We have installed a few sets of Feal Coilovers onto our shop cars, and the latest is a set of Feal 441’s on our BMW 335i Project car. Even though the car doesn’t have a ton of miles, it is getting up there in age (it is a2007 so it is about to turn 13), and the suspension is starting to feel a tad vague and soft, so it was clear that it was time to freshen it up.


In the process of taking the stock suspension off, it turned out that both rear struts were blown, and that combined with the stock springs meant that the car was bottoming out a fair amount. So much so that the rear bump stops were about halfway gone. The fronts looked better, but even relatively small bumps would bottom them out too.


As we were looking at the Feal 441’s for this application, the spring rates seemed a littler higher than we wanted. The 335i isn’t a track car, it is more of a GT car, and in picking a replacement for the stock struts and springs, we didn’t want a car that was more at home at the smooth race track, compared to our sometimes a bit rough streets.


Feal spec’d their 441’s for this car with 9kg/mm front springs, and 14kg/mm rear springs. My initial feeling was that this was just too stiff for the ride that we wanted, but in talking with Feal about their development of these, they assured me that the ride was actually very good. With all of the previous sets of Feal Coilvers that we had installed, they were all awesome, and it was clear that Feal knows how to build a suspension.


So I took them at their word and put them on.


I will say that at this point, Feal suspensions are our go-to preference for applications like this. This is because their struts are very good quality, and it is clear that there is some real engineering that goes into developing the valving and spring rate for a car. The real magic of Feal suspension is in their valving. Every kit that we had driven, including the 335i Coilovers, ride very smoothly, and pretty much across the board, Feal is able to get a spring that would seem like it would be too harsh to work perfectly.


As I write this, the Feal 441’s have been on the BMW for about 2 months, and I have been nothing but happy since driving the car out of the shop. The ride is really good, just as Feal said it would be. Big dips like train tracks do require me to slow down a bit more, but that is about. Everywhere else the car feels stable and planted, but small bumps are no more a worry than they were with the stock suspension. The car is very flat in corners now, and it feels like the car gained a good bit of grip with the new suspension (and the Super-Pro Front Control arms, but that is for a different post).

So to sum it up, if you want a well built, well engineered set of coilovers for your car, Feal 441’s are the way to go!


- Jon Cooley