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Vendor MPP Model 3 Build Thread

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#142
dhu1 said:
I've had a few people reach out and ask a bunch of questions, so instead of answering one by one, I figured I would give a full run down of my M3 experience thus far. Some info will seem extraneous, but may be relevant for those that have asked many other questions offline:

January 2018: I picked up my MSM with 19" wheels/continental tires. From the very beginning I felt that the ride was pretty rough. I live near Berkeley CA where the winter rains uncovered a lot of potholes. I confirmed though, that my production was not the early production springs, so mine was the second generation springs. I liked the car, but felt that too many times the potholes could be jarring.

March 2018: My wife picked up her White with 18" wheels. The ride was much smoother. Still had jarring effects every so often from deeper potholes. I attributed the smoother ride to larger sidewalls compared to the 19" tires.

June 2018: I installed the UP moderate springs. The handling was great and at first, I felt the ride was comparable to stock. But when I hit the potholes or bumps. The jarring I felt was worse given the limited travel combined with the car was lowered by 1.5" in the front /2.0" in the rear. This was unintentional since UP sent me the incorrect rear springs. The lowered rear caused for some bottoming out. So now, I not only had to worry about potholes, but scraping or bottoming out. To UP's credit, they did send me a replacement springs.

September 2018: I swapped out my 19" wheels/continentals with 20" OEM Michelin performance rims/tires (from another Performance M3 owner). There was an immediate improvement to the ride. The smaller potholes were definitely smoother and the handling was great with the stickier tires. My efficiency did take a 10wh/mi hit, but I was willing to live with that given the ride and better handling. However this did not change the bottoming out or jarring impact (it did lessen it).

September 2018: I removed my UP moderate springs and installed the MPP sport coilovers. All of the modification work was done through GriffinWerke in Berkeley. This installed the MPP to the recommended specs on the rebound/compression. For lowering, I kept everything at 1.5" lowered than stock. The leveled out the front and rear (note: even in stock, the rear is about 0.5" lower than front).

Ride impressions: Absolutely awesome. I love that I can ride around town without worrying as much about the potholes. I do hit them, but they are definitely not jarring. There is a lot more travel, so I am not hitting the bump stops. So it feels great.

Handling: The handling has been great. That feeling is a marginal improvement since the M3 handling was great to begin with plus my car already was on lowered springs, so the car rolled less. Having said the above, I will say I took a corner pretty hard this weekend and there was no extra roll--it just felt like it was on rails. I attribute that to the coilovers and the tires. Definitely handles better than my wife's stock 18" M3. I have not done any spirited driving yet. Also, the the arms definitely gives a more connected feel to the car.

All in all, this was the setup I was hoping for when I initially purchased the car. I previously owned BMW M3/5 and I currently own a MX so I had high expectations in terms the ride for the Model 3. I am REALLY happy I pulled the trigger on the coilovers. Although, I will unlikely ever make too many adjustments to the coilovers or will take it to the track (this is my main commute car), it has given me the ride and optionality I wanted in a car that I spend so much time in.

Hopefully I answered many of the questions that have been posted to me. I am also including a picture of the car.
Click to expand...


David, thank you so much for your feedback! We couldn't be more pleased that you love the coilovers. Your M3 looks great too! We are also grateful that you have found a shop other owners can trust with their Teslas.
 
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#144
dgaultiere said:
Thanks for sharing your experience dhu1. I’m definitely wishing I had gone this route instead of the T Sportline springs. I definitely have something to think about!
Click to expand...
I thought you were happy with tsportsline springs. What don’t you like about them? Truth be told, I would not gone down the coilover route if I didn’t have to redo my UP springs anyways. The UP springs with new rubber on the tires made everything more manageable. The coilovers are super nice, but also costly. After dealing with all of this, I just wanted a solution that I knew would solve for my issues once and for all and was just simply willing to pay for it.
 
#146
dhu1 said:
I thought you were happy with tsportsline springs. What don’t you like about them? Truth be told, I would not gone down the coilover route if I didn’t have to redo my UP springs anyways. The UP springs with new rubber on the tires made everything more manageable. The coilovers are super nice, but also costly. After dealing with all of this, I just wanted a solution that I knew would solve for my issues once and for all and was just simply willing to pay for it.
Click to expand...
Will add though that for me, it was worth every penny.
 
#147
dhu1 said:
I've had a few people reach out and ask a bunch of questions, so instead of answering one by one, I figured I would give a full run down of my M3 experience thus far. Some info will seem extraneous, but may be relevant for those that have asked many other questions offline:

January 2018: I picked up my MSM with 19" wheels/continental tires. From the very beginning I felt that the ride was pretty rough. I live near Berkeley CA where the winter rains uncovered a lot of potholes. I confirmed though, that my production was not the early production springs, so mine was the second generation springs. I liked the car, but felt that too many times the potholes could be jarring.

