tein

[brandini]

If you were to tune them on a shock dyno to tune them and never adjust them again then MAYBE. But I'd be more apt to listen to the guy with the national Autox championship title who has dyoed them...

Also on adjustability:

Happy Fun Fact: Formula One cars use non-adjustable shocks. They get away with this by running the car on a seven-post shaker rig that plays back suspension movements recorded previously on that track, using the data the collect on the rig to tune the shocks, and once the shocks are tuned, those are the shock forces they use at the race. Once they're right, they're right.

OK, so what if they aren't right? Wouldn't it be good to have an adjuster for tuning purposes?

Well, yeah, it would be - if the adjuster worked as advertised. In my experience on my shock dyno, most adjusters DO NOT work the way you think they do - in some cases, horrendously. It's like having a blind man adjust the focus on your camera. What's the point?

And that's if the left and right shocks on the same end of the car act the same - when in reality, they almost certainly do not (unless you've taken the time to match them)

 

[SPEEDYHANS]

ok ur not building a f1 car if u wore then ull be right and ill look like an ass but this is a street car not a race car f1 cars only run when the need to race we run our cars every day. all im saying is that tein are better for day to day driving and weekend track then any other

 

[cymx5]

Again, if you are in the Stock-class game, you may not have a choice but to run tons of shock force; you are prohibited by the rules from changing springs, and stiff shocks will act like "fake springs" in transitions. But once you graduate to classes that let you change springs, shock forces should plummet.

I understand your intentions. Nonetheless, to compare dampers and springs is wrong. They are independent components which work together as a dynamic system. What he should state is that stiff shocks will create an overdamped condition. I respect his effort to help people, but his nomenclature is not correct.

On topic, the Tein Basics I've heard mixed reviews of. The Tein Flex, on the other hand, have been successful for many people I've talked to with non-MS3 vehicles. The never said anything too technical, but the general consensus was that for the price of the Basics one could easily upgrade to a better coilover.

 

[brandini]

I understand your intentions. Nonetheless, to compare dampers and springs is wrong. They are independent components which work together as a dynamic system. What he should state is that stiff shocks will create an overdamped condition. I respect his effort to help people, but his nomenclature is not correct.

He does, by explaining how everything should be set up properly. He says do this when you have no other option for a stock class car in competition...

On topic, the Tein Basics I've heard mixed reviews of. The Tein Flex, on the other hand, have been successful for many people I've talked to with non-MS3 vehicles. The never said anything too technical, but the general consensus was that for the price of the Basics one could easily upgrade to a better coilover.

I get this feeling as well. But don't ignore the points he makes about matching left to right (clocking the adjusters) if you are dead set on fiddling with knobs.

all im saying is that tein are better for day to day driving and weekend track then any other

Why?

 

[derspi]

I get what ur saying and i respected but were im at everyone that has them seems to like to ride and some members do to so i wouldnt call them crap because if they wore crap then noone would be buying them

Yes, they just CAN'T be wrong! Ken Block, Doc B, team ABC and even team XYZ uses them, they MUST be awesome!!!! *cough* *sponsorship* *cough*

Oh and of course, it CAN'T be crap since real live people bought and even installed them on their cars!

I'll take a dozen sets please.

 

[cymx5]

Call up Tein and request references and product information if you need to verify the vendors reputation and quality. Inquire about the most common warranty claims. Find out what issues customers have had and ask how they addressed the issues.

Seriously. Tein is the one who knows the product best. If it sounds like they don't want to share the information you want, then throw the red flag and find someone else.

 

[brandini]

Call up Tein and request references and product information if you need to verify the vendors reputation and quality. Inquire about the most common warranty claims. Find out what issues customers have had and ask how they addressed the issues.

Seriously. Tein is the one who knows the product best. If it sounds like they don't want to share the information you want, then throw the red flag and find someone else.

If this forum had rep I'd rep you now.

 

[cymx5]

If this forum had rep I'd rep you now.

