[hawk2100n]

Hey all, so I have needed to put new shocks and struts on my car for a while. I finally bought a pair and tried to install them last week. I did a little research on the forums and it appeared that there was no real difference between the sport suspension and regular suspension stock replacement shocks, so I bought the sport ones from Advance Auto Parts. Started Saturday morning taking struts off the car and transfering the springs, but the sport ones are different. Long story short, my stock springs didnt fit on the sport ones. So I had to put my old shocks back on the car. One thing that I noticed is that the struts did not have a bracket to mount the sway bar on to the shock. I ordered the regular struts and they don't have it either. I just looked on realoem.com and found this diagram. My question is why did BMW build a car with two methods of attaching the sway bar? Currently, I have the long end link, but it appears that the short one will work, I just have to buy new endlinks and brackets.

 

[fcpeuro]

They transitioned to the new style because it was a better setup then the older style. I would see if there is a way to install the newer style end link anyway because it works a lot better.

 

[ChipB]

As I understand it, the suspension for the non-M E36 has the front sway bar attaced to the control arm, whereas on the E36 M cars it attached to the strut. The advantage of attaching at the strut is that it impoves the efficiency of the bar - it has to twist less in order to resist the diffrential movement of the two wheels. This in turn means that the M3 sway bar can actually be smaller in diameter than the non-M, and yet provide more stiffness. If you are upgrading a non-M car, it doesn't matter whether it has sports suspension or not - the sway bar attaches to the control arm. If you happen to purchase an after-market strut that is equipped with an attachment bracket for the M sway bar, it'll work just fine. But you don't want to connect the existing sway bar to that bracket UNLESS you switch the bar to an M-car sway bar.

 

[srochman]

Does anyone have a DIY on replacing the shocks all the way around?

 

[fun2drive]

See Pelican Parts for your answer

 

[Crashj]

Does anyone have a DIY on replacing the shocks all the way around?

Several stickies plus the vendor sites will help you. The rear is pretty much intuitive. You will want to change the mounts. Put in a reinforcing plate if you autocross or street race. Use new hardware. You should salvage the cups from your old shocks.
I will be doing the struts later.
"try not to hurt yourself"

 

[Crashj]

Hey all, so I have needed to put new shocks and struts on my car for a while. I finally bought a pair and tried to install them last week. I did a little research on the forums and it appeared that there was no real difference between the sport suspension and regular suspension stock replacement shocks, so I bought the sport ones from Advance Auto Parts. ****

It seemed to me that the difference is the stroke of the sport shock is shorter? Did you get bump stops and protective sleeves with those Advance parts? Is Advance one of our supporting vendors?