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EDC rebuild update

117K views 558 replies 85 participants last post by  AseanAero 
#1 · (Edited)
A few people have been asking me what's going on with this so I thought I'd update everyone

I was sick to death of this on-going EDC drama so a couple of months ago I started to seriously research a solution. After much searching I found a specialist suspension company who had the ability, but more to the point had the will to help us. These guys have many many years of experience with all manner of road and race suspension, they specialise in rebuilding old Ferrari and Lamborghini shocks amongst other things, and the boss is a good guy which is so important in these situations

Bottom line is that he's willing to help us. He currently has 2 front and 2 rear units in pieces and he's sourcing all of the necessary seals and gas sacs. They have the ability to manufacture their own seals if necessary so he's not anticipating any problems. There's nothing complex in the units and he's quite confident he can turn these around for us. Rebuild units would come totally refurbed, repainted and would be tested on their suspension dyno before being released. This is not just a hydraulics company, this is a bona fide suspension specialist who has all of these facilities in house, blast cabinets, dyno etc etc

The plan is the same as it always was, he'll hold a set of refurbed units in stock, people will buy them from him and pay a deposit which they will get back when they return their own units which will be refurbed for the next person

Target price is £100 per rear leg and £150 per front leg inc. VAT :cool:

I should be able to update you again next week. We will need to get him all of the blown units we have as there will be occasions where a solenoid or hardened shaft is too damaged to re-use so he has to salvage parts from another leg. Having said that, they can source the solenoids direct and manufacture their own rods if necessary but it would put the price up dramatically so while there are so many blown units available they might as well be recycled

More info soon :)
 
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#181 ·
Hello again :)

I shall indeed be picking up the dampers this week. I drive 100 miles a day normally and I have found a route with lots of country lanes now. I hope these dampers hold out to the punishment!

Sorry for being a little absent, had a little present delivered last week.....well, actually it's quite big and weighs 2.7 tons!
 
#183 ·
You are going to have to wait just a little while longer... :)

I have put 400 miles on my new rears and they are fine. Sal hopefully will be picking up his fronts tomorrow then I expect it will be a couple of weeks until we can definately say things are ready to roll, it depends how fast Sal can fit them and rack up some miles to check they are performing as expected

Once everyone is comfortable that the units are ok I'll do a new thread which hopefully can be stickied that will explain exactly what you have to do to get a set of rebuilt units
 
#185 ·
The focus is on Cyrus now, he's picking them up tomorrow and hopefully he can get them fitted and put a lot of mileage on them ASAP. Nothing happens now until we know the fronts have been ok for 1,000 miles or so

No pressure Sal :D
 
#187 ·
I just spoke to Cyrus, he picked his fronts up earlier today and he's fitting them tomorrow. I asked him if he could take some pics before he fitted them. We had an interesting panic yesterday morning and it explains why we're having this shakedown period. A set of fronts had been built and run on the dyno, they were fine. They were just going in for their final sandblast and paint when they noticed what looked like a hole at the bottom of the leg. A prod with a screwdriver revealed that the section was rusted through. Frantic efforts then to build up another one which worked out ok, but it underlines an important point, the legs that go back have to be recyclable or pretty soon he's going to run out of legs to exchange

Sal reckons he'll have 1,000+ miles on them pretty soon, watch this space... :D

Oh, and mine are still fine, both Sal and I are now running the uprated seals :cool:
 
#190 ·
Update,

Dampers have been fitted (I took one pic which I shall upload later). Everything looking good.

I have new BMW springs and the top mounts were all good to start with.

I've driven the car 70 miles already and there seems to be a problem with some steering linkages which are totally worn out so giving feedback at this stage is not good as there is a huge amount of vibration. I cannot take bends very quickly at all right now.

There is also a problem where my EDC button doesn't seem to be making any difference and I suspect it's got something to do with my disconnecting the dampers and turning the ignition on.

