[jns_e85]

Suspension is a HUGE compromise when you talk about a double duty car. Anything good on the street won't be as good on track and vice versa. Finding your happy place on the street - track spectrum will be difficult and expensive if you do not know others running other suspensions you are interested in.

When I was suspension hunting, I was able to experience KWs and TC Kline's. For me, I liked KWs for the street, but they have more body roll on track. TC Kline's were the inverse. Super stiff on roads but felt awesome on track. In addition, both aren't the most budget friendly.

Ultimately I went with FA 500s, because I wanted to learn more about suspension set up before having multiple adjustment/variable points and it was one of the best SA kits available that was reasonable price wise (looking at you JRZ). Plus, the cheaper rebuild cost and ability to upgrade later is attractive. I have had FAs for almost 3 years now, and think I have ironed out the bugs I experienced.

I started with the upgraded bearings in front and went with swift springs (9k and 11k) and had two issues after install. First, I was bottoming out in the front causing tire rub. Turned out I was running too low and a simple ride height adjustment fixed that.

The second issue I experienced was some of the "crashing" in the rear when driving over a sharp bump. Ride height changes didn't fully fix this for me, so I concluded that it was a combination of the linear rear spring design and not enough rear spring length. After some deep dives on the interwebs I found a potential solution on an E36 forum, which is running TC Kline rear "beehive" progressive springs (600lb in my case) and height adjusters instead. This design allows for gradual compression and more spring travel, and has completely eliminated the rear end crashing for me while street driving without much impact for track use.

While it took some dialing in, I have been pretty happy with it afterwards for a dual duty car. Next year I fall in the rebuild window, and will be looking at upgrading to the 510 spec and putting better camber plates on.

Just for further frame of reference, the other cars in the stable include both a 2017 M2 and 2017 MINI John Cooper Works, both with non-EDC stock suspension. I would say out of the three, the JCW is the most firm on the road and the M2 is the most comfortable, with the Z4M falling in the middle of the two. Hope this helps!