Thank ya

 

Good news for those of you concerned about the ride of these coilovers- I found a car that rides almost identically to my car on Tein Basis.

I was worried about one road that seemed a bit bouncier in my car after the coilovers. It is a newer road where the seams are not quite right and you do feel some bounce in all cars.

I drove a new Miata over the same stretch of road and it felt identical. The other good news is that our cars handle much better around corners with a lot less body roll than the Miata. So if you are curious about the ride quality, just test drive a new Miata- extremely similar ride.

 

I borrowed a neighbors impact wrench and that deffinitely made things so much easier. I wouldn't attempt it without one again.

One thing I noticed when I was buttoning everything back up, I noticed that the front coilovers have a L & R on them (nothing about this was mentioned in the Tein instructions, though I should have been more observant). I unfortunately have them backwards. I was wondering if it really made a difference. Obviously it's technically incorrect but I was trying to think about if anything was different. The abs/brake lines connect and full left to right turn there's plenty of slack. I just can't imagine how there could be anything significantly different between left/right.

Should I take everything part and swap Left and Right front coilovers?

 

I emailed Tein and they "highly recommended" that I swap the left/right front coilovers, because it may appear that the abs/brake lines have enough play but that it might not be the case driving. I drove it around today but will probably swap them around when I install my SPL FUCAs.

 

If you're not 100% sure then I'd get the front on jackstands and do a full lock to lock on your steering wheel. I'd also have a helper slowly turn the steering as you check for line slack. You'd hate to have something happen on the road, I wouldn't drive it until you're certain.

 

I checked before and it seemed they had clearance but since I have this impact wrench I swapped them today. They definitely have more slack now and now I don't have to be so cautious with my turns. It also gave me a chance to install the SPL FUCAs which was an easy install to do at the same time.

Looking forward to a 4 wheel alignment, corner balance and new wheels/rubber.

 

Sounds good, always nice to know all the parts are in all the right places

Post up more reviews as time goes by, also a review on those SPL Control Arms too.
Thanks!

 

Ride Height Update: Last week I noticed my front tires had rubbed through my front fender liners- especially on the driver's side. (Probably from a track day.) So today I figured I better do something about it. I raised the car up 1/4" on each corner since I noticed it was rubbing slightly in the rear too. It probably only rubs with lots of G-force on the track so my stock height would be fine for the street for most, but it was still too low for a lot of car washes and would catch sometimes on driveways and speed bumps. Hopefully, this will help a bit with all of that.

If you are changing the height on these coilovers, make sure you spray some penetrating lube (PB blaster, WD-40, etc.) into the threads and between the collars before you try moving the threaded collars. If you use the stock wrenches, wear gloves and wrap the wrenches in a few rags so the wrenches don't cut into your hands too much.

I raised the coilovers in front from 1 7/8" to 2 1/8". The rear coilovers went from 1" to 1 1/4". (The pics below show where I was measuring.)

The weird thing is I could never get a solid reading measuring ground to fender, especially in the rear. If I adjusted one coilover it would also affect the other side. The closest measurements I could get are Left Front- 26 3/4 and Right Front- 26 13/16. Left Rear- 26 1/4 and Right Rear- 26 5/8" Strange since the measurement on the coilovers was identical on both sides???

I am curious to see if there is any difference in ride quality or handling.


Rear




Front





I also did a temporary solution for the big holes the tires rubbed in the fender liners to make sure I have enough clearance before I get new liners. We will see how well gorilla tape holds up.


Before




After

 

I've heard that wrapping those adjuster threads w/ electrical tape does a good job keeping grit out of those threads making it much easier if you need to adjust them later on.
I went up a 1/2" from my previous springs to my current coilovers, and that made a huge difference in navigating daily drives, much happier now. Now at 26.25" to the fender arcs.

BTW, nice duct tape job

 

when you adjusted the front coilovers were u able to loosen the collars without having to disassemble the coilover mounts or anything?

 

Sway bars, perhaps? This is where adjustable sway bar end links would come into play.

I had that problem with mine too - the coilovers aren't adjusted to the same measurement side to side, but sits level on even ground.

 

Not a bad idea with the electrical tape, but duct tape would probably be a lot easier. They cleaned up pretty easily with WD-40. That way I don't have to wrap and unwrap them every time I want to adjust them. Glad you approve of my fancy duct tape work. RedGreen would be proud!

Yes

Nah, it's gotta be from all the newfound horsepower twisting the chassis. It could be sway bars, end links, hubs, chassis, pitch of my garage, etc. 1/4" difference is not that much when you consider all the moving parts between the two sides. At least it is consistent. After a few days it is still a 1/16" difference up front and 1/4" in the rear.

 

I think the car rides just slightly better on the bouncy roads now that I raised it up just a touch. Maybe it is the placebo effect, but it makes sense logically too. If I give the shock more room to travel it can do its job better.

The thing I cannot figure out is that the car is almost exactly at 26.5" fender to ground on all 4 wheels except the driver's rear. It is 1/4" lower than the rest. The weird part is that each set of coilovers (front and rear) are adjusted exactly the same. I know there are a lot of moving parts between the two rear wheels and 1/4" is not much, but it makes me think somewhere, something is twisted or tweaked a bit. Maybe the chassis itself?

 

so is it better to make coil lock rings same height and deal with the slightly uneven fender height or to make the rings not same height and adjust them so that the fender height is even both sides?

 

I think it would be better to adjust so that the fender height (ideally, true ride height) is the same, in order to provide the same amount of movement in the suspension in relation to the body and ground. It's never going to be the exactly same, and this level of adjustability is built into the suspension anyway.