Category Archives: News

Street Flex?

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Now there has been a lot of talk about our New Street Flex coil-over system. TEIN Japan has had a head start on getting the product launch, and it has been generating a lot of inquiries for us stateside. I’m here to share the new specs and information about the system with you.


So, let’s start of with the similarities of the Flex and Street Flex applications.

  1. Full Length adjustable
  2. Twin tube structure
  3. 16 level linear damping force adjustment.
  4. Exclusively designed upper mounts are included for some applications.

And now for the Improvements-

  1. Damping force adjustment with Advance Needle. “ADVANCE Needle”, which is proven effective in STREET ADVANCE, for 16-level damping force adjustment feature (compression & rebound together) widens damping force adjustment range; Nearly 200% compared to existing products! Greater adjustment range gives you more setting capabilities and thus makes it easier than ever to find the desired setting.
  2. Improved Durability. Improved, redesigned oil seal and ring nut with dust-discharge groove on side are used. Such new and advanced parts improve the durability, preventing contamination by foreign matters which can lead to the reduction of product life. Final assembly of shock absorbers is now done in a dedicated clean room, which is almost equivalent to operating room, to thoroughly eliminate the cause of oil leak. Room pressure is kept under control to shut out dust & dirt and all workers entering the room must go through an air shower to make sure all the assembly work is done in completely clean air.
  3. Tough anti-rust treatment. The patented “2-layer/1-bake” treatment using anti-rust powder paint is applied on top of the blast finish to the base surface. On the shell case, TEIN’s self-developed one-of-a-kind “ZT Coating” is applied, for tougher protection against chipping, often caused by deflected pebbles/debris. We are confident that people living in snowfall area or near sea shores will be very satisfied.
  4. Smooth ride height adjustment. STREET FLEX has adopted new wrought aluminum spring seats and low-friction hard-resin thrust washers. These effectively reduce the friction with springs, caused during ride height adjustment, and makes it easier to adjust the ride height with pre-load on the springs.
    The ZT Coating, a super low-friction fluorine resin coating, is tightly baked onto the shell case surface in-house. This special coating provides superior protection against rust and high lubricity, keeping a smooth adjustment for a long period.

High-Quality yet Affordable!

Fundamental structure, persistently being improved and matured over the past 15 years, is now reviewed in terms of VA & VE and 40% of its existing components are re-designed. With this, the durability against oil leaks and/or aged deterioration is well improved and the operating noise is reduced. Also, the introduction of new production processes improves the productive efficiency and hence the overall cost is well reduced. This new product is sure to satisfy wide variety of users; from novice to expert.

We currently have the following applications In Stock and ready to ship. Please contact any our TEIN Authorized Dealers for purchase. http://www.tein.com/dealer_list/index.html

PART #

VEHICLE YEAR/MODEL

CHASSIS

MSRP

GSB48-51SS3

2004-2008 ACURA TSX

CL9

$1,350.00

GSH00-51SS3

1996-2000 HONDA CIVIC

EM1/EJ6,7,8

$1,350.00

GSM40-51SS1

1990-2005 MAZDA MIATA

NA8C/NB8C

$1,350.00

GSQ54-51SS1

2013+ SCION FR-S

ZNA

$1,580.00

GSQ54-51SS1

2013+ SUBARU BRZ

ZCA

$1,580.00

GSQ08-51AS3

2010+ TOYOTA PRIUS

ZVW30

$1,680.00

GST60-51SS3

1993-1998 TOYOTA SUPRA

JZA80L

$1,450.00

GST76-51SS3

1998-2005 LEXUS GS300/400/430

JZS/UZS160L

$1,450.00

GSY20-51SS3

2000-2005 LEXUS IS300

JCE10L

$1,450.00

GST60-51SS3

1992-2000 LEXUS SC300/400

UZZ30L

$1,450.00

Look Out For Counterfeit TEIN!!

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We recently received a single damper for a potential overhaul repair that stood out like a sore thumb. After a thorough inspection it was determined we received a counterfeit TEIN product. Now, this isn’t the first time to have happened. A few years back we had a similar  situation.

We were saddened to hear the customer was convinced he purchased an authentic TEIN product through eBay.  Goes to show that’s how greedy some people can be- to manufacture a counterfeit item with low grade material and put peoples’ lives at risk. Please take a close look at the images below.

 

 

Word of advice!! Only purchase TEIN product from an authorized TEIN dealer. Please visit the link provided below to help with locating the nearest dealer to you.

http://www.tein.com/dealer_list/index.html

TEIN USA, Inc. Closed for Thanksgiving

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To all of our valued customers and readers,

In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, TEIN USA, Inc. will be close on November 22nd and 23rd, and we will resume operations on Monday, November 26th.

