Tein Flex Z front shock mount

[huyzee]

Not very much tbh - i went ahead and loosened it all the way, and compressed it down a couple turns. You dont want it crazy tight or else the teflon ring cant spin.

Please see previous comment

 

[canasion35]

Please see previous comment

Maybe try loosening it up a little. Lower the car down, take it for a spin. Go into a parking lot and turn the wheels back and forth a bunch to get it to unwind/unbound themselves.

 

[Tranman329]

Please see previous comment

did you fix your binding?

 

[jtxxx]

I'm happy to answer any Model 3 questions you might have. Just keep in mind the Teins settle a goo 10-15mm from your starting point and it happens pretty fast. Within 500 to 1000 miles. Much faster than I've seen on suspension with "higher quality" springs.

There is about a 1" difference between max and min between the Y and the 3. The Flex Z's ride a lot better with a 1" drop as suggested on the Tein website. I've done my best to adjust damper lengths in the rear and so forth to promote droop but that didn't provide positive results either. By sticking with the recommended rear damper lengths it worked best but again needed to be lowered 1" from factory for either chassis.

On the model 3 I would say max height was about 370mm from hub to fender, ONCE SETTLED, and max low is quite low. You can completely eliminate the gap. My optimal height setting for the Model 3 would be around 355 to 360mm hub to fender on the Model 3. It's pretty low. If you want higher then I suggest you go with an alternate higher end brand like Mountain Pass which actually does better at 365 to 390mm imho. Then there's also Redwood as well which can work well at all ends of the spectrum albeit a much higher price point.

On the model Y, max drop in the rear, BEFORE SETTLING, is around 395mm hub to fender. I'll need to double check my Y but it should be around 385mm now in the rear, AFTER SETTLING. I'll work on a video that details all these aspects in the upcoming weeks to help give more insight on the product, height ranges, and so on.

Do you have any preload suggestion? My left front is binding and can't seem to get a good preload setting to eliminate it. TIA

 

[canasion35]

Do you have any preload suggestion? My left front is binding and can't seem to get a good preload setting to eliminate it. TIA

Do you have pictures of the spring resting on the teflon ring?

 

[jtxxx]

Do you have pictures of the spring resting on the teflon ring?

 

[Eckzar]

Hey guys. I have the same binding issue with my tein flexes. Currently there enough minor preload to where i cant spin the spring when the car is lifted. Do i add more preload? If so how many more spins?

I'm having

I've been running my Flex Z's on my Model 3 RWD for about 2000 miles without any issues until recently.

Every time I turn the wheel at slow speeds or stopped, there is a binding/creaking noise. I doubled checked the suspension bolts, preload, and top nut and everything looks good. I also separated the FUCA from the steering assembly and the ball joint moves freely without noise and still has plenty of grease inside.

I'm thinking it could be the spring is binding? Should I apply some lubricant on the white Teflon rings?

Thanks.

I tried brake cleaner on the perches. Still have the binding noise.

Is it preload? Will adding more preload alone change ride height as well? I just got an alignment and trying to not to mess with suspension too much

 

[lickmysheep]

Just installed my Tein Flex Z's and I'm also experiencing a binding issue. It sounds like it is coming from the front left coilover, but it's hard to hear from within the cabin. It only happens about one time per drive.

I can see that there are a few ppl in here having the same issue. Has anyone fixed it yet? I will try to fiddle with the preload a bit too, maybe this will eliminate the problem.

---

@canasion35 it seems like you were one of the first to experience this problem. Did you manage to fix it? If so how?

​

 

[canasion35]

Just installed my Tein Flex Z's and I'm also experiencing a binding issue. It sounds like it is coming from the front left coilover, but it's hard to hear from within the cabin. It only happens about one time per drive.

I can see that there are a few ppl in here having the same issue. Has anyone fixed it yet? I will try to fiddle with the preload a bit too, maybe this will eliminate the problem.

---

@canasion35 it seems like you were one of the first to experience this problem. Did you manage to fix it? If so how?

​

Yes it’s completely fixed on my end. It was also the front driver side.

I undid all preload (where I could move the spring around freely with no tension) and then snugged up the collar by hand to the spring (little tension) and then tightened the collar 3/4 of a turn/full turn and set the preload as that.

It made one last “bind” sound as I pulled out of the driveway, and I was annoyed at that point so I turned the steering wheel left and right a bunch (full lock to full lock) and it hasn’t made a bind noise since (7k miles later)

 

[lickmysheep]

Yes it’s completely fixed on my end. It was also the front driver side.

I undid all preload (where I could move the spring around freely with no tension) and then snugged up the collar by hand to the spring (little tension) and then tightened the collar 3/4 of a turn/full turn and set the preload as that.

It made one last “bind” sound as I pulled out of the driveway, and I was annoyed at that point so I turned the steering wheel left and right a bunch (full lock to full lock) and it hasn’t made a bind noise since (7k miles later)

Amazing, thanks a lot for the explanation. I will give it a try one of the following days and report back

 

[jtxxx]

Yes it’s completely fixed on my end. It was also the front driver side.

I undid all preload (where I could move the spring around freely with no tension) and then snugged up the collar by hand to the spring (little tension) and then tightened the collar 3/4 of a turn/full turn and set the preload as that.

It made one last “bind” sound as I pulled out of the driveway, and I was annoyed at that point so I turned the steering wheel left and right a bunch (full lock to full lock) and it hasn’t made a bind noise since (7k miles later)

I did exactly the same adjustment and has been bind free for the past 3 days (fingers crossed). Mine was also the driver side like many have mentioned.

 

[lickmysheep]

Yes it’s completely fixed on my end. It was also the front driver side.

