[Z K]

Installed the FSD dampers... it increased my ride height by about 1/2 an inch in back. I replaced my stock non-sport shocks with regular FSD shocks, no other changes. Comparing the two dampers, they look the same length as the stock shocks - the ride height increase I was not expecting.

I'm going to contact Koni and see what they say.

[Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Z K

Installed the FSD dampers... it increased my ride height by about 1/2 an inch in back. I replaced my stock non-sport shocks with regular FSD shocks, no other changes. Comparing the two dampers, they look the same length as the stock shocks - the ride height increase I was not expecting.

I'm going to contact Koni and see what they say.

The ride height is governed by the springs, not the dampers, especially at the back where they're fully independent.

Give it some time to settle after the installation

[Z K]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

The ride height is governed by the springs, not the dampers, especially at the back where they're fully independent.

Give it some time to settle after the installation

How long do I need? It has been a week and about 200 miles of driving.

I had the Special Active sport on my last F30 and that did not raise the rear up like this did.

[Z K]

Originally Posted by Z K

How long do I need? It has been a week and about 200 miles of driving.

I had the Special Active sport on my last F30 and that did not raise the rear up like this did.

Now at 600 miles. I try to hit some bumpy roads so it can settle faster. Still no change. There is definitely something different between these FSD non-sport and the Special Active sport shocks.

I contacted the vendor and am going to try to return it.

[Ennoch]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

The ride height is governed by the springs, not the dampers, especially at the back where they're fully independent.

Give it some time to settle after the installation

It depends if the dampers have gas pressure in them or not. I'm not up on the BMW suspension world, but if you fit Koni inserts (no charge pressure) to an Impreza instead of new KYB gas charged struts you'll see between 5-10mm of ride height difference dependant on what springs you're running.

[Jimmert]

Is the rear spring properly seated?

[Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

Months later, since confinement finally came to an end i've been able to get the Koni sport fitted and... wow!

What a difference from OEM adaptive shocks!

(I'm on lower and stiffer ST sport springs).

The Koni manage to both smooth out small imperfections that were making the oem dampers so busy, shrug off any bump in the road while keeping the car balance in check, i'm really impressed!

The car feels both more confident like on rails, as well as more comfortable, albeit remaining sporty by not giving in to weight, i'd express that as smoothing high frequencies, but following medium frequencies, if that makes sense!

6 months later... after the initial good impression I’m still struggling with how the car behaves at lower speeds.
Highway speed they are good as they keep the springs in check and the ride is quite stable, with a bit of rebound bias it feels quite good.

but slower speeds are not ideal, feels like the dampers are compromising grip on less than perfect road surfaces... you do need to retain enough softness to have grip and follow the road surface.

- front end: incoming bumps are too strong, i think the compression damping is too much and unfortunately not adjustable; i like to have rebound damping at about 50%, feels good at high speed, front end is well controlled

- rear end: takes too much time to settle, i need to check the rebound damping to increase it, but it’s a pain to remove wheels and dampers to do that :-(

Tempted to sell them and get a set of b6 damptronic instead, or just get back to stock edc dampers.

[Techno 9000]

Thanks for your honesty.
I would be interested to hear of people's experiences of the B6 & B4 Damptronic, especially with respect to comfort and body control.

[Lancelot]

I see koni sell kits with h&r springs - out of curiosity FaRKle! would you know the spring rates for the h&r sport springs?
Perhaps the koni sport are not matched properly to my ST springs, which i think are on the softer side, vs h&r that i expect to be stiffer

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

I see koni sell kits with h&r springs - out of curiosity FaRKle! would you know the spring rates for the h&r sport springs?
Perhaps the koni sport are not matched properly to my ST springs, which i think are on the softer side, vs h&r that i expect to be stiffer

I don't have the exact rates, but H&R don't seem particularly stiff based upon the TUV dimensions (wire diameter, # of coils, ect.)

[orbE46]

Just ordered a set of the Koni Special Actives on sale at ECS Tuning. I'm gonna pair them with OEM M Sport springs to replace my stock non-sport suspension.

[Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

6 months later... after the initial good impression I'm still struggling with how the car behaves at lower speeds.
Highway speed they are good as they keep the springs in check and the ride is quite stable, with a bit of rebound bias it feels quite good.

but slower speeds are not ideal, feels like the dampers are compromising grip on less than perfect road surfaces... you do need to retain enough softness to have grip and follow the road surface.

