Didn't see a bilstein thread, thought i'd open one up. i just bought the B14/B16 PSS10's. did the fronts on friday and doing the rears tomorrow morning.

fitment so far seems to be spot on. for the fronts, the only OEM pieces that are reused are the upper strut mount and the bump-stop cover (the OEM bump-stop itself needs to be removed as the front bilsteins have a built-in bump-stop).

i've set the fronts to damper level 2. the height has not been decided yet. it will be decided tomorrow.

tomorrow i will do the rears and probably set the dampers to 4. height is also TBD.

no pictures. will take a few tomorrow just for attention

if anyone has installed bilsteins, please comment on height and damper level. hell, if you have any other coilovers, please comment on your preferred height and damper level.

 

I've got a set on order, so keen to see how you go and what anyone else has done too!

 

Hey Marco,
How did they do with the current settings while you were at the Dragon? What vendor did you use for the Bilsteins?

 

so here are a random list of notes from the install...
- the rear lower bolt was a pain to remove. i had to use a breaker bar with a 3' extension pipe to snap the bolts loose. i also used pb blaster for a few minutes.
- the rear lower bolts were in fact very rusted. clearly the northeast weather did that to them.
- i dont' recall the torque off the top of my head, but the rear strut makes it pretty difficult to properly torque the upper strut bolt. with the front strut, i mounted the strut and the weight of the car allowed me to torque the strut from the engine bay. with the rear struts, there is no access to the top part of the strut from inside the strut. i just tightened it as much as i could and assumed it was at a safe torque value.

there is one small flaw. the bilstein front struts are perfectly round, as are most struts. the KW brand has an advantage as they were involved with the JCW coilovers and are not perfectly round but have a groove along the side of the front strut. this allows for the rim to not be so close to the strut. with the bilsteins being perfectly round, i had 0.76mm between the front strut and my wheel. that is way too close for comfort. seeing as i didn't have much time, my friend lent me a pair of 3mm spacers. that worked out perfectly. note that i am running 18x8 wheels ET45 with 215/40 tires (Conti DW).

while that is not exactly a flaw, if i were to get the KW struts, i probably would have not needed the spacers. nonetheless, i still prefer bilstein to KW, so that was my choice.

with everything complete, i set the struts to 2 up front and 4 in the rear. i did that because i was told that the bilsteins even at the low setting are pretty stiff. i should have not paid attention to whoever told me that. they still felt soft (closer to OEM). i left it at that.

i just got back from a 3 day trip @ the dragon. before we started our first mountain, i increased my values to 3 up front and 5 in the rear. i rode like that throughout the entire weekend and on the last day, on our last run, i decided to increase it again to 5 up front and 6 on the rear. on that setting, i did my best run in kentucky. the car felt completely planted and handled the curves like a dream. looking back, i wish i had set it to those values at the beginning of the weekend.

now that i'm back home, i COULD move it back down for more comfort but the truth is i just parked the car and have been using my truck. i'll mess with it on friday and probably start with 3F/4R and see how it handles with the NYC streets.

Whitey, i got them from tirerack. they had the best pricing ($1753 shipped) but it was a 10 day turnaround time.

quality is definitely great. solid material and it just looks beautiful. damper adjustment is as follows:
- rear just go underneath from behind and the adjustment **** is right in your face
- front turn the steering wheel to the right and do the passenger side and then turn to the left for the driver side. moving the wheel gives you access to the ****.

as for the height adjustment, the fronts are easily accessible by jacking up the front and the spring perch is right in your face. the rears require the wheel to be removed. unfortunately, that is the problem of the cars design and not the bilsteins.

overall i'm very happy with them. i'll try to put up some pictures i took later on tight.

 

I like the idea that they can be adjusted relatively easily unlike the KW where you have to remove the rear damper to adjust rebound although I have read it maybe possible with some extenders but not read anyone who has successfully implemented this on the F56 yet.

I looked into the Bilstein but as there was no information on DDC (VDC) deletion I did not want to risk it (KW are the only ones that have kits designed for electronic damper optioned cars).

I did read that Bilstein were developing an EDC system but not heard anything more so perhaps unlikely to happen.

I have 8" ET45 and with the indent on the KW, they fit perfect. Shame Bilstein didn't follow suit with that design for the F56 as the clearance is small with wider wheels/tyres.

Glad to hear you are happy with them

 

i would say that the reason KW had the edge was simply because they won the contract to do the coilover kit so they got the blueprints. why didn't bilstein copy? my assumption is that the bilstein struts are all probably from a variety of templates and are probably used on a bundle of vehicles so they're all simply round. kinda sucks, but i have a decent workaround. hell, i just did 3 days of twisties by the dragon on 3mm spacers and didn' thave one problem. think it's safe to say i'm good.

