Hey everyone! I took my car to the mech to determine why the car was feeling squirly at speed. It turns out the rear shocks were leaking, so I have to get new ones. My question is, is it acceptable to get sports or HDs in the back , while retaining the stock running gear up front? Will this produce weird handling anomalies? I want to improve handling, and plan to put in hr or eibach lowering springs soon (As soon as I can get money... its hard when your parents don't let you work) So, would replacing only the rear shocks with hds or sports help accomplish this? Ive heard bad things about KYBs, but what about koni adjustables? They seem to be cheaper than bilsteins...

I recently replaced the shocks, front and rear, on my '91 300E with Bilstein HDs. If I were to do it over again, I would have replaced them with Bilstein Sports. Notice though, Bilstein. I have tried KYBs and Konis. Bilstein is the way to go.

ok cool, thanks! But... is there anything "bad" that would happen if I replaced the rear shocks only with bilstein sports? The fronts would still be standard bilsteins. I can't exactly afford a full set of sports right now, and the front struts are perfectly fine.... thanks in advance...

You would definately notice the difference between the front and rear ride and handling qualities. The front would probably feel more "floating" and you would get more fender rise (body roll). Ultimately it would hasten you to get the fronts as well.

Search this site for further shock replacement threads. There are a ton of them.

J

Ok, thanks a bunch guys. I think im going to get bilstein sports all around, and install the rears myself, and let the mech do the fronts.

Badinfo,
The bilstein sports is designed to be used with lowering springs, it has the same firmness as the HD only it's a shorter version. I believe you have to use the sport only these springs or suffer the consequences (bottoming out). Correct me if I'm wrong guys.

Dennis

hey man, I had put the lowering springs on a while back, and had left the stock shocks untill I could find the time to do the sports. I never bottomed out, but the ride was agitated and the car would bounce a lot. The sports are worth it...

My apologies.

Dennis

oh dude, apologies aren't needed, there are no datestamps inside these threads, so its hard to get a fix, and I really appreciate you replying to my thread, even if I can't use the info now, im sure somebody else will drink from the pool of knowledge you just deepened.


Wow... that was a little strange....

After fiddling around and checking everywhere, it appraeed to me that the sport shocks are best used with shorter springs, and the standard and HD shocks are best to use if you don't change the springs.

After doing all the shocks on my 300D (124 body) I wokd say that the fronts are easier to replace. You won't need a spring compressor, but you will need a regular jack, a bottle jack and a couple or four jackstands.

The fronts require removing four bolts, and the rears only two, but getting a stiff new HD into place and aligning it with the bolt holes was a pain in the butt. I wrote up the whole changing process, so you can find it in this forum with a search.

I replaced the two front shocks, the rubber bellows that goes around each one, and the rubber stops at the top of the front shocks. Mine were shot, and yours are too, probably. You won't want to take it apart to change them, might as well do it while you have the shocks off.

I used Bilstein HD's all around from Rusty Cullen in Atlanta. The car handles really great now.

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