Tein Flex set

SUMMARY

Onto the buy Tein Flex set online – general impressions are very high overall quality. Honestly, for made in Japan coilovers, I was shocked at the high quality given the price point. The damping curves are generally good, with the car not crashing over bumps or feeling uncontrolled at a given “stiffness” (or level of damping). It’s very easy to go from the comfortable for a bumpy street under damped level, to a slightly over damped setting for track or spirited driving. The travel is good, with the car staying up off the bumpstops in typical cornering. The 10k spring rates are a good blend of street vs. track. You can totally daily drive these, but they’re actually very good on track too.

STREET IMPRESSIONS

My stock front dampers were leaking, so the Teins actually ride MUCH better on my car. Compared to a good condition stock setup, I’d say it’d still be a ride comfort improvement when you turn the shocks down. The car will gain a tad of additional bounceyness over big bumps, but it won’t be that horrible undamped oscillation you see on cars way over lowered and on the bumpstops. You can tell the spring rate has increased quite a bit, but I still find it perfectly reasonable for street/daily driving duty. Turning the shocks up to a critically damped setup on the street is a decent amount rougher than stock as you’d expect for such a large spring rate increase, no free lunch there. Large bumps feel better on the Flex Zs with preload, as you have a stiffer spring and essentially the same shock travel as stock, so it takes a lot more to ram it into the bumpstop. The big range of adjustable damping really is key here for maintaining street comfort. On some setups with wonky adjusting mechanisms, you do not get this benefit as the adjustment window is so narrow it’s impossible to tune the shocks in reality.