 

Thanks for starting this thread. Some very helpful info here. Here's an application guide that might help when comparing Bilsteins and other brands. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

http://new.minimania.com/Mini_Cooper...lication_Guide

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.

 

some pictures of the install...a few notes before you see the pictures
- for the fronts, you can't run 45 offset. you'l *NEED* a 40 offset wheel or add spacers. i was running on 3mm spacer (technically 42 offset) and was fine. i bumped up to 5mm spacers as i am going to try and squeeze in 225 tires and need the room.
- the lower portion of the rear strut can be mounted so the red dot can be faced in any direction. clearly as you can see it's easier if it faces back.
- the fronts are a bit more challenging to access but as long as i rotate the steering wheel, i have access to each side respectively.
- overall you can change the damper level w/out looking as the ***** themselves have a very good click to them so you know where you are. if you get confused, you can rotate back to 1 (or 10) and start over again.
- the red dot for the fronts face each other (point inside the car?)
- at 0 threads in the rear and 15 threads up front, i'm dead even @ 25" all around the car
- down south i was at 5 fronts/6 rears and while it was great down there, it sucks in NY. i am at 2 fronts/3 rear and it's a much better quality ride. gotta love NY, right....

Pictures here: https://goo.gl/photos/jqx2oidXoaYKRuK79

 

Thanks MarcoPolo!


Did you need to have anything else done for camber etc? Since I'm in Australia I'd like to have all parts here in one go so I don't have to wait just in case I need other parts (control arms etc)


So far I'll be doing coilovers, bushes and sway bar.

 

Hey Marco,

Just installed my PSS10s over the past weekend. Talk about a pain for the fronts! Not sure how everyone else did it but I would leave it bolted up top push down on the caliper to break it free, use a spring compressor to shrink the shock and spring a bit, unbolt it from the top, have someone hold the caliper all the way down and i would hit up on the front end link bracket to finally get it to come out.

All in all once I figured out how to do the fronts it took me 2 hours on the first side 30 mins on the other and about 3 hours on the rears with doing a sway bar.

What height did you end up going? I have it low as it can go and rub on occasion so going to bump it up a bit. Running 5 in the fronts and 6 in the back for settings and they seem to be a great start especially with the 25mm sway bar on max settings. I did not put any spacers on because I did have pretty good space with my wheels but might go ahead and add 5mm to the front and 10mm to the rears just to be on the safe side.

 

Here is a link to see a few photos show before and after. Bonus photo of the 1964 Corvette I am restoring in the background.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_...HRKUEtwRVc5OFE

 

i'm running 25" all around. as for settings, i run 1 front/1 rear on the street and 6/7 fronts with 9 rear at the track. you running 5/6 on the street? you're nuts. then again, i'm in NYC, where the potholes are absolutely HORRIBLE so i wanted to be as soft as possible, and even so it's pretty solid.

 

I am lucky to have nice roads where I live granted the car is only ever taken out to go on fun cruises out on the back roads or to the track. Have a truck for everything else.

 

I recently bought a set of Bilstein PSS10 for my justa R56. They were without instructions nor with the spanner wrenches. I installed them with the lock collars near the bottom. The car sits rather low, and the ride is too bouncy even with the fronts and rears set to 3 (1 being soft). The car feels unstable when going into a road depression and back out(dip and rise). This was not the case with the stock suspension.

Can you provide some guidance on ride height adjustment? Would placing the lock collars higher up and raising the spring perches increase the ride height? Or is ride height nonadjustable?

 

well first off, this is the 3rd gen forums, so just an FYI. assuming they're no different, the height adjustment is done through the lock collar. if it's all the way down, then yeah that's why you're slammed. i would just raise them until you're happy. i personally don't know the preferred height for the r56 bilsteins. i'd ask the 2nd gen forums that question.

also, with you having the PSS10, you should be able to adjust the dampers. check what they are set at. you may have them so badly set that's why it's riding like sh*t.

PSS9 = adjust height, does NOT adjust dampers
PSS10 = adjust height and dampers.

 

Since I installed mine I am getting a bad vibration from 57-60 mph and getting a code for low boost pressure. Took it into a shop to have it looked and they thought it was because I lowered it too much the angle of my axles are causing a vibration. So going to lift it up a bit and see if it fixes the issue. Did anyone else have this issue?

 

Awesome thread. I'm looking at moving away from my stock R53 JCW suspension and you guys have shared great advice