Tein Flex Z review
 

After going back and forth on a million options and speaking with @CSG Mike , I decided rather than wait I would order the Tein Flex Z from overseas.

I was looking at the Flex Z/A, PBM Pros, BC Racing, Apexi, Fortune Auto 500's

My car is mostly daily driven, however I do a some drift events and plan on a few track days a year.

I would have loved to have spent a few thousand on some really nice coil overs however it was not in the budget right now, and I could feel the stock dampers on 10 series fading with their garbage vaughtland springs that came with it. Mind you the car has 10k on it and after 2 drift events and daily driving with the 3k i put on it, the ride became bouncy and unbearable to me. Even my wife noticed it and asked "Is the car more bouncy all of the sudden?" before I ever said anything to her. When your wife notices, you know something is wrong :bellyroll:

I ordered these from www.knightracer.com based in the UK. I contacted quite a few overseas vendors in JDM land and was unable to find any in stock, they all were saying POSSIBLY at the end of july but could not say for certain. I called KnightRacer to double check that they had these in stock and they did, they were extremely helpful and seemed quite excited to have a guy from overseas buying from them and asking questions.

Fast forward to day 4 buisness days/6 days total later and I have them at my doorstep. All said and done it was ~1150 shipped, mind you this was my own fault, i assumed euros and not british pounds.... That conversion rate though :lol: If you order these from any of the JDM vendors it comes to between $850-950 depending on their shipping/processing fees and I imagine this will be about the price we will see here in the US

Install took me about an hour and a half in my driveway on jackstands with a small little vape break here and there. I adjusted the coilovers the best I could with the directions. The pre-load had me a bit puzzled so I simply got the springs "snug" in the seat and then did 1 more full turn on each corner. Ride height is probably about ~1 to 1.5 inches lower than stock with the "recommended" height adjustment in the manual which actually sits quite nicely IMO.

Onto my Impressions:

Me being me, I set the dampers to full stiff and went for a drive. I went around some turns and roads I frequent on a daily basis and that i paid special close attention to today as far as tire noise/speed and body roll as well as harshness of bumps on the roads I frequent before I got home to install the coils.

At full stiff the ride is not bad, you feel every little bump and imperfection in the road. Small bumps can be felt throughout the entire car, not in a "jarring" way that makes you go WTF, but in a fashion that lets you know your car is actually making contact with the road if that makes any sense at all. At low speed its actually still quite comfortable and I would say has a "stock" feel in terms of "harshness" but keep in mind how harsh/bump your ride is does not determine the effectiveness of the damper. As i've been told countless times a stiff setup and a properly valved damper should not necessarily make the car feel like its going to 3 wheel or come off the ground over bumps like "cheap" coil overs generally do. My wife immediately mentioned over some bumps that often causes the "ugh" noise that while it was certainly felt, it did not feel like the car was being jarred/bounced.

Around turns the body roll is very minimal, the car turns in much sharper, the car stays planted and when at speed and modulating the throttle to get the car to turn in as it under steers it seems to point in the direction you want it to go much quicker and feels much more responsive without getting off balance like I experienced with both the stock suspension in my Whiteout and the Shitty Vaughtland springs I had in this car. However should you hit some decent bumps/ruts in the road around a turn it will throw the car off a bit.

At full stiff you will reach the limit of the stock Primacy tires. They were making quite a bit of noise around turns at this setting at speed.

I decided to try @CSG Mikes settings from his review thread referenced below, he suggested 5 clicks back from full stiff for a compliant street ride that was not to soft.

I took the same route as before, immediately the car felt way more comfortable. Small imperfections in the road now seemed almost non existent. Bigger bumps were still felt but not harsh, you could feel the suspension soak most of it up without feeling it through the entire car around you. There are 2 spots in particular me and my wife drive every day with big bumps/dips that make the car unsettled and make you feel like you just jumped a bridge in the dukes of hazard, my wife always go "UGH FUCK" over these bumps, on in particular she was resting with her head back on our way back home and she goes "wow i barely felt that" the car still dipped but did not have the harshness to it it once had. I did not feel like my spine was going to exit my rectum.

Going around the same turns there was some added body roll, i would say it was not anymore than stock, maybe slightly less. The stock primacy tires were not squealing for dear life as they were before, turn in was still sharp, letting off the throttle to turn the car in more during under steer as weight transferred to the front seemed to roll the body a bit more than before and was not as responsive, however it soaked up the bumps much better. While the car did not become totally unsettled it did cause the rear to dip/bob rather than "skip" over the bumps.

