Coilover Adjustment Help

[jrs16]

Hi All,

I'm in search of some help regarding adjustments to my new coilovers on my 97 Civic Coupe. I've recently installed a new set of Tein Flex coilovers on my Civic. As well, I've replaced most of the bushings (that I could) with an Energy Suspension kit. The remaining bushings will be swapped out this weekend....hopefully.

So my question is.....how much adjustment room do I have with these coilovers. I have the manual in front of me and I have the exact MM adjustments I can make. So I know the numbers but what exactly do I adjust to achieve a given result. There are a total of 3 adjustable "brackets". The top 2 lock together at the bottom of the spring....to form a spring seat. The last "bracket" is at the bottom of the shock which locks against the shock body.

If I adjust the spring lower seat +/-, what exactly does that do to the ride?

What happens to the ride if I adjust +/- using the lower bracket?

Which one do I adjust to +/- the ride height?

Which one do I adjust to firm/soften the ride quality?

And of course, on this model of Tein's, I also have 16 adjustable dampening levels.

I'm quite sure that this topic has been covered a hundred times in this forum and others in the past. But I've exhaustively looked for answers but I can't seem to find the exact technical answers I'm needing. So I thought I would post the questions.

Now that I've installed these new coilovers and bushings, I'm trying to adjust the ride to my liking. Me be the anal SOB that I am, I want to make sure what the hell I'm adjusting and just exactly what results I should expect.

So I'm hoping you go easy on the newbie questions and shed some light on this for me.

Any help (info, links, docs) would be most appreciated!

Thanks.

[SilverY2KCivic]

The bottom ring is the lock for the full length adjustment. Basically on typical coilovers, when you adjust the height, you also adjust the spring preload at the same time by the spring being compressed as you lower, or decompressing as you raise it up. With the full length adjustment, you can change the ride height WITHOUT sacrificing ride quality by changing the spring preload. I'd highly recommend adjusting the height that way. BOTH brackets will adjust ride height, but the top 2 will change the ride quality, the bottom one will not.

With the Flex kit, you can lower by as much as "1.34 in the front and "1.02 at the rear. Wow, that's not much... If you don't have it already, here is the installation manual to your Tein Flex kit. It's in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Good luck!

[jrs16]

Thanks for the link to the .pdf Silver. But the link is to the manual for Type RA. But I did find and download the manual for my Flex. But the manual for the RA made more sense. In that the RA's only have 1 adjustment bracket. Therefore, if you lower the car you are also adjusting the ride quality. Can I assume that would make for a softer ride?....because you are lengthing the spring? Or will the shock/spring compress to it's "natural" length based on how much weight the car is applying to the corner of the car. I'm I close?

Back to my Flex. With the second adjustment bracket, at the bottom of the shock, that will strictly adjust ride height. And, like you said, the 2 brackets at the bottom of the spring will also adjust ride height but also adjust ride quality.

So knowing that now......if I "lower" the upper 2 brackets by turning the brackets down the shock body, that will lower the car. What will it do to the ride? Softer or Harder? As you can tell, I'm failing this physics class on basic force application here. I guess I should have paid closer attention in high school.

As well....if I have a ride height that I like (and works) and I wanted to soften the overall ride, a bit, I would turn down the upper 2 brackets to "soften" the ride and then turn down the lower bracket to raise the car back up to it's original height?

Am I even close?

And one last question. The adjustment numbers that you quoted, as well as the ones in the manual....what is the base setting? The shock set up with the "Reference Values" that are stated in the manual? Then from there, I can adjust it +/- based on the values. Or are these numbers based on stock/oem shock setup?

Thanks for any help!

[SilverY2KCivic]

The numbers are generally based off stock OEM suspension setup.

If you adjust the spring perch collars (the 2 upper brackets), going down will stiffen the right a little bit, and going up will soften it. I would adjust the height using the bottom bracket for the full length adjustability, and then changing the ride comfort/shock dampening using the 16-way adjuster at the top of each shock,m that's what it is there for and it's also for fine tuning car balance and handling. I would not set the ride comfort based on the spring preload and raising and lowering the car using the spring perch collars. Just read the instructions you found, and it should explain everything on what eack bracket does when you adjust it. And sorry about posting the wrong manual, it was confusing which manual went to what model, i thought the links were below the descriptions.

[jrs16]

Thanks for the info Silver! Much appreciated!

I will try your recommendations out today. As well as swap out the rest of the front bushings. Wish me luck.

But of course, I also have 1 other question and it's regarding bushings. In my ES kit that I got for the Civic, it comes with a "donut" like bushing. It's designed to go on the shock itself between the top of the spring and the upper mount. Currently, on the Tein Flex, it's metal to metal....spring to upper mount.

Does anyone have an opinion on these bushings? Are they worth the effort to install? It will involve compressing the spring, removing the upper mount, installing the bushing and then re-assembling the shock and then re-installing the shock back on the car. Is the benefit of these bushings worth that effort? And if installed, what exactly will these bushing offer? Less vibrations? A bit of smoother ride? Will they have any effect on handling? Good or bad?

