Not BMWs, but my experiences with older Konis (reds and yellows) vs Bilsteins (twin tube and inverted monotube) suggest that Konis have a lot more initial damping, while Bilsteins are a lot more progressive. The takeaway was that the Bilsteins felt smoother over small bumps but the Konis felt more responsive to inputs.
Both really liked a lot more spring rate than factory, too.
Traveled and worked a lot in the past month so I dropped the car off to get the worn front thrust arms and the right side engine mount replaced. And an alignment. I'm now about $10k into this one - still around 1/3 the cost of a new Camry so I'm satisfied.
Car is now turning and running really well but the shocks are shot and I'm clanking and rattling around on worn bump stops. Leaning toward either Bilstein B12 kit or the Koni Orange shocks with replacement springs. Tires are 700tw Conti's with enough tread left to contemplate what is next.
I really like the hydraulic steering and the inline six sound is intoxicating.
The melted crayons smell of the interior isn't so great.
Lastly.. addition to pondering suspension and tires.. longer term I'm trolling FBM for a (newer) wrecked 135i to get some sport seats and replacement door panels. Found some manual sport seats about 45 miles away in the right color but they look like they were stored outdoors so I haven't driven over. I'm 6'-5" tall and I barely fit in the base seats.. not 100% sure if the manual or power sport seats get lower than base power seats that I have. If anyone has an E82 with factory sport seats and a sunroof... I would love to see a measurement from bottom of the back of the seat cushion to the floor on manual and powered seats adjusted to the lowest setting.
I just swapped out power comfort/base seats in my E90 330i for power sport seats, at 6'3" I was also hoping I'd be a bit lower with the sport seats (need some helmet clearance) but I think they are basically the same. Now the seats themselves are really nice with inflatable adjustable bolsters that are pretty cool. The swap did need some basic wiring to add power for those bolsters but I just jumped that over on the seat side tying it to another circuit.
I've no experience on this platform, but I wasn't a fan of the Koni Orange (STR.T?) I've had on other vehicles. Koni yellows yes, but not the oranges - they felt worse than the 150k mile OE dampers that came off. I'm fairly tolerant of crap dampers, but I disliked them enough to take them off after a couple of weeks and put yellows on.
In reply to OHSCrifle :
Manual sport seat in the lowest setting: 38.5" to the sunshade, 40.5" to the glass, measured as straight up-and-down as possible (I did not get out the level).
And +1 for yellow Konis.
In reply to 02Pilot :
Thanks for the measurements. Gotta see how that compares.
Base seat all the way down.. looks like 38.25" to the shade. Sport seat is definitely not an inch better like I hoped.
..But a tiny bit more plus the thigh extension might be worth picking up a used set.
The sport seats are great so if you can find a set that are reasonably priced I don't think you'll regret it.
Score. Found what appears to be a very nice pair of correct color sport (power) seats today locally on FBM - out of a wrecked 2008 135i. For $250!
I think all I need to do is disconnect the negative battery terminal before removing the old base power seats and mount these using the original cable. The new seats have heaters and my car doesn't have switches for those but hopefully the rest of the power, memory, controls, airbag, etc will function without drama.
A cursory glance at this thread on E90post suggests utilizing the heaters may be possible, but not necessarily simple.
That looks like a good deal!
Probably you can just plug them in and get all the functions you had before but it wouldn't surprise me if you need to do a little wiring to get the bolsters going.
My original base seats were power, memory and heated, the sport seats I replaced them with were the same but also have the adjustable bolsters which I can see those have too (a nice feature). To get those working in my car I disassembled the connectors on the seats and the car to compare pins. On the passenger side I was missing power to the bolsters and on the drivers side the power and ground (I just modified the seat side connector and jumpered the power wire that didn't have a mate on the car side to a heavy power wire that did, same on the drivers side but ground as well). Obviously there is a possibility of overloading the circuit I tied on to but I will refrain from adjusting the seats and the bolsters at the same time (memory function does not change the bolsters). Overall it was pretty easy but I'm also a controls electrician so that is kind of my wheelhouse.
In reply to adam525i :
Yep I am going to take the old seat out and then compare the harnesses. The "new" seats are from a 2008 car and mine is a 2009 so I'm hoping they are alike.
If all the wires in the harness match up I will go for it. I expect the motorized bolsters will require a jumped wire like you had to do.
I know that I won't have functional seat heaters since my car hasn't got the switches in the center of the dashboard.
I'm mostly hoping that I can get it to work without having to re-code anything. I do have a (borrowed and rather sophisticated) Launch scanner in my possession right now but I am not sure if that's capable of coding BMW things in/out/on/off.
Will find out later this week...
Nice score!
