Help me choose between Tein Flex Z or HSD MonoPro ?
 

Usage: DD, spirited mountain driving, occasional track

HSD: Main features: 16-stage damping adjustment, separate height and preload adjustment, camber adjustable pillowball front top mounts & rubber rear top mounts, anti-corrosive damper plating and rubber dust boots, 9kg/mm front springs, 7kg/mm rear springs.

Tein:
Adjustable: Yes
Camber Adjustable: Front Only
Caster Adjustable: No
Dampening Adjust Type: 16 Way
Damper Type: Twin Tube
Drop Height Front: 0-2.3in
Drop Height Front Metric: 0-58mm
Drop Height Rear: .4-3in
Drop Height Rear Metric: 10-76mm
Height Adjustable: Yes
Independent Height Adjustable: Yes
Spring Rate Front: 336lbs/in
Spring Rate Front Metric: 6Kg/mm
Spring Rate Rear: 336lbs/in
Spring Rate Rear Metric: 6Kg/mm
Top Hats Included: Yes

Noob questions:
Will i be able to adjust front and rear camber with these installed? I'm going with large rims so need to be sure.

Is there anything that the HSD's don't offer that the Tein do or vice-versa. Plus anything that i should know when deciding between these two sets?

Price is pretty much the same for both here in the UK.

Spring rates are higher up front on the HSD, thoughts?

I'm relatively new to this, so thoughts from you older/more experienced guys would be a huge help.

Thanks

Front camber: yes. Rear camber: no. Front camber adjustment is built into the front top mount. Rear camber adjustment is done by upper or lower control arms, purchased separately from the coilovers.

These will give your camber adjustment in the Front only, you'll need another solution for camber adjustment in the rear. Adjustable LCA's

i have a set of Flex z's

So i'll have to buy a set of lower control arms, more money :bonk:

Anything i should know when choosing on a budget, or would pretty much any solution do the job?

Still hoping to hear opinion on difference in spring rates between the two, and anything else.

Thanks

SPC is cheap (relatively) and will do the job just fine. There are a number of billet aluminum choices that are super sexy and awesome, but they do the same job. I would want SPL or Velox, because I like shiny objects.


Depending on how much you want to lower, consider height-adjustable front swaybar endlinks.

You can go really low before you need the replace the swaybar endlinks with something adjustable, probably lower then ether of these coils will allow on those spring rates.

I have a set of PBM Lower control arms that i picked up because of the price mostly, also because they have an optional lower mounting point.

https://store.partsshopmax.com/shop/.../ZNC6RLCA.html

but i don't really have any input on what coil to go for, apples to apples. I'm fond of Tein

If you are in UK, MeisterR is another option for you.
Price under £800 delivered, and comes complete assembled out of the box.

Springs rate is a bit more sensible with front at 5kg/mm, rear 4kg/mm
These are design to be a good fast road setup with enough damping adjustment for occasional track day use.
Front top mount is spherical bearing with camber adjustments.
The rear top mount is rubber insulated press steel to reduce possible road noise.
32 stage damping adjustable mono-tube dampers (compression & rebound combined)
Of course, comes with 1-year warranty fully back up by MeisterR UK.

Here is a picture of the coilovers I snapped yesterday at our workshop.
The ZetaCRD you see is exactly what you will get when you open the box.

http://www.meisterr.co.uk/Pics/Post/GT3/GT86GT3.jpg

The 3-way remote canister is not included, that is our next project.
This was just a little preview for a few of our customers that are more interested in race suspension. :)

Just another option to have on the table for you to choose if you are interested.
Any questions, please feel free to let me know. :cheers:

Jerrick

Look up motion ratios for this car and how it affects spring rate/wheel rate. I wouldn't get the hsds or meisterRs on their choices on spring rate alone unless you want that type of setup. Nearly all springs/coilovers for this car have have softer fronts or equal rate, rarely softer rears.

Thanks Jerrick,

Those are some nice looking coils!

Interesting to see that spring rate is on the lower end of the spectrum, with the likes of kw and tein being around 6k. Curious as to why they are designed this way?

Also i'm assuming that height is independently adjustable? i.e adjustment of ride height by adjusting the case length, without changing the damper stroke length and/or spring pre-load? Can you confirm?


Looks like i might have a third option :D

Thanks, looks like i have an entire evening of research ahead, unless an expert can chime in for us..

Given what you said about spring rates at front i might pass on the hsds.

I'll be wanting to go flush with the curve of my arches on 18x9.5 square et35-40 and 245/35 all round, assuming that ill need those LCA's to tuck the rears in too. Not going any lower due to the roads here.

Many coilovers and aftermarket springs are stiffer in the front; I wouldn't necessarily base my decision on that. Read people's reviews to see what they say. For instance, Ohlins R&T is stiffer in the front. RCE and KW are square. Some of Swift's springs are actually stiffer in the rear.

Go through this thread; there's a lot of good info here.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45554

To fit 18x9.5, read this thread. Clearance in the front can get pretty tight.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41083

Thank you, they are pretty looking aren't they. :)
The locking collars system on the coilovers are also unique to MeisterR, and is currently under UK patent pending status. :w00t:

You are correct, the ride height is adjusted via the lower bracket.
So ride height do not change the damper stroke ratio / spring pre-load.

