[Moupe]

Thank you for the info homeslice!

[capt_slow]

So YOU have the other twin!

I got my EBII F31 from Jon as well, but in late Dec 2016. Back in Nov 2016, I saw two of them in Jon's inventory and always wondered what happened to the other car.

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by capt_slow

So YOU have the other twin!

I got my EBII F31 from Jon as well, but in late Dec 2016. Back in Nov 2016, I saw two of them in Jon's inventory and always wondered what happened to the other car.

Haha yup! I remember seeing your car in inventory too on the website when I was seeing when mine was finally delivered to the dealer. I think I recall you making a post about picking yours up on the Bimmerfest forums. Small world.

[exE36M3]

@FaRKle!

Thanks for the spring booster idea. I might try that. Seems cheap enough!

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by percychow

@FaRKle!

Thanks for the spring booster idea. I might try that. Seems cheap enough!

It's even cheaper if you want to come over and grab the ones that I'm not using anymore .

BTW, were you able to get your old tension strut bushings pressed out with those KMAC cups?

[exE36M3]

@FaRKle! not yet. I need to return your cups. The control arms has a service life of 2 installs, so adding new bushings and ball joint and reselling won't net much.

If you don't mind, I can text you and we can meet up. I can grab the spring spacers from you and get you back your cups.

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by percychow

@FaRKle! not yet. I need to return your cups. The control arms has a service life of 2 installs, so adding new bushings and ball joint and reselling won't net much.

If you don't mind, I can text you and we can meet up. I can grab the spring spacers from you and get you back your cups.

Sure thing. I'll be around this weekend.

[FaRKle!]

Refilling DEF in the 328d
So to supplement the various guides/tutorials the other Andys (Andies?) and I have been doing I've decided to start making some videos as well.

As coincidence would have it, my 1000mi DEF refill warning came on earlier this week, so to kick it off here's a video covering how to refill the DEF on the 328d.

[FaRKle!]

Video Overview and Installation Guide

DIY HAS Writeup


So, I've wondered for a while if one could DIY a rear HAS setup at a reasonable cost. If possible, this would solve common issues like not getting the rear height/wheel gap/rake you want, not being able to choose your rear spring rate and flat ride ratio, and having to buy expensive "BMW fit" springs.

Spring Mounting Hardware
I noticed that aftermarket coilover systems typically had flat ground springs (like standard coilover springs) that seated against their ride height adjusters, and wondered if it was possible to obtain just the rear ride height hardware. As it turns out, both BC Racing (PN I-29-HLK) and Solowerks offer their rear perch/adjusters. I ended up buying a set of the BC Racing perches/adjusters for $100 shipped (you can select any F2x/F3x/F8x on the linked site's drop-down menus and it'll bring up the right PN).

One thing I bought that was completely unnecessary was Swift's Thrust Sheets. These are supposed to act like a radial bearing to allow the spring to spin so it doesn't bind during compression/decompression. You really don't need these.

Next, in order to use a standard coilover spring I'd need a lower spring perch/pad to rest it on. Since that side is also ground flat the perch/pad needed to have a flat base. I looked through Energy Suspension's Catalog and on page 14 found universal polyurethane spring pads. PN 9.6116 and 9.6121 looked like they'd fit over the protrusion/mount in the rear camber arm, so I bought the cheaper of the two (9.6116).

This part's flange/seat is too large to allow it to sit flush in the lower camber arm, but that was easily remedied by cutting it to the appropriate profile.

Lower spring pad not sitting flush


Modified lower spring pad


Picking Springs
The last piece of the puzzle was choosing which spring to use. Both the BC Racing and Solowerks perches can use 60mm ID springs, although you'll probably need to remove the plastic perch on the BC unit. With the perch you can use 2.5" (63.5mm) ID springs. 65mm ID springs also probably fit fine, and you can choose to use a 60mm to 65mm adapter if you like.

To pick my spring I looked through Hyperco, Eibach, and Swift's catalogs. For my particular application I'm targeting a rear ride freq around 1.8Hz, so a 900lb/in spring is what I was after. When looking through the catalogs and searching the PNs for the spring rates I wanted I was surprised at how cheap standard coilover springs are. I saw them ranging from $50 to about $80 each, and the ones I wanted (Hyperco 2.5" ID, 900lbs/in, 10" long), ended up only being $57 each shipped.

