MPP AWD/Performance Coilover Impression and Installation

[davidviolin]

Interesting that there is no set screws for the rear springs right?

 

[dfwatt]

Interesting that there is no set screws for the rear springs right?

I don't believe so.

 

[MountainPass]

Interesting that there is no set screws for the rear springs right?

They can't possibly turn so there is no need for set screws there!

 

[dfwatt]

Hello, I'm glad I found this tread as I just ordered the MPP Model 3 Sports Coilovers AWD/Performance. I've had my Model3 since January but because of my short commute and then working from home because of COVID I haven't gotten much driving in it. I do not plan to tracking the Model 3 but I do enjoy carving through the Northern California hills. I've had coil-overs in my two other cars both BMW; E36 M3 and E92 335i which has KW Variant 2. Going with MPP was and easy choice since I have really liked the way the KW V2 performed for me these past 10 years. I'm hoping to get the same stance on my Model 3 as I did on my 335i. I don't really have setup questions as of yet because I have not read through the entire tread yet. On my past two coil-over I did not install them myself, but there are plenty of BMW and German Performance shops near by. I live in Fremont (yes home of Tesla motors) and am looking for a shop with experience with MPP coilovers, otherwise my BMW Performance shop said they have experience installing 3 UP coilovers. Please if there are any shop recommendations LMK.

I'd like to have my wheel and tires sorted out before the MPP coilovers are installed but am having some tough choices with going staggered or not. My past two cars have been staggered but from what I understand it's a bit different with an AWD electric car. With an ICE car no one talks about milage vs tire size and how range is effected. It comes down to aesthetics vs practicality vs performance. Aesthetics is very importance for me with the Model 3 since living in Fremont the Model 3 is a very common car and from experience a good stance can set a car apart. On my 335i the lowered stance along with the 19x8.5 F and 19x10 R I thought looked good and am looking to do something similar to the Model 3. I have never scrapped or bottomed out with my 335i KW V2 setup but I understand it's different with the Tesla. For reference of stance I've attached pics of my 335i. Please LMK if you think there is any risk or issue I should consider before going this route?

Curious what you decided to do in relationship to wheels and tires?

 

[Pueo]

Hi All,

Overall, the car is WAY more fun to drive and now looking at some braking upgrades!

FYI, I had the guys at the shop drill some small holes above the front dampers for easier adjustment. Highly recommended!

I've just now gotten around to making some adjustments on my car's suspension, MPP Performance coilovers etc. I find that removing the frunk to be the big time taker, so the idea of holes for quick access to the front rebound adjustment to be really appealing. So, a few questions if I may.

How has this worked out for you?

What about the rubber covers that normally reside on top of the dampers? Some moisture will likely intrude there without those in place.

MPP, maybe your thoughts on this?

Thanks all

 

[Needsdecaf]

Ultimately there are a number of really difficult things when it comes to making a how-to video on damper tuning, here are some specific reasons why:

• There is a big range based on driver preference. Some people like a firm ride, and other people think they like a soft ride but actually prefer much firmer to other people. There is no way to define what "soft" or "firm" is! We see all of these posts about how great suspension is, but there are no direct back to back comparisons on cars with the same wheels, same tire pressure, and same roads. So it's really meaningless discussion. The closest you can do is reference the OEM car, but even that can vary wildly as Tesla is constantly revising spring rates and damper valving without telling anyone!
• The roads you're on make a huge difference. If someone is driving on broken roads in a downtown city their needs will be totally different from someone who drives only on smooth roads.
• With too much detail, we give away too much IP and a lot of what we feel makes our suspension really work.

Ultimately the best thing to do is get out there and drive your car and get really good at adjusting the dampers. It should only take less than 2 minutes to do all of the adjusters. If you cannot reach the rear rebound adjuster simply drive the car up on some ramps or wood to get enough droop travel to get in there. If you put ramps on a front left and rear right, the rear left will become very accessible!

Once you're good at adjusting the dampers quickly, go to full stiff and drive for a little bit, and then go to full soft and drive for a little bit. This will give you an idea of your total range. I will say that on our dampers, the further you go from full stiff the less significant each "click" becomes. 1-2 is a much larger difference than 11-12. This applies to both compression and rebound.

As far as how to tune compression versus rebound, they each have very specific tuning uses and I personally could never be happy with a single adjustable coilover. Here's why:

Rebound tuning:

• For comfort, this is used to control how much the body "comes up" after a big bump. Soft rebound = floaty, unstable, vehicle feels "light" after a big bump. Overly stiff rebound = vehicle falls into every pothole, judders over bumps, and feels extremely harsh
• For the track, rebound is used for platform control and is a major factor in chassis setup. Too much rebound = skittering over the surface and a loss of mechanical grip. Too little rebound results in a lazy feeling platform but is generally not slower as long as stability is there (we're talking about sedans here, not formula cars).

