I just finished my front end rebuild. Drove the car around a bit hoping the suspension would settle but the overall height is 3" too tall. Can't figure out why.....any suggestions
Mine did take a while to settle when I did the suspension, but it definitly didnt start out that high. With H&R Sport spring and Bilstein sports you could just see the strut under the fender in the front when I first finished it.
Are you sure the strut is seated all the way into the bottom part by the pinch bolt?
Brother, I wouldn't operate that car until this is sorted out. Good luck with a quick solution! You could post up some pics from various angles and see if anyone can spot something.
I will post pix tomorrow. I have gone over everything and nothing. I will be calling Bilstein since it is the strut that determines ride height. The spring perches are fully seated and the strut is fully extended w/ spring installed.
Strut doesn't determine ride height, springs do. I really don't think you seated the strut in the knuckle properly. Sometimes you have to bang it in there or take a pry bar and spread the pinch point open.
Its the strut that determines the ride height. The spring sits on the perch and pushes up to fully extend the strut. This extention is the ride height. On XI models the bottom of the strut has a indentation where it lines up with the screw that goes thru the knuckle so there is NO WAY to bang it further into the knuckle and still get the bolt thru the knuckle.
I have the HD's and mine was about that height and after a day it settled to a normal ride height. I drove around the block a few times. Drive that puppy around for a bit and it will settle, trust me. Make sure you torque the strut piston nut appropriately. The rears are a tad lower though because they are the M3 rears giving the impression of a higher front. Only issue I'm having is the bottoming out of the strut when hitting a deep rut in the Boston area at around parking lot speeds, say if I'm making a slight turn and the front left or right drops into a pothole. I'm stumped on that one. Other than that the ride is solid and tight. Excellent dampening.
I rotated the right spring perch 90° and it dropped about 1"....Can someone please check their orienattion of their spring perches....really would apprech...
According to Bilstein you should have removed the oem bumpstop AND boot and tossed them. I don't have either on mine. That's what they told me over the phone when I was having trouble with the spring plates fitting over the strut body and asking a few more questions on the install.
I purchased the boot and bumstop Aftermarket for Bilstein shocks. The bumpstop is about 1" shorter and better material than OEM. But this shouldnt effect my height.
Can you show me where Bilstein states this. The only thing I found from them was to reuse the original perches. I was trying to find measures on the strut. I will be calling them on Monday.
It was told to me over the phone with technical support. The guy said there's was no need to purchase new ones. The Bilstein's have internal bumpstops, at least the HD's. Then again based on the bottoming out I experienced it may not be true, that I did not need the external stops. Your aftermarket bumpstop must be 2 inches?
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