OK, I admit it, I started this whole "lower your 500e" thing when I wondered if using takeoff Abarth springs might work. When I went ahead and decided to do it, and I had the car apart and was comparing stock vs. Abarth springs side-by-side, I was concerned about two things. First, would the drop be what I wanted, height-wise. And second, what would the ride be like. As it turns out, the lowered stance was exactly what I had hoped for, about 1" lower in front and the car level front-to-rear. My big concern was the change in spring rates. The stock 'e' front spring was 13mm wire, the Abarth was 15mm wire (much stiffer). The stock 'e' rear spring was 13mm wire, the Abarth was only 12mm wire. That was my biggest concern, perhaps too soft for the cars much heavier rear axle loading. Actually, the stiffer front was great, better turn-in and flatter cornering. It turns out my concern was justified rear-end wise. Although for normal driving it was OK, the car exhibited a bit of rear "pogo-ing" on big bumps at highway speeds. If I had a choice, I would have preferred the rear springs to be the same height and number of turns, but be a 13mm wire or even 14mm wire to up the spring rate a bit (more on this later). It occurred to me that I might be able to deal with this problem with a rear shock upgrade. I noticed on the forum that many Abarth owners have gone the Koni Yellow route at the rear, which is an adjustable rebound dampening shock. Although the Koni site lists them fitting all 500 gasser models, no mention was made of the 500e, but as the 'e' has the Abarth rear axle, I was pretty sure they would fit properly. The biggest hurdle was the price...$345 a set, and no guarantee that they would improve my ride problems. After driving the 405 to work daily, and dealing with the half-dozen or so giant, bump-stop compressing heaves in the road, I pulled the trigger and ordered some from a forum vendor (best price I could find anywhere). When I was doing the swap this weekend, and I could compare the stock vs. Koni dampening off the car, I found that the compression dampening only mildly more stiff on the Koni's. Of course the rebound dampening can adjusted infinitely on the Koni's, so I opted to initially set them 1/2 turn up from full soft, which was a bit stiffer than the stockers. This morning was the first real test, my 405 commute and those 6 big hits. Well, I am now a believer, they improved the big bump dampening quite nicely. I might even dial in another half-turn of rebound. Now , as to those soft rear springs...as my friend John (silversport) noted, he met a guy who said Eibach can and would custom-wind springs to your specs, so I/we are going to explore that as an option....basically a Stock height Abarth rear spring, but with 13 or 14mm wire size. That would likely raise the rear back up 1/2" or so, and give a better spring rate for the extra rear weight of the 'e'. And the Koni's could be adjusted to deal with the stiffer spring rate easily. We will report on our Eibach findings later. In the meantime, for those who have done the Abarth spring swap, I do recommend the Koni yellows.