E30 lowering help

[scoot]

Hello! Excuse my complete lack of knowledge about suspension! I need help lowering my E30.

I was originally looking at buying coilovers but after reading forums of people saying it would ruin my ride and not wanting to cut and weld my struts I am now settling on lowering springs. It seems as though most people are suggesting H&R sport/race springs but I have read also a lot of people mention Bilsteins. What Bilstein springs or shocks? I am not sure what they mean! If someone could help me throw together a list of parts I would need to buy to lower my car that would be great! Thanks!!

[E30auddie]

From what I've gathered after being on E30 hiatus for ~7yrs, is as long as you get good quality coilovers (Ground Control) you'll be fine on ride quality. And if I understand correctly GC will sell you everything to directly bolt in w/o you having to modify the struts.

To answer your question regarding which Bilstein shocks, my go to in the past (before good coilovers were readily available) was the Spec E30 H&R Race spring w/ Billy Sport shock combo.

That being said, I'm subscribing to this so maybe I will learn something different with you lol.

[scoot]

Cheers for the advice! Ive heard about the ground control coils you mentioned but from what ive seen they are pretty pricy. I still haven't decided whether I want to go with a super expensive but bullet proof setup or something cheaper.

[rudy]

I went through the same thing as you fairly recently. From what I've read, coilover options like BC, Megan Racing, and Godspeed all will get your car lower for looks, but will require welding and result in poor ride quality in comparison to a good shock+spring setup or better quality coilovers.

It's really up to what you actually want out of your car and how much you want to spend. Do you just want it lower? Or would you rather have better handling and ride quality?

If you're on a budget but want better handling and ride quality, I'd opt for a good shock+spring combo. I went with Koni Sport Shocks and H&R Sport Springs, but Bilstein B8s and H&R Sports are also a tried and true combo on e30s. These will lower your car a bit, but nowhere near as much as coilovers. I have some before and after pictures of my car in my build thread if you're curious to see the difference. Technically you could lower your car a bit more like this by switching to e90 drophats and removing spring pads but that's not something that interested me personally.

If you just want your car lower and don't really care about ride quality, then you could get some "cheap" coilovers. People seem to use BCs and Megan Racings often. These will still run you more than a good shock+spring setup but are the cheapest coilovers besides Racelands which you should stray away from. People do seem split on whether these actually result in a good ride quality or not though. It's just all up to preference.

Now if you have some more money, get Ground Controls. They'll get your car low, give you better handling and ride quality, and are just overall great quality in comparison to the other coilover options.

Good luck with your build!

[tyeler18]

If you want cheap that can be upgraded as you go follow post 38 from my build thread. I have $50 amazon special coilover collars with swift springs (the amazon special springs actually ride fairly nice for $50 china specials if you wanted to use them for a little while). This is a cheaper alternative to ground controls, gives you full coilover adjustability height wise, and room to grow. The only cutting required was to cut the spring perches off your stock front spindles, and I cut down the collars to lock down into place for the springs. Proper spring rate matched with a quality-properly valved shock will have coilovers riding as nice as stock springs. I have very stiff springs on my car and it rides smoother than my lowered C5 corvette on stock springs. I'm still using some cheap stock replacement rear shocks, just bilstein front shocks. They work with stock top hats and you can easily upgrade to camber plates down the road. I'm $350 total into the coilovers with swift springs, add in whatever shocks you want from there.

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forum/general-forums/members-rides/9940911-ls1-swap-318is

[Northern]

I ran Bilstein Sports and H&R Race and I think they are great if you don't expect the car to be tucking tire or something.
I think my big mistake was trying to be a stance kid and running drop hats/removing spring pads.
That removed ~0.5" of travel and caused the Bilsteins to bottom out on the bump stops, which then I opened and trimmed half the bump stop, which made bottoming out worse.