Proceeding with H&R Sport Cup Kit Install Today!!!!

[vixen_w202]

Well, the dealer surprised me and called me today letting me know my spring pads and cups came in...which means I can proceed with my sport cup kit install a few days ahead of schedule!

My friend from my church is going to be helping me later this morning, he's got a pretty crazy bmw 528i. Because he's pretty knowledgeable and I'm going to assist him I don't think we are going to run into any snags, but before we started yanking things off I wanted to ask is there anything specific to our cars for the install w need to know?

P.S. Expect this to be sort of an unofficial progress/tutorial/documentation thread. After we install everything and break in everything with a closeby run down a local canyon road with lots of curvez and twisties I'll have pics up. Look out for em.

[Christopher]

nice look forward to seeing it soon

[vixen_w202]

nice look forward to seeing it soon

BUDDY! Man you had me worried...

I tried calling you a few days ago but I didn't hear back. How the heck are you?

[Christopher]

I'm good just been bizzy with school, when you coming down?

[vixen_w202]

Alright guys, install went 90 percent as planned....but was slow and by no means an easy job. My car literally made just about every task difficult and because of that it took 2 skilled people besides me literally all day from 11 AM to 10 PM to go from bone stock to full H&R Sport Cup Kit Installed.

Unfortunately because the install got so frustrating and molasses slow, my desire to take pictures and document the progress kinda died out after about 4 hours in. But thankfully it's done and we are (almost) good to go.

However the stance from then to now is absolutely ridiculous, aggressive and awesome. It's absolutely SLAMMED to the ground now! The ride even though it is wayyy lower is a huge improvement over stock and farrrr more responsive.

However, I need anyone knowledgeable to please help me. After we got the kit on finally, I'm having problems with keeping the back shocks on tight in the upper mounts in the trunk. Once everything was buttoned up, we tightened up those bolts with a pretty aggressive impact wrench and after we cleaned up I drove off. However after about less than 5 miles out to home I start hearing significant rattling coming from the back left shock. So, I drove back to my friend's house and we tightened everything down a second time until we felt it was tight again. Then, it seems like everything is buttoned up so I head home for a second time. I had about a 20 minute drive home, but unfortunately after about 15 minutes out and almost home I start to hear this very quiet rattling again from the back left shock....then also from the back right. It got progressively louder until I was literally less than a mile from my house, up to the point where it was about the same rattling/loudness I had when I had tried to leave from my friend's house the first time around.

Is this normal and will I keep having to do this????

[vixen_w202]

Alright guys, install went 90 percent as planned....but was slow and by no means an easy job. My car literally made just about every task difficult and because of that it took 2 skilled veteran wrenchers besides me literally all day from 11 AM to 10 PM to go from bone stock to full H&R Sport Cup Kit Installed.

Unfortunately because the install got so frustrating and molasses slow, my desire to take pictures and document the progress kinda died out after about 4 hours in. But thankfully it's done and we are (almost) good to go.

However the stance from then to now is absolutely ridiculous, aggressive and awesome. It's absolutely SLAMMED to the ground now! The ride even though it is wayyy lower is a huge improvement over stock and farrrr more responsive. I didn't know this until it all came out but ALL 4 shocks on my car were blown and leaking oil, so this is definitely an improvement over what I had.

However, I need anyone knowledgeable to this stuff please help me. After we got the kit on finally, I'm having problems with keeping the back shock bolts on tight in the upper mounts in the trunk. Once everything was buttoned up, we tightened up those bolts with a pretty aggressive impact wrench and after we cleaned up I drove off. However after about less than 5 miles out to home I start hearing significant rattling coming from the back left shock. So, I drove back to my friend's house and we tightened everything down a second time until we felt it was tight again. Then, it seems like everything is buttoned up so I head home for a second time. I had about a 20 minute drive home, but unfortunately after about 15 minutes out and almost home I start to hear this very quiet rattling again from the back left shock....then also from the back right. It got progressively louder until I was literally less than a mile from my house, up to the point where it was about the same rattling/loudness I had when I had tried to leave from my friend's house the first time around.

