thejoshster

I thought I would share my experience with Bilstein revalve. This winter/spring I did the following with my MR:
GTWORX springs, RCK, revalved Bilsteins.
I will start off with the bad:

1. Bilstein’s customer service is lacking. I had to keep calling to get results. I finally got ahold of a tech while my struts where in queue. I explained what I wanted. Talked about goals for the car new spring rate ect. I even sent an email with specific valving requirements after the phone conversation, down to the exact force velocities. I spent a ton of time developing my own setup on paper(I will share what I had done in another thread). I do consider Bilstein the pro’s so I left it up to them how to consider what I am asking for as a good idea or not. They said they would call me back right before work begins.

2. Prepare for a very long wait in the winter. I get it. These guys are slammed because they are good. I kept calling to check in every 3 weeks or so to be told I was still a week or two out on getting service. Fast forward 3 months and I finally get my struts back.

3. Cost has gone up. I discovered after I had already sent my struts in that the revalve price has been raised for the first time in years. I was already on the fence about if the cost and down time would be worth it. I elected to do springs and the revalve at the same time to have less work. If I had known the price would rise I would have at least tried the springs with stock Bilstein. Knowing they would be under damped though would have bugged me. I wish I was happy to be ignorant about such things, but an engineer can’t help himself.

4. Bilstein ignored most of my directions. After one my many checkup phone calls I finally got good news. My struts were done. But in my head I was like, you never called to ask about work to be performed or to get my credit hard. I didn’t even bring it up. No way was I going to try to argue about that. Even if I did get them to redo what they did, I wasn’t about to wait a couple more months. The worst part is I wanted a dyno of before and after. Too late for that now. I did ask for a dyno of the after so I could at least see what they decided to do. The most frustrating part

The good:

1. Bilstien knows what they are doing. Even though I was pretty sure they ignored most of what I wanted, I understood that they know way more than I do. Bilstein has led the industry for years in OEM damping. Talking to the techs you can tell they have a ton of hands on experience.

2. You get to talk directly to the guys that will perform the work. The very reason they have bad customer service makes them great when you do actually get a hold of someone.

3. My setup seems pretty good. The ride is definitely firm, but handling did up go up to another level. Body motions are all composed. I have not made it to Mid-Ohio yet, but based some on-ramps it seems quite good.

Conclusion: I have attached the plot(lbs per inch) of what the revalve roughly looks like. I would like to see what others think about it. I am pretty happy but for all of the down time and cost I would be tempted to buy a real setup like Ohlins. I can afford Ohlins, but I am budget guy at heart. If you are on a budget, doing gtworx or similar spring with a billy revalve is one the best way to get an improvement on handling, not so much on comfort though.

Nimpoc

iTrader: (17)

Thanks for posting. I went GTWorx wo HD rebuild on my 8 and they're under damped for sure. Not terminally so, but you can get into low mph twisty back roads where the whole chassis gets out of phase with the road. Landing a little jump it'll bottom pretty hard too. Ride quality is still fairly good, and the biggest NVH hit was from the PSRS.

On track where the Tarmac is typically real smooth the combo is quite good, but on broken streets that I drive it'd be better with at least more HSR, HSC, and probably a bit more LSR.

I'd be interested in seeing your other thread about what your request was if you could post or PM me.

Iowa999

iTrader: (1)

Your story is not atypical, which is why I mentioned putting a note in the box. Glad it (sort of) all worked out.

First, that non-linear X-axis is a pain to read; I wouldn't do that in the future.

As to your actual damping forces, those look pretty good. An OE MR Bilstein produces about 60# of rebound at 2"/sec, while you have 100#. I, personally, would have gone a bit further with 5.5kg (300#) springs, but what you have is probably pretty good and much better than stock.

Iowa999

iTrader: (1)

Why more HSC on rougher surfaces?

thejoshster

Yea, I only had those data points given to me. I could have excluded the .5 inch/sec I guess to make it easier.

thejoshster

I agree with more low speed rebound. That was my biggest disappointment in what I didn't get that I had spelled out. I will post what I was looking for in another thread. I did want more compression though. Which would have probably been a mistake. The ride is plenty stiff already. I don't think I would enjoy that on the street.

Iowa999

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, your compression looks fine to me. It's pretty much the same as stock. Any less and the correct amount of rebound might start being on the edge of packing down.

migs647

iTrader: (19)

Hrm, I had the opposite experience. It took them about 3 weeks from shipping to them and receiving them. That WAS about 14 months ago, so maybe things have changed. Glad the car is handling

Nimpoc

iTrader: (17)

To control bottoming when hitting a bump mid-corner, landing little jumps. I still have the stock bump stops at full length which might not be perfect. I've asked others about their bump stop setup and never gotten real good feedback. Not sure others have taken the time to really work that area.

Honestly I'm kinda on the fence deciding between revalving vs just going to Ohlins.

Iowa999

iTrader: (1)

Got it. What you want, then, is trigressive valving in bump (as in up, flat, then up some more). Not sure if that's possible with MR Bilsteins.