After the winter road trip I picked up a set of Pirelli Scorpion Verde A/S tires. 295/40/20. I will run these as an temporary solution as I am still going back n forth with keeping a 20x11 square setup or going to a staggered 20x10F 20x11R. With the snow tires and cargo box removed I was curious to see what kind of MPG gain there would be. It's hard to get pure highway MPG figures that don't get diluted with my aggressive city driving.

I was able to get some clean highway runs in, only ~40 miles total but the drive was an out and back on the same stretch, average speed was 65mph and the return was 35mpg, nice!


I became fond of the looks, strength, and weight of the Camaro ZL1 wheels and didn't see putting the Style 612Ms back on so they were sold


Mountain bike! \M/


20mm spacers were replaced with 30mm for flushness in the rear


Before


After



Installed my 3" QTP exhaust valve. These slip on clamps made installa breeze and I am happy with the results. I still need to mount the switch in the cabin.




Front suspension is now completely refreshed, new OEM top hats, bushings, sport bump stops, KYB struts, and H&R 1.2 springs.




With the rear suspension things are a bit more complicated...

Researching on RealOEM and on other sites I heard that the rear struts for non-air equipped E70s have longer struts and taller (cupped) strut mounts, in a particular photo where someone was comparing the air vs non-air rear struts it looked like the sturt body was the same but the stanchion was longer on the non-air. So my though was to install the non-air struts and mounts on my X5 which, based on my info at the time, would allow 2" more suspension travel before the bump stops came into play, allowing better ride quality when lowered. However after ordering 2 sets of new rear struts (both air and non-air) it became apparent the 2" length difference is 100% in the sturt body so my plan fell apart.

Non-Air TOP vs Air BOTTOM


Here is the 2" difference in the strut mounts. Air=Flat Non-Air=Dome


Another X5 owner was brainstorming with me and he had the idea to run the shorter "Air" rear struts with the domed non-air mounts; the idea being with domed strut mount would allow the strut extra room to move on a lowered vehicle and hopefully allow for proper strut function at a lowered ride height. I gave this a shot and after about 1 week or testing I came to the conclusion that this combo also wasn't ideal, ths strut was operating at essentially full length. If the sturt only saw compression this is probably OK and better than having the sturt working while significantly compressed however, knowing that the suspension will articulate and extend periodically I could see this damaging the strut when if it was topped out.

To conclude what really needs to happen is to take these 2" taller non-air struts mounts, have 1" of material removed, and have them welded back together. This should allow the strut to operate in an acceptable range on a lowered vehicle.

With the short strut + domed mounts installed I knew the strut might perform better at an even lower ride height to I adjusted the rear down another 3/4". With the strut bolt removed you can see how the strut at full extension sits in relation to the control arm.





I raised the rear back up and reverted to the shorter air strut and flat strut mount. Ride quality isn't as good as it was with the taller mount but I know won't be potentially damaging the strut.


Check this out. A tuning company is pushing the limits of the M57 motor with their 335D. I can't imagine it staying together long at this power level (and 50% nitrous) but these numbers are crazy for a STOCK engine and STOCK turbo M57. Just nuts!