Coding wise you will likely need what is referred to as bmw standard tools on a laptop. It is a software suite that was originally for the BMW regional technical engineers, the ones that would come to the dealers for problem cars. Ncs expert will allow you the change the coding but is hard to understand & mainly in German, there is another program called ncs dummy to help understand things.
Everything used to be as simple as downloading from bimmergeek after ordering their obd cable, but bmw has gone after companies sharing software recently. It's all out there still though, a search of the better bmw forums should get you the downloads. I think I got mine from e46fanatics.com with a good write up on installing
I dug into my sport seats retrofit tonight. Followed this guide, which is similar to the one @m2pilot linked above (thank you) and commenced to do some pinvestigation - comparing base seats to the sport seat harnesses.
edit: looks like I didn't mark the two sections on the left side of the image.
As expected, my car's harnesses lacked the sport seat power side bolster positive and ground wires. It's a well documented modification so I stripped some wires, got out my 1979 craftsman solder gun and now I have the harnesses bridged and re-assembled and the seats are 3/4 bolted into the car. I bridged pins 8/13 and 4/7.
My garage is about 96 degrees so I gave up when the driver's seat wouldn't slide all the way forward to uncover the rear pair of seat bolts. The driver's seat forward/back motor thinks it is at the end of the track evidently so I will have to sort that out tomorrow.
Figured out the seat motor issue - it was an old seat bolt wedged sideways in the base. The chop shop / breaker didn't remove the rear bolts and I didn't see them hiding in the seat frame.
So my matching sport seats are in. Had an airbag light at first so I swapped my old seatbelt buckle into the new driver's seat.
Test drive later - my garage faces southeast and it's already a sauna.
You're going to love those seats compared to the stock ones!
In reply to dyintorace :
Definitely. Wanted a set since I rode in a friend's 330i with sport seats about a 15 years ago. My long legs will love the thigh extensions.
The car I sourced my sport seats from had been in a front end collision that lit off both front airbags. In the E82 the front airbags signal apparently also triggers a charge that tightens the seat belts. This photo shows how the belts shorten by approx 1".
After I swapped these out and re-assembled the wiring harnesses, I was greeted with a light on the dash.
Using a borrowed OBD scanner I got the light cleared and now the sport seat retrofit project is done. 😎
My visit last week to the breaker's warehouse also tempted me to buy these staggered Type 256 18" wheels.. for $400 with almost new Bridgestone Potenza RE050A max performance summer tires (that run around $1,500 new). Date codes are from mid 2017 so they won't last forever.
The wheels came off the same donor as the sport seats and they fill the wheel wells a LOT better than the original 205's.
Sadly the E82 chassis has an unusual high offset fitment so selling used wheels is going to be challenging. More decorations for my attic in the meantime.
Caperix said:Coding wise you will likely need what is referred to as bmw standard tools on a laptop. It is a software suite that was originally for the BMW regional technical engineers, the ones that would come to the dealers for problem cars. Ncs expert will allow you the change the coding but is hard to understand & mainly in German, there is another program called ncs dummy to help understand things.
Everything used to be as simple as downloading from bimmergeek after ordering their obd cable, but bmw has gone after companies sharing software recently. It's all out there still though, a search of the better bmw forums should get you the downloads. I think I got mine from e46fanatics.com with a good write up on installing
Ended up with no coding required to retrofit the sport seats (other than clearing the airbag code caused by the wrecked car's seatbelts).
The original seat harnesses already had K_CAN (bus) connection so it was just a matter of connecting an additional power and ground.
I have an old windows laptop that I may turn into a INPA/ISTA device if I ever need to cross that bridge.
I think a project for winter will be getting the Bilstein B12 (shocks and Eibach springs) kit and freshening up the related hardware like bump stops to try and eliminate some creaks and groans. Interestingly the B14 (coil over) kit is a few dollars cheaper - but I have read that kit can have some clearance issues.
Did you hook up the heaters? That is where you will likely need to recode, I have had a car from the factory that the passenger seat heater button did something else due to incorrect coding. Standard tools will also get you the programing software for a 3 stage intake retrofit when you are ready for that
(deleted post after reading more). Nice project! I was looking for sport seats when we had a 128i. The standard seats were not comfortable for me
Caperix said:Did you hook up the heaters? That is where you will likely need to recode, I have had a car from the factory that the passenger seat heater button did something else due to incorrect coding. Standard tools will also get you the programing software for a 3 stage intake retrofit when you are ready for that
I have not connected the seat heaters. I've read all about it and it seems reasonable to do. I have set some alerts at the nearby self service junkyards so it might make the to-do list eventually - but for now I'm trying to enjoy it while I reload funds for suspension and the inevitable electric water pump and cooling system failure.
Scored some WeatherTech mats cheap on FBM..
Anybody know if the locator pins (which I am missing) can be replaced?
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