March 2018: My wife picked up her White with 18" wheels. The ride was much smoother. Still had jarring effects every so often from deeper potholes. I attributed the smoother ride to larger sidewalls compared to the 19" tires.

June 2018: I installed the UP moderate springs. The handling was great and at first, I felt the ride was comparable to stock. But when I hit the potholes or bumps. The jarring I felt was worse given the limited travel combined with the car was lowered by 1.5" in the front /2.0" in the rear. This was unintentional since UP sent me the incorrect rear springs. The lowered rear caused for some bottoming out. So now, I not only had to worry about potholes, but scraping or bottoming out. To UP's credit, they did send me a replacement springs.

September 2018: I swapped out my 19" wheels/continentals with 20" OEM Michelin performance rims/tires (from another Performance M3 owner). There was an immediate improvement to the ride. The smaller potholes were definitely smoother and the handling was great with the stickier tires. My efficiency did take a 10wh/mi hit, but I was willing to live with that given the ride and better handling. However this did not change the bottoming out or jarring impact (it did lessen it).

September 2018: I removed my UP moderate springs and installed the MPP sport coilovers. All of the modification work was done through GriffinWerke in Berkeley. This installed the MPP to the recommended specs on the rebound/compression. For lowering, I kept everything at 1.5" lowered than stock. The leveled out the front and rear (note: even in stock, the rear is about 0.5" lower than front).

Ride impressions: Absolutely awesome. I love that I can ride around town without worrying as much about the potholes. I do hit them, but they are definitely not jarring. There is a lot more travel, so I am not hitting the bump stops. So it feels great.

Handling: The handling has been great. That feeling is a marginal improvement since the M3 handling was great to begin with plus my car already was on lowered springs, so the car rolled less. Having said the above, I will say I took a corner pretty hard this weekend and there was no extra roll--it just felt like it was on rails. I attribute that to the coilovers and the tires. Definitely handles better than my wife's stock 18" M3. I have not done any spirited driving yet. Also, the the arms definitely gives a more connected feel to the car.

All in all, this was the setup I was hoping for when I initially purchased the car. I previously owned BMW M3/5 and I currently own a MX so I had high expectations in terms the ride for the Model 3. I am REALLY happy I pulled the trigger on the coilovers. Although, I will unlikely ever make too many adjustments to the coilovers or will take it to the track (this is my main commute car), it has given me the ride and optionality I wanted in a car that I spend so much time in.

Hopefully I answered many of the questions that have been posted to me. I am also including a picture of the car.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the great update! Your car looks fantastic! The drop is dramatic but still tasteful IMHO, and helps me understand that I will likely go with about half of your drop (so, more like 3/4 inch or so for my ride). Also, I like that you made a point of evening out the front-to-back heights - I plan to do *exactly* the same when my MPP comfort coilovers arrive :)... hint hint Sasha ;)

Thanks, Stew
 
#148
Stew said:
Thanks for the great update! Your car looks fantastic! The drop is dramatic but still tasteful IMHO, and helps me understand that I will likely go with about half of your drop (so, more like 3/4 inch or so for my ride). Also, I like that you made a point of evening out the front-to-back heights - I plan to do *exactly* the same when my MPP comfort coilovers arrive :)... hint hint Sasha ;)

Thanks, Stew
Click to expand...
Just a note though, if you are sticking with smaller rims, the .75 in drop will still leave a decent size gap. So you’ll need to play with it until you are able get a good look. My 20” fills up the wheel well so the gap is manageable. I don’t think I need spacers, but will review in a bit (or until I get bored).
 
#149
I've got the +1 19" on mine.

I agree the height will probably need some tweaking after the initial setting... but I still think 3/4 or so will be good starting point for me, then maybe lower a tad more if needed :)

I put +15mm Blox spacers on my rear wheels only. That plus new 245 tires (instead of stock 235) helped those rear wheels fill out the fender area much better, but they are still inside the fenders so there won't be an issue with fender rub when I lower....
 
#151
dhu1 said:
I thought you were happy with tsportsline springs. What don’t you like about them? Truth be told, I would not gone down the coilover route if I didn’t have to redo my UP springs anyways. The UP springs with new rubber on the tires made everything more manageable. The coilovers are super nice, but also costly. After dealing with all of this, I just wanted a solution that I knew would solve for my issues once and for all and was just simply willing to pay for it.
Click to expand...
Happy is relative. I’m mostly happy, but I do have complaints. Namely:
  1. The drop ended up being 1.25” rather than the advertised 1.0”. Cosmetically this is fine but I have bottomed out on several driveways and speed bumps, especially with rear seat passengers.
  2. The front/rear ride height is still uneven (same as factory but if I were designing these springs I would have evened out the ride height). The lower rear annoys me every time I look at it.
  3. The ride quality is not great. It’s pretty compliant for what i would call slow compression bumps, but anything sharp and fast hits hard and rough, even little things like the lane line reflectors on the freeway. I cringe slightly every time I change lanes or drive over a manhole.
At this point I’ll likely just live with it, at least for now, but if i could do it over again I would have thought hard about the coilovers. I hope this can be helpful to someone else in the future.
 
