your manufacturer. Mine came set crazy low. They have a lot of adjustment, but they were set low out of the box.
Front:
If you can't get your upper ball joint to come out, just take out the 3 bolts that hold the upper ball joint. I had to do this on both sides even though they are fresh having been replaced maybe 800 miles ago.
Rear:
Everything in the rear is a fuggin fight. Seriously. Everything.
Even though I deflated the Arnott rear bags before I started the job, then disconnected the air and wiring harness, the bag sort of sucked in air as I pulled the control arm down...and held it. So, that was a fight. If your bags are already dead, then just cut them and save the fight. Mine are near new and I'm either gonna keep them for a W211 wagon I'm hunting for or sell them.
Even though it may seem like it, you do not have to remove the lower control arm allen head bolt near the rear caliper that bumps into the caliper on the way out. Pull it as far as it will go and the control arm will come free.
The AutoDoc youtube instructions are pretty good. But, note that we have dual exhausts with thick tubing that is in the way of the lower control arm bolt that's near the center of the car. Save yourself some cursing and just drop the exhaust a bit by disconnecting the 4 rubber exhaust hangers (using a proper tool + WD40).
A person in another thread mentioned that it took them 12 hrs for the install, and that sounds about right. It's gonna take me longer to install, plus I have to add more time for tweaking the height.
I need to find the torque specs for the rear components.
Well, now that I became familiar with the rear suspension while working on the passenger side, I figured out a way to save myself some headache by focusing on removing the arm with air spring and shock attached instead of removing those as well.
Using this method I only had to:
Disconnect 2 exhaust hangers
Remove top shock nut
Remove inner bolt of lower control arm
Remove outer bolt of lower control arm
Oh and I picked up a fresh set of exhaust hangers from the dealership. I didn’t expect them to be AMG exhaust hangers, but they indeed are:
Got all 4 corners on. I still need to calibrate the height and torque everything to spec. I may get my alignment shop to torque everything when they align it on the Hunter machine.
I did a shakedown drive and while I didn’t push it too hard, the car immediately felt more responsive…and 500lbs lighter. No more of that boaty feeling.
09-06-2022, 10:10 AM
