Author Archives: Philip C.

Employee owned: EVO 9

Posted on by

This car has been in a few previous posts. It is owned by one of the staff here at TEIN USA. Originally bought brand new to be a fun daily driver / occasional track toy but soon took on a life of its own. Since we are the exclusive distributor for a variety of top brands (Carbing, Fujitsubo, Defi, SuperPro, and Takata) it was easy to build a quality car, plus employee discounts never hurt.

The exterior is comprised of Voltex bodykit and wing. Volk TE-37 18×9.5+12 with 8mm of spacers on front and rear wrapped with 275/35/18 tires.

Sitting on Super Racing coilovers with 14kg front springs and 12kg rear springs. The dampers have also been revalved with a few “special” parts to test out. Could be lower for appearance sake but this ride height works well for performance reasons.

Power is provided by Tomei ARMS turbo, Cosworth head and top end internals, plus a few HKS parts. You can find out HP/TQ and power curve in the current issue of Import Tuner magazine (July 2010) which go into detail about the Tomei Arms M7960 turbo, Cosworth 272 cams, and Okada Projects Quad Pac ignition coils. Drivetrain is comprised of Carbonetic carbon fiber clutch and carbon differentials.

Interior is filled with DEFI meters, Bride GIAS seats, Greddy boost controller, Alpine headunit, and of course dual EDFCs.

Having fun and testing at Willow Springs raceway in 2009.

2008 EVO vs STI Shootout at Buttonwillow raceway. Ran a 1:59 on config. CW13 with Rob Walker driving on Hankook RS-2 street tires.

Car on the cover of Modified magazine back in August 2008.

Photo credit for the action shot to Larry Chen at driftfotos.com

Did you know?

Posted on by

Did you know that TEIN was established by two rally racing enthusiasts, a driver and co-driver. TEIN was not established to make tons of money and take over the world of suspension. It was actually started because the founders could not find a high performance suspension for use in their rally car.

2nd generation Isuzu Gemini. Driver, Fujimoto. Co-Driver, Ichino

_____________________________________________________________________________

The co-driver is TEIN Inc. President, Mr. Hakaru Ichino, and the driver is Managing Director, Mr. Yoshio Fujimoto.  Mr. Fujimoto later went on to become a works driver for TTE (Toyota Team Europe) in the WRC.

The ST185 Celica Fujitmoto drove to win the Safari Rally in 1995 on display at the Toyota History Garage in Tokyo.

_____________________________________________________________________________

TEIN Inc. had our own in-house rally team from 1994- 1999. The team was comprised of three vehicles and a full support crew of TEIN Engineers.

WRC spec Toyota Corolla piloted by TEIN Managing Director, Yoshio Fujimoto. 1998 Asia Pacific Rally Champion.

_____________________________________________________________________________

TEIN is still active in motorsports throughout the world especially in rally. For P-WRC support TEIN created two 20ft. service containers and now owns 3 services trucks. Motorsports support is where TEIN develops, tests and perfects our new products and product features.

TEIN’s Europe based service truck at Rally Finland to support TEIN product users in P-WRC competition.

_____________________________________________________________________________

2010 marks TEIN’s 25 year anniversary. First established in 1985 outside of Yokohama, Japan.  All our coilovers are still made in-house in Yokohama Japan. In 2004 TEIN invited magazine editors from US, Canada and UK to our factory and in 2008 Ricky Chu of then Riceboy TV stopped by as well.

Revue hosted by 5Axis and Scion Evolution

Posted on by

Attended the Revue event at Five Axis over the weekend (May 1st). The event was held at Five Axis in Huntington Beach, CA and organized by both Five Axis and Scion Evolution. The weather was perfect, the atmosphere was laid back and there was a great mix of cars.

The event included giveaways, raffle, vendor area, food trucks and of course cars.

