Steering wheel gauge pod???
 

Does anyone know if our steering wheel cover is the same as on other model BMW's? I would love to add a 2 gauge pod there to engine temp and something else (maybe boost). I cannot find any who makes one that they say fist our cars. I did find a post on another forum where a guy talked about having had one for a 355, that he moved over to his E70. Anyone know though where we can find one?

Post 10 talking about a gauge pod for an E93 that he put in his E70

I am racetruk on xbimmers.
the ati pod kept breaking at the pivot points on me, on the e93 they said maybe it was because of my stiff suspension but sent me 2 replacements
it happened on my e70 so i gave up.
it also fit 95%, immediatly behind the steering wheel the last pressure fit tab didnt fit, but it was on secure and i never had a problem with that, not was it visible.
if you do end up going that route, and do not have an upgraded chargepipe, a cheap alternative is Dinan makes a boost gauge tap that is sort of like a spacer on the sensor on the chargepipe, and is about $100
i eventually found a P3 gauge and switched to that.

personally i liked the fighter jet feel o the gauge pods, and the valentine 1 gauge was just so clean that really what initiated the whole thing

Thank you all. I had a P3 gauge in my Audi Avant and loved it. I also would like to be able to display or see 2 metrics at once, which it cannot do. Engine temp would be nice to me, as well as boost. Typically I like to see water temp/oil temp on one gauge, and oil pressure and volts in another.....but in this car that may be overkill. :wow:

Jyohay....my X5 has KWV3's, though set FAR softer than they want you to set them. I may try that gauge pod and see if I can reinforce it a little from the inside.

i have Kwv3s aswell.
im as low as i could go in the front without hitting bump stops, and then matched the rear to the front.
what settings are you on?
i have the top setting at the recommended setting, and i am 1 click softer on the bottom settings.
still quite rough but i am too lazy to spend the time into dialing it in

When I measure from the wheel center to the fender edge I am 421mm front and rear. KW says the min measurement should be 410mm front/rear before the handling/ride suffer. I have played with the damping settings a lot. I cannot easily (as I am sure you know) get to the front rebound (up top) so they are where KW set them. As for the rest, I HATED the ride when they were set the way KW set them. I literally drove 15 feet and thought I made a HUGE mistake. WAY too stiff on compression, even with my 255/55/18's. So I;

• Went full soft everywhere (except the front rebound that I could not reach), This produced a very soft ride, far softer than even stock, but very "boingy" over big dips and bumps, like on the highway.
• I gradually increased the rear rebound (up top) until the boingy'ness was match front to rear. This REALY smoothed out the ride, and made me realize a lot of the boing was becuase the front was so well controlled on the rebound (since I did not change it), and the rear was so soft and different. This alone had me about 75% to where I hoped to get. I still felt it might be a little too soft on rebound, but wanted to see if changing the compression changed that feeling.
• Next I upped the compression slowly. To my butt the compression adjustmet on these is low speed, so the car ride get stiffer/flatter quickly. It mainly effects the slow speed bumps, vs the harshness over sharp hits (this would be high speed compression).

I am pretty close to what would be "ideal" for me, and even my 70 yr old parents love the ride. They say it feels wonderful for a luxury car, and sporty. Keep in mind my mom especially has had a sport package on her cars for 20 yrs (currently driving a Audi A6 TDI w/sport package), so they love the BMW's sport/lux ride, vs and Lexus "luxury first" ride. My mechanic, who sets up race cars and street cars all the time (and who's car/driver are in the top place in the PCA Cayman GT category at the moment) suggested how to get the shocks dialed in. Ideally he said you would go full soft, then do the compression (bottom) first, once you like that then dial in the rebound, but since I cannot get to the tops of my front shocks without a lot of stuff removed seemingly, he suggested the process I did above.

Long story longer......right now I am at (rebound/compression)......6/10 front and 5/12 rear.....clicks open from fully closed. Where are you at? KW sets them at 6/5 front and 9/5 rear. My mechanic would love for me to try the KW factor settings for compression, and back the rebound the full soft. He thinks the car would smoother than I think. He believes the "WAY TOO STIFF" feeling I felt when I had them set stock was too much rebound, which meant when the car hit a bump it was stiff on the hit yes, and then never let the axles rebound. I would like to try it too, just with there was a way I could easily reach the front rebound without al the trim pieces in the engine bay!

And yes...now I need to go repost this as a new thread for search purposes, talking about eh KW install, with pictures. LOL