This get a little bit more technical. :D

The springs rate of the MeisterR ZetaCRD+ came out to 5/4 is because of vehicle dynamic calculation that we do.
Believe it or not, the 5/4 setup is actually on the "top end" of what we like to see on a "Fast Road" car.
If you look at the wheel frequency (the measurement of springs rate at the wheel if you will), the 5/4 setup is stiffer than what OEM Porsche put on their cars.

The reason that the rear is softer is because there are two condition we want to include when designing springs rate for fast road car.
1. We want the drive wheel to have the lower wheel frequency, so in this case the rear will be more stable at the limit.
2. We want to make sure that the front and rear wheel frequency have a "gap", so the suspension do not hit a "harmonic" frequency which is a bad thing.

On the GT86, when you are on the low end of springs rate like ours, 5/5 setup was a bit too close between the front and the rear so you could hit a harmonic frequency.
The choice was either 5/4, or 6/5 under our calculation.
So opted for the 5/4 in the end because it suit the need of a fast road & track car better.

We are also developing a more race focused setup, and that will run a 8/8 setup.
The reason for that is because as you get higher up in the springs rate, that "gap" between the front and rear grows wider.
At the 8/8 setting, the spring rate are still close, but the gap is wide enough that it is acceptable.
The rear is still softer than the front at the 8/8 setup, just like the 5/4 setup.

So we didn't pick the springs rate out of the sky, they were calculated and then back up by testing to ensure they are doing what the vehicle dynamic model say they will do. :thumbsup:

Jerrick

Thanks, i've actually done a lot of looking into the clearance issues and have decided on being more sensible as a result. Going 18x8.5 with the same 245/35 tyres that i've ordered. Minus the stretch and extra camber equals more tyre on the road anyway.

I appreciate that..

I've also done some reading on the thread mentioned above and decided that with a softer spring rate being much more suited to the English roads it might just be the better option.

Also, being built in here in the UK is something that i'm most definitely comfortable with.

Depending on what you want and your budget, we have a few option available also.
For the higher performance fast road & track use coilovers, we also have the GT1.

http://www.meisterr.co.uk/Pics/Post/GT1/GT1evo.jpg

The GT1 is a custom build suspension using advanced CNC internal completely engineered and manufactured in house at our UK workshop.
They have a lot of upgrade over the ZetaCRD such as our double CNC piston assembly, CNC shaft seals and glide rings, progressive rate bump stop, and our rally use moulded GT1 dust cover.

http://www.meisterr.co.uk/Pics/Post/GT1/GT1int.jpg


We build the GT1 to compete with top end Fast Road & Track single adjustable suspension such as the Ohlins DFV.
They are designed for easy adjustment, and provide great performance on and off the track.

Jerrick

The stock rates are 131/211 lb/in, or about 2.4k front and nearly 4k rear. I would not really expect doubling the front spring rate while leaving the rear stock to result in very good balance. Seems like you would wind up with a lot of understeer.

The OE setup is a rear bias setup.
Technically speaking, it does work; but the OE wanted to provide a different characteristic than what we want to provide.

On a rear biased setup, basically that rear don't want to grip as well.
Tail happy if you will, especially under power.

On our setup with higher springs rate front and lower spring rate rear.
Because that setup is paired to an adjustable damper, you can actually dial in your under / over steer using the damping adjustment.
That damping adjustment is the part that makes all the difference.

This way, we want the car to understeer because you can dial it out using the damping.
A softer rear setup is a lot more predictable, and that is a character you want in a fast road car because events often happen without warning when you are driving on a bumpy wet country road with blind corners.

Jerrick

Well, I get the dampers can change response in transitions, but consider a long sweeping corner; once the car is settled into the turn the dampers will have very little effect on balance.

I think I would prefer to start with the springs, swaybars, and alignment for balance instead of trying to compensate with the dampers.

Yes, and that is why we have the rear softer as that is the drive wheel.
You want to be able to apply throttle to balance the car on those long sweeper.
If that rear want to kick out under throttle, it makes those fast corner quite a bit more challenging.

Like I said, how the OEM setup the suspension is perfectly fine.
But the characteristic they were aiming to provide is different from what we want.

For a fast road & track setup, we prefer to be on the predictable and safe side.
If something sudden were to happen, a car that wants to understeer is much more manageable than one that wants to oversteer; because that rear want to find grip first.

Jerrick

Yeah I agree with that to a point. It is just that when you consider the motion ratio of the rear suspension, a 4k spring works out to a wheel rate of something like 2.3k, which is very soft compared to the front.

You don't want to look at the springs rate, you want to look at the wheel frequency.
That is what the wheel actually see, and it is the result from calculation that include the springs rate, the motion ratio, and the corner weight (That is the basic).

If you look at the wheel frequency compared to the front, it isn't miles out.
I can't remember the exact number, but I recall it is around the 1.6Hz which put the suspension to what OEM Porsche would offer on their car.

It isn't high because it isn't meant to be high, it isn't suppose to be back breaking.
The ZetaCRD are designed to be a setup that you can daily and enjoy.
We don't want a setup that you will get annoy at driving on for hours on the freeway because it is not comfortable.

You can use the damper to stiffen up the suspension for track use.
But like you said, the spring rate is the base and you want to make sure it is correct for the purposes.
If one is after a more track focused car, then we will have a different setup. :thumbsup:

Jerrick