Typical Southern California beach city weather. Gathering of mainly Scions and Lexus with a little bit of everything else mixed in including Porsche GT3, Aston Martin, Vette ZR1…

The Scion xB DJ 2.0 which was blasting tunes all day long.

RAFFLE RAFFLE RAFFLE. Proceeds went to a great cause, JDRF – research leader for type 1 diabetes.

We represented with an EVO 9 and provided a few items for giveaway which went into “The Claw” xD.

TEIN Sponsored EVO 9 SE complete with SRC coilovers, Voltex body kit, Diamond Black TE-37s, Carbing Flip Up Tow Hook and Mini Dampachi Doll.

Aston Martin
Aston Martin with a Veilside Bodykit. This thing sounded awesome.

Vendor area which included booths from Auto Fashion, Island Motorsports, ARK, Greddy, Bowls and many more…

Troy of Five Axis also opened up his facility so people could check out their many demos cars, his personal vehicles, garage sale items and his 5-axis CNC machine.

From left to right – xD, Prius, xB, tC and IS250. Most of these cars are outfitted with TEIN coilovers as Troy has been a supporter for a few years now. (The tC which is actually turbo charged is actually for sale – contact Five Axis for details).

5-Axis CNC Machine. This is one of the reasons why Five Axis products and vehicles always have perfect fitment. Off to the side of this machine was a mold of an entire compact car.

Lexus GS-F that debuted at SEMA 2008. The matte paint is awesome.

Garage Sale area which is usually where cars are assembled and dis-assembled. The natural light and overhead lighting ensures you can see everything perfectly.

For lunch or an afternoon snack the organizers arranged for the Kogi truck and The Shrimp Guys to come. The line was about 30mins for the Kogi truck.

TheShrimpGuys serving up variations of garlic shrimp and rice plus Hawaiian style fruit punch.

Thank you to Troy, all the guys at Five Axis and Scion Evolution for putting on a great event.

TEIN Japan testing Honda CR-Z

Posted on by

The new Honda CR-Z has been immensely popular in Japan with tuners and consumers alike (there are even rumors about a CR-Z one make race series). All of the big manufacturers have at least one as a demo car including TEIN Japan.

TEIN was one of the first companies to release a coilover for this car and you might think we would release a BASIC or Super Street damper but Japanese consumers wanted Mono FLEX coilovers. So that is what we produced.

Here is a video of TEIN Japan R&D department testing the TEIN CR-Z at Sodegaura Raceway in Japan.

cr

N1 Racing parts on a street driven Civic Si Sedan

Posted on by

Mike of Evasive Motorsports has successfully been using our Mono FLEX coilovers on his street/ track Civic Si Sedan. The car has finished well in the last few events (class win at Super Lap Battle Finals 2009 and class win at Redline TA 2010 Rd.1) and Mike wants to keep it that way. Mike already added a larger diameter sway bar and a revalve but still wanted more vehicle rotation. So Mike and our engineer agreed the next step was to try some parts from our N1 race kit.

The parts arrived last Friday and Mike brought the car in a few days ago for us to install the parts and perform the needed revalve to make it all work.

The N1 kit is used on many cars competing in Japan’s Civic One-Make race series. Normally these cars use spring rates of 20kg front and 26kg rear. Modifications are very limited to keep the racing tight.

We ONLY used a few of the parts from an N1 kit:

N1 pillowball rear spring seat, Special 20kg rears springs, N1 HAS (Height Adjustment System)

The N1 pillowball rear spring seats are NICE (you can see that the top section can pivot). The spring can now better match the travel radius of the lower control arm and allows the use of a straight spring which are readily available in various sizes and rates. Normally a barrel shaped spring is used for more spring stroke but alternate spring rates are not available.

To make this all work we needed to change the stroke and damping force of the rears dampers. Then in order to balance the car front to rear we increased the front spring rate to 16kg, shortened the stroke, and increased the damping force.

