[645Nm]

Menno11, I forgot to thank you for the film. Thanks!!
I believe Revo has done his indicator lights and is quite pleased with the look. Hopefully he can drop us a picture.

[Menno11]

Hi Bud,
Have you done your lights yet? Cant wait to see!
My number plate is now bothering me, as it is the only bright part left on the front of the ride. Looking for some custom plate that wont be as bright. Any ideas?

[645Nm]

I think the numberplate size, colour, font and font sizes are regulated. Not sure...

[GeorgeSmooth]

Hey 645nm awesome mod that is. I have been looking for a system like this.
What kind of improvement did you find with your take off? Is there less spin?
I am surprised you convinced BMW to keep your warranty.

Oh and another question. The AR downpipes, where they a direct fit and do you have the catted or catless version?

[645Nm]

Hi Georgesmooth
Good to hear from you again. How's the car doing?

I am not sure if there is less wheel spin with the new suspension. depends how one applies the throttle in a given situation. I seldom spin.

Handling improved dramatically in the straight/bends/cornering and high speeds. The car is certainly quicker and the fuel consumption lower. I am inclined to agree wit revos view that the lower the car sits to the ground,the less drag and therefore less resistance - lower fuel consumption and quicker off the mark...

The AR pipes are still on my dream list.

PM Revo, he is working on an exciting project

[645Nm]

Georgesmooth: Do you have a review somewhere on your quaife lsd? Very interested.

[E92Fan]

Originally Posted by 645Nm

Georgesmooth: Do you have a review somewhere on your quaife lsd? Very interested.

There's a review of the Quaife LSD linked in my signature
How are you enjoying the PSS10 ?

[335stepitup]

Hey George, OB told me about the quaif on your car, where(what driving conditions) are the advantages easily perceived in your opinion compared to the std diff?

How's the new turbo set up working out...any glitches?

Chip Logic FTW!!

[335stepitup]

Nice new suspension toy you have there 645, enjoy

[645Nm]

Originally Posted by 335stepitup

Nice new suspension toy you have there 645, enjoy

Thanks man, like your wheels!

[645Nm]

Originally Posted by E92Fan

There's a review of the Quaife LSD linked in my signature
How are you enjoying the PSS10 ?

Thanks. Checking out your LSD review, now,now...

I am still loving the suspension setup. The stability of the car is sometimes beyond believe and makes me do foolish things...
I will be spending sometime with "Alpina B3 Lux" this week to compare his drive in your car with mine. I will be doing some mountain twisties and mainly ordinary roads for him to see how the car performs in daily driving.

[rennzport]

Originally Posted by 335stepitup

Nice new suspension toy you have there 645, enjoy

Which bmw performance upgrade do u have??

[rennzport]

Originally Posted by 335stepitup

Nice new suspension toy you have there 645, enjoy

Which bmw performance upgrade do u have??

[rennzport]

Originally Posted by GeorgeSmooth

Hey 645nm awesome mod that is. I have been looking for a system like this.
What kind of improvement did you find with your take off? Is there less spin?
I am surprised you convinced BMW to keep your warranty.

Oh and another question. The AR downpipes, where they a direct fit and do you have the catted or catless version?

Hey george,
Been looking 4 u.. But the dtm forum not working anymore?
Was wondering how the turbo upgrade was going.
I will pm u about downpipes.

[335stepitup]

Originally Posted by Revo Performance

Which bmw performance upgrade do u have??

PM reply sent

[GeorgeSmooth]

Originally Posted by Revo Performance

Hey george,
Been looking 4 u.. But the dtm forum not working anymore?
Was wondering how the turbo upgrade was going.
I will pm u about downpipes.

Let me know. I have two local sets waiting and a set coming from AR. They should clear customs next week and am going to compare them.

[GeorgeSmooth]

Originally Posted by 335stepitup

Hey George, OB told me about the quaif on your car, where(what driving conditions) are the advantages easily perceived in your opinion compared to the std diff?

How's the new turbo set up working out...any glitches?

Chip Logic FTW!!