A 9" coilover spring is probably optimal for having the most adjustment range, however 8" and 10" springs are far more common. If you decide to go with a spring rate as high/higher than mine (or you want to drop your rear height really low), you'll probably want an 8" spring instead. If you're keeping things around OE rates or up to M3/4 (~650lbs/in) then a 10" spring will be fine. One thing that's important to note is that you want it so that when the camber arm is up and bolted to the rear knuckle the spring has some load on it so it can't pop out. This is a concern if you go with too short of a spring, and is why helper springs and couplers exist.

Rear HAS in Practice
Rear HAS installed


I ended up having to adjust my rear perch all the way to the top (minimum height) to achieve the 14" hub to fender measurement I was targeting. I might drop the rear a bit more, but will have to remove the locking ring to allow the height adjustment ring to get closer to the top. Many coilovers don't use a locking ring on the rear, like Bilstein, and KW, so I'm confident I don't need them.

So far I've been driving around on this setup about five days now and have been pleased with it. I'm also quite pleased this setup came in at <$250, which is less than it'd cost you to get a pair of M-Performance rear springs.

But what about the front?
I'm thinking about the front too, but haven't found anything yet that would be easy and cost effective...

[haagm58]

Subscribed, incredible build, incredible detail. From a fellow 328d owner - Thank you!

[FaRKle!]

Fat Cat Motorsports Stage 3 Suspension Offroad Testing

Index:
1:15 When a 328d is faster than a C63 AMG
1:50 Chit chat with my passenger on non-rebound biased damper tuning
6:10 Getting to pass the C63 AMG
7:19 Chit chat with my passenger on flat ride spring rates/frequencies
8:14 Free of traffic!
10:49 Dirt road to trail
13:21 More trails

This weekend I went to one of my usual outdoors spots with a group of friends. One of my favorite things about this spot is the dirt/gravel road and trails used to get there. This was a perfect opportunity to test the high speed compression blow off (KBO) technology of my newly tuned Fat Cat Motorsports (FCM) Stage 3 dampers.

As you can see from the video, I went faster than all the other vehicles in my group, including a C63 AMG, Toyota FJ Cruiser, Subaru Crosstrek, and Audi A6 All-road with knobby tires. When the rest of the group got to the meetup spot we had a good discussion on what I was running for suspension that allowed me to go so quickly while maintaining grip, control, and composure. In surfaces like this, FCM's tenets of non-rebound biased damping, digressive damping, flat ride frequencies/spring rates, and low damper gas force clearly shined.

[tsho]

Originally Posted by FaRKle!

Light Carpet/Angel Wings

Great job on the install of this! The results look great.

I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to electronics and am having some trouble with my own installation. I'm in the process of putting a similar kit on my 2016 428i xDrive coupe, but since I lack the experience to be able to decode the NewTIS diagrams for my own car, I am really hoping you'd be able to provide some guidance on the wiring.

I purchased this system from iJDM Toy: LINK

The kit has been mounted to the car in much the same way you ended up doing your own. The questions I have are:

- how would I confirm which pin on the electrical connectors I need to connect to? I imagine they would be the same as yours since our vehicles are essentially the same chassis, but I don't know which diagram to look for to confirm. I've landed on THIS, but don't know where that corresponds to on the actual car.

- Would you please provide some more detailed instructions on how you spliced into the existing wire that a total newb could follow?

- did you need to recode the car at all? I've been told in the past that an install such as this where you are splicing onto an ECU controlled component would require you to recode the computer - something to do with the computer not sending enough power to the line to support the new component. I suspect this is false in this case, but could you please confirm?

Thank you in advance!

t

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by tsho

Great job on the install of this! The results look great.

I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to electronics and am having some trouble with my own installation. I'm in the process of putting a similar kit on my 2016 428i xDrive coupe, but since I lack the experience to be able to decode the NewTIS diagrams for my own car, I am really hoping you'd be able to provide some guidance on the wiring.

I purchased this system from iJDM Toy: LINK

The kit has been mounted to the car in much the same way you ended up doing your own. The questions I have are:

- how would I confirm which pin on the electrical connectors I need to connect to? I imagine they would be the same as yours since our vehicles are essentially the same chassis, but I don't know which diagram to look for to confirm. I've landed on THIS, but don't know where that corresponds to on the actual car.

- Would you please provide some more detailed instructions on how you spliced into the existing wire that a total newb could follow?

- did you need to recode the car at all? I've been told in the past that an install such as this where you are splicing onto an ECU controlled component would require you to recode the computer - something to do with the computer not sending enough power to the line to support the new component. I suspect this is false in this case, but could you please confirm?

