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BC Racing DS DH Coilovers BMW 3 Series Saloon E46 (98-06) 6/5kg.mm
£1,189.00
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BC Racing DS DH Coilovers BMW 3 Series Saloon E46 (98-06) 6/5kg.mm
The DS Series digressive piston design offers increased damping force at low piston velocities while maintaining a linear damper feel at higher piston velocities.
This kit comes optimised with recommended spring rates for track and street applications. If you require a more bespoke setup, height, or performance characteristic, please contact our team directly.
Kit Setup
- Series: DS / DH
- Spring Rate: 6/5KG.MM (Recommended for this platform)
- Front Setup:
- Rear Setup:
- BC Racing Part Number: I-31-DS-DH
DS Series
Key Features
- Digressive piston and damping curve
- Satin chrome finished shock body
- 30 clicks of simultaneous rebound and compression adjustment
- Ride height adjustment separate to spring preload
- Camber adjustable top mounts (depending on model)
- Pillowball top mounts
- Bearing mounted upper spring platform
- Dust boot to protect the damper seal
- Tapered bottom mount locking collar to prevent collar working loose
- Custom spring rates available
- All spare parts available with low lead times
- 1-year manufacturer warranty
Which kit is right for you?
Corner Weighting Adjustment
The lower spring platform of BC Racing coilovers is adjustable. This feature enables the car to be configured for corner weighting to achieve perfect balance and ensure maximum tyre efficiency. It's essential for the car to distribute equal weight on each tyre of an axle. Therefore, both front tyres should bear equal loading, as should both rears. This ensures that each tyre contributes equally during cornering, thereby enhancing overall grip, maximising corner speed, and reducing lap times. Optional assister springs are available for purchase, allowing wheel droop to be adjusted to meet specific requirements.
Ride Height Adjustable
Ride height is determined by the position of the coilover bottom mount. The mount can be wound up and down the damper body to give a full range of adjustment. Because ride height is determined by an adjustable bottom mount rather than spring platform you retain full damper travel regardless of the ride height run.
Damping Adjustment
DS Series coilovers boast a 30-way damping adjustment that combines both rebound and compression in one adjuster, ensuring simplicity and ease of use. This adjustable feature enables you to fine-tune the vehicle to suit the prevailing conditions. By adjusting front and rear damping, you can alter the car's handling characteristics. For instance, increasing damping force at the rear relative to the front will shift the vehicle into a more oversteer-oriented stance. In the context of drag racing in a rear-wheel-drive car, it's desirable for the back of the car to squat off the line to maximise weight transfer to the rear tyres, thus enhancing traction and minimising wheel spin. To achieve this, you would soften the rear dampers to allow faster compression. Conversely, if the rear dampers were set to firm, as you might have them for track racing, the car would be less inclined to squat, reducing traction. On the other hand, if you're aiming for drifting and encountering difficulty breaking traction or experiencing understeer, stiffening the rear dampers while softening the front ones will decrease rear traction and increase front traction. This will make the rear of the car looser while minimising understeer, thereby altering the vehicle's handling characteristics more towards drifting than drag racing, road driving, or track racing.
Pillowball Upper Mount
A considerable number of BC Racing DS coilovers are equipped with pillowball upper mounts. The mount itself is crafted from aluminium alloy, anodised, and then bead blasted to achieve a high-quality, durable finish. The pillowballs themselves are manufactured in Japan, and their solid construction eliminates any flex or play typically associated with standard rubber mounts, thereby enhancing response and handling.
Camber Adjustment
If it's possible to incorporate camber adjustment on your vehicle, then the BC Racing coilovers automatically include camber-adjustable aluminium pillowball top mounts. These feature the same high-quality Japanese-manufactured pillowball but offer the added benefit of an adjustable top mount that allows camber to be set according to your requirements, whether for road, track, or drift applications.
Corrosion Protection
The damper units are black chromed steel to ensure excellent durability even during the harshest of European winters. The aluminium components (top mounts, locking collars, etc.) are anodised, while the steel lower mounts undergo an electrophoretic disposition process followed by powder coating. A random selection of steel components (brackets, dampers, screws, etc.) undergo a salt spray test once a month to assess the quality of the protective processes and ensure that anti-corrosive properties are maintained at the highest possible standard.
Patented Concave Lower Locking Collar
Coilovers employ a locking collar to prevent the bottom mount from loosening. If the bottom mount becomes loose, the damper body can slide down into the bottom mount, reducing the ride height on that corner, which can lead to hazardous handling characteristics. This is a widespread issue with coilovers in general. BC Racing employs an innovative and patented lower locking collar design with a bevelled edge that fits into a corresponding bevel in the coilover bottom mount. This significantly increases the surface area that the locking collar operates on, thereby preventing the common and dangerous issue of the locking collars coming loose.