Compression tuning:

• For comfort, compression makes a big difference as you can imagine for impacts in the road. Too much compression results in harshness over cracks in the road and bumps (rather than potholes or ruts, which play more into rebound)
• For the track, rear compression affects power down balance, and overall compression affects how the car feels over large bumps in the road.

It's hard to say much more than this! I can say that most do not understand damper tuning and many race engineers that I've worked with who think they have a strong understanding of damper tuning actually have it totally backward. It's a little bit un-intuitive.

The good news is that while our dampers have a wide range of adjustment for a street sport suspension kit, there isn't so much adjustment there that you can get yourself into trouble if you set them entirely wrong as the adjustments are primarily low and mid-speed. It's when you have 3 and 4-way adjustable dampers when you can get in trouble if the high speed is dangerously mismatched from the springs.

So please experiment, practice adjusting the dampers quickly and see what you like. Move the adjusters together initially to get an idea of overall firmness, and then adjust them individually when you want to see how that affects the feeling on a specific type of road, and the type of feel you like. Of course, those of you with MPP suspension can email us for more advanced advice at any time!

Thanks for this writeup MPP.

I'm currently coming up on one year with my 2020 M3P and before that I had a 2018 LRAWD for about 15 months. I'm not satisfied with the suspension in either, although I do like the M3P better. Why? I live in Houston metro area and we have absolute crap concrete roads here with tons of jarring expansion joints and heaves. The car runs out of travel quickly and is into the bump stops and as a result you get that "pogo-ing" ride I have posted about before. See videos I made. You can clearly see the car "bouncing" down the road. Watch fixed horizontal elements like the sign and bridge as they shuffle vertically in the frame (this from the dash cam).

I almost purchased a set of sport coilovers off a friend, but he traded in his car before he could take them off (crazy!). I'm on the fence between the Sport or the adjustable comfort coilovers. My main priorities:

1. Get rid of the harshness of the ride by being on the bump stops all the time. Stop the head bounce!
2. Improve overall suspension performance when cornering. Stop the heaving when it runs out of suspension travel. Stop the spooky handling during 80 mph lane changes.
3. Drop the car 1/2" to 3/4".

The car will never see the track. Not even an autocross. My benchmark? I'm used to M BMW's of the past (not the newer ones where they seem to have engineered all softness out of the suspension). I'm talking E39 M5, E46 M3. My weekend car was a 991 Carrera S and is now a 997 Turbo S with an aftermarket suspension controller. (TPC's DSC). Firm is ok. Punishing is not. Floaty is not acceptable. Think German, not American. I had a Lexus GS 350 FSport (2014) and ran it with the adjustable shocks in Sport 100% of the time, if that makes sense.

The Sport coilovers sound like they are the ticket, but again, Houston roads. Want to make sure I have plenty of softness in the adjustment to take care of these. I worry about the Comfort's not being firm enough.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[MountainPass]

Thanks for this writeup MPP.

I'm currently coming up on one year with my 2020 M3P and before that I had a 2018 LRAWD for about 15 months. I'm not satisfied with the suspension in either, although I do like the M3P better. Why? I live in Houston metro area and we have absolute crap concrete roads here with tons of jarring expansion joints and heaves. The car runs out of travel quickly and is into the bump stops and as a result you get that "pogo-ing" ride I have posted about before. See videos I made. You can clearly see the car "bouncing" down the road. Watch fixed horizontal elements like the sign and bridge as they shuffle vertically in the frame (this from the dash cam).

I almost purchased a set of sport coilovers off a friend, but he traded in his car before he could take them off (crazy!). I'm on the fence between the Sport or the adjustable comfort coilovers. My main priorities:

1. Get rid of the harshness of the ride by being on the bump stops all the time. Stop the head bounce!
2. Improve overall suspension performance when cornering. Stop the heaving when it runs out of suspension travel. Stop the spooky handling during 80 mph lane changes.
3. Drop the car 1/2" to 3/4".

The car will never see the track. Not even an autocross. My benchmark? I'm used to M BMW's of the past (not the newer ones where they seem to have engineered all softness out of the suspension). I'm talking E39 M5, E46 M3. My weekend car was a 991 Carrera S and is now a 997 Turbo S with an aftermarket suspension controller. (TPC's DSC). Firm is ok. Punishing is not. Floaty is not acceptable. Think German, not American. I had a Lexus GS 350 FSport (2014) and ran it with the adjustable shocks in Sport 100% of the time, if that makes sense.

