Questions about TEIN Flex
 

I just got mine in the mail. Reading through the instructions, it has you set the ride height to "The Reference Height," which it says gives a road clearance of 90mm (which is about 3.5"). For those of you that have the Flex, how does this "Reference" ride height compare to stock? Or, what is the stock ground clearance if anyone knows? Also, anybody run into any "gotchas" during the install of these things, or the EDFC setup (which I also got)? Thanks.

I don't have the tein flex yet, but a friend does. I can't answer your questions, just passing a note he gave me to attend to, when I get mine: after installation he got a small 'squeeking' noise (if there is such a word). He said it was irritating, so the dealer gave him a small rubber thing (never saw it, sorry don't have more info) so that metal will stop grinding... it was from the rear set.

Just letting you know, before you put them on, hope I helped:)

I have had my TEIN Flex on for a couple months now and basically I didn't pay any attention to the reference height because I adjusted them according to where I thought the car looked best with the minimum amount of fender gap. I did notice that the rear doesn't drop as much as the front will. It is a little odd. I am actually going to remove the suspension and reinstall the edfc motors because I believe I didn't do it perfectly because the ride is still a little too rough on the softest setting. The instructions aren't the greatest so take your time and everything should come out good. I have no squeaking problems or handling problems. good luck. post if you have problems.

"the ride is still a little too rough on the softest setting"

wow, is that true? adjusting the edfc in the softest setting shouldn't it be softer than stock?
so how rough is the stiffest:confused:

From reading the EDFC instructions, if you don't properly set the dampening manually before putting the motors on, then the "softest" setting according to the EDFC controller won't necessarily be the "softest" setting available on the coilover itself.

With spring rates over 3x stock, the Flex will never ride softer than stock, regardless of what the dampers are set to.

Have you had a chance to really drive the car hard? Typically, you want to maintain the factory "rake" - the front being a little lower than the rear. Changing the rake can change the balance of the car - making the car oversteer or understeer, depending on what you do.

I have been driving the car with the current setup for a while now and it handles better than stock, That is for sure. The only thing I need to adjust are the motors so that the comfort range will feel larger because with the way it is currently setup it goes from very stiff ride to a moderately stiff ride.
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If you just slap the coilovers on, I believe Tein claims a 1.5" drop in the front and 0.7" drop in the rear. I just put the front ones on as is and dropped the rears and it works fine.

The ride quality isn't harsh at all, but I had the Michelin PS2s (2 lbs lighter than stock tires) on when I installed the coilvers, and I know that switching the tires improved ride quality greatly. I think on the softest setting, the springs are to stiff (i.e. there's a mismatch between the spring rate and shock damping). I had it on 11 or 12 (16 being the softest), which worked out well.

You might consider that the coilovers are also several lbs lighter per corner lighter than the stock spring/shock combo.

I just had 19" wheels put on a few weeks ago, staggered 19x8.5 and 19x9.5, and I stiffed the rears a little bit more.

Jeff

Nice info guys.
George, good point, I forgot about spring stiffness:o

However, my friend told me that the stock spring/shock combo felt lighter than the coilover.
Ok he didn't weigh them... just what he thought...

sorry to dig up this old thread, but is this true? i just started another thread asking about the weight difference, another owner says they're within a few oz of each other...i wish there were some numbers to look at

Do coilovers count as unsprung weight? I suppose some part of the coilover is...



edit: I just realized why the STi has inverted struts.