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Group Buy - Eibach lowering springs for Model S

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Hey guys,

I finally got a hold of the correct person at Eibach today and was able to speak to him about the Model S. They are willing to develop a set of springs for us, but it will take 50 early-adopters to opt in to this program.

If you guys are interested, here is a rough overview of the program.

1) Eibach will need a Model S for ~2wks. I am close to Eibach, and can use my car (I have a MS85 on coils. My car will have 22" x9" running 255/30/22s all around. This is roughly the same overall diameter as the OEM 21s).
2) Eibach charges an R&D fee for these 2wks to "develop" the spring set
3) There is a minimum purchase of 50-sets of this spring to make it work

There have been many threads about this, and I hope we can get 50 people on board. If you are interested, please PM me with your email address and I will send you the details. I will also forward the email from Eibach with the cost figures (so you know it is legitimate).

The ballpark pricing on this will be ~$350/set, just so you have a reference (I will send you more details when you PM me). This is based on 50 guys. If we sign up more, then the cost will be lower (bigger number to divide into the fixed R&D fee).

Please let me know! Thanks!
-Charlie
 
I am possibly interested, but first I'd like to know:

1. How much would this lower the car? If it goes as low as "low" mode with the air, I could see that as problematic. A bit higher and it should be ok.

2. Echoing swegman, and not knowing too much about the coil suspension setup, how much is camber affected?

3. Typical cost to install,

4. I assume this would be reversible back to the original suspension setup if issues are discovered, and

5. What are the risks as far as how the warranty might be affected? (I know that by law it must be proven that an aftermarket modification has directly caused an issue--but I wonder what issues Tesla might legitimately be able to argue as being a result of this change.
 
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I am possibly interested, but first I'd like to know:

1. How much would this lower the car? If it goes as low as "low" mode with the air, I could see that as problematic. A bit higher and it should be ok.

2. Echoing swegman, and not knowing too much about the coil suspension setup, how much is camber affected?

3. Typical cost to install,

4. I assume this would be reversible back to the original suspension setup if issues are discovered, and

4. What are the risks as far as how the warranty might be affected? (I know that by law it must be proven that an aftermarket modification has directly caused an issue--but I wonder what issues Tesla might legitimately be able to argue as being a result of this change.
Exactly. A group buy for lowering springs without a target amount to be lowered is not a great start. Indeed, I wonder how much we can even realistically lower a coil car and still maintain versatility. It's not like Tesla made the coil cars ride higher for the hell of it.

If I recall, the difference between the coils and "normal" on the air suspension before they tinkered with the air settings was 0.6". Not sure what it is now. I'd be skeptical we could go more than 0.5" without serious repercussions to daily driving ability.

When a car on coils is lowered, negative camber increases. A proper lowering is often paired with camber adjustments, but we don't have any adjustability on older vehicles and little on newer ones. I think there are a few people working on new control arms that reduce camber, which may be strongly recommended if you lower the car. That said, I'm not sure they'll reduce it enough. Increased tire wear is a gamble unless you know there are parts available to adjust the camber.

Regarding the warranty, it's pretty much as you say. Unless the springs cause the failure, there's not much they can legally do. That said, most manufacturers deny warranty coverage, force you to retain counsel and threaten a court battle, and then settle with these kinds of things. I'm not saying that's what Tesla will do, but depending on the SC they've been somewhat hostile to mods, so it could go either way.
 
Hello everyone

1) I believe the lowered heights will be up to the R&D of Eibach. If you look at most of their sets, they usually lower 1" - 1.5"
2) The difference between coil and "standard" height on air suspension is close to 1". This can be seen on the touchscreen of any tesla store
3) yes, camber will most likely be affected.

From the responses I've gotten so far, I don't think we will get to 50 people....
 
Hello everyone

1) I believe the lowered heights will be up to the R&D of Eibach. If you look at most of their sets, they usually lower 1" - 1.5"
2) The difference between coil and "standard" height on air suspension is close to 1". This can be seen on the touchscreen of any tesla store
3) yes, camber will most likely be affected.

From the responses I've gotten so far, I don't think we will get to 50 people....

1" to 1.5" would probably be catastrophic for overall driveability if you encounter any curbs or hills.

I'm not sure 2) is correct, either. The full Tesla suspension setup/alignment document was posted last September/November, and the coil suspension sat exactly 0.6" higher than the air suspension on Normal. Since that time, Tesla has slightly raised the heights of the air's Low & Normal settings, but they may have gone back to the initial values once they reintroduced user-configurable suspension auto-lowering. Lets just assume that's the case for now.

Low is 0.79" below Normal. If you lower a coil car 1", you're almost exactly halfway between Low and Normal on an air car. If you lower 1.5", you'd be 0.2" LOWER than the air's Low. Given how many people have trouble navigating hills and curbs simply on Normal, you might be in serious trouble with those reductions.

I've been interested in bringing the height down a bit for awhile, but I'm not going to make it impossible to navigate common real-world situations to do so. I have to be able to actually use the thing.
 
Hello everyone

1) I believe the lowered heights will be up to the R&D of Eibach. If you look at most of their sets, they usually lower 1" - 1.5"
2) The difference between coil and "standard" height on air suspension is close to 1". This can be seen on the touchscreen of any tesla store
3) yes, camber will most likely be affected.

From the responses I've gotten so far, I don't think we will get to 50 people....

About 1" would be perfect. How many people do you have so far? Would just have to get an alignment afterward
 
1" to 1.5" would probably be catastrophic for overall driveability if you encounter any curbs or hills.