The Sport coilovers sound like they are the ticket, but again, Houston roads. Want to make sure I have plenty of softness in the adjustment to take care of these. I worry about the Comfort's not being firm enough.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

I would say 100% Sports Coilovers in this case. The German sports cars you mention were our benchmark for tuning them, and you may want the additional spring rate and damper forces when you are hitting expansion joints at 80+MPH!

I've just now gotten around to making some adjustments on my car's suspension, MPP Performance coilovers etc. I find that removing the frunk to be the big time taker, so the idea of holes for quick access to the front rebound adjustment to be really appealing. So, a few questions if I may.

How has this worked out for you?

What about the rubber covers that normally reside on top of the dampers? Some moisture will likely intrude there without those in place.

MPP, maybe your thoughts on this?

Thanks all

If you don't live in a winter climate, I would leave the rubber covers off the top of the front dampers and make a small hole above each one so you can adjust it easily.

 

[vogz]

Thanks for this writeup MPP.

I'm currently coming up on one year with my 2020 M3P and before that I had a 2018 LRAWD for about 15 months. I'm not satisfied with the suspension in either, although I do like the M3P better. Why? I live in Houston metro area and we have absolute crap concrete roads here with tons of jarring expansion joints and heaves. The car runs out of travel quickly and is into the bump stops and as a result you get that "pogo-ing" ride I have posted about before. See videos I made. You can clearly see the car "bouncing" down the road. Watch fixed horizontal elements like the sign and bridge as they shuffle vertically in the frame (this from the dash cam).

I almost purchased a set of sport coilovers off a friend, but he traded in his car before he could take them off (crazy!). I'm on the fence between the Sport or the adjustable comfort coilovers. My main priorities:

1. Get rid of the harshness of the ride by being on the bump stops all the time. Stop the head bounce!
2. Improve overall suspension performance when cornering. Stop the heaving when it runs out of suspension travel. Stop the spooky handling during 80 mph lane changes.
3. Drop the car 1/2" to 3/4".

The car will never see the track. Not even an autocross. My benchmark? I'm used to M BMW's of the past (not the newer ones where they seem to have engineered all softness out of the suspension). I'm talking E39 M5, E46 M3. My weekend car was a 991 Carrera S and is now a 997 Turbo S with an aftermarket suspension controller. (TPC's DSC). Firm is ok. Punishing is not. Floaty is not acceptable. Think German, not American. I had a Lexus GS 350 FSport (2014) and ran it with the adjustable shocks in Sport 100% of the time, if that makes sense.

The Sport coilovers sound like they are the ticket, but again, Houston roads. Want to make sure I have plenty of softness in the adjustment to take care of these. I worry about the Comfort's not being firm enough.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

The sport coilovers are definitely the ticket. They are never anywhere close to punishing, and completely eliminate high speed float. I drive on pockmarked Chicago area roads every day and am constantly impressed with the ride and handling.

 

[Marius A]

@Needsdecaf

Based on all the feedback I've read and heard about the comfort coilovers are better than the stock in all ways (except warranty)
You'll get a firmer ride, be able to drop it a bit, and if you get the adjustable ones you can adjust everything more to your liking. They are based on the KW Street Comfort suspensions https://www.kwsuspensions.net/street_comfort, so you can compare with how people have rated those for other cars.
The sport coilovers are very similar, if not the same, as the KW v3.

 

[turbotony]

I've just now gotten around to making some adjustments on my car's suspension, MPP Performance coilovers etc. I find that removing the frunk to be the big time taker, so the idea of holes for quick access to the front rebound adjustment to be really appealing. So, a few questions if I may.

How has this worked out for you?

What about the rubber covers that normally reside on top of the dampers? Some moisture will likely intrude there without those in place.

MPP, maybe your thoughts on this?

Thanks all

Not sure if you saw the photos from my post, but there are small rubber grommets over the holes so they are protected as if the frunk was intact.

 

[Pueo]

Thanks for the reply turbotony. I did notice that you had plugs for the new holes in the plastic frunk. On my car, 2018, there are "rubber" plugs about 1.5" in diameter that cover what must be the top of the damper or maybe the mounting point on the car. Not looking at it and memory is a little vague.

I have plugs on the way and will be doing this mod soon. Guess I'll make a call re the lower/larger plugs when I get there.