We wish you a safe and enjoyable holiday with family and friends!

 

Specialized Damper Program Available in US!

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Hey all you car enthusiast! Do you have  a older vehicle or even just a vehicle that you love, but can’t seem to find any or even the correct coil-over suspension for your build?

We have a solution for you! Specialized Damper Program. With this program we are able to build a one-off coil-over kit for your vehicle.

Specialized Damper (Super Street) for Suzuki Kizashi

Suzuki Kizashi

We are able to reuse some of your factory suspension for certain applications if needed. Some original suspensions, such as struts with integrated spindles, must be sent to us for retrofitting onto our Specialized Damper.

We can make the suspension to your specifications (with some limitations based on factory suspension layout).  We can build almost any type of coil-over for your vehicle depending on vehicle application, starting off from the Street Basis to our most developed racing coil-over application Super Racing.

We can add any TEIN technologies and features depending on your budget.

Upper Mount for Suzuki Kizashi

The best thing about having a TEIN Specialized Damper made by us, is that overhaul and revalve service are available.
We currently have update our Web Site with all the information. Please follow this link for further details. http://www.tein.com/products/specialized_damper.html

You are also welcome to give us a call for a free quote on a custom-built suspension at 562-861-9161!

 

 

Vaughn Gittin Jr. Holds on to Formula Drift #1 Spot

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As the final race for the Formula Drift season approaches, we should be prepping ourselves for one great season finale!

As it currently stands, Vaughn Gittin Jr. holds first place with a 25.5 points lead over second place Daigo Saito. And just 44.75 points back sits Rhys Millen, the winner of this past weekend’s Formula Drift in Las Vegas. I find myself growing more and more white hairs on my head than ever before just thinking about how many close battles there are in competition, whatever the sport. And Formula Drift is no different. This has been one of the best seasons so far. Just a little stressful to watch, I suppose!

As aforementioned, Rhys Millen in the Red Bull Hyundai Genesis Coupe, took the win this past weekend. Remaining podium spots were filled with Fredric Aasbo in the Team Need For Speed Scion tC and Vaughn Gittin Jr. in his Monster Falken Mustang.

Great work, Vaughn! We look forward to catching another exciting race at the season closer!

Pics sourced from Speedhunters.com

Back to Back Wins for Vaughn Gittin Jr.!!!

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Needless to say, we are very happy to see Mr. Gittin grace the Formula D podium once again! THAT’S TWO IN A ROW!!! Great work, Vaughn. And great job, Autosport Dynamics.

Obivously, we think that pairing is one of the best on the Formula D grid. We’re very fortunate to have our association with both Autosport Dynamics and Vaughn Gittin Jr., as well as Justin Pawlak- part of the Falken Tires-backed drivers using a custom set of our very own Super Racing dampers!

It’s been a series of ups and downs for the Falken boys. As you can imagine, the field is getting tougher, setups getting crazier, and the amount of dedication to handle the horsepower levels this generation of Formula D puts out (average of about 600 hp) getting more demanding than ever, and you’ll know that these guys don’t have it so easy. That being said, it is great to see how level the playing field is. It makes for an exciting race season, and it also gives fans the opportunity to see their favorite drivers take some of the top spots of the podium. I’ll tell you this- it’s much more exciting than seeing one driver continually win, event after event. Kinda like watching Sebastien Loeb win WRC events, or even Michael Schumacher win his 7 Formula One championship titles. No offense to those guys. They are awesome! Quite obviously, it’s every race team and driver’s intention to bring home the victories. But it just.gets.so.boring……

Seeing different drivers take the top steps just lets you know that everyone has a chance at winning, and that’s how evenly matched the teams are becoming year after year.

But, to be honest, I’d like to see Vaughn’s car take win after win. For one, his Mustang is rad. 2) the Mustang has more than a few hints of green (my favorite color), 3) it’s backed by Monster Energy drinks (an energy drink that tastes awesome), and 4) his car number is 25 (one of my favorite/lucky numbers)!!! It’s like this car is meant to be mine one day!!!! Yeah right. I’m sure Vaughn would never part from this car. It’s too nice to give away! Oh, let’s not forget that Vaughn is clearly a great driver. We can’t leave that last element out of the winning equation.

Also, it’s a lot of fun getting to work with the Autosport Dynamics (ASD) guys in getting the Falken Mustangs set up. They’ve been a group that is easy to work with. They clearly know what they’re doing, and they have an outstanding record in motorsports.

