Nothing is too difficult, everything is just fiddly to get back together, lots of prying and swearing getting everything aligned.
Assessment…it’s great. All the anger of getting this job done went away once I drove it. I set the shocks to “comfort” setting to break them in, and also as an evaluation point. Now I have had some experience with sport, dynamic and polestar chassis. Initially it’s good to have that “feel” back. I don’t want to say this car has good steering, it’s just OK. The sport and polestar chassis have a good feeling, immediate turning and connection between the wheel and what happens with the car that I like. Dynamic chassis doesn’t quite get there. IMO what you give up, you get a marginally better ride, with more jitters and skipping over pavement if you push it a little. That’s just me, my sensibilities. Safety is the comfort of always being in control.
The ride…you know the springs are stiff, ride motions are quick, you can’t get around that. But I’d say superior to the sport chassis ride, which was occasionally punishing, the trade off of lower end shocks probably. Ohlins perform to the high standard expected. I’m thrilled with the result. Much more appropriate chassis for the monster the ER T8 can be when you want it.
I did not do this to “lower” the car, but it’s nice to be back at sport/polestar height, I always thought it looked better. Results matched exactly factory spec, using spring parts (springs/mounts/spacers) for a 2023 S60 PE. I bought the rear spring on EBay, it’s a common part shared with an XC90, and composite springs don’t sag. Everything else new parts.
If you are interested the rear spring is it’s own project to remove and replace. It needs to be compressed with some air-over-hydraulic piston a dealer will have, combined with a special attachment for the rear leaf and the upper shock mount hole. It compresses the spring and you remove the left lower arm then decompress it. I didn’t know how to solve it. I bought the special tool attachment but I was not buying a fricking hydraulic ram and air compressor lol. I modified the attachment to the spring mount and used a jack to compress the spring. It worked. You are not supposed to jack or put any tool directly to the spring, only through the mount via the attachment. Even then remounting it and keeping the upper mounts aligned while you recompress it is a trick. Much swearing but I got through it. If anyone ever does this, reach out to me I can lend you the special tool attachment (with a liability release lol).