Thank you in advance!

t

Sorry I forgot to follow up on this.

1) You should be able to use the same colored wires I did to splice into. In my post detailing the install I linked to a site that shows what the different color abbreviations are. You can also use a multimeter to confirm the voltage on the pin.

2) I removed the pin from the connector with a jeweler's screwdriver. There's a tab you can press down on which lets you pull it out of the housing. Then I used a knife and cut a section of the wire coating off, wrapped the angel wing wire around the exposed conductor, soldered it, and then put some heat shrink over. It's important to do this a bit further back from the pin, otherwise both wires won't fit into the housing and let you push the pin in all the way when reinserting it.

3) No programming/coding is necessary.

[FaRKle!]

G20 Style Kidney Grilles

One of the things I did late last year was see if a set of G20 style kidney grilles would look good on my car. I thought they could look good if the pattern was dense enough and bought a set off of eBay.

When they came in I was pleased with how they looked out of the box and was a bit surprised at how durable the construction looked. There had been speculation that the new design was weak, but that certainly wasn't the case. I think the new design is stronger than the individual slats of the traditional grille.

Installing them was pretty easy, and I made another video out of that.

I have to say that the final result was a bit underwhelming. The black grill doesn't contrast enough with the dark void behind it so you don't really notice the pattern at all. I think a version with chrome or grey "dashes" would be required to see them enough. Additionally, the diamond weave pattern doesn't match well with the honeycomb grill structure below, in front of the intercooler. Oh well, lesson learned.

[FaRKle!]

A Tale of Many Sway Bars

One of the more complicated things I've done is swapping sway bars multiple times on my vehicle. The swaps aren't simple due to needing to drop the subframe each time you do it, for either the front or rear you're doing it on.

My F31 328dx came with a 21.8/23.6mm front bar and 13mm rear bar stock. The first bar I changed was the rear one (because it was easier than doing the front bar) and installed a KC design 17mm solid rear sway bar. At the time I had 200lbs/in front springs, 650lbs/in rear springs, and FCM Stage 2 tuned dampers. This combo felt fun in daily driving and good on the track. I could've used some more front roll stiffness though.

Rear Sway Bar Install Video

So I began researching front sway bars, and for xDrive there really aren't many options. For standalone individual front bars you can buy there's only the 6cyl BMW OE one (which wouldn't have done anything for me since it's the same thickness), UUC Motorwerk's, and H&R.

UUC Motorwerk's size/thickness of their bar looked pretty good from my calculations, but that company is a complete dumpster fire. They're absolutely terrible to work with and ALWAYS miss their commitments. Even worse though, when I finally did get their bar, it was very obvious that they don't actually have an xDrive compatible front bar even though they advertise it as such.

So I ended up ordering the H&R bar. Now H&R doesn't "officially" sell just the front bar standalone, but some of their vendors will, so you can get it that way. This bar is a ridiculously beefy 28mm solid bar. I could immediately feel the added roll stiffness after installing it. That said, this bar was way too stiff for my setup. In daily driving it took away too much suspension independence and made the ride quality a lot worse. On the track it was obvious it was too stiff (even on it's softest setting) as the car didn't want to rotate on tight corners and produced too much understeer. I wouldn't recommend these bars for spring rates much above stock. If the H&R bar was too stiff with 200lbs/in front springs, it would be even worse when I went to my 240lbs/in springs for my FCM Stage 3 config.

Front Sway Bar Install Video

If you're not looking for standalone sway bars, then Dinan also makes a set. They're by far the most expensive, but I knew their front bar was the size I needed. Given that there weren't any other options, I paid the Dinan tax and bought the set. After getting the Dinan front bar in there the car felt so much better balanced! Sure, it had more roll than with the H&R bar, but the car rotated better and as a whole felt more like one solid mass instead of distinct front/rear halves.

FCM Stage 3, and Moving to a Smaller Rear Bar
After getting my FCM stage 3 setup (Front 240lbs/in, rear 900lbs/in) and hitting the track I soon realized that the 17mm KC Design rear sway bar was too stiff for my new rear springs. It was way too easy for me to start getting the rear end out and I had to be ULTRA smooth with my pedal inputs. To make matters worse it rained heavily the night after the first day and the second day the track was really wet. To give myself more margin I disconnected my rear sway bar which ended up being the right and wrong thing to do. That experience told me I absolutely needed to find a smaller rear bar though.

