For many BMW enthusiasts who see their BMW primarily as a sports car, Floßmann from the Bavarian town of Geretsried in Southern Germany isn’t an unknown place to go.
The ”white-blue motorsport supplier” has remained true to its line for years and exclusively develops aerodynamic components made of light carbon fiber (Cfk) or glass fiber reinforced plastic (Gfk).
While Floßmann mainly develops motorsport kits for BMW and Porsche, there is also something for the road from time to time…
However, the daily business of the Floßmann Crew continues to build applications for motorsports. For example, the handcrafted aerodynamics on Georg Plasa’s race cars like the legendary BMW E36 JUDD V8 is made by Peter Floßmann.
A current project at Floßmann is a BMW M2, which the Bavarians reinterpreted with their carbon fiber tailor-made aerodynamic kit as “M2 CSL – Coupé Sport Leichtbau”.
If you take a closer look, you will see that the assembled aerodynamic dress is still not a “wide-body kit” that revives the glorious times of the “Group 5 era” or the ALMS – American LeMans Series.
“At first glance, it just looks that way,” reveals Peter Floßmann. “The optical illusion is suggested above all by the upper and rear vents on our front fenders.
And Floßmann never really cared about the optical values or any styling trends, but true to the old motorsport and automobile design credo “Form follows function”: “Through our carbon fiber aerodynamics package we save about 50 kilograms on the M2”.
The bonnet, rear apron, boot lid, rear wing, diffuser, and all splitters are made of this lightweight material. Only the splinters, wings, sword, ventilation grills and diffuser, as well as the “hood power dome”, are made of visible carbon. The rest of the kit is painted in innocent white.
The agony of Choice: our little suspension recommendations for your BMW M2
At many shows, b2b fairs, events and as well as in various social media channels, we were always asked, what the ideal suspension is for the BMW M2.
Don’t worry, it’s easy to find out because our claim isn’t only a catchphrase without a meaning: “The perfect suspension for every demand”. If your BMW M2 is only used for public road traffic and you are not interested in driving on racetracks, only two KW Coilover suspensions are suitable for you:
The separately in the compression and rebound independently adjustable KW Variant 3 and the electronically adjustable KW DDC ECU Coilover suspension. Before you ask yourself if a separately fine-tunable compression and rebound suspension wouldn’t be an overkill for the road, we’ll help you a little.
Our Variant 3 uses our KW multi-valve technology from motorsports; which offers you even more than the dampers on your desired setup in the low-speed forces (16 clicks low-speed traction stage and twelve clicks low-speed compression stage) manually further adjust by hand, if you want a sportier or more comfortable driving behavior on the road.
In our Variant 3, we also use preset, vehicle-specific high-speed valves for the compression and rebound forces, which you can’t adjust further. With this technology we can always guarantee our suspension philosophy for the road: “as stiff as necessary, as comfortable as possible”. You can find out more about compression and rebound in general in our suspension wiki.
Desired setup at the push of a button for the road: KW DDC ECU
Many modern vehicles have optional electronically adjustable shocks. The BMW M2 and M2 Competition, on the other hand, do not have adaptive dampers such as those available for the BMW M3 and BMW M4. At the request of many of our worldwide BMW customers, we have developed an adaptive KW DDC ECU Coilover suspension for the BMW M2.
In contrast to a conventional manually tunable KW Coilover you can use a KW DDC ECU Coilover comfortably with a smartphone app – our KW DDC app is compatible with Apple iOS and Android – to adjust the damper setup according to your wishes – a fine gadget!
You can find out more about the DDC technology for the BMW M2 in the YouTube video above where Sidney Hoffmann took part in one of our test drives.
But if you want to take your BMW M2 for a ride on the race track, you should take a closer look at our KW Variant 4, which, similar to our KW Clubsport 3-way Coilover suspensions, can also be set independently in the low-speed and high-speed compression and rebound stages.
With the BMW M2, we use also with the Variant 4 likes with the Clubsport 3-fold at the front axle adjustable unibal top mounts.
In other vehicles, such as the Audi RS6, the KW variant 4 front axle suspension struts do not have unibal bearings. But if you think that our KW Clubsport Coilover suspension would have become superfluous with the Variant 4, don’t forget that the V4 isn’t quite as “racetrack affine” in its design (valve springs, suspension springs, basic setup, …) as our Clubsport applications.
For example, we use much higher spring rates for the compression and rebound valves in our Clubsport shocks. Other differences are that we also use much tighter spring rates for Clubsport suspension springs to exploit the full potential of semi-slick tires on racetracks and forgive curb cutting rides.
If you are looking for the maximum performance in terms of suspension for your street-legal BMW M2, you simply can’t get past our KW Clubsport 3-way Coilover suspension. However, you must accept one or the other sacrifice in driving comfort, which one does without any regret for fast lap times …
As the name suggests, the KW Clubsport has three-way adjustable high-performance dampers and can be dialed independently with six clicks in the low-speed and 15 clicks in the high-speed compression stage (TVCLH-A, Twin Valve Compression Low Highspeed-Adjustable) as well as with 16 clicks in the low-speed rebound stage (TVR-A, Twin Valve Rebound-Adjustable).
So, you are well prepared for all racetracks with a road legal car. The great thing about our Clubsport Coilover is also the fact that it has a parts certificate like all other KW Coilover kits.
No matter if you choose the KW Variant 3, KW Variant 4, KW DDC ECU or KW Clubsport 3-way, with all four Coilover suspension kits you can lower your BMW M2 within the scope of the parts certificate maximum. At the front axle, there are tested 15 – 40 mm and at the drive axle 20 – 45 mm.
It goes without saying that all shock absorbers and the damper housings are made of stainless steel.
All technical data, the respective part certificate as well as the current sales prices for our KW Coilover suspensions can be conveniently called up on our homepage at www.kwsuspensions.net in the shop.
Photo KW, Floßmann, Versus Performance, GT Autohaus