Bilstein EDC-compatible struts for E9X M3

[Tommysalami]

Ok, for those who have installed these in the front, how on earth do you get the strut compressed enough to get it back into the strut mount?

I'm guessing I'll need to remove the caliper, tie rod and control arm eh?

[chutak]

Originally Posted by Tommysalami

Ok, for those who have installed these in the front, how on earth do you get the strut compressed enough to get it back into the strut mount?
I'm guessing I'll need to remove the caliper, tie rod and control arm eh?

I recently installed these; there's no removal of other components necessary. You just have to push the knuckle way down and find a spot along the fender lip that will clear the strut. Make sure the strut is fully seated in its cup. It barely clears, so you should use masking tape or something else to prevent scratching the paint on the fender lip. Also, I think the spring has to go on prior to this. Good Luck!

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by Tommysalami

Ok, for those who have installed these in the front, how on earth do you get the strut compressed enough to get it back into the strut mount?

I'm guessing I'll need to remove the caliper, tie rod and control arm eh?

remove sway bar end link and there's enough space to put the entire assembly in

[Tommysalami]

Got them in after removing the calipers so I could push down further. Thanks guys!

[MidLifeM3]

Its been several years since I was active in this thread - finally I have my car up and running again and can report on my impressions of my B6 Damptronic installation.

My car is a 2008 standard model (not ZCP) originally on stock springs and I replaced the original shocks at close to 100k miles. After a long long wait for backordered Bilsteins, eventually they showed up on my front porch. I had a set of Eibach springs waiting new in their box to pair with them.

Then my own life got in the way and the unopened boxes sat in my garage many more months. Eventually I sent the parts to my local indie shop to install them for me. Then I spent the next year and a half fighting with oxygen sensor issues .... FINALLY everything is running properly again and I can drive.

So how do I like the Bilsteins?

first thing to get out of the way is ride height - the topic already beat to death in this thread. My stock shocks had absolutely zero pressure left in them, and of course the Bilsteins had enough pressure to require quite a hefty force to start the shaft moving. Unfortunately I didn't measure it accurately (Doh! I regret not taking 5 minutes with a bathroom scale to quantify this) but I had to lean on the shock pretty hard to move the shaft. My previous estimation of 70-ish lbs seems in the right ballpark. So with the Eibach lowering springs and new Bilsteins, my ride height was identical within 1/16" as the stock springs with worn out shocks. In line with others' reports and close to my calculated expectations.

Ride and Handling -
I changed both springs and shocks together so I can't separate variables fully. I'll say that overall I'm very happy even though I'll point out later what I think is a deficiency of these shocks. The car's handling became much more "eager" feeling - very responsive and a lighter-on-its feet feeling. The spring rates on the Eibachs are not a whole lot higher than stock (like 10% or 20%) but the added agility and responsiveness is probably partly from the springs and certainly partly from the shocks which have a whole lot more high speed damping and control than my worn out original ones. On the worn out shocks, there was a subtle wiggle that the car would do after a bump. That is all gone and the damping is taut and the car settles down immediately and also turn-in is more immediate, all as expected from the Bilstein monotube.

[Edit: - the complaint described below was later addressed by resetting the EDC adaptation using ISTA/D as described in subsequent posts. After the reset, the car rides beautifully in Comfort mode and comfortably in Normal mode. Original review left intact below to document the effect of 100k miles worth of wear adaptation applied to new Bilsteins]

Ride is also good but here is where I have a minor nit to pick. As is common for Bilsteins, and is even one of their features, the high frequency and small displacement damping is fairly stiff. In EDC "normal mode" I have no significant complaint. The ride comfort is similar to stock shocks in normal EDC mode. There is more noise transmitted from the road texture. in my case, I have installed some harder bushings and FCAB spherical bearing which exacerbates this side effect so I think it would be less noticeable with stock bushings. My minor complaint is that EDC "comfort" mode feels oddly calibrated with these shocks. On the stock shocks, comfort mode loosens up the high frequency small amplitude damping while very large motions remain well controlled. On the Bilsteins, the very high frequency small displacement motions remain stiffly damped, while medium frequency and medium amplitude motions soften up. The result is that the comfort mode has a bit of "bilstein jitter" combined with slight mid-speed softness. The result can be an almost seasick type of feeling on the wrong road surface due to the contrast of looser mid-frequency damping with the still-taut high frequency damping. The car never really relaxes in comfort mode the way it would with the stock shocks even though the mid speed damping is slightly floaty just as it was on the stock hardware. EDC "normal" mode, though stiffer overall, feels properly balanced across the range of frequency and displacement, and sometimes can seem like as good or better ride quality as the comfort mode.

