whats up guys

Does anyone have this set-up on their daily driven car?? Seeing how these are going for 1,000 without the pillow ball mounts, i figured id look into them. by the way what are the advantages with the pillow mounts?

I live in Massachussets and winters are shitty so i need to know if im going to run into to any rust/failure due to the crap weather.


Any other comments/advice are welcome. TIA


Mike D

 

Had them on my gsr, softest seting and they were as soft as the stock shocks. you defently hear alot more road noise with the pillow mounts though. Over all impression, I thought they were great. A little hard to adjust the height but they worked nicely with the ITR rear bar. As for the rust part, I had them on for about a year in south florida and I would just spray them down every oil change with WD-40 and they never got any rust on them, but they got dirty as hell...

 

I've heard you will have a *much* stiffer ride with the pillowball mounts. I've actually been looking into a set of these myself for my hybrid (non-pillowball). For $1k it seems like a helluva deal! The only thing is if I can find a set of adj coilover springs and some GOOD adj shocks for less. I will go that route.

 

I have them, daily drive them, and love them. I kept them on the softest setting, but got bored with that and have them at about 2/3. Road noise is a little high, but they feel great in the turns. I havent had any of the supposed rust problems. I'd actually like to upgrade to the Tein Pillow mounts at some point.


[Modified by Rob1035, 8:07 PM 2/25/2002]

 

how adjustable are they?

 

16 way on damper... the softest, like I said above, was the same as a stock GSR, the hardest where like a rock. When I first installed them, I thought i turned them fully soft, but realy turned them fully hard. First ride around, thought I was going to lose my fillings.

 

16 way on the damper...not 100% sure on the heighth. I think up to as low as 3".
http://www.tein.com

 

thanks

 

As for height adjust, I could go about 1 inch higher then this picture, or i could put the radiator support on the floor. Sorry, only picture I have of my GSR with them on it.

 

Another alternative for daily driving is the new Tein SS's-- same as the HA's (16-way adj.) but a little softer spring rates. cheaper than ha's too.

 

here's my height setting, i think asspenny and i are pic hoes

I've got about another 2.5" of drop left, so if rollin low is your thing this can handle it.

 

I was told by A&J that they are more like 6 way adjustable.Supposedly the first ten clicks do very little.i would spend a few extra $$$ and get advanced designs.Why someone would spend that kind of cash on steel bodied shocks is beyond me.

 

I agree, that is why my next purchase is going to be on some Zeal S6's

 

what is wrong with a steel bodied shock??

also this is going on a 92 civic dx that will eventually get a swap.

I was also thinking about getting a GC/koni set-up but i dont know which would be better? The koni's seem to be around 450-500 and the GC's seem to be around 3-350. So the price would be close.

what are the spring rates for the Teins?

And yes i would love the Zeals also but i lack the funds.

So i guess this is the new question. GC/Koni or Tein HA?? TIA


Mike D

 

Well if you live in a location where there is salt in the air (south florida) or salt on the ground (to melt da snow), then your threaded body will rust itself to the adjustable part and hense, no more adjustability. Dunno if anybody can find the old pictures or not, but there are some picturs floating around of some Tein HA's that were busted all to hell thanks to rust.

 

Why does the number of adjustments and the body metal make such a big difference? The rear Mugen N1s have only 5 clicks. Koni yellows have 5. The number of positions a shock can adjust to is nearly meaningless.

Is a steel shock too heavy? Are they too thermally inefficient? Are you really going to use coilovers in the winter? I used my HAs in the winter the first time and I regretted it. They didn't rust too badly, but all the salt and the sand and crud caked on them and they were completely seized. I had to attack them with a butane torch, liquid wrench and a rubber mallet to get them free.

Would you really want to use an aluminum shock in the winter? Aluminum corrodes too. And if you get salt and crud in the threads you're screwed either way. It's best to use stock ones since you have a proper ride height and the ride is a lot smoother, depending on spring rates you use.

[edit since I'm a slow typist]I think those pics are mine. I'm looking for them now, so I should have them up in a couple mins...[/edit]


[Modified by B18C5, 6:06 PM 2/25/2002]

 

...please say it ant so!





[Modified by Zeus, 6:13 PM 2/25/2002]

 

lol. It wasn't my first choice. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. First I tried putting the shock in a vice and leveraging the tool with a 4 foot pole. I bent the tool. Then I spent a couple hours with just the mallet and liquid wrench. I got one of them about halfway off. Then I used the torch to heat up the collars (it never got red hot) and then banged with the mallet on the tool. All in all it took about an hour a shock. Needless to say I'm not using them this winter...

I can't find the pix.

 

Oh well that throws the idea of Tein HA out..
http://www.tein.com/ssdamp.html http://www.tein.com/flexdamp.html

Are these all steel (rust prone) too?

 

BBBBBBBBB2222222222sssssssss

 

...guess I really can't say much... almost blew myself and friends up when I was a kid with 100' of speaker wire, a model rocket igniter, and a length of Prima-cord etc... poor Oak tree... we were deaf and picking splitters for days...

Zeus - who would like to state for the record that the above statement is purely fictional and isn't ment to represent any real event or any real person or persons either living or deceased...

 

When I had my ITR I daily drove with the Tein HA's and I normally had the fronts set at 10 and the rears set at 6. After the springs had settled I felt that this was too soft so I went up to 14 in the front and 10 in the rear. I hear the HA's have the "softest" spring of all the Tein coilovers. I had the pillow ball mounts and this setting it was enough to occasionally make the CD player skip when I would go over bumps.

I had the height set to the factory reccommend ride height(the installer was Japanese) which was a little more than two and a half inches lower than stock. The car handled awesome while cornering at high speed with with minimal body roll! The only thing I won't miss was the squeaking sound made by the coilover due to the pillowballs.

Wow...a grand for a set of HA's is one hella good price! Considering the fact that I got mine in early 99' for almost 2 grand They have really come down now that Tein has a few distributors and an office in CA

 

I am picking up a set thanks to my friend todd, can I keep stock ride hieght with them?

and should I invest in upper pillowballs, its only for a street car

 

Yes you can keep the stock ride height, or you can go about 1 inch higher if you feel like doin' some muddin'

 

HMM 4 x 4 style sounds fun to keep the ricer's away