BMW E46 Common Coilover Spring Rates

Recently, I was trying to figure out: What spring rate should I be running on my E46?

To be specific, I’ve been looking for a good coilover spring rate for drifting. My car is completely stock power-wise, and my local drifting track is quite tight, low-speed, and technical – an ex-go-kart track.

Previously, I had been running Feal’s 441+ Drift Setup – a 10k front, and 9k rear spring. But this allowed for way too much grip in the rear! I decided to investigate: Was this just a skill issue, or should I be running a stiffer rear spring due to the tight track and low horsepower levels?

To help figure this out, I rounded up data on all of the most popular E46 coilover spring rates – that way I could get a better idea of what each company sells and what rates they’re using!

And finally, a few random recommendations I received:

If you’re curious, in the end I decided modify my existing Feal’s 441+ setup, keeping a 10k Swift spring in the front and moving up to a 14k in the rear. I also picked up a pair of 12k Swift springs at the same time, that way I can swap them out in the future or try out different setups if the 14k’s end up being too much.

Anyways, that’s all I’ve got for ya! A short and sweet article, just so someone else can hopefully make use of the research I’ve already done. Enjoy!