Thanks for any insights you can give.

[SilverY2KCivic]

Originally Posted by jrs16

Thanks for the info Silver! Much appreciated!

I will try your recommendations out today. As well as swap out the rest of the front bushings. Wish me luck.

But of course, I also have 1 other question and it's regarding bushings. In my ES kit that I got for the Civic, it comes with a "donut" like bushing. It's designed to go on the shock itself between the top of the spring and the upper mount. Currently, on the Tein Flex, it's metal to metal....spring to upper mount.

Does anyone have an opinion on these bushings? Are they worth the effort to install? It will involve compressing the spring, removing the upper mount, installing the bushing and then re-assembling the shock and then re-installing the shock back on the car. Is the benefit of these bushings worth that effort? And if installed, what exactly will these bushing offer? Less vibrations? A bit of smoother ride? Will they have any effect on handling? Good or bad?

Thanks for any insights you can give.

Ehh, if Tein thought that the bushing was important (and believe me they R&D for that type of thing) then they would have included one themself. My SS kit, the spring is metal to metal with the upper mount and I don't get any noise or any other issues with that. If you feel better installing it, then it shouldn't hurt anything. and a little FYI, if you lower the SPRING perch collars (the 2 upper of the 3) and lower them ALL the way down to install the bushings, you won't have to compress the spring, as it'll have some play between the bottom and top mounts. Mine are like that at least, if you lower them more than 3/4 of the way down the threading, then the spring will have about an inch of play between the top and bottom mounts when no load is applied to the shock/spring.

[jrs16]

Yes, you're absolutely correct. Just out of pure curiousity, I removed one of my rear shocks, disassemblied it and attempted to install the ES bushing at the spring top. As soon I did that, I realized that the bushing would allow the spring to move (slide) around at the upper mount. I didn't like that and most likely is NOT safe...IMO. And like you said, I think if Tein wanted one, they would have put one there. These SOB's are well designed! They have a small bushing at the bottom spring perch. So I decided to leave the top ES spring bushing out.

You were right about the lower spring perch too....I lowered it about half way down the shock body and the spring was completely free. No spring compressors required. Which was kind of a nice surprise.....for maintenance anyways.

I followed your advice, adjusted the ride height that will work in this area ( Ontario, Canada ), by using only the lower collar. Then I adjusted the ride quality by using the dampening adjustments. I started at 8 (middle setting) and went both ways to see what setting was best. Right now, I have them on full....16th setting. I found the 1 setting, lowest, to give a fairly harsh ride. Does that make sense? That offers the least amount of dampening, therefore a firmer/harsher ride? That was my experience anyways, testing on the country roads out here. So that's why I went with the full setting, it seemed to offer the best ride but yet still firm.

Thanks for all your help though.

Much Appreciated!

[SilverY2KCivic]

No prob man.

Around where I live just outside of LA in So. Cali, I keep mine at 4 clicks from stiffest at the rear, and 8 clicks from stiffest at the front. Gives me the best results for the kind of handling I desire, a stiffer rear. When I race with my car, I go to the stiffest setting at the rear, and 4 clicks from stiffest at the front. NOT a good setting for the drive home though, LOL! I'm also running slightly stiffer springs (that I had upgraded to last year) than the ones your Flex's came with.

[jrs16]

I kind of figured you were in S. Cal. Very cool that you can race your DD car.

Just out of curiousity, what kind of springs did you "upgrade" too with your Tein's? Was it worth the upgrade? What did you gain by the upgrade?

[SilverY2KCivic]

Originally Posted by jrs16

I kind of figured you were in S. Cal. Very cool that you can race your DD car.

Just out of curiousity, what kind of springs did you "upgrade" too with your Tein's? Was it worth the upgrade? What did you gain by the upgrade?

The springs I got are springs that Tein manufactures for custom spring rates. You just to where you order the coilover kit from, and tell them that you want to order stiffer springs for your kit, and you tell them what spring rate you want to order. They cost $50 per spring, that's a flat price that ALL shops offer, they can't be flexable on it like they can with the price of the ktis, since they are getting them at the rpice that Tein sells them for.

The upgrade was definitely worth it, I feel so at least. Unless you race like i do or do any SERIOUS type of handling (whipping fast around street corners isn't serious type handling) then you probably won't notice the differance. What I gained by the upgrade is a stiffer ride, less body roll, and the front of the car no longer plows (dips to the outside wheel and understeers) on extreme turns when on the throttle. It helped me to get faster times when racing in auto-cross.

[jrs16]

Well I'm not into racing, at least not yet but that's good to know about getting stiffer springs from Tein. I don't think for DD car that I need to go that hardcore.

I'm slowly starting to get the car "dialed in" now and once I swap out the rest of the front end OEM bushings and get my dam wheel alignment, I think I will be very pleased with the car.

Thanks so much for all your help. And if I have any more questions, I know where to come.

Thanks!!