The street setting (5 clicks from full stiff) was very compliant. It made for a much more comfortable ride than stock while still feeling more responsive than the stock dampers. At no point did I feel like my spine was going to exit my rectum and my wife was extremely pleased which lets me know that I wasn't just imagining it.

The car is not properly aligned yet but will be soon, so I'd imagine it will be much better once its aligned. Whether or not my spring preload is proper is another thing as well, so with a proper "setup" i'd imagine there is still room for these dampers to be even better.

While im no suspension or racing expert I can tell you that from my own limited experience these feel great. Based on roads that I drive often and pay attention to the car/speed, I can push much harder than I could on the stock suspension let along the stock dampers with springs. I think for anyone budget minded who wants a solid damper with great quality can't go wrong with these. Will they do good on the track? I'm sure they would, however how long they will hold up over heavy abuse like that has yet to be seen. However for those looking for a mainly street setup, I think you would be extremely happy with these.

@CSG Mikes opinion on these: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81829

Also, for those wondering how low these go...

The fronts are pretty much completely bottomed out in this photo. Only a few more turns to go before you would need to start using the spring pre-load to go any further.

So for those looking for "Super" low, probably not for you.


The rears actually have about another 1" or so of threads left.

Wheels are 18x9.5 with 225/40/18's.. No rubbing issues at all :)

@CSG Mike

Is there going to be a group buy? Tein said they would release in mid July which is now! Pricing?

End of summer is the current ETA.

I'd be more insterested in not how low it can go, but rather how high, as in if i can retain at least stock ride height.

You can get fairly close if you believe tein's official spec sheet. It says min height is -3mm F -2mm R from stock.

I can say for certain you can get just about stock ride height. I don't have measurements, but I can say from eyeballing it with my initial height which was nearly has high as they would go, it looked stock to me.

It's looking like these will be on the list if I decide to change from stock.

You would definitely be happy with them!

You stated that on the 5 clicks setting, the ride felt more comfortable than stock. I'm seriously considering these coilovers, but I fear that they might be too soft. My goal is to be able to feel the road more than my RSR Superdown springs. Do these coilovers allow you to feel the road more than your old springs? I sat in my friend's car with BC Racing coils and it felt more sporty, so that's what I'm trying to achieve. Nice setup btw !

The correct assessment is that the ride is more firm than stock, but less harsh than stock.

You will feel the road more, but it will actually be less jarring/upsetting.

What Mike said.

More comfortable does not necessarily equate to soft or bouncy" when hitting bumps the dampers just to a better job of absorbing the shock. You still feel it, however without as much upset and a less harsh/jarring feeling than the stock.

You can definately feel the road more, even going as high as 7 clicks, however I think at 7 and anything past you are asking for more of a cushy/bouncy/bobbing ride. Bumps don't feel as sharp but it does not feel as responsive and a little sluggish.

If you want to feel every little thing in the road, pretty much anything under 4 clicks will give you that. Not the most comfortable on the street, but definitely very responsive.

I sometimes wonder .. if tein managed to enhance suspension at this price level, why stock is not made better in first place? One thing is reasonably expect to pay more to get better, but if cheap still manages to best stock ..

Often wonder the same thing about many pieces on vehicles.

Cost.

Thanks for your response. I think I'm set on these. Also, do you use 5 clicks from full stiff all around? Or do the rears have a different setting from the fronts?

I use 5 clicks all the way around.

Do you feel these have enough travel for DD over crap roads? Judging from pictures showing stock vs flex z, they appear to be 2-3" shorter than stock which probably translates to less travel than stock. My FRS goes on 3 wheels entering/leaving my semi-steep driveway, my 02 stock WRX, does not, so not much travel stock.

Yes they do. We have some very awful roads here in the inner city which I drive often and they perform great over them.

I have mine set around .5" lower than stock. My driveway is pretty steep but I never 3 wheeled up it until I installed front and rear swaybars.

And design requirements. I bet the factory dampers will last longer.

At the pocket money these are gonig for, I am quite tempted to try them just to see how good a cheap damper can be....

So I did my first drift event with these on, and i figured in case any drifters get these and wondering what a good starting point would be heres what I did after playing with these a few times.

I set the camber plates at max negative without moving the securing screws to the closer holes, if I had to take a wild guess its probably around -2 degrees, I'm not sure I just played with them a little bit and ended up maxing them out (not scientific I know, and will vary depending on your ride height)

I set the front dampers to full stiff and dropped my front tires down to around 38 PSI hot.

The rear I set to 4 clicks from full stiff and ran about 35 psi hot

This seemed to do a pretty good job of keeping the chassis from shifting to much and digging in during drift while allowing the rear tires to have some grip.

