Reasons for suspension upgrades?

[wheela]

Hi all,

I haven't really looked into suspension upgrades as I don't have any problems with the way my car drives, but I often see references of upgrading suspension to help get traction with more power. I'm curious, are there reasons beyond traction and handling for this? I haven't seen anybody post about breaking suspension components as they increase power, but the thought occurred to me that these will obviously get stressed more as you increase power. I've seen people post about adding gussets and reinforcements to diff housings. Are all these upgrades being done to prevent from breaking things, or just to improve handling and traction?

I'd be curious to hear peoples' thoughts on this, as I've been planning power upgrades for my daily driver, but haven't given any thought to suspension. I thought I'd worry about traction once I've got enough power for that to become a problem (I'm x-drive), but I'm wondering if I may run into other problems if I'm not more proactive with suspension parts. Any thoughts on this?

Edit: I'm e84 X1, so my suspension set up is basically e90, but with different wheel carriers giving me more ground clearance.

 

[martymil]

As a daily I wouldn't touch it, you don't need power, suspension and brake upgrades to sit in traffic.

Build yourself a weekend car and if it breaks you still have your daily until you fix it or you can use it occasionally
on a nice day to go to work or whatever.

 

[Boorda]

I have been running ISC suspension for about 5 years now and absolutely love it.
BMW E90/E91/E92 X-DRIVE 06-11 ISC N1 V2 COILOVER SUSPENSION

The kit is high quality and quite affordable.
I absolutely noticed a difference in handling and ride quality.
They have 32-way adjustable dampening, moonball front camber plates, and are coil-overs.
You can really dial in the suspension with these in terms of ride height and how hard or soft you want your ride to be.

The kit on my E90

They make socks to protect the coil-overs as well...

And to get to the camber-plate I use the M3 strut bars, not sure if that would work on your X1 though...

 

[wheela]

As a daily I wouldn't touch it, you don't need power, suspension and brake upgrades to sit in traffic.

Build yourself a weekend car and if it breaks you still have your daily until you fix it or you can use it occasionally
on a nice day to go to work or whatever.

Thanks for your response. I get where you're coming from, but I just don't want a seperate car. I want one car that meets all my needs, which is why I have my e84. I don't do any tracking, so I don't need cornering ability of a track set up. My main issue is power, which is getting addressed.

I believe my mods should put me in the 500whp ball park. In that power range, are suspension upgrades needed to avoid breaking things, or are people just doing that to improve handling beyond stock?

 

[martymil]

Stock is good enough. Maybe upgrade the brake pads and that's about it and do your services more often.

Gearbox and diff fill is not lifetime like bmw suggest, upgrading the power you should at least service them.

 

[wheela]

I have been running ISC suspension for about 5 years now and absolutely love it.
BMW E90/E91/E92 X-DRIVE 06-11 ISC N1 V2 COILOVER SUSPENSION

The kit is high quality and quite affordable.
I absolutely noticed a difference in handling and ride quality.
They have 32-way adjustable dampening, moonball front camber plates, and are coil-overs.
You can really dial in the suspension with these in terms of ride height and how hard or soft you want your ride to be.

The kit on my E90
View attachment 84838 View attachment 84839

They make socks to protect the coil-overs as well...
View attachment 84840

And to get to the camber-plate I use the M3 strut bars, not sure if that would work on your X1 though...
View attachment 84841

Nice looking setup! You mentioned differences in handling AND ride quality - how did ride quality change? Does NVH seem better or worse? What were your main reasons for upgrading suspension? Handling? Looks? Reliability?

 

[wheela]

Stock is good enough. Maybe upgrade the brake pads and that's about it and do your services more often.

Gearbox and diff fill is not lifetime like bmw suggest, upgrading the power you should at least service them.

Thanks! I replaced my transmission fluid around 60k, and I had a seal replaced on my rear diff a while back, so that fluid should be fresh. I may need to look into the front diff.

 

[Boorda]

Stock is good enough. Maybe upgrade the brake pads and that's about it and do your services more often.

Gearbox and diff fill is not lifetime like bmw suggest, upgrading the power you should at least service them.

Completely agree here, stock is good enough suspension wise in regards to power handling.
My main reason was for adjusting ride height for my 19" wheels and dampening so I didn't have to roll the fenders for my 275's in the rear.
The handling does make it a little more fun to drive and feels more confident in cornering, but not a requirement for having a 500hp+ daily driver.

 

[Boorda]

Nice looking setup! You mentioned differences in handling AND ride quality - how did ride quality change? Does NVH seem better or worse? What were your main reasons for upgrading suspension? Handling? Looks? Reliability?

Thanks!

I mentioned why I upgraded in the previous post, mostly for adjusting my ride height and dampening.
But I did want to upgrade the handling a bit, so I also upgraded all my bushings to PowerFlex polyethene bushings when I did the suspension.

As for NVH, that can really vary depending on how you set the suspension up.
Preloading, ride height, and amount of dampening will affect how hard or soft your suspension is, and as we all know, ride quality is subjective.

 

[wheela]

Thanks!

I mentioned why I upgraded in the previous post, mostly for adjusting my ride height and dampening.
But I did want to upgrade the handling a bit, so I also upgraded all my bushings to PowerFlex polyethene bushings when I did the suspension.

As for NVH, that can really vary depending on how you set the suspension up.
Preloading, ride height, and amount of dampening will affect how hard or soft your suspension is, and as we all know, ride quality is subjective.

Subjective, that's for sure! Like oil selections, lol.

I'm still on all original bushings except for the two thrust bushings up front (those were completely trashed to the point of throwing the car off track with hard breaking at speed). So I'm sure the others are ready for a re-fresh. Something more durable than stock may be nice, but I wouldn't want to add to NVH too much, so I probably need to research that a bit.

I'm probably going to replace my engine mounts when I have the turbo put in, I'll probably just go with oem for those.