The end result is very aggressive spring rates, short suspension travel and race car like handling. When we took the car out for a test drive on local roads and highways the ride was surprisingly smooth. A passenger would never guess that the car has such high spring rates. The car is firm but not bouncy. It absorbs the bumps well and settles quickly for optimal grip.

A few more pics of the Civic Type-Rs TEIN sponsors in Japan. These cars look so good with just livery and being slammed.

Coilovers for 1st Gen Integra & CR-X / 3rd Gen Civic

Posted on by

TEIN Authorized dealer Heeltoe Automotive specializes in Honda/ Acura tuning and asked TEIN to produce a coilover kit for the ’84-87 Honda CRX/ Civic and ’86-89 Acura Integra. The result is called the Medieval Pro Coilover Kit exclusively sold by HeelToe.

All product development was performed in our HQ in Downey CA and the kit is manufactured in our Yokohama Japan factory.

The kit has features similar to our Super Street coilovers. 16-way damping force adjustability with a ride height adjustable rear. The front suspension retains the standard torsion beam from Honda. Heeltoe allows customers to pick the TEIN rear spring rate and also offers different diameter torsion beams for the front.


Additional stock of these limited edition coilovers is now available through HeelToe. Please visit Heeltoe’s website at, www.heeltoeauto.com for additional technical information or to place an order.

A look inside TEIN USA HQ in Downey CA

Posted on by

TEIN USA has two locations in the US. Our headquarters is in Downey, CA and our East Coast facility is in Norcross, GA.

A small showroom filled with samples of all the brands we carry. TEIN USA is the exclusive US distributor for DEFI, Fujitsubo, Carbing, and SuperPro. We also distribute Takata and Auto-Tech Interiors (ATI).

A look at the front office where most of the day-to-day operations are taken care of.

A typical desk and staff multi-tasking.

Service area where dampers are repaired or overhauled. One of our technicians hard at work. You can see the NMB shock dyno in the corner and a few of the repairs being processed in the foreground.

One of the many aisles in the warehouse. S.Tech springs can be seen on the left, various coilovers on the right and some Fujitsubo at the very end.

This is the section of our warehouse where we prepare products for shipping and house smaller items.

A few of the project cars (Elliott’s EVO X, Import Tuner 370Z, TEIN Mustang) we are either working on or temporarily storing for upcoming events.

The Import Tuner/ TEIN Lexus ISF sitting in the back of the warehouse. Look for a feature on this car in an upcoming issue of Import Tuner. This thing makes over 510WHP and 550 ft-lbs of torque with the help of a wet NOS kit.

Video of Vaughn Gittin Jr’s drift Mustang at Long Beach

Posted on by

Awesome video of Vaughn Gittin Jr at Formula Drift – Long Beach. You can see the dual EDFC controllers mounted in the dashboard. ASD did an awesome job building this car in a short time. Everything about the car is all business especially the interior – So fresh and clean.

Vaughn Gittin Jr: Monster’s Street Fighting Man from Drift Alliance on Vimeo.

Formula Drift Rd.1 Winner Vaughn Gittin Jr.

Posted on by

TEIN would like to congratulate JR Gittin for winning Rd. 1 of the 2010 Formula Drift Championship. Even more impressive is that this was the debut event for JR’s new ride which is the Monster Energy/ Falken Tire 2011 Ford Mustang built by ASD and featuring TEIN 2-way coilovers with dual EDFC.

JR unveiled this car on Thursday night at a special Falken FD pre-party at Rod Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory in Downtown Los Angeles.

TEIN does not produce an off-the-shelf 2-way kit for the Mustang so the kits on JR and JTP cars’ are from our Specialized Damper program (SPD). The SPD program allows any customer purchase a made to order kit from our Yokohama, Japan factory.

TEIN was out at Rd. 1 in Long Beach with a small booth. Thank you to all the people that stopped by to say hello and purchase some TEIN goods.

Special thanks to Marc M. of Auto-Tech Interiors for the action pics of JR’s Mustang.