Tein Active EDFC?? Yes please :)

[RallySport Direct]

We are super excited to announce that we will be getting the FIRST set of TEIN Active EDFC with GPS along with TEIN Street Advance coilovers for our 2013 Shop BRZ "Albino Rhino" to do full product testing and a full review!

Keep an eye out for a full product review from us

Kirill
RallySportDirect.com

[RallySport Direct]

Originally Posted by jkonquer

I remember tanabe or some other company came out with active dampening as well. Did you guys ever follow up on how it did and pros and cons?

We have never ran them personally, so I cannot provide much insight into them, however it is a similar concept. The Tanabe system "TEAS" uses a speed sensor to make the adjustments, where the Tein active EDFC can also take advantage of a G-sensor along with the speed sensor. Maybe someone else can chime in who has used the Tanabe TEAS system and give a review.

Thanks,
Rick

[JoeBoxer]

What's the spring rate on the street advance? Can you review them without the edfc first?

[fatoni]

i think its stupid for a a bunch of reasons. one, the money can be better spent elsewhere. two, the majority of us are not able to tune static suspensions with any efficiency, how do you suppose we handle something like this? three, the street spec damper? what kind of control and adjustablity do you get with that? i doubt its enough to make use of the dynamic controls. four, oem suspensions use magnetic fields to instantly change the fluids viscosity. this is just up there turning a knob. my guess is that is is slower and more stressful on your shocks. five, cross talk. i doubt the edfc is taking any realtime data from what the suspension is doing. it is most likely just working off an accelerometer. theres probalby more but this is already too long.

not so much a fault of the product but i think this makes me feel the community are hypocrites. a computer controlling your suspension tuning is cool but when a computer is controlling your traction or how your car shifts (dct haters) it is taking away from the purity of a sports car.

[Captain Snooze]

I think this article brings up some relevant points:
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/news/de...?storyId=26916

[neutron256]

Originally Posted by fatoni

i think its stupid for a a bunch of reasons. one, the money can be better spent elsewhere. two, the majority of us are not able to tune static suspensions with any efficiency, how do you suppose we handle something like this? three, the street spec damper? what kind of control and adjustablity do you get with that? i doubt its enough to make use of the dynamic controls. four, oem suspensions use magnetic fields to instantly change the fluids viscosity. this is just up there turning a knob. my guess is that is is slower and more stressful on your shocks. five, cross talk. i doubt the edfc is taking any realtime data from what the suspension is doing. it is most likely just working off an accelerometer. theres probalby more but this is already too long.

not so much a fault of the product but i think this makes me feel the community are hypocrites. a computer controlling your suspension tuning is cool but when a computer is controlling your traction or how your car shifts (dct haters) it is taking away from the purity of a sports car.

Rehomagnetics are the latest and greatest in active suspensions, but damper control has been around for years on high end cars and it does work.

As for driving aids, I love them, especially when I can have levels to choose from like in the FRS/BRZ. Some pureists will say that active suspension is not needed and they can control the car better without a computer interfering, but no matter how good a driver you are you can't change suspension settings while your driving.

[meeks]

Originally Posted by mines13

Yep, just ask Nigel Mansel when he was driving for Williams in the 90's.

haha correct!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AME4v3qZkc"]Williams active suspension video 1993 - YouTube[/ame]

[Deebeaux]

My '89 Supra had TEMS on it, which was Toyota's OEM version of this (albeit rudimentary at BEST compared to this... was based on speed, steering, throttle/brake input, and only had 3 levels of firmness) and a friend ran Tein EDFCs for a while on a track car, this looks fantastic.

Can't wait to see it!

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by fatoni

i think its stupid for a a bunch of reasons. one, the money can be better spent elsewhere. two, the majority of us are not able to tune static suspensions with any efficiency, how do you suppose we handle something like this? three, the street spec damper? what kind of control and adjustablity do you get with that? i doubt its enough to make use of the dynamic controls. four, oem suspensions use magnetic fields to instantly change the fluids viscosity. this is just up there turning a knob. my guess is that is is slower and more stressful on your shocks. five, cross talk. i doubt the edfc is taking any realtime data from what the suspension is doing. it is most likely just working off an accelerometer. theres probalby more but this is already too long.

not so much a fault of the product but i think this makes me feel the community are hypocrites. a computer controlling your suspension tuning is cool but when a computer is controlling your traction or how your car shifts (dct haters) it is taking away from the purity of a sports car.

We are able to tune our dampers to be ideal for a given corner, which leads to a sacrifice in another corner. With the active EDFC, we can have the damping change based on speed, since speed is generally how the corners are differentiated. Given the full programability of the unit by speed, we'll be able to have ideal damping for every turn, instead of tuning the damping to give the "best net effect" of tuning for just one turn.

