Eibach are lower!?

theMerchant

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I am currently debating on changing over to Eibachs from H&R :eek:. The main reason is I have modified my suspension to go lower and with my current setup I am at roughly the same height as the Eibach guys. :laugh:

I am less worried about the snapping springs (west coast), but its still on the back of my mind....

I calculated a additional ~1/2 (based on "the drop thread") more drop if I go with Eibachs.

need some opinions from Eibachs owners about ride quality vs stock (I know stock was very stiff). better yet , people who have experience with both springs.

I also need to know the best (lowest) price I can get these. I was going to do ebay and get the bing cashback, but the sellers are in Cali and we have CRAZY sales tax (9.25-10.25%)
 
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my fx is apparently the lowest with eibachs....

the eibachs are a bit stiffer than stock but not bad at all. wait for turbocad to chime in because he drove my fx to test out the eibachs and he knows the difference in the 2. but eibachs are deff. lower
 
It is stiffer but if your shocks and struts need changing then if will feel even more stiffer. But after I replaced my shocks and struts the ride felt much better too.
 
thanks Dr and Jb and yes the shocks will be new, just deciding on the rears.

just in case anyone wants Eibachs...
I found these on ebay and I made an offer of $258 shipped and he can back with $280 shipped. (minus 12% bing cashback ) so about $246

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...geName=ADME:X:BOCOR:MOTORS:1123#ht_1752wt_943

once I get them and installed I can always go back if I want I guess. just have to trim the plastic since I already had my fenders rolled. :tup:
 
Check the other site - I think someone was selling a set last week, dunno if theyre still there......
 
I have no opinion on HR, but Eibachs are king if they dont snap. The ride is very good. Handling very predictable
 
I am less worried about the snapping springs (west coast), but its still on the back of my mind....

Just remember that some (including me) think the snapping is not from the rust & salt but the metal itself. I believe it was a big bad batch but still, personally, I wouldn't risk my life to look a little lower.. There's too many snaps that happened recently to even justify the "it's west coast, it's safe" reasoning (self fooling?).. Just my .02..
 
The eibachs settle low. F1FX is on eibachs, we went to cars and coffee a few weeks ago and he is one of the lowest unmodified suspensions I've seen. The oldest org FXers have probably sagged down pretty low too.
 
I'm surprised to hear that most people think the ride is stiffer on the Eibachs. I personally think it's smoother than stock - a little softer. I bought my FX in 2004 and put the springs in just this year, so I could absolutely feel the difference in ride quality. I'm a fan of keeping the FX firmly in the, "luxury SUV" camp and for me the springs were better than I hoped they would be in terms of ride quality. Wish I had the H&Rs on my car to compare with! The Eibachs HAVE settled since the installation - dropping further. I'm really happy with them.

As far as the Eibach snapping thing goes - my personal opinion is that it's a NON-ISSUE. I'm an engineer with a background in material science and I feel comfortable trusting my life, my wife's and my kid's in my car with the Eibachs. Honestly don't believe the Eibachs you buy today have any more chance of snapping than any other spring. If you are really worried about it, check the production date and make sure it's recent. Yes, a bad batch could have made it to market a while back, but I think it's history. There are a certain number of defects to be expected in ANY mfg process and I would imagine both Eibach and H&R have about the same defect rate based on the number of units they sell. We just might not hear about them due to forum representation or even because they were just never reported.

All that being said - the GTSpec developed springs do sound like they could be nice, especially if they are able to get them a little lower - which is why you want to switch anyway. If you do go with the Eibachs, you might end up swapping them out again to get even lower. Maybe just wait and see what happens?
 
As far as the Eibach snapping thing goes - my personal opinion is that it's a NON-ISSUE. I'm an engineer with a background in material science and I feel comfortable trusting my life, my wife's and my kid's in my car with the Eibachs. Honestly don't believe the Eibachs you buy today have any more chance of snapping than any other spring. If you are really worried about it, check the production date and make sure it's recent. Yes, a bad batch could have made it to market a while back, but I think it's history. There are a certain number of defects to be expected in ANY mfg process and I would imagine both Eibach and H&R have about the same defect rate based on the number of units they sell. We just might not hear about them due to forum representation or even because they were just never reported.

Jumbo, do you have any technical reasoning why you think it's history? In my opinion, if a bad batch has happened and Eibach didn't notify anybody on it, it can happen again. I would think that we'd see at least one snapped H&R spring when compared to this many snapped Eibachs for the FX since they are similar springs but there's none that I ever heard of. Not even on the BMW SUV forums that I'm browsing right now..

To add, think how many (estimated) FX specific Eibachs springs are there out there. IS & the org are the two most active forums on FX and let's assume there are 15 Eibach users, which would be a good enough estimate. If that sounded low, let's say 20. 5-6 of those 20 have snapped their springs. That's 25% failure rate and that's really really high. Especially compared to H&Rs (none out of maybe 25-30 users).