Please explain. I work in a technical field and this is great advice to ask the vendor questions if you're curious about their product. You're threatening me like a middle schooler tattling to his mother. Nothing in this thread that I have stated is fictitious.

My three statements, which I still stand behind firmly:

1) Springs and dampers are independent and should not be confused as having the same mechanical functioning.

2) I've heard good opinions of Tein Flex coilovers. Tein Basics has mixed reviews.

3) The best resource to use is the vendor; in this case Tein. Call them up, ask them how their system works. Ask how their coilover compares to competition. They don't bite .

 

[brandini]

I work in a technical field and this is great advice to ask the vendor questions if you're curious about their product. You're threatening me like a middle schooler tattling to his mother. Nothing in this thread that I have stated is fictitious.

I fail to see the threat I made- because I did not make one.

Rep is a points system in some vBuletin forums that allows users to +rep or -rep other users. When I said I'd rep you, it means I agree with what you have stated. If you assumed this was a threat, it's the internet man... chill.

The only point I believe you should think about more is the spring comment. If you have a stiffer shock you are preventing car movement with the higher forces exhibited, similar to (but not the same as) having a stiffer spring. If you think they are completely independent I think you would be mistaken. If you are in a transition with a stock spring and seriously stiff shocks, there will be times during the turn where the shock will be fighting the transition, acting as a stiffer spring would for that moment until the car takes a set or levels. Again, neither the author, nor I am saying it is the same, and I agree with him that if you are in a stock class that you make have to have a seriously stiff shock to 'feign' a stiffer spring in turns.

Me? I'd rather just have a marginally stiffer linear spring with large sways- just like the tri-point Mazda 6 runs.

 

[cymx5]

I fail to see the threat I made- because I did not make one.
Rep is a points system in some vBuletin forums that allows users to +rep or -rep other users. When I said I'd rep you, it means I agree with what you have stated. If you assumed this was a threat, it's the internet man... chill.

I need to apologize for my confusion. I took that to mean you wanted to report me (boom05) (dunno) ! Now that I understand, it's A-OK.

I don't doubt by any means that you don't understand how adjusting the damping will affect the dynamics of the car. This is an interesting site below, although it's a random one I picked. It's from Georgia Tech. Essentially he's correct in that stiffening the dampers will stiffen the ride, but it's by over-damping the system (not doing anything to spring rate). The governing equation of motion clearly indicates that the damping and spring constant are independent force elements, and together they determine the response of a dynamic spring-damper system.

In the case of Tein or any other coilovers, I would say the worst thing that could happen is that they match the spring and damper in that their off the shelf coilover cannot reach a critically damped condition. The inconsistent results of changing the damping are interesting though (from that link). I wonder if they can provide results from any of their factory tests?

 

[brandini]

The governing equation of motion clearly indicates that the damping and spring constant are independent force elements, and together they determine the response of a dynamic spring-damper system.

The forces are combined and when you can't mess with one, you mess with the other- that's all he was trying to say!

Now that that is out of the way, I'm interested in taking all the necessary measurements in finding the specs for a properly dampened suspension for each model car. I know unsprung weigh comes into play but if we can get close then more people will have fewer questions about what's right and what's not.

A good starting point:
PHORUM DOT MAZDUH 6 Club dot com/index.php?showtopic=78319

 

[SPEEDYHANS]

all im saying is that tein are not crap

ok im putting them on next sat how about ill tell u what i think of them after i install them

 

[brandini]

I would rather see a shock dyno plot than have someone say 'they feel nice'

 

[derspi]

I would rather see a shock dyno plot than have someone say 'they feel nice'

There's only so much cold hard #s can tell us. But I would agree that it's certainly better than something as subjective as someone's butt dyno.

 

[brandini]

The hardest part is drawing the lines that connect what you feel to what the numbers are. And as always, everyone likes it just a tad different. Many teams with identical cars have drivers that hate driving on each others setups but turn in nearly identical times.