For the first tiem I had nice even tire wear on both sides. Give then layout of the local drift event, generally my right side rear would be cooked because the first entry and last exit are really long/fast left handers. I imagined because both with stock suspension and stock dampers with springs, the car would dig in causing more wear on one side.

Needless to say my performance was much better, this was only my 5th event and the improvement overall after having coils in how my car responded to input made me much more confident in predicting what my car was going to do

Not to thread jack or anything, but after 5k miles on these coil overs it seems to have gotten even smoother on the roads but the big bumps still throw me around a bit.

Does it feel like you are hitting the bump stop? What settings?

When I'm hitting larger bumps it doesn't feel like I'm hitting the bump stops. I'm currently at 6 on both front and rear

Just an update and some advice:

So I noticed my springs were "loose" in their perches up front (rears were still fine). I decided to look at the tein specs again for initial setup and preload.

Given some searches and talking with people it was advised to just "snug" them in the perches and leave it be unless/until you get a corner balance. Well what i thought was "snug" apparently was not snug enough as their was not enough tension from the spring on the locking collars to keep them from backing off.

I figured id try and do tein's specs and see what that does. SO i started snugging up the preload to teins specs. This takes a bit of muscle with the spanner wrenches, and now i understand what "snug" means.

Adjusted the front preload to teins specs, and now the collars are tight from the tension pushing back and it does not look like they will back off.

I checked the rears, and they did not loosen up at all, I only had to adjust those a few turns to get them to teins specs for the rear.

The only other thing I did after someone else with the Street flex series complained about the coilovers "lowering" themselves (which I have not had this issue after a few thousand miles on these already) is I torqued them with a torque wrench using the 1/4" port on the spanner wrenches and my torque wrench. Tightened them up good just to be safe..

These are now showing as in stock at Tein USA, released yesterday August 1st, msrp $870.

what is the offset? and how's the inner clearance?

Not bad at all for DD, however when drifting I noticed a little rubbing on the inside wall at full lock.

Offset is +35

In need of some advice here please
my fronts are fine where they are, just wanting 1/2" lower with rears..

the rear bottom "cup" is pretty shallow in our application and it is maxed out currently.
still lots of threads left on the shock body itself I am not right up to the spring perches.

I hope I am explaining this right..
and my question is.. by me "squeezing" or compressing the springs would that result in lower height?
or by "lowering" the pre load rings essentially "releasing" spring preload result in lower height?

thank you.. lol geez reading back what i wrote it's confusing for me too.

By "squeezing" the spring, aka increasing preload you will lose droop and possibly make your car higher. It isn't recommended to use the preload as a means to adjust ride height. If you reduce your preload too much you're going to get some noise from your coilover.

If you want to lower the car more in the rear you can get a lower control arm like stance or voodoo that lower the mounting point of the rear strut, effectively dropping the rear.

first of all, thank you :thumbup:
Yup, if I were to "compress" the springs to get the height..I might have done so...:iono:
but to "loosen" the spring preload to acheive, would have been a no no.
good to know that compressing would not have helped in this situation
and like you said..
I will be looking for stance, voodoo or PBM LCA's.

Thanks again

front springs will always eventally loosen. These are spring on perch style correct? or is there a rubber spacer between the spring and the perch?

There is a rubber spacer between the spring and the perch

Also, have not had a single issue since I torqued them. Haven't moved one bit.

I just installed mine with Tein's manual front 28mm and rear 35mm along with Cusco LCA
I didnt touch anything on front camber.
I am wondering how you guys set up on front camber and rear.
I don't know what setting is good for street.

I have -1.5 camber and -1 in the rear.

how is it?
I was just wondering what others have.
I heard -1.2 front and -1 is good

-2.7 front -2.1 rear :D

(toe: 0 l/r front, -1/32 l/r rear)

dammm

I don't know what setup is ideal...

-Street, DD only, never going to trip traction control: 0 to -1 deg F/R
-'spirited, dd, canyons, memes, maybe one day I'll go to the track' -1 to -2 F/R, more front camber than rear by 0.2 to 0.5 degrees
-Occasional HPDE/AutoX, I don't care about tire wear -3 F, -2 R
-Max performance: buy a pyrometer, learn to make your own adjustments, rent a skidpad


Odds are your best results will come from asking the shop for suggestions and going with that (assuming it jives with what you've seen here). That's assuming it's a good shop though, not a crappy one or like a firestone/tire place that does quick-e alignments (places that sell lifetime alignments are usually a bit lazy about it just going with factory specs which are really loose).