#152
dgaultiere said:
Happy is relative. I’m mostly happy, but I do have complaints. Namely:
  1. The drop ended up being 1.25” rather than the advertised 1.0”. Cosmetically this is fine but I have bottomed out on several driveways and speed bumps, especially with rear seat passengers.
  2. The front/rear ride height is still uneven (same as factory but if I were designing these springs I would have evened out the ride height). The lower rear annoys me every time I look at it.
  3. The ride quality is not great. It’s pretty compliant for what i would call slow compression bumps, but anything sharp and fast hits hard and rough, even little things like the lane line reflectors on the freeway. I cringe slightly every time I change lanes or drive over a manhole.
At this point I’ll likely just live with it, at least for now, but if i could do it over again I would have thought hard about the coilovers. I hope this can be helpful to someone else in the future.
Click to expand...
Same issues I had and felt the same way with UP springs. With the changes I made with the coilovers, most of the issues are solved. I still have the occassional speed bump / bottoming out issue but they need to be really big bumps. Ride quality is much better. I can relate to the cringe issue, definitely don’t worry about it anymore which in itself was worth the money. I definitely still feel te bumps (I don’t have the coilovers turned up to maximum softness) but I don’t cringe. Good luck.
 
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#156
Sorry for the lack of updates in this thread everyone - let's see if we can get back on track here. We have a number of projects and developments going on so it's been difficult to find time to sit down and write meaningful website or forum posts.

Let's start with the P3D+ vs our RWD Long Range track test. There is another thread where we highlight this comparison, but since this is a build thread/journal of this vehicle, I don't think it would be fair to leave it out! So if you haven't already seen our video comparing a stock Model 3 performance to our Long Range Model 3, this one is worth a watch. Proper brakes and suspension make a huge laptime difference, and on this particular track the improvements far outweighed the lack of power compared to the P3D+.


Since then we've had a number of new products come in, and of course, our Model 3 is the test mule. We've likely had the suspension on and off our car six or seven times now between switching springs, dampers, doing OEM to MPP suspension tests and more. Jesse is a wizard at it and I think he can do all four corners in close to 2 hours now!

One of those new products is our comfort coilovers, and here are some glamour shots. We only got a small batch in but we'll have more coming shortly. You can see the gold zinc plating compared to the silver plating on the stainless steel sports coilovers.

Comfort-Coilovers-4.jpg


Comfort-Coilovers-Featured-Image.jpg

We also received the production rear rotors for the non-performance brakes. Everyone that has pre-ordered now has them! Other than the obvious performance benefit, the look of matching slotted rotors front and rear is awesome. The car looks beyond words with the Advans and the brakes. Never thought I'd fall in love with a sedan this much :)

Tesla-Model-3-MPP-Rear-Rotors.jpg

MPP-Rear-Rotor-Hat-Detail.jpg


Speaking of which, fall colors are out here in Toronto, Canada, so a little fall photoshoot was in order. These are some of my favorite pictures - and you'll see the MountainPassPerformance.com homepage is updated with a few of this shots.

We just recently purchased a Sony AIII camera for MPP media - the camera is the most incredible thing I've ever used. It makes even a complete novice (I.E. me) seem like a great photographer. The performance for the price is spectacular.

Tesla-Model-3-Fall-Leaves.jpg


Back to track testing - yesterday we headed back to Toronto Motorsports Park again so the Speed Academy YouTube channel could do a proper feature on the car. We charged it up to 95%, gave David Pratte the hot setup and hoped he would give us a time to be proud of! We'll have to wait for the video to come out before we share the results, but let's just say our car is in the top 5 of any of the cars they've tested :)

Oh, and finally after waiting for what felt like an eternity and after multiple failed updates - Version 9! I am wasting a lot of time on Lunar Lander... it might become a problem.

Model-3s-charging-at-the-track.jpg


We've got a very exciting next three weeks. I'll try to keep this thread updated but check us out on Instagram if you use it as we're usually pretty good at throwing a picture or two up when we're doing something interesting. Here's the link to that: Mountain Pass Performance Instagram
 
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#157
Your car would be a perfect candidate for NASA TT. The 2019 Championships will be held at Mid Ohio. I would even volunteer to run five local points events to qualify as a driver in my race car or my model 3 so I can dive it for you. ;)
 
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