In regard to the Quaife diff I find the biggest difference on sharp low speed bends. When it snaps out its worse than stock but easier to control. It feels close to a M car now. The rear feels looser because of the drifting tendancy but it takes a much higher speed to get it out of line. I feel that the rear suspension is too soft now and the car leans more which means the tires dig more. That's why suspension is next.
Off the line it is much better without the one wheel spinning but I cant really tell by how much as my power keeps increasing. The light when I run the traction control on definately flashes less. I think if I had to choose mods in sequence I would do the diff after the chip and then the rest.

Originally with the turbos there was a engineering error in clearances and there was plenty of lag. We realized this immediately and have got it down to a T now. 5000km so far and no problems. Havent boosted above 1 bar yet due to stock down pipes but I reckon by next weekend we will know the final outcome. Octane will be the restriction but we will see how far we can safely push it without having to run meth injection which isn't a option for me.

[335stepitup]

Originally Posted by GeorgeSmooth

Let me know. I have two local sets waiting and a set coming from AR. They should clear customs next week and am going to compare them.

I am prepared to take one of the sets of your hands if they are suitable .
Could you PM me the diff landed costs as well as where you sourced from if possible as well as what you will let the downpipes go for.

I'm considering the turbo tweak as well, but I'm only in SA a few times a year so will wait to see how yours turns out after boost is increased...but I'm sure it should be fine though.

[GeorgeSmooth]

Originally Posted by 335stepitup

I am prepared to take one of the sets of your hands if they are suitable .
Could you PM me the diff landed costs as well as where you sourced from if possible as well as what you will let the downpipes go for.

I'm considering the turbo tweak as well, but I'm only in SA a few times a year so will wait to see how yours turns out after boost is increased...but I'm sure it should be fine though.

Send me your Vin number and date manufactured if you have I will find out if you have a welded diff or not. If its a welded diff its quite a story to change the diff.
I ordered my diff from Birds in the UK and was referred by Harold from HP Autoworks. Lets check if the diff can be swopped first and then I will get the costing from them and a better price. You can then pay them direct. I must try find the paper work to see how much the customs where as well.
In regard to the downpipes let me test them all and see if the local ones are better than the imported. I am going with the AR system which looks very clean and there have been zero fitment issues, thats if it out performs the local made ones and the flange engineering is good. You dont want to have leaks once those puppies are in cause its a five hour job to take off and on again.

[Alpina_B3_Lux]

Originally Posted by 645Nm

I will be spending sometime with "Alpina B3 Lux" this week to compare his drive in your car with mine. I will be doing some mountain twisties and mainly ordinary roads for him to see how the car performs in daily driving.

And we did indeed! It was a great day I spent with you some weeks ago. Let me first apologize for the delay in writing this, but as you can certainly all imagine, there are tons of e-mails and debriefing to get done when you come back from a longer holiday. And I was away almost three weeks - more than two of them in your fantastic country.

I know this has nothing to do in particular with cars of the suspension at hand, but as I'm writing in the African forum here I wanted to say how much I appreciated the stay in South Africa. It's a fine country - all the different landscapes, the fascinating animals (I did a 5 day safari in the Kruger with Infinite Africa Safaris which I enjoyed tremendously), but in particular the openness and hospitality of all the South Africans I had the privilege to meet during my trip - it set a really fine example for how you make other people welcome in your country.

Charles was one of those guys, and enjoyed enormously making his acquaintance and spending the day with him and his great car, and talking about intercoolers, downpipes, suspensions and (last not least) good wine! I suppose for "normal" people it's somewhat surprising to think of meeting another member from the BMW club in the internet in South Africa, if you come over for holidays from good ol'Europe (that's what some of my friends made me understand when I told them that) - but I'm very glad I did that.

To give a little background here - I've acquired a 335i E90 LCI some months ago, and while I have been increasing the power somewhat and adding a number of other mods (see my signature), I always had the idea of adding a different sport suspension to the mix. I was interested in particular in the Bilstein Ride Control - the company has an excellent reputation in Europe, and the possibility to change the stiffness electronically appealed to me quite a lot as the car is my daily driver and I didn't want a hard race suspension that wrecks my back after some kilometers. It's just I had some difficulty finding independent reviews of it, as the suspension is quite expensive and still relatively new. I met Tony (E92Fan) some months ago and experienced the suspension in his car on the famous Nürburgring, and was already very much impressed by it. But I also wanted to see how it did under normal conditions and public roads, something I didn't have the time to try out with Tony. So when I saw Charles' review of the suspension, and realising I was also going to be in Capetown only some weeks later, I spontaneously decided to ask him whether we could meet up and maybe have a ride to try out the Bilstein.