As far as the dampers go, no nasty noises, all seems stable. There was some initial softness when fitting them but they had been stored upside down for over 48 hours. After leaving the car to stand for a few hours this went away.

I'll get a new drag link, tie rods, upper + lower control arms and a idler arm fitted on Monday and have a look into why the EDC is behaving as it is.

So, all looking good for now :)
 
#191 ·
Looks like I have a problem.

The EDC system is not powering up at all and it seems as though the bodyshop have done something to the wiring. They did mention that they "fixed" the wiring at the front of the car - I was never aware there was a problem!

The underbonnet light and dashboard lights do not work and that fuse keeps blowing. Fuse 12 and 45 which relate to the EDC are not blown though.

This is a disaster as far as beta testing goes!

I'll have to see if the EDC relay is still working or if they have managed to blow the EDC Plus ECU.

I'll be working to fix this tommorrow so we can get some testing done next week.

If anyone has a good understanding of wiring of the EDC system please get in touch.

Thanks
Sal
 
#192 ·
Another thread just reminded me to update here

Sal picked up the rebuilt fronts but there is a damping fault. Luckily Sal's good low mileage leg has been run up on the dyno to provide a set of baseline curves that the other units can be compared to. For some reason the rebuilt units came up about 40% less on rebound damping. Another set of fronts is currently being put together which can hopefully be compared against the baseline to ensure they perform ok

The joys of beta testing... :rolleyes:
 
#198 ·
Update -

Picking up 2nd set of dampers tommorrow which have exact same bump and rebound as my very young damper did.

One thing that was found, my young damper was made by sachs and not Boge. It also had a much higher bump and rebound setting than the eariler damper.....I wonder why this is? Compensation of wear as the cars got older?

Will update as soon as they are on.

Sal
 
#200 ·
I would imagine a company as large as Sachs would have the same attitude towards a few individuals trying to save money. The last thing they want to possibly do is lose a ridiculously huge account like BMW.

I could be wrong, and it may be a good idea to just explore that avenue if Mike's deal falls through for some odd reason.
 
#201 ·
Erm, Sachs, Boge, Lemforder, ZF - all the same thing IIRC, as in various trading names of ZF.
Was wondering in relation to the bump / re-bound rates, it would seem to possible to adjust this at the rebuild stage, so might there be a better set-up other than the figures achieved by Sal's fresh-ish damper??
Cheers.
 
#203 ·
Very cool!
 
#204 ·
Hi Guys,

major update for you after all of this time.

After the first set didn't go so well I picked up the revised set yesterday. These were based on the results from the dyno of my nearly new EDC front.

I got the fronts fitted today and got the other steering issues sorted at the same time.

The first set of dampers felt like they had no damping at all, this set however is totally different.

I have just driven 100 miles this afternoon through very bumpy country lanes, the M25 and some very fast sweeping bends.

The outcome is that I am extremely pleased with the damping of these new dampers. My car feels better than it did from when I bought it.

Under compression and rebound the front end is perfect, no bottoming out and no front end flying into the air on hard rebound.

Over rough uneven surfaces it's brilliant.

I cannot fault the damping at all, the car feels brilliant.

So things are looking extremely good for now.

The next phase is endurance testing and finally I'm going to have a chance to do this. 100 miles per day over 20 days is what I'm going to be doing and I shall report back. Dampers will be cecked for leaks every other day on a ramp and if I find anything I will post it up.

If this goes well, and I hope it does, there are many possibilities that could come forth based on the basic EDC platform.

I am sure many of you will be at this stage extremely pleased to read the above.

Thanks

Sal
 
#206 ·
That's definitely good news.

<------- still anxious!!
 
#207 ·
Keep the good news coming - I'm due for a complete overhaul of the fronts and rears for the //M540i soon so this looks promising.

I do have a spare set of well worn front and rear units that I don't mind sending out for rebuilding as well as beta testing from Canada albeit not sure of the transport costs to and back from the UK are? If interested please PM me - I could send them out however will need the address etc.


Cheers,
Mark
 
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