[s-cars] Bilstein shocks and H&R Sport springs

[Rich Letsinger]

A third option for your swaybars is to use a sedan 26mm front.  That's
what I did, with the wagon's 17mm rear.  I wouldn't call the car
neutral, but it's an improvement.  Of course I'm running stiffer
coilover rear springs.

Cheers,
Rich


On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:44:45 -0800, David Mackintosh
<mackintosh at gorge.net> wrote:
> I just got my '95.5 S6 Avant back after having the H&R 29921 V8 Sport
> springs and Bilstein Sport shocks installed, wanted to give some feedback.
> 
> I ordered the ECS camber plates and had those installed, getting the camber
> right was not a problem.  I didn't have them try it without the plates.  The
> guy who did the alignment, however, was incompetant and I'll be taking it
> back next week for the third time to try and get him to get the steering
> wheel straight.
> 
> I used the ECS "13mm" rear spring perch spacers, which are really only 10mm,
> since 3mm slides over the shock's snap ring.  The car dropped almost exactly
> 1-1/8" at all four corners, and looks perfect, IMO.  The tires appear
> perfectly centered in the wheel arches now, definitely not a "slammed" look.
> Any lower would lead to clearance issues, especially with the car's huge
> front overhang, I think.
> 
> The handling is 1000x better (my car still had the original shocks),
> cornering is now much flatter, and very little squat or dive.
> 
> The ride is still plenty comfortable, I might've gone even firmer.  (In
> fact, the guy I bought the springs from had used them briefly and switched
> to the H&R Race springs.)  I'm pretty tolerant of a stiff ride, though.
> Road joints and imperfections are definitely felt, but it's still a good
> highway ride.  Understeer is reduced, but still quite prevalent (very
> forgiving).  I'd like the back end to rotate a little more on lift throttle
> (it will come out with the brakes).  I imagine it'd be even worse on a
> sedan, without a rear sway bar.  The two options would be stiffer rear
> springs, or Happersize rear sway bar.
> 
> I would say the Bilstein Sports could definitely use more low speed rebound
> control, I might try to have them revalved at some point.  I'd hate the
> down-time, though.
> 
> I had initially balked at the price of Koni shocks, and rear coil-overs, but
> now I can definitely see the advantages.  The adjustable rebound on the
> Konis would be a plus, as would having a selection of rear springs available
> for the coilovers.  In order to really dial in my car's handling with the
> components I have now, I'd need to have my Bilsteins revalved (probably
> ~$200), and add the Happersize swaybar (~$400).  I'm in pretty deep since I
> also just did the chip (MRC Stage 2) and brakes (BIRA Stage 1), so I'll
> probably call it good for a while at least.
> 
> David Mackintosh
> Hood River, OR
> 
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