Tein Flex Z review

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by churchx

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 ..

Cost.

[breadcrumbz]

Originally Posted by Shady195

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.

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?

[Shady195]

Originally Posted by breadcrumbz

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.

[SilverFRS]

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.

[Shady195]

Originally Posted by SilverFRS

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.

[shellslinger]

Originally Posted by SilverFRS

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.

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.

[ajc209]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Cost.

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....

[Shady195]

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

[shellslinger]

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.

[SilverFRS]

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

[shellslinger]

Originally Posted by SilverFRS

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

[Shady195]

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..

[SilverFRS]

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

[cocaine_coupe]

Originally Posted by Shady195

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

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