High Quality Coil Springs
BC Racing coilovers exclusively employ the finest quality steel for their spring manufacturing. These springs are crafted from SAE9254 high-strength, durable cold-wound steel. The springs undergo compression testing through over 500,000 cycles with less than 5% deformation.
High Quality Oil
BC Racing dampers use a sophisticated shim stack design and high quality oil to consistently control the compression and rebound speed of the damper rod even under the most extreme conditions. As the vehicles travels over rough ground the compression and rebound motion of the damper rod heats the oil. Poor quality dampers use cheap oil whose characteristics alter with varying temperatures. Its vital that high quality oil is used that can maintain consistent viscosity under a wide temperature operating range. Once the oil start to degrade, its properties change leading to damping changes leading to changes in the vehicles handling characteristics. BC Racing ensures that only high quality oil is used so that damping rates are maintained not only for the moment in hand (i.e. whilst out for a back road blast on or track) but that long term longevity is maximised with oil that doesn’t degrade quickly over time thus extending the dampers operating life significantly.
Nitrogen Pressurised Dampers
When you push a damper hard on the track or on high-speed bumpy roads, you can cause the oil to aerate and cavitation can occur. This results in foaming, which effectively reduces the oil's viscosity and thus diminishes the unit's damping effect. High-quality oil goes a long way in helping to alleviate this problem, but BC Racing takes it a step further by pressurising the dampers with nitrogen. The nitrogen applies pressure on a floating piston, which in turn exerts a constant pressure on the oil, significantly reducing aeration and thereby improving the consistency and quality of the damping. The pressurised nitrogen also adds an additional element of effective spring rate to the damper unit.
Bearing Mounted Upper Spring Platform
Because the spring twists as it compresses, it's crucial to minimise stiction between the spring and its seats. If this tension isn't relieved, spring binding can occur, leading to the spring rate effectively altering slightly as the spring compresses and extends. The tension generated can lead to rapid deterioration of the spring perches, and in extreme cases, can cause the spring platform and locking collars to loosen. This can result in the platform and locking collars 'walking' down the damper, resulting in uneven ride height and the danger of the spring dislocating under full damper extension. The friction between the spring and seats also affects steering effort as the springs are physically turned with the wheels. This introduces additional unnecessary friction into the steering system, which has a knock-on detrimental effect on the vehicle's handling characteristics. The bearing-mounted upper spring platform is one of BC Racing's innovative designs. By vastly reducing stiction between the spring and its seats, the BC Racing units avoid the above problems, thus improving the efficiency of the steering system and allowing the spring and damper to work as designed.
Optional Upgrades
Damper adjusting extenders – to save you the time and trouble of removing the parcel shelf each time you want to adjust the damping on your BC Racing coilovers, we can offer pairs of adjuster extenders. These attach to the adjuster knob on the top of the coilover and are available in three lengths: 110mm, 200mm, and 250mm. They attach in seconds with a simple grub screw design. Assister spring perch – you might prefer to run some droop with your coilovers, or maybe you want to alter the ride by adding an additional smaller assister spring. The spring perch and assister springs allow you to do this. The springs are available in a wide range of spring rates. Pillowball top mount – some applications come with hardened rubber top mounts as standard to ensure the highest quality ride and keep costs as reasonable as possible for road use, but we often offer a pillowball upgrade for these vehicles should you want to remove this flex and make the car a little more hardcore. Upgrading to pillowball eliminates the flex inherent in even the hardened rubber used by BR Racing, thus improving the handling for those looking for the ultimate.