- front end: incoming bumps are too strong, i think the compression damping is too much and unfortunately not adjustable; i like to have rebound damping at about 50%, feels good at high speed, front end is well controlled

- rear end: takes too much time to settle, i need to check the rebound damping to increase it, but it's a pain to remove wheels and dampers to do that :-(

Tempted to sell them and get a set of b6 damptronic instead, or just get back to stock edc dampers.

Ok I seem to have found a sweet spot yesterday with front dampers at exactly 1 turn from full soft, will try on the motorway to confirm if higher speed stability is still good.
Still need to try and increase rear rebound damping but that takes more time to change :-(

[Matthewricha]

Originally Posted by Techno 9000

Thanks for your honesty.
I would be interested to hear of people's experiences of the B6 & B4 Damptronic, especially with respect to comfort and body control.

I have B4 Damptronic on my 235i and had the Koni FSD (Now Special Active) on my previous e92 335i.

The FSD's with Eibach Pro springs were a revelation compared to the standard passive m sport shocks. So much more compliant and eliminated the crashiness. Also improved handling in corners!

With my current car I went from pre-LCI adaptive shocks with M Sport springs (which was comfortable in comfort, although wollowy and too hard in sport); then changed to M Performance springs. This got rid of the wollow in comfort and meant i wasn't constantly changing between modes, but still a bit crashy. Then swapped for some M140i LCI Adaptive shocks and even though the same part numbers, they were much more compliant no crashing!

Jan 2020 i swapped to B4 Damptronic and retained M P Springs. 3k miles later and they have slightly softened up and are very good at back road spirited drives, very controlled damping. My issue is that they have compromised the below 30mph comfort over broken road. The rebound force is noticeably higher and feels like it's punching the wheels into the ground. I do wonder of the high spring rate of the M P springs is part of the problem and that I should move to Eibach springs. Either that or move bsck to my LCI adaptive shock and retain the MP Springs.

Eitherway i can't recommend Koni FSD (SA) shocks enough for comfort.

[Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

Ok I seem to have found a sweet spot yesterday with front dampers at exactly 1 turn from full soft, will try on the motorway to confirm if higher speed stability is still good.
Still need to try and increase rear rebound damping but that takes more time to change :-(

Ok now one half turn from full hard, seems to get rid of the « corkscrew » motion initiated from the rear. This being an activehybrid with battery at the back i suppose i need to compensate with extra dampening.
Current setup for me :
- front: 0.5 turn from maximum damping
- rear: 0.5 turn from maximum damping


But ride remains hard at lower speeds on bad surface.
Not sure if my expectations are unrealistic but i would think a better setup can be had

Tempted to try bilstein b16 damptronics but expensive and not sure if it’s going to be any better.

[Z K]

Originally Posted by Jimmert

Is the rear spring properly seated?

Yes, the springs do not need to be removed for rear shock replacement. The rear shocks come out easily just undoing the top and bottom bolts.

I raised the rear arms to ride height when torqueing the bottom bolt to make sure there's no stress on the rear shock bottom bushings. The increase in ride height is very strange from just a shock change and I can't find any reason for it other than the FSD shock itself.

I have returned the FSD shocks now and am using Bilstein B4 Sport in the rear. Comparing the two, the shaft for the FSD is longer and it is thicker in diameter than the shaft on the Bilstein B4. Otherwise there's no visible difference in rear shocks.

[TheMirror]

Originally Posted by Z K

Yes, the springs do not need to be removed for rear shock replacement. The rear shocks come out easily just undoing the top and bottom bolts.

I raised the rear arms to ride height when torqueing the bottom bolt to make sure there's no stress on the rear shock bottom bushings. The increase in ride height is very strange from just a shock change and I can't find any reason for it other than the FSD shock itself.

I have returned the FSD shocks now and am using Bilstein B4 Sport in the rear. Comparing the two, the shaft for the FSD is longer and it is thicker in diameter than the shaft on the Bilstein B4. Otherwise there's no visible difference in rear shocks.

So are you now running FSDs in front and B4 Sports in the rear? If so, I'd be interested in impressions, considering the excellent data at the beginning of this thread plus the knowledge that Dinan uses specially valved Koni yellows up front but OEM shocks at the rear (228ix?).