Well, to cut a long story short - that's what we did! Charles, you have a very nice car (although the rear wing is not to everyone's taste - but I find it quite sportive!), and the 19" rims look really awesome. I was amazed to realize that he would actually let me drive his car - and after a second or so of hesitation (you know, where I come from the steering wheel is on the other side...!) I took him up on it at once. Driving on the "other" side of the road isn't so difficult (in particular with an automatic transmission), only at crossroads I have to think a bit more where to go and the rear view mirror is somewhat bizarre...!

Here you go also with a photo of "the German from Luxembourg in South Africa" with a beautiful car besides him:


After a short trip through the city we drove to the entry to the Bainskloof mountain pass - and there I really enjoyed myself! Already on the city roads I had felt that (to my relief) the Bilstein suspension is not hard or uncomfortable at all - I would agree with Charles that it is even slightly more comfortable than the stock suspension that I have, although a factor in this could also be that I drove the car on 17" wheels which are somewhat more comfortable per se than my own 19". This was confirmed during the winding drive through the mountains (the landscape is also very beautiful) - even though the road was quite good (apparently the tarmac has been redone recently), I could feel nevertheless that the Bilstein absorbed bumps and small potholes quite nicely. And already in the normal setting it felt much tighter, less body roll, no wallowing at all - just like a really good sport suspension should feel. Taking such a road with it in a car that is so lightning fast is a real pleasure, and I enjoyed that ride tremendously. I also alternated with the settings - once you press that button (nicely hidden in the ashtray), you feel the car stiffen up and you have an even more immediate contact with the road; it's not something I would do for everyday driving, but if you really want to push the envelope, so to speak, and burn some rubber - this is the setting to go! The response from the car is even better, it really drives like on rails, at that any speed.

I didn't drive very fast, as first of all it was not my car and secondly the road was slightly wet, but even so I managed to overtake almost anything that moved on that road, and going up and down with so much torque and taking the turns with such a fine suspension was just endless fun. - We drove quite a bit of miles more - in the mountains, in the city and I was really enjoying accelerating a bit from time to time and leave Charles' series 1 slightly behind... I would say now that I've really had sufficient time to try out this suspension and test it under a number of conditions (although obviously not taking it even close to its limits), and it's definitely an investment that I'm going to make in the near future (once the necessary cash flow has been ensured).

I can say without reservation that this suspension seriously improves the handling of the 335i, and to have the flexibility to choose between two settings is just great. Although the stock suspension isn't bad by all means, once you've driven either an M3 or such a Bilstein suspension, you realize just how much better it actually is. It increases the driving pleasure (and also incites you to go faster than necessary in some situations...!) and I could get a better feel for the car with it - with the stock suspension you often feel somewhat isolated from the road, and with the Bilstein you're much more "connected", without sacrificing ride comfort as other coilovers do.

In summary - a great mod to do, and even more so if you increase the power of the 335i. I have somewhat over 400hp (crank) on mine, and under spirited driving and for speeds over 200 km/h (or even more over 300) you do wish for slightly better control, feedback and handling response, all of which the Ride Control offers.

Thanks again, Charles, for letting me experience this on my own - I think I can say that not everyone would have been so generous, and I appreciated this very much. Looking forward to meeting you again!

Alpina_B3_Lux

[stressdoc]

Here's to Capetown -- one of the most interesting and wonderful places on the planet -- BMW friendships, and Bilstein ride controls. Oh, and a Stellenbosch Cabernet should fit well in that mix.

[645Nm]

B3 Lux
Thanks for the very, very generous and positive feedback. Appreciate it tremendously. You forgot to mention you have some seriously good driving skills. I was looking at the video we made where you passed some large trucks and you simply hammered the 335 passed them with the oncoming traffic flickering their lights in panic. I followed behind you but backed off when i saw the convoy of trucks...i think i said something like "oh shit" on the video as you zipped passed them...glad it wasn't my last words.

Thanks for taking care of my treasure while you took on the mountain pass. Hope to meet up at the Ring next time with e92fan as well...

Stressdoc...we avoided the cabernet for the day.