| Weight | 23 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 60 × 40 × 20 cm |
| Brand |
BCR-0070912 Confirmed Fitment
Please note, this information is a combination of supplier provided compatibility data and our workshop expertise. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this information Progressive Parts Ltd are not liable for abnormalities or inaccurate data. Customers are wholly responsible for checking fitment for their vehicle. More information is available from our Terms & Conditions
3 (E46) 316 i (N40 B16 A/N45 B16 A) | 115hp
Petrol 1596cc | Saloon | 2002 - 2005
3 (E46) 316 i (N42 B18 A/N46 B18 A) | 115hp
Petrol 1796cc | Saloon | 2002 - 2005
3 (E46) 316 i (M43 B19 (194E1)) | 105hp
Petrol 1895cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2002
3 (E46) 316 i (M43 B16 (164E3)) | 105hp
Petrol 1596cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
3 (E46) 318 d (M47 D20 (204D1)) | 116hp
Diesel 1951cc | Saloon | 2001 - 2003
3 (E46) 318 d (M47 D20 (204D4)) | 116hp
Diesel 1995cc | Saloon | 2003 - 2005
3 (E46) 318 i (M43 B19 (194E1)) | 118hp
Petrol 1895cc | Saloon | 1997 - 2001
3 (E46) 318 i (N42 B20 A) | 136hp
Petrol 1995cc | Saloon | 2001 - 2005
3 (E46) 318 i (N42 B20 A/N46 B20 A/N46 B20 C) | 143hp
Petrol 1995cc | Saloon | 2001 - 2005
3 (E46) 320 d (M47 D20 (204D4)) | 150hp
Diesel 1995cc | Saloon | 2001 - 2005
3 (E46) 320 d (M47 D20 (204D1)) | 136hp
Diesel 1951cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2001
3 (E46) 320 d (M47 D20 (204D1)) | 129hp
Diesel 1951cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2001
3 (E46) 320 i (M52 B20 (206S4)) | 150hp
Petrol 1990cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2000
3 (E46) 320 i (M54 B22 (226S1)) | 163hp
Petrol 2171cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
3 (E46) 320 i (M54 B22 (226S1)) | 170hp
Petrol 2171cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
3 (E46) 323 i (M52 B25 (256S4)) | 170hp
Petrol 2494cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2000
3 (E46) 323 i (M52 B25 (256S4)) | 163hp
Petrol 2494cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2000
3 (E46) 325 i (M54 B25 (256S5)) | 192hp
Petrol 2494cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
3 (E46) 325 xi (M54 B25 (256S5)) | 192hp
Petrol 2494cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
3 (E46) 328 i (M52 B28 (286S2)) | 193hp
Petrol 2793cc | Saloon | 1998 - 2000
3 (E46) 330 d (M57 D30 (306D1)) | 184hp
Diesel 2926cc | Saloon | 1999 - 2005
3 (E46) 330 d (M57 D30 (306D2)) | 204hp
Diesel 2993cc | Saloon | 2003 - 2005
3 (E46) 330 i (M54 B30 (306S3)) | 231hp
Petrol 2979cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
3 (E46) 330 xd (M57 D30 (306D1)) | 184hp
Diesel 2926cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2003
3 (E46) 330 xd (M57 D30 (306D2)) | 204hp
Diesel 2993cc | Saloon | 2002 - 2004
3 (E46) 330 xi (M54 B30 (306S3)) | 231hp
Petrol 2979cc | Saloon | 2000 - 2005
Stock at Progressive Parts
Delivery timescales are given as estimates in good faith, but cannot be taken as precise or exact information. We highly advise against booking installation/workshop time or engaging in preparatory work until you've received and inspected the goods.
What do our stock statuses mean?
1+ IN STOCK in green stock is readily available in one of our warehouses for express delivery (at the time of viewing).
LOW STOCK in green means we're running low! 1 or 2 left on the shelf so act fast. Over evenings, weekends and bank holidays this stock can move quickly so please bear this in mind.
0 IN STOCK in blue means our primary warehouse does not have unallocated stock, but our UK partners do. Often these can be shipped quickly and efficiently. You'll be notified via the Track My Order page if further delays are unavoidable.
MADE TO ORDER in blue means we've partnered with a supplier which primarily makes their products to order. It's not on our shelf, but your order goes into production immediately.
0 IN STOCK in orange means everybody we work with is unfortunately out of stock. Stock is not available in the UK. The best course of action is to place an order to create an allocation from the next batch arriving.
OUT OF STOCK in red. This product is unavailable to order, for whatever reason we're unable to obtain stock or there is an issue with supply/lead times.
We're tuners too!
Our staff are car enthusiasts, we understand the need for speed... This includes getting your orders out the door as quickly and securely as possible!
In some instances, extended lead times are unavoidable. This is as labour-intensive and frustrating for us as it is for you, please know we are doing our best to facilitate your modification goals. Abuse of our staff or systems will not be tolerated.
Thank you, Team PP
In the words of the Vehicle Standards Agency (VCA), type approval provides "confirmation that production and samples of a design will meet specified performance standards".
For emissions components this encompasses noise, emissions and balanced back pressure, which have a strong influence on maintaining engine performance (power), and fuel efficiency. Type approval ensures that an aftermarket component will reach, or exceed the performance standard of the corresponding OE part.
Type-approval then, is a certain guarantee that an end user will receive a product of OE equivalent performance attributes.
Products on the Progressive Parts website that meet this approval will be clearly marked or labelled EC or ECE approved.