 

[CrewKize]

Just set mine to those settings. Wonder if I can daily drive on these settings ?! in Austin Texas so pretty good roads. I’ll let ya know

Try these on for size:

Low Grip / Technical Track Damper Settings (clicks from full stiff – higher number is softer)

• Front Compression: 9
• Front Rebound: 8
• Rear Compression: 6
• Rear Rebound: 7

 

[CrewKize]

Just did a spirited 26 mile drive on that setup with track mode on. Who would of thought after 16000 miles these coilovers would still impress me. Very fun set up if you have decent roads. Feel like the car just got a whole new gear!

 

[MountainPass]

Just did a spirited 26 mile drive on that setup with track mode on. Who would of thought after 16000 miles these coilovers would still impress me. Very fun set up if you have decent roads. Feel like the car just got a whole new gear!

Awesome! Those settings are great for driving fast on imperfect pavement or autocross in a bumpy parking lot. We are pumped that you are still enjoying your kit!!!

 

[SK360]

I'm sorry if I missed it somewhere in this thread, is there a list of torque specs somewhere for the factory stuff? I am going to be doing my install in the next few weeks (my buddy just dropped off QuickJacks for me to use) and would like to know the specs on things like the lower control arm bolt for the front damper, the 4 or 5 bolts that hold the control arm assembly to the car (I am doing the corkscrew arms as well so planning on dropping the whole assembly at once), the fasteners that hold the damper to the control arm assembly, rear shock lower and upper bolts etc.

Also when measuring initial ride height settings at the spring perches are most people eyeballing it or using something like a vernier caliper?

 

[MountainPass]

I'm sorry if I missed it somewhere in this thread, is there a list of torque specs somewhere for the factory stuff? I am going to be doing my install in the next few weeks (my buddy just dropped off QuickJacks for me to use) and would like to know the specs on things like the lower control arm bolt for the front damper, the 4 or 5 bolts that hold the control arm assembly to the car (I am doing the corkscrew arms as well so planning on dropping the whole assembly at once), the fasteners that hold the damper to the control arm assembly, rear shock lower and upper bolts etc.

Also when measuring initial ride height settings at the spring perches are most people eyeballing it or using something like a vernier caliper?

MPP Coilover Installation Instructions | Mountain Pass Performance

MPP Corkscrew Front Upper Control Arm Installation Instructions | Mountain Pass Performance

Between these two you should be set, but you can also feel free to shoot us an email and let us know when you'll be installing so we are available to support any questions you have!

I use a small metric ruler and measure from the bevel at the bottom of the threads to the bottom of the spring perch. This method is accurate to about 1mm depending on the ruler. I wouldn't try to eyeball it!

 

[SK360]

MPP Coilover Installation Instructions | Mountain Pass Performance

MPP Corkscrew Front Upper Control Arm Installation Instructions | Mountain Pass Performance

Between these two you should be set, but you can also feel free to shoot us an email and let us know when you'll be installing so we are available to support any questions you have!

I use a small metric ruler and measure from the bevel at the bottom of the threads to the bottom of the spring perch. This method is accurate to about 1mm depending on the ruler. I wouldn't try to eyeball it!

Thank you! I’ve read through both of those but there are gaps, like in the corkscrew instructions it says to loosen the 4 bolts but never what to tighten them to. I see torque specs for the top hats on the shocks and corkscrew alignment adjusters but nothing else. I think there are factory service manual docs out there that I have seen so I will need to get all that together.

I’ll shoot you guys an email in the next couple of weeks.

UPDATE: I was bored and clicked back through this thread... Looks like this post has most of what I am looking for!... How are guys managing to torque at ride height without a 4 post? Assuming a jack under the wheel/lower control arm
MPP AWD/Performance Coilover Impression and Installation | Page 17 | Tesla Motors Club

 

[CrewKize]

Awesome! Those settings are great for driving fast on imperfect pavement or autocross in a bumpy parking lot. We are pumped that you are still enjoying your kit!!!

Feel like She just woke up ! Gonna get me in trouble . Have little over 100miles on that setting and can’t see a reason to change it. Other then the wife. Have to see if she notices Can’t believe took me a year to go off the recommendation settings. Never thought it would change this much.

 

[Clivew]

How are guys managing to torque at ride height without a 4 post? Assuming a jack under the wheel/lower control arm

Exactly that, jacking under the wheel hub until the suspension compresses and the car starts to lift off the axle stand, which is positioned under the sill jacking point.

 

[SK360]

Exactly that, jacking under the wheel hub until the suspension compresses and the car starts to lift off the axle stand, which is positioned under the sill jacking point.

Thanks. I borrowed a set of quickjacks, I should be able to get to the lowest position and get a floor jack under each wheel until it starts to lift the car off.