I'm not sure 2) is correct, either. The full Tesla suspension setup/alignment document was posted last September/November, and the coil suspension sat exactly 0.6" higher than the air suspension on Normal. Since that time, Tesla has slightly raised the heights of the air's Low & Normal settings, but they may have gone back to the initial values once they reintroduced user-configurable suspension auto-lowering. Lets just assume that's the case for now.

Low is 0.79" below Normal. If you lower a coil car 1", you're almost exactly halfway between Low and Normal on an air car. If you lower 1.5", you'd be 0.2" LOWER than the air's Low. Given how many people have trouble navigating hills and curbs simply on Normal, you might be in serious trouble with those reductions.

I've been interested in bringing the height down a bit for awhile, but I'm not going to make it impossible to navigate common real-world situations to do so. I have to be able to actually use the thing.


See attached
photo.JPG
 
See attached
Cool, assuming that is recent I guess they didn't re-lower the air suspension settings to their original values. Coils now sit 0.55" higher than air instead of 0.6" like they used to. It looks like they also kept the Low setting at the height they increased it to after the trailer hitch stuff.

Really, all that makes the situation even worse than the calculation I had above. A 1" reduction is 0.05" lower than Low, and an 1.5" reduction is 0.55" lower than Low. Ouch.
 
I'd love to get this done, but I havent received even 10% of the names I need to get there.

The lowering amount I presume will be calculated by Eibach (ie, measure of acceptable camber vs performance vs looks). They said 2weeks of R&D, so doesnt' sound like they are just looking to slap on a height and call it a day.

But, here's my 2cents. I've been lucky enough to speak with several owners here who have either lowered with links, or performed Lolachamp's lowering methods. As everyone knows, there is a market for links... which means people are buying them with the intention of getting lower than LOW. So, that must mean there are people out there running their cars lower than LOW. For me, I prefer to do the same. Granted, I live in the OC, where there is sunshine 99% of the year and pretty good roads.

We won't know the exact lowering height of the coils, as that will be determined by Eibach. There's no way we can get 50 guys to agree on a specific lowering height... but, if I had to guess, Eibach will probably go between 1-1.5" (which is basically LOW at all times or slightly lower than LOW).

But, its probably a moot point as I'm nowhere near the 50# that I need....
 
Any luck? I am interested in lowering springs for non air-ride suspension

I
I'd love to get this done, but I havent received even 10% of the names I need to get there.

The lowering amount I presume will be calculated by Eibach (ie, measure of acceptable camber vs performance vs looks). They said 2weeks of R&D, so doesnt' sound like they are just looking to slap on a height and call it a day.

But, here's my 2cents. I've been lucky enough to speak with several owners here who have either lowered with links, or performed Lolachamp's lowering methods. As everyone knows, there is a market for links... which means people are buying them with the intention of getting lower than LOW. So, that must mean there are people out there running their cars lower than LOW. For me, I prefer to do the same. Granted, I live in the OC, where there is sunshine 99% of the year and pretty good roads.

We won't know the exact lowering height of the coils, as that will be determined by Eibach. There's no way we can get 50 guys to agree on a specific lowering height... but, if I had to guess, Eibach will probably go between 1-1.5" (which is basically LOW at all times or slightly lower than LOW).

But, its probably a moot point as I'm nowhere near the 50# that I need....

have you had any luck with this? I have a set of Vossen CV4 22x9, 22x10.5 that would look so much better if I could lower the vehicle.
 
I wouldnt want to go lower than LOW, preferably slightly above that.



I think you need to prototype this, snap some pics with different wheels. Then you will have a much greater chance of getting people aboard, me included. I wouldn't want a ricer look.
 
I'd be in. I'm in OC too. I've been looking for springs since I received my car...someone mentioned however the limited ability to adjust camber - is this true for the 2014 85 on coils?

I'm also running on 22s, but I believe my width is 9.5" with different offsets in the front and back for a "staggered" look - will this make a difference if they make all the measurements for the springs on your vehicle?

And finally, I really hope this comes to be...But if not, can you point me towards "lolachamps" method (sorry, I'm a newbie to the forums)

Thanks.
 
I'm in. Located in San Diego. Willing to take the risk on Eibach engineering getting it right. If it goes through, one note in favor of not going too far down, Tesla eliminated the lowest air ride setting for highway speeds supposedly due to the fire issues (higher change of hitting debris and puncturing a battery). Personally, I think an inch in front and 3/4 in the rear would be spot on.
 
Hopefully you guys/gals do not mind if I chime in with some observations-

Air allows for lower average ride heights as that ride height can be maintained from zero load to max gross for the car simply by changing air spring pressure (volume of air in the spring).

Coils must have a higher static ride height (and slightly higher spring rate I would say) than air so that the car is not too low at max gross weight.

Aftermarket lowering springs drop the static ride height while increasing spring rate. I do not think all aftermarket lowering springs fully compensate for the reduction in spring travel from empty to max gross but, at a minimum, should ensure a safe ride height when the car is fully loaded.

So, the answer as to how my approach differed from lowering springs is that lowering springs will (1) have a fixed amount of lowering where I put multiple grooves in the dampers to provide flexibility and (2) you loose max gross with my approach as you would likely be running on the bump stops if you ran the car at designed max gross.

I've had custom springs done for me in the past for race cars. It is not terribly expensive but then I've not done conical springs like those used on MS. I do not run my car at max gross and thus that concession was acceptable to me. My machinist charged me $25 per damper to add three grooves per damper at 1/4" intervals. This is the exact same way Bilstein does this for their aftermarket dampers (extra grooves). I also found the standard MS coils to be plenty stiff enough and did not want the extra spring rate that comes from aftermarket lowering springs. Of course, both approaches require disassembly of the dampers.

Hope that helps.
Bill