Is this normal and will I keep having to do this????

[Vetruck]

Unfortunately the shock manufacturers (Both Koni and Bilstein are gulty of this) do not clean up their top shock stud mount threads after coating them. It is become a fairly common practice for people to run die (tap & die set) on them to deburr them. If you used an impact on them you prbably stripped the threads and it is just spinning on you and not tightening. You will have to pull it off and check. You might have to get a new nut and iff you have enough decent threads exposed then simply put a few washers onto the top of the bushing and try to retighten the nut with a manual wrench(not an impact)

[vixen_w202]

Well, the anticipation is finally over. I have pics to show of my labors!

Update on the shock problem: welll....my friends didn't put on the bottom rubber bushing, and that sound I'm hearing is the bottom of the shock hitting bare metal on the body of the car when I hit hard bumps. I talked to my friend about the issue and he consulted with a couple friends of his. I got a call back today that pretty much unless I want to completely take both shocks off, it's only going more of an annyoing rattle than a performance or safety issue. And after yesterday's grueling, back-breaking install? I think I can live with some minor clacking in the trunk on hard bumps.

Moving on, I finally took my car down our local driver's road called Boquet Canyon. It's about 20-25 miles of white-knuckle twists and turns, switchbacks and all sorts of steep cliffs. I knew I'd almost be 99 percent safe to drive so recklessly because the canyon is in a remote part of the desert close to my house that pretty much leads to nowhere. So the chances of nobody being on it at 12 Noon was pretty high. Probably not the best road for a newbie like me who never has raced or really has had any prior racing experience, but it was close by and I knew was the only road able to give the new suspension a workout. I've driven this road at speed limits, and it's bleeping scary. Today I FORCED myself to drive it absolutely as hard and as aggressively as I felt safe to without hurting myself or crashing. I can say I didn't pussy out, on hairpin corners I was averaging 50-60 MPH and on some of the straightaways on a ridiculously tight 2 lane blacktop with no room for error I floored it up to 100 (and the 2.8l motor sounds absolutely RIDULOUS WHEN it's revved high).

I did have some close calls, when I was going that fast around some corners I tried to brake early for the corners but after about 10 minutes in averaging speeds of about 60-80 I could start to smell hot brakes and there was a lot of fade unless I gave then a few seconds to cool off. One turn I got a little overconfident, I flicked the wheel into a hard corner.....the rear end started to slide out and while with God's grace I recovered that with no prior experience how to do so...but I ran out of road and slid slightly out of control but safely off to the side of the road (no damage was done).

It was a scary ride, but once I experienced that there's no turning back. In my old suspension, I would have probably died doing that sort of stuff within the first two turns going half that speed. With the new H&R Sport Cup Kit, it turned my somewhat sleepy but cool C280 into a nasty, ridiculously crisp handling slammed car. And crazy enough? I could tell from my suspension communicating with me as I drove that it could have done even more, but I just didn't have the driving skill to be able to pull the remainder out.


After I got out of the canyon, I found a cool turn in the road right behind a ranch nestled in a canyon. I pulled off to the side of the road, spent 20 minutes taking pictures while the brakes cooled and here is the result from my unplanned but decent photoshoot of my car.

http://s360.beta.photobucket.com/user/slyvia_altima/library/Mini%20Photoshoot%20in%20Boquet%20Canyon

[buzzk1ll]

Nicceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

[Dearlove]

put those bushings in, before it the mounts to pieces...

[Goldeni245]

Nice drop! What # spring pads did you use? The drop looks very good! Not too low, just right!

[98Benzo]

Hey man which sport cup kit did you go with? There are two of them to choose from on www.tirerack.com Did you get the one that drops an inch and a half or the one that drops the car 2 or more inches? I am running 225/40/18 so I don't want my tires to rub badly. Just need some advice before I comitt to buying them within the next few days. Thanks Guys!