So with The Wall and Evergreen Speedway 2012 in the books, Vaughn and his crew look towards another great victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

As this Formula D season gets close to closing out, we wish the best for both Vaughn and Justin, as well as the crew at Autosport Dynamics. They’ve made another year even more exciting than the last. Best of luck for this season! Let’s see the last two races as podium finishes!

Pics sourced from Formula D (www.formulad.com) and Speedhunters (www.speedhunters.com)

FR-S or BRZ?

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It has been almost over a month since this years hottest sports car, Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ came out to the market.

TEIN USA has been developing products for these two cars to deliver our products to the customer as soon as possible.

I have been wondering what is the difference between FR-S and BRZ?

Exterior dimension, interior, engine, transmission, chassis and tire sizes are the same in between these cars.

But, when I drove BRZ that came in for development,  I felt a big difference!

BRZ’s suspension are set as a mild setup, if you push harder it simply understeers and will not take you to oversteer motion.

But, the FR-S has an opposite character than the BRZ. 

The FR-S has stiffer damper with softer spring. And if you know how to push hard, this simple, less electronically controlled device (compare to newer higher performance car) and fun to drive machine, it’s just pure fun to drive!

My conclusion is FR-S and BRZ are totally diffent set-ups

If you want to get pure driving pleasure go with FR-S, and if you want affordable yet nice, well-designed coupe go with BRZ.

And I will leave damper dyno chart (in .pdf format) for FR-S and BRZ for comparison.

 

OEM BRZ & FRS Front

OEM BRZ & FRS Rear

One Roaring S13

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Well hello there world. This month I want the spotlight to focus on Rob Symonds’ S13.

Rob contacted us around mid May for an overhaul + revalving for his TEIN HE dampers. We got the job done and satisfied our customers expectation.  After everything was said and done he shoots us an email that makes me fall out of my seat! Yeah I’ve seen s13’s driving around and in car shows  but this one I must say is at the top of my list.

His request sounded easy enough. But Rob was also pretty specific with what he wanted. This didn’t turn out to be a standard damper rebuild for us. Then again, Rob isn’t your regular ‘ol car guy. He knows exactly what he wants. To get the most out of a damper revalve, we ask a gamut of questions about the car, the setup, the types of road courses it races on, etc. Sometimes we get more information than we need, but Rob didn’t talk up a storm about his engine modifications- in fact, his motor is a stock, naturally aspirated KA24. It was previously a turbocharged motor, detuned for simplicity and reliability’s sake (did we mention that Rob is an engineer at Garrett? He definitely knows his way around a motor!),  Roll cage, or vented fiber glass hood. Not once did he mentioned his 17 inch Enkei RPF1 wheels, Hoosier A6 slick tires, or HAWK DTC-60 brake pads. He also did not tell us about his long list of sponsors or 5 minutes of fame on this years January edition of Modified Magazine. Then again, some details are better left unsaid. Maybe not! We wanted to hear more!

Rob is simply a race enthusiast. He spends time building his car to get the setup right, just like many of you out there, all in a quest for the quickest time around the track! We appreciate guys just like Rob!

Check out the images and video below to get the corner panels point of view of this 240 on the track.

  [vsw id=”28997157″ source=”vimeo” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”yes”]

FR-S madness

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As we had wrote the previous entry before, we have been testing our product for Scion FR-S.

Usually, we spend about a week to test fit and take data for each product.

But, since Scion FR-S will be an ultra hot vehicle in the market for this year and some new FR-S owners are already getting delivery of their vehicles, TEIN USA boosted up the speed of the development schedule for Scion FR-S!

Yes, TEIN USA R&D dept worked hard past week to develop product for Scion FR-S as soon as possible to send out to everyone! As Jon had mentioned in his previous post, we have tested S.Tech and High Tech lowering springs and Type Flex dampers, with more product to come later this year. In fact, a few dealers have already pre-ordered sets of High Tech lowering springs, which are set to arrive towards the end of June! In case you want to order, the part number is SKSA0-G1B00. This will give the FR-S a -25mm front and -20mm rear drop. Great for owners that may eventually plus-size their wheels!

High Tech, S.Tech, and Flex products ready for fitment.

By this point, we've probably spent as much time under the hood as Scion R&D!!!

Fortunately the Type Flex dampers bolted up fine for our first test! And the handling is great, btw 😉

Our tests include highway driving...

...and also some local road driving. Or, in this case, very boring traffic.

Stay tuned as springs and damper-kits are soon to be out for everybody!! Up next is testing on the Subaru BRZ! We’ll keep you up-to-date on that testing!