To me this illustrates how much expertise of the factory ride tuners had who calibrated the EDC system with the stock hardware and EDC valving. I would guess that my complaint could be addressed by recalibrating the EDC programming, though I haven't seen any aftermarket offering of this kind of software shock tuning for the E9x's. Probably my complaint could be addressed by messing with the valving a bit though with the risk of degrading some of the benefits of these shocks. I've also heard some tuners claim that the high gas pressure in the shock can contribute to this harshness behavior (although I am a bit skeptical of the explanations offered for the reasons why that would be) and bleeding down some pressure might help. But that would mean taking the shocks back off the car, and for now I'm happy to be driving and the complaint is not serious enough to do anything about. With the great responsiveness and handling I get in normal mode, I've been leaving the car set there most of the time now anyway. Previously on my worn stock shocks, the handling improvement of normal mode over comfort mode wasn't enough to justify the ride degradation whereas with the Bilsteins and Eibachs it is.

[Edit - as noted above, after resetting EDC adaptation all the ride comfort was restored but all of the eager responsiveness was maintained. No bleeding off gas pressure or changes to valving, just a software setting with the existing hardware. I'm really happy with this setup now]

My car is a street car. I forever intend to go to occasional autocross or track days recreationally (and have done so with a few of my previous cars, and many years ago was a regionally semi-competitive autocross driver, at least when I lived in a more rural region) but since I bought this car I haven't managed to get to the track. So I came to grips with my reality that any suspension on my car is for street driving and canyon road street driving. I drive the car to work most days because that lets me enjoy driving it. So I'm not after ultimate lap times but I enjoy driving and want the car to be communicative, responsive and predictable while still being a comfortable street car. With the stock setup the car was actually amazingly fast, and still predictable, but less responsive. It felt as heavy as it is. With the Bilsteins and Eibachs, the responsiveness is fantastic and the car is much more satisfying to drive and it feels as if it lost 400lb. I own this manual-transmission, high-revving car for the pleasure of driving and interacting with the machine, so the Bilstein B6 Damptronic + Eibach combo works out well for me despite the small compromise of commute-driving comfort.

[Tommysalami]

Reset your EDC system and you may be happier on how it feels over bumps. Using a scan tool or ISTA, under service/chassis/electronic damping control K, select "Adjustment, shock absorber" and run it for both axles. Who knows if your shop did the reset, my guess is not since it's not clear that it's necessary.

My Bilsteins were overly stiff over bumps prior to resetting because the car stiffens the damping on the EDC shocks over time to compensate for wear. Much better now.

[MidLifeM3]

Originally Posted by Tommysalami

Reset your EDC system and you may be happier on how it feels over bumps.... the car stiffens the damping on the EDC shocks over time to compensate for wear.

Thanks for the tip! My shop didn't mention any resetting (and I communicate a lot of detail with them, I think they would have told me if they'd done it) and the install instructions from Bilstein don't mention that either. I should have guessed there might be adaptation in the system. I'll try resetting it this weekend.

one question though - wouldn't the same adaptation eventually undo itself with the new shocks? i.e., would it re-adapt to the stiffer shock. This would be analagous to the engine control adaptations, which will re-adapt themselves after fixing an issue without usually requiring the adaptions to be reset in ISTA.

[Tommysalami]

Originally Posted by MidLifeM3

Thanks for the tip! My shop didn't mention any resetting (and I communicate a lot of detail with them, I think they would have told me if they'd done it) and the install instructions from Bilstein don't mention that either. I should have guessed there might be adaptation in the system. I'll try resetting it this weekend.

one question though - wouldn't the same adaptation eventually undo itself with the new shocks? i.e., would it re-adapt to the stiffer shock. This would be analagous to the engine control adaptations, which will re-adapt themselves after fixing an issue without usually requiring the adaptions to be reset in ISTA.

No, the EDC just progressively stiffens the shocks based on the miles driven. At least from their documentation, it seems to be an open-loop process and isn't based on any feedback from the shocks themselves. So if you replaced your shocks after 100k miles and reset the EDC, it would take 100k more miles for them to adjust to the same point.

[akkando]

Originally Posted by Tommysalami

No, the EDC just progressively stiffens the shocks based on the miles driven. At least from their documentation, it seems to be an open-loop process and isn't based on any feedback from the shocks themselves. So if you replaced your shocks after 100k miles and reset the EDC, it would take 100k more miles for them to adjust to the same point.

Wow. Just did this. So much better now. Much softer in normal settings over bumps.

[happydude]

Originally Posted by Tommysalami

Reset your EDC system and you may be happier on how it feels over bumps. Using a scan tool or ISTA, under service/chassis/electronic damping control K, select "Adjustment, shock absorber" and run it for both axles. Who knows if your shop did the reset, my guess is not since it's not clear that it's necessary.

