Suspension

[drifter17a]

Chaps

M5 is stage 2 f10 and undrivable during cold or even most hot days in first, second and third even with sport cup tyres which are semi slick ( obviously in wet) performance will be bad.

I am thinking of lowering it to see if it has more traction and less wobbly and tail happy.

so far seen eibach doing 25mm each and h&R which is 25mm front and 20mm back. what would you install/what is your experience?

[Blaxwil]

Originally Posted by drifter17a

Chaps

M5 is stage 2 f10 and undrivable during cold or even most hot days in first, second and third even with sport cup tyres which are semi slick ( obviously in wet) performance will be bad.

I am thinking of lowering it to see if it has more traction and less wobbly and tail happy.

so far seen eibach doing 25mm each and h&R which is 25mm front and 20mm back. what would you install/what is your experience?

Lots of interesting comments in your post.

To say the car is "undriveable" during cold or hot days isn't a completely accurate statement. There are guys on here that daily drive their cars in both extremes of weather. Winter tire set ups and summer tires are all you need to drive a stage 2 car year round.

Lowering the car will not give you more traction per se. It will however make the car feel more planted during cornering. If you have a base M5, you will see a vast improvement in body roll and stability if you go with competition springs and sways. Most simply go with KWHAS V3 springs which work well with our set up.

Lastly, you said something about "tail happy". That sounds like your riding around with traction control off. Not a good idea especially if you're stage 2.

My 2 cents.

[Craze]

I run stage 2 and 4s tires and always 2nd gear onwards have traction
Make sure proper alignment and car is mechanically good
I run traction off
You need to respect it and know how to drive it

[drifter17a]

thanks for replies.

That is correct, I fully switch traction off as hate it when it stops it from accelerating. this means tail happy sometime in 3rd gear !

Worse case is when you set off a traffic light, as first and second needs a lot of feathering to avoid lots of tail movement

DO you have any links for sway bar for competition ? I am going to get the spring lowering kit and if you have any advice on which brand to get please let me know
KWHAS V3 is height adjustable and pricey . looking at fixed springs like eibach or h&R

[Blaxwil]

You're either crazy or more sophisticated than a computer that can electronically control wheel spin. If I weren't afraid of you sliding into me, I would tune my car back to stock and do a couple 1st and 2nd gear runs against your "feathering" stage 2 tuned car. Lol

Seriously though, not sure of your driving experience but there have been far too many who are no longer with us because they pressed the button for 3 seconds. There's a reason BMW makes you confirm you want to turn off traction control.

Nothing is cheap on this platform. Spending the money and doing it right the first time is much cheaper than trying to correct something because you wanted to save a few dollars. You can also sit back and wait for slightly used items on this forum. Be safe and good luck with your car.

[AnotherM]

Originally Posted by drifter17a

Chaps

M5 is stage 2 f10 and undrivable during cold or even most hot days in first, second and third even with sport cup tyres which are semi slick ( obviously in wet) performance will be bad.

I am thinking of lowering it to see if it has more traction and less wobbly and tail happy.

so far seen eibach doing 25mm each and h&R which is 25mm front and 20mm back. what would you install/what is your experience?

I cant believe you drive with the traction control off. I feel that this car is just too expensive to repair for me to risk crashing.

It sounds like you need to seel it and buy a 2019+ m5 with awd.

[drifter17a]

without sounding immodest, i do drifting pro level which is not applicable to road however confidence to leave it off. infact have older supra which traction fuse is removed so don't have to keep switching it off!

re it been expensive, I meant the price vs faffing around with adjustable height doesn't pay off so need something fixed. i will try eibach and post back.

by the way bms transmission pan and xhp stage 3 has helped significantly . it is a mod you should consider if not done already

[lucid21]

When my car came off the transport, the first thing I did was to hold the button down, turn it all off, and go for a ride. Nice to see wheel spin while in 2nd gear (without dumping the clutch, which I would never do). My car is stock (well, I think it is since I didn't have the ECU flashed back to stock if it is not, but given the rest of the car is stock, I assume the ECU is as well) with comp package and I have had zero issues with the car misbehaving. I mean, it does have 600 something hps or whatever, so of course it wants to wiggle around depending on what you are doing with the throttle and the wheel but nothing surprising or extreme. I don't think I have ever driven it with traction control on.

Now, [flame suit on], if one is to drive a car like this, I think one should get car control training. You don't need to get on the track and spend lots of money on track days (although that would certainly teach you a lot if you get good instruction); BMW CCA offers car control classes for instance. [flame suit really on] get yourself a PS4/5 or whatever and a set up for a realistic (relatively speaking) driving simulator, including a seat and a forced feedback steering wheel. That will re-iterate counter steering skills, if you pick the right "game" I suppose. I can't tell how much of car control I learned on the track vs. on the "game" but I can assure you that I learned something on the latter that would have taken me longer to learn on the track. I am no pro or record holder, but not slow either in the instructor class (well, at least I wasn't before covid), and I do have an amateur racing license, so I do have some experience when I say these things help.

/you may flame away now