Here is a view of the H&R "Coil Over" front strut. Note that the wheel
bearing and hub is mounted on the spindle and is an integral part of the
strut assembly. Thus, installation of this set-up usually requires
that you obtain new wheel bearings and hubs and have them pressed onto
the spindles. These particular wheel bearings came from Steve D'
at the "Ultimate Garage." E30 M3 wheel bearings are very difficult
to find as the manufacturer (SKF) has not produced any since 2/98.
Steve uses the identical 5-series bearings and then has the ABS rings custom
made and pressed on the hubs. The quality of these rings is simply
impeccable. The E30 M3 uses 48 teeth per ring whereas
the 5-series uses 96 teeth.
Luckily the H&R struts can be easily disassembled in order to weld on some reinforcement. H&R currently uses Bilstein built dampers, thus they have the familiar "upside down" design. The portion of the strut that one would normally call the "shaft" is actually the "body". The insert can be removed from the housing by removing the nut at the bottom of the strut assembly. Since I plan on using the stock sway bars for the foreseeable future, I chose to leave the brackets as they came.
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It is apparent that H&R uses BMW O.E. strut housings, and simply cuts
off the top in order to weld on their own threaded section. You can
just see the welded bead going around the tube at the bottom of the threads.
Since the strut housings are factory items, they include all of the factory
brackets for the brake lines and the ABS and wear sensor wiring.
Unfortunately, this means that you also get the factory brackets for the
front anti-roll bar drop links. And these are a well known failure
point when used with uprated anti-roll bar diameters.