I agree that defects are a part of any manufacturing process but it looks like QC on Eibach's part is/was really low. Don't know if they improved it or not BUT my point is that you can't know as well, whether you're an engineer or not.

The only facts in this discussion is that FX specific Eibachs have a high reported failure rate compared to none for H&Rs. Believe me or not, this fact is a danger for your family. Whether or not you have confidence or not.

---------- Post added at 02:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:20 PM ----------

btw, I'm not trying to induce panic or fear etc etc.. If you (meaning everybody) are using Eibachs and you think it's good & safe, keep on using. I just wouldn't change from H&Rs over to Eibachs at this point given the failure rate.
 
my H&R's measure ~ the same a year after I measured them when they were like 3-4 weeks old.

a spring should not continue to sag & get lower & lower, yeah. I know you guys may think you like that cause your lower, but this is not what a spring should do really, maybe after 5-7+ years of service, but not every few months it's a bit lower, a year later it's noticably lower?... this seems like fatique from being overloaded to me.

the definition of a spring is being able to be compressed without altering it's load carrying ability & to retain it's length over time... a well designed for the application spring should not continue to sag lower & lower... if it does it's overloaded, which in my opinion the eibachs are overloaded in this application on the fx, I'm no engineer but it seems pretty obvious to me, deny all you want, but facts are facts, & it's a fact that the eibachs do sag more than they should as time goes by where they should not & it's a fact that some of them have broke...

it's also a fact that eibach has many thousands of happy eibach owners, but realize that as far as FX specific aplications alone go's, there are probably only a few hundred if that out there, & having several snap is an indication of something that really can't or at least shouldn't be ignored. I belive they are simply overloaded...

also, realize that you can only go so low before you run out of strut/shock travel. it's not as easy as just making a spring to give you 2.5" of drop & bang, your 2.5" lower. our struts in the front only have 6" of total travel, that's up AND down travel, rears similar. factory places the ride hieght at a bit above center of travel in the front, so this means that a stock fx has slightly more that 3.5" of travel before the front strut bottoms...

now you go & do a H&R drop, take ~1.2 from that 3.5 & you still have 2.3" travel on compression which is adiquate without a much higher spring rate... eibachs maybe are going to give ~.5" more drop give or take, so now were talking about ~1.7 from that 3.5" total compression travel, leaving ~ 1.8" of bump travel. eibachs NEED to be stiffer to be able to work with the 1.8" travel without bottoming hard. you just can not go & make a spring with another .5" drop over the eibachs without increasing the spring rate dramatically & making them much stiffer than even the eibachs. if you only left 1.3" of wheel travel you will either need a spring approching the 500lb spring rate or you will bottom the strut, when the strut bottoms you loose all travel & the results are very unstable & very unsafe at higher speed agressive manuvering, this is just not how a suspension should work...

if you research what many of the road racers do, you'll find that sectioning the struts is a very popular mod, this is where you actually shorten the strut by approx the same amount or close to it as the amount you are dropping the car. this retains the bump travel so the strut does not bottom even at much reduced ride heights. our fx strut is the equivelent of ~15" strut cartridge in the front. if the strut was sectioned to 13" insert, then dropped 2.5", the resulting wheel travel would still be ~3", more than enough, where just a bit over 1" travel is just not enough travel.

the strut mod that moves the strut down in relation to the wheel is great because it is taking ride hieght out without reducing wheel travel. it is the equivelent of sectioning the strut without actually having to section the strut...

in my opinion the eibachs are about as low as the factory shocks & struts can handle, to go significanly lower is just not practical with just a spring swap no matter what other spring is built & no matter who builds it. a spring alone is not the answer to getting much lower than the eibachs, the rear shocks already are at there limits & will bottom from time to time with eibachs alone, fronts are not far behind.

for just springs alone to give more drop there going to have to be much stiffer & then we run into the next problem which is, the factory or factory replacement type struts & shocks are not valved for these higher spring rates at all... even the rate of the eibachs is quite a bit higher than the struts/shocks are valved for... having struts/shocks that are valved lighter than they should be for the spring they are mated to is what's going to cause side hop or walking sideways on bumpy aggressive higher speed turns... I'm sure you can all see that the fx suffers from this in the rear badly enough even with the stock springs, adding stiffer springs in the back only worsens this condition, bottom line is theres more to dropping than just dropped springs if you want to also be able to drive it aggressively & have it handle well, if you just want it low & choppy & don't mind skipping around through bumpy turns then fine, but this is not how a good suspension is supposed to work. I could go on & on, but I'll save that for the suspension mod thread :tongue:
 
hey turbo,

does sectioning the strut like you describe put extra stress on them?

i was thinking of getting KYBs installed to soften my ride...can i section them while using stock springs to get a softer ride and thus 'drop' the car was well?
 
hey turbo,

does sectioning the strut like you describe put extra stress on them?

i was thinking of getting KYBs installed to soften my ride...can i section them while using stock springs to get a softer ride and thus 'drop' the car was well?

I dont think you can do that on a KYB ....

you can do this , modify your strut and use your stock springs if you like.

///6157
 
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