The next smaller standalone bar from the 17mm one I had is a BMW OE bar for the 2 series that's 15mm solid (PN 33536853476). BMW of SF had them for just under $150, so I grabbed one and swapped it in. For daily driving I didn't notice the KC Design bar being "too much" other than on some fun roads where the traction control light would flicker, so I'll have to wait to get to the track to really see how well the 15mm bar does. That said, I don't notice the TC light flickering as much on fast roads with lots of bumps. As an added benefit, the weaker coupling between the sides of the car has improved ride quality a bit.

[FaRKle!]

Euro Wide-Angle Mirrors
After driving andino's car with the Euro wide-angle mirrors I decided to grab a set for myself. I liked how I could see further out with them, and minimize blind spots. I hit up RealOEM for the PNs, and then searched eBay for a set. Like lots of used OE parts, mine came from Europe. The funny thing when looking at OE parts on eBay, is that they all seem to be based out of the Baltic, I guess there's a lot of chop shops there!

There are lots of listings for these mirrors on eBay, and a lot of them have disclaimers about the mirrors being used, and that there could be wear/scratches. In the listing I chose, the mirrors looked clean, and the price ($150) was right. As stuff from Europe usually goes, it arrived nice and quickly, and ridiculously over packed! When I finally unwrapped all 25yds of bubble wrap around the mirrors I was surprised at just how pristine condition the mirrors were. Spotless, and cleaner than mine would be even after washing the car.

Installing them into the car was an easy and quick job, so I decided to make a short video of it.

After installation the mirrors certainly did their job in enhancing my side views. One thing I wasn't prepared for though, is that since the mirrors sit recessed in the housing 1-1.5cm, that actually limits how wide of an angle you can see outwards. Past a certain angle all they're showing you is the car-side of the mirror housing. This was a bit disappointing, but I still gained some view. I found that when adjusted so that the inside of the housing just starts to show in the mirror, that the inner most edge of the mirror was looking straight back, and I could see my door handles. This made the side mirrors more useful for looking straight back to gauge how much traffic is coming up, or if there would be a hole for me to change lanes into. Usually I have to look in my center rear view mirror for that, and then transition to the side mirror, but now that can be done with just one mirror. While I wish I could've gained even more side viewing angle, I'm satisfied with these OE mirrors and would get them again.

[FaRKle!]

Millway "Street" Camber Plates
One thing I've been chasing for a while now, is how to get more front camber, while not introducing a ton of noise or failure prone bearings. I do a lot of off-road driving, and know typical monoball top mount camber plates won't last me long (see video below of how they fail).

I've been tracking others' experiences with Millway's "street" camber plate that was in beta till late 2019. This looked like a good solution where the mounting plate that the strut piston shaft is mounted to is isolated from the rest of the camber plate/top mount housing via polyurethane. It wouldn't be quite as isolating as the rubber in the OE top mounts, but should prevent any clunking noises from happening. This looked like a good solution for me, so I decided to order it. Shipping from Sweden was pretty reasonable, and although the plates weren't cheap, they weren't really expensive either.

Getting the plates installed wasn't very difficult, but there were some differences between them and the OE mounting hardware that I was curious about. Samuel at Millway was incredibly responsive and helpful in answering my questions.

After getting the plates mounted up, I had my alignment shop dial in -2.5deg camber on each side, while keeping the same caster and toe I usually align to. I'm pleased to say that the street camber plates don't have much of an NVH penalty. If you drive with the radio on at all, you probably won't notice a difference. With it off, there is more background road noise, however it's at non-salient frequencies so you won't really notice it much unless focusing on it.

At the track the increased front camber helped tremendously! The front bite and hold was so much better than before. Additionally the plates have held up well through multiple offroad sessions. While I'm sure a monoball camber plate would've failed me by now, these are running strong. Interestingly, Millway also offers a "street" version conversion kit if you bought the monoball version and want to change to the more comfortable and durable model.

[Johnny250]

Love all the videos. thanks

[330MX]

Have a backup link to the eibach documentation? Looks like it went down. Thanks.

[FaRKle!]

Originally Posted by 330MX

Have a backup link to the eibach documentation? Looks like it went down. Thanks.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of another host location, but if you PM me your email I can send it to you.

[h2so4]

I've read the thread and did not see any issue or much comment on how or if the Tune will impact the warranty. I just picked up a '16 328d wagon and want to get a KermaTDI stage 1 or 2. However, I really like warranties and don't want to void it. It is the carmax maxcare warranty, so not the factory warranty.

[TChamber]

Great info. I’m new to the BMW world and loved the wagon/diesel idea from day one!