My Bilsteins were overly stiff over bumps prior to resetting because the car stiffens the damping on the EDC shocks over time to compensate for wear. Much better now.

Thanks for the tip! It made a noticeable difference for me.

[x3sm]

Originally Posted by akkando

Wow. Just did this. So much better now. Much softer in normal settings over bumps.

Originally Posted by happydude

Thanks for the tip! It made a noticeable difference for me.

What are you guys using to reset the EDC system?

[akkando]

Originally Posted by x3sm

What are you guys using to reset the EDC system?

I used a foxwell scan tool.

[happydude]

Originally Posted by x3sm

What are you guys using to reset the EDC system?

I used ISTA went through the menus as described by Tommysalami.

[smokinjoe64]

Originally Posted by happydude

Thanks for the tip! It made a noticeable difference for me.

Absolutely concur, resetting the struts/shocks a dramatic improvement

Originally Posted by x3sm

What are you guys using to reset the EDC system?

After probing/investigating, opted to purchase and use Otofix D1, great tech improvement from +20yr old ISTA [relatively new brand from Autel].

Took ~10min from unboxing, start-up to code reset!
Not perfect for committed super programmers...worked for me, pretty damn robust and intuitive [can use with my other non-Bimmers].

My go forward tool/plan [and no pesky German to translate/figure-out].

[x3sm]

Originally Posted by akkando

I used a foxwell scan tool.

Which foxwell model do you have?

[Thumbie]

MidLifeM3 I am curious if you were able to reset EDC and what a difference it made to you. Did it "fix" the low speed harshness you experienced after install, and by how much?

Also curious what alignment you had done after install of new hardware, if something other than stock.

[MidLifeM3]

Originally Posted by Thumbie

I am curious if you were able to reset EDC ... Also curious what alignment you had done

I've not yet gotten the EDC reset successfully completed. I tried with INPA but I didn't find the setting there and ran out of time to work on it last weekend. I may need to upgrade to ISTA and I'll try again next weekend.

My alignment settings are nearly stock, only with front negative camber maxed out on the stock mounting points (about -1.5 degrees, no camber plates installed). My wheels and tires are much wider than stock though, 265's on front and 295 rear.

[e92zero]

MidLifeM3 Would be interested to know your progress as I am in the same boat. Thanks in advance.

[MidLifeM3]

Originally Posted by e92zero

@[MidLifeM3] Would be interested to know your progress as I am in the same boat.

I dowloaded ISTA+ from bimmerdiagnostics.com and I was able to get that up and running and I think I was successful to reset the EDC adaptation. At least the software told me the update was successful. I haven't been able to drive yet so I'll report back on the effect later.

The download from bimmerdiagnostics also included BMW standard tools including INPA, and in that version of INPA I could see the EDC module. Maybe its a newer version than the one I had before, not sure. Although I could see some options for EDC in this version of INPA, it was a bit easier to navigate ISTA so I used ISTA for the EDC reset. Similar as what Tommysalami described, the reset was under Service/Chassis/Electronic Damping Control/replace shock absorber. You have to do front shock and rear shock separately. It seems that different revs of ISTA may have slightly different labels/names in the menus.

The bimmerdiagnostics download wasn't free, they charged a nominal fee, but it came packaged with an installer that made the setup process relatively painless. My only minor hiccup was (as is a common stumbling block for BMW tools installations), getting the COM port settings and ISTA vehicle interface settings all correctly aligned to use my KDCAN cable. My cable is a BimmerGeeks cable which I've used successfully before. The bimmerdiagnostics installer had correctly aligned the COM port number with the ediabas setting but I had to manually change the COM port latency timer, ediabas TCP port, and set ISTA to use ediabas (that last part was not intuitive to me but eventually I found it in the documentation)

[nah dude]

Thanks for the tips on resetting the EDC module. I put in a B16 kit and noticed it felt stiff and a bit bouncy after install. The reset in ISTA made a noticable difference.

[MidLifeM3]

At my previous update I had said:

Originally Posted by MidLifeM3

I was successful to reset the EDC adaptation. ... I haven't been able to drive yet so I'll report back on the effect later.

Now I've driven it for a week and I can happily say, YES! this reset addressed my complaint and I'm now a very happy camper.
The car has regained, maybe even improved, its ability to erase small bumps from the road surface in comfort mode. Ironically, this makes the car actually feel more composed even though the mid-frequency damping feels about the same as before. And as a bonus, "Normal" mode rides more comfortably as well, I'd say noticeably better than on the worn out stock shocks with 100k miles worth of adaptation.

Thanks to Tommysalami and the others for this tip. Now I have nothing left needing to be fixed, repaired or improved .... time to just DRIVE!

[cyman83]

What do you guys usually replace along with these? Wanting to do this once only