I just had the front struts and springs replaced on my 2001 740I w/sport suspension. The front is about 1" to 1.5" higher than before. Is this normal? Is there a "sport" spring in addition to the "sport" strut

1`-1.5" higher is not normal.......Bmw supplied the 740i Sport models with M tech sport tuned Springs and struts.
Your car was replaced with 740IL regular springs and struts. I would go back to shop and see if they can correct it..They ovbiously didn t do thier homework. Was it a BMW Dealership who installed your struts?

Was it herb chambers?

I did not go to a dealership. The part #s for the struts were 31311096149 and 150 which designated them as sport suspension but the part # for the springs (31331096129) did not reference sport suspension. Do these part #s mean anything to you

Hmm, I'd try to get back to where ever the work was done and PRAY that they didnt' toss your original springs! Not sure what type of mileage your car has...but would your coil springs really "go bad' and need replacing so soon? Perhaps the struts...but not the springs (unless you were changing to aftermarket springs).

The part nbrs for the coil springs are hard to come by unless you have the BMW ETK (or perhaps some of the online vendors) and they'll need to enter some of the options and features of your car to get the correct spring rate.

Thanks for the reply. The car has 98000 miles on it and the springs actually broke. There was a piece of the spring(almost a full circle) that appeared to break off from the bottom of the spring on the driver side. I jacked the car up and removed the piece myself. I was told that the passenger side also was broke but that the piece had not dislodged.

WOW!...that's a scary thought...finding a coil spring broken like that.

Since I didn't have the last 7 digits of your VIN...I made an assumption of what most 740i Sports would have optioned out when I looked up the spring table on my cpu that has the BMW ETK...and I came up with the same front coil spring part number (31 33 1 096 129)...see the attachment below.

If you lowered the car without driving it around for awhile...the suspension might not have "settled" yet. When you raise the wheels off the ground, then set the car back down, the suspension is not in its correct position...it takes driving around for it to "settle" back into place. :)

This is just a shot in the dark but when/where did you get the prior measurement of the ride height to compare it to the new ride height? or did you get the ride height from some sort of reference like a manual? I know this might sound silly but if you measured the car itself you might have a flawed measurement for the rideheight per the springs may have already been broken and or sagging. If that's not the case, I would say the springs need settling being that the spring part numbers seem to be correct.
my.02
-AJ