[dangerus_car]

did you ever change your suspension setup since this last post? or you just stick with the koni until today?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Lancelot

Ok now one half turn from full hard, seems to get rid of the « corkscrew » motion initiated from the rear. This being an activehybrid with battery at the back i suppose i need to compensate with extra dampening.
Current setup for me :
- front: 0.5 turn from maximum damping
- rear: 0.5 turn from maximum damping


But ride remains hard at lower speeds on bad surface.
Not sure if my expectations are unrealistic but i would think a better setup can be had

Tempted to try bilstein b16 damptronics but expensive and not sure if it’s going to be any better.

[Lancelot]

Originally Posted by dangerus_car

did you ever change your suspension setup since this last post? or you just stick with the koni until today?

Thanks.

I never could get to something i liked, so I sold the car and got a G30 m550i a year ago, feels like the chassis is much better from factory, i just put some monoball on the front thrust arms and happy with it

[dangerus_car]

Originally Posted by Lancelot

I never could get to something i liked, so I sold the car and got a G30 m550i a year ago, feels like the chassis is much better from factory, i just put some monoball on the front thrust arms and happy with it

so you never bought another suspension besides the KONI?

[Lancelot]

Originally Posted by dangerus_car

so you never bought another suspension besides the KONI?

Tried several setups :
- KW DDC coilovers : too harsh could feel every detail of road surface, and spring rates not great for the car resulting in not great handling in curves; i'm not sure how they designed this kit but it didn't feel right, i had to max out the adjustment to bring the car 2cm lower than stock (wouldn't go any higher) and even then we couldn't get good balance for the car
- stock EDC dampers with ST lowering spring : too harsh, underdamped but spring rates well balanced otherwise
- Koni dampers with ST lowering springs - still too harsh and still underdamped

If i had to go for another setup i would have perhaps gone with either stock springs and Koni active, or full blown 2-way adjustable coilovers (both compression and rebound), and custom set of springs but i was looking at €4000 bill i think, so decided stop there

[toaster_strudel]

I'm sort of overwhelmed by the number of choices - does anyone have a direct comparison between the:
1. M adaptive suspension
2. Koni SAs w/ stock M sport springs
3. Bilstein B6 damptronic - I've heard these are rather stiff but I haven't found any real information on how they work versus the stock EDC dampers. I've also heard they subtly raise the ride height when used with stock springs because of how the spring sits.
4. KW DDC
5. Oehlins R&T - sounds amazing but is heinously expensive
6. AC Schnitzer kit - ditto
I have an M235i, so the EDC delete seems like a rather drastic step if aftermarket dampers aren't a strictly superior experience. However, the kits that do maintain that functionality are pretty pricey (KW DDC/ B6/B16 damptronic), and I'm looking to maintain close-to-stock ride height, which rules out the B12/B16.

[Cobra358]

Originally Posted by toaster_strudel

I'm sort of overwhelmed by the number of choices - does anyone have a direct comparison between the:
1. M adaptive suspension
2. Koni SAs w/ stock M sport springs
3. Bilstein B6 damptronic - I've heard these are rather stiff but I haven't found any real information on how they work versus the stock EDC dampers. I've also heard they subtly raise the ride height when used with stock springs because of how the spring sits.
4. KW DDC
5. Oehlins R&T - sounds amazing but is heinously expensive
6. AC Schnitzer kit - ditto
I have an M235i, so the EDC delete seems like a rather drastic step if aftermarket dampers aren't a strictly superior experience. However, the kits that do maintain that functionality are pretty pricey (KW DDC/ B6/B16 damptronic), and I'm looking to maintain close-to-stock ride height, which rules out the B12/B16.

FWIF, I went from the stock EDC set up to B-6s with Dinan springs on my 2017 340i. I don't think the B-6/Dinan combo is too stiff like some have claimed. The stock suspension in my opinion needs more wheel rate especially in back to stabilize the platform, it could use even some more than the Dinans. It actually rides really well. Over super bumpy terrain the high speed bump rates in front are a bit high in the B-6s, only tiny drawback. I also think the D
inans get me closer to flat ride, I don't get the bounce back front to rear over bumps like the stock suspension. Good luck.