Thinking about swaybars

[VaTechZHP]

After driving the car for a bit, and still trying to figure out what direction I want to take it, I've decided that swaybars would be a no compromise addition to the suspension for what I am thinking is going to be a DD heavy life for the car.

I've always liked UUC stuff and have run their equipment on my past cars but wanted to hear some other opinions on what anyone else is running.

I'm thinking that the car will get a different shifter, swaybars, exhaust, intake, and chip and hang up the modding gloves. Should make the car pretty fun to drive, but still very streetable with no real impact to daily driving comfort.

Thoughts?

[mimalmo]

Hotchkiss makes a 30mm front/25mm rear swaybar that I've been drooling over.

[VaTechZHP]

Those do look good! But not sure I need to spend the extra $$$ to go with that. I was clicking around their site and would love to lower the car a tad and saw the hotchkis stage 1 TVS suspension kit that includes some springs, but haven't found if they need new struts with them which I know I don't want to throw on there unless it was just stock replacements.

Here is what I was looking at.

https://www.hotchkis.net/bmw_e46_stage_1_tvs_system.html

Andrew

[mimalmo]

That sounds like a nice little package.

[VaTechZHP]

I have a set of e46 M3 h&R lowering springs in my garage I got from my mechanic for free, is there anything I could do with those, or should I just sell them?

[danewilson77]

You could lower your car with them.....but run a slight risk of premature failure of stock setup.

HTC Thunderbolt+TT

[mimalmo]

Sell them. They were made for the M3 - not your car.

[VaTechZHP]

Yep, exactly right Eli, thats what I figured. They were free and was at one point looking for an e46 M3. I think I'll just sell them and put that money towards something for the ZHP.

Dane - that is what I was thinking as with all lowering springs. You're making the stock shocks run at something different than what they were intended to do. The car has 102k on it, and I'll need to go back and check, but it could be running on mostly original suspension as it is (except for the FCAB and rear shocks for sure) so it might be worth something to research something like a bilstein HD shock

[M0nk3y]

I'm a fan of ground control's line-up IMO

[cannan]

I've been looking into the ones from Turner Motorsports (blue ones). I hear they are made by H&R for them, but I have not yet confirmed that. I'm most likely going to order the entire kit that comes with shocks / springs, RSM's, swaybars, and endlinks. Looks like a decent bang for the buck setup at $1500 and I've never had any problems ordering from TMS in the past.

The RSM's on the ZHP I just bought are shot so I might as well knock this all out at once. :)

http://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-1776-turner-e46-tracksport-plus-suspension-kit-323325328330-no-xi-bonus-bundle.aspx

[VaTechZHP]

Awesome looking stance on their ZHP, but that looks too over the top for what I'm looking for. If I was taking this car to the track, I'd go for something with that amount of adjustability, but just seems like overkill for a DD car. I'll have to see where the price tag ends up trying to source all of those parts without a package. Rear shock mounts will absolutely be done if I throw shocks on, or visa versa.

Just a simple straight forward spring shock set up would be fun, so I'm thinking HDs or something if I need new shocks, or maybe sports since I'm debating some lowering springs. Just want to find something with good ride comfort, but a nice looking drop.