Theoretically, it'll help

Remember, we're talking a one or two click range to be critically damped for every corner on track. Adjustment times would be quick

I'm rather curious what the effect of having a setting change mid-stroke would be...

[wu_dot_com]

but this is all assuming that the valves adjustment is corresponding to an actual change in damping and rebound rate.

i remember reading another article here stating that companies like Tein and BC where their valve adjustment knob are mostly decorative. Where either their adjustment knob have little to no effects in adjusting the damp rate or the linear click results in a none linear spike of the damp and rebound rate, or excessive crosstalk between the damping and rebound.

This then begs the question of the feedback system of this EDFC control, how does it know that it’s doing what it says it’s going to do? How does it account for manufacturing variation?

From my understanding of the system, it’s a plug and play device with no key feature calibration.

IMO, this EDFC is a gimmick device with little or no real world advantage. Though the idea is sound, their implementation is extremely poor.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by wu_dot_com

but this is all assuming that the valves adjustment is corresponding to an actual change in damping and rebound rate.

i remember reading another article here stating that companies like Tein and BC where their valve adjustment knob are mostly decorative. Where either their adjustment knob have little to no effects in adjusting the damp rate or the linear click results in a none linear spike of the damp and rebound rate, or excessive crosstalk between the damping and rebound.

This then begs the question of the feedback system of this EDFC control, how does it know that it’s doing what it says it’s going to do? How does it account for manufacturing variation?

From my understanding of the system, it’s a plug and play device with no key feature calibration.

IMO, this EDFC is a gimmick device with little or no real world advantage. Though the idea is sound, their implementation is extremely poor.

We hold lap records with our Tein suspension. I'm inclined to believe that the damper adjustment knobs have a real effect, especially when a single click makes a noticeable change in the car's behavior.

It is a plug and play device, and we'll be testing soon to see if it's actually functional in a meaningful way.

[wu_dot_com]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

We hold lap records with our Tein suspension. I'm inclined to believe that the damper adjustment knobs have a real effect, especially when a single click makes a noticeable change in the car's behavior.

It is a plug and play device, and we'll be testing soon to see if it's actually functional in a meaningful way.

i am not doubting your findings. however, the shock to shock adjustment knob variation may have a larger range of inconsistency than it seems.

were you able to get shock dyno results for those click adjustments?

also were you able to get before and after comparison for those click adjustments for damping vs rebound after a few track days?

as with any hydraulic valves, tolerance, response time, seal wear, leakage, and erosion are all part of the equation.

From my experience in repair and overhaul aircraft flight control hydraulics, you simply cannot assume the performance of any hydraulic systems unless you have position feedback. This is why most control hydraulics with a performance (damping, rebound, speed, etc) requirements needs a position sensors like LVDT or potentiometer to compensate the performance deterioration.

[wu_dot_com]

also from my understanding, the tein flex line have damping and rebound adjustment tide together. thus a change on the fly for damping would effect your rebound thus really limits the potential of the entire system.

this is the thd i was talking about

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25388

[fatoni]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

We are able to tune our dampers to be ideal for a given corner, which leads to a sacrifice in another corner. With the active EDFC, we can have the damping change based on speed, since speed is generally how the corners are differentiated. Given the full programability of the unit by speed, we'll be able to have ideal damping for every turn, instead of tuning the damping to give the "best net effect" of tuning for just one turn.

Theoretically, it'll help

Remember, we're talking a one or two click range to be critically damped for every corner on track. Adjustment times would be quick

I'm rather curious what the effect of having a setting change mid-stroke would be...

i understand that there can be an ideal shock setting for each corner. imo, that is more of a bandaid for not being able to have enough travel but thats not really doable in some cases. i would wager that recessed top hats and helper springs would make a car faster than this electronic wizardry. for smooth surfaces i can see how this may or may not provide a benefit (i would wager that any improvements could be disregarded in the margin of error). the issue i see is in the high speed performance of a shock. anything over 3ft/sec and have doubts that a computer can physically turn the knob so that it is adjusted during the event and not after it.

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

We hold lap records with our Tein suspension. I'm inclined to believe that the damper adjustment knobs have a real effect, especially when a single click makes a noticeable change in the car's behavior.

It is a plug and play device, and we'll be testing soon to see if it's actually functional in a meaningful way.

i like the higher end tein products a lot but i think the issue is not in the fact that you wont find a shock setting that works, its that (in this price range) you dont have any sort of repeatability in shock setting. the damping profile that you have at a shock setting of 10 (arbitrary) coming from 15 is probably not going to have the same dyno when you are coming from a setting of 5. the vavling adjustments seem to be a tool to fine tune the shocks to eachother and to the spring. without repeatability and without active suspenion monitoring, i dont think this will provide too much benefit. in theory, theory and practice are the same. in practice, they are not. i will be curious to see what actual testing proves.