I undid all preload (where I could move the spring around freely with no tension) and then snugged up the collar by hand to the spring (little tension) and then tightened the collar 3/4 of a turn/full turn and set the preload as that.

It made one last “bind” sound as I pulled out of the driveway, and I was annoyed at that point so I turned the steering wheel left and right a bunch (full lock to full lock) and it hasn’t made a bind noise since (7k miles later)

I’ve just tried to adjust the preload as you instructed. But if I loosen the preload to where the spring turns around freely and then only tighten it 3/4 of a full turn - my car sits waaaaaay to low.

How low is your ride? Is it slammed?

 

[canasion35]

I’ve just tried to adjust the preload as you instructed. But if I loosen the preload to where the spring turns around freely and then only tighten it 3/4 of a full turn - my car sits waaaaaay to low.

How low is your ride? Is it slammed?

You’ll need to adjust the ride height now. Preload adjustment and ride height adjustment are two different adjustment procedures on these coilovers.

Once your preload is set, you’ll need to loosen the bottom collar (the one that’s by itself towards the bottom of the shock, circled red) and then turn (via locking collar, blue circled area) the whole assembly up or down to adjust your ride height.

I believe there’s a video from Tien on YouTube on how to adjust preload vs ride height.

I’m not slammed but lower than most I’d say.

 

[Du30]

Not true. There's 2 spanners. A smaller one and a bigger one but we will use a punch to get them to lock up on all perches. We only use the spanners to adjust the height in the front. I find it easier to just pull the whole perch out rather than trying to wrestle with it. half inch means you probably need to drop that spring about 8mm but do share what size tires you're going with because that may change things as well since you have spacers too.

This is the lowest setting on the Teins on my model Y btw. Keep in mind I have a short tire on this 285/35/20 with 20x10.5 View attachment 903470

what is the brand and specs of wheels and tire specs?

 

[jtxxx]

You’ll need to adjust the ride height now. Preload adjustment and ride height adjustment are two different adjustment procedures on these coilovers.

Once your preload is set, you’ll need to loosen the bottom collar (the one that’s by itself towards the bottom of the shock, circled red) and then turn (via locking collar, blue circled area) the whole assembly up or down to adjust your ride height.

I believe there’s a video from Tien on YouTube on how to adjust preload vs ride height.

View attachment 966767

I’m not slammed but lower than most I’d say.

that fitment makes me wish I got a M3 instead of MY. how much adjustment do you have left in the rear? The Tein on MY at the lowest rear setting will have about 10-15mm tire to fender gap (unless removing 1 or both collars) .

 

[canasion35]

that fitment makes me wish I got a M3 instead of MY. how much adjustment do you have left in the rear? The Tein on MY at the lowest rear setting will have about 10-15mm tire to fender gap (unless removing 1 or both collars) .

I have another 7-10mm to go in the rear before I’m maxed out! I’m surprised that they don’t go down that much in the rear…have your springs settled much since install? Mine settled lower by like 10-15 mm front and rear after about 2,000 miles.

 

[speedsector]

You’ll need to adjust the ride height now. Preload adjustment and ride height adjustment are two different adjustment procedures on these coilovers.

Once your preload is set, you’ll need to loosen the bottom collar (the one that’s by itself towards the bottom of the shock, circled red) and then turn (via locking collar, blue circled area) the whole assembly up or down to adjust your ride height.

I believe there’s a video from Tien on YouTube on how to adjust preload vs ride height.

View attachment 966767

I’m not slammed but lower than most I’d say.

I’m having the same clunking binding issue on the front driver side as well. I’m going to try and reset the preload just like you mentioned. Did you also reset the preload on the passenger front so that they match?

 

[lickmysheep]

You’ll need to adjust the ride height now. Preload adjustment and ride height adjustment are two different adjustment procedures on these coilovers.

Once your preload is set, you’ll need to loosen the bottom collar (the one that’s by itself towards the bottom of the shock, circled red) and then turn (via locking collar, blue circled area) the whole assembly up or down to adjust your ride height.

I believe there’s a video from Tien on YouTube on how to adjust preload vs ride height.

View attachment 966767

I’m not slammed but lower than most I’d say.

Thanks for trying to help me out

I have now tried to adjust everything possible multiple times and I believe that I have a pretty good understanding of how everything works now (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Here is a little write-up in case it helps anyone else.




Tesla model 3 RWD LR here. Disclaimer, I have no previous experience with adjustable coilovers.
Original ride height measurements were the following (measured from the bottom of the rim to the top of fender):

FL: 67.1 mm
FR: 66.5 mm
RL: 66.0 mm
RR: 66.1 mm

I wanted to achieve a 1'' drop to make sure that we can still use the car as a daily driver and not be concerned about letting the missis drive it. We do have quite good roads where I'm from, but there are still some steep inclines going from tiny roads to main roads in some places. Speed bumps are also everywhere and some of them are insanely high.

The first mistake was not understanding the recommended values on the Tein website. Recommended values are -2.2'' to -1.4'' in front and -1.8'' to -1.0'' in rear for my setup. But you can go lower or higher as you please, so I thought everything would be fine at -1.0''. What I figured out by trial and error is that your ride quality suffers ALOT when you go higher.

The reason why ride quality suffers is because changing your ride height will increase your preload. Several YouTubers are saying that this system is nicer, compared to something like the MPP non-adjustable comfort coilovers, because you can change the ride height without affecting the ride quality. I don't believe this to be true.

There are 2 possible adjustments on the front shocks. Ride height and preload. But there are 3 important parameters to keep in mind. Preload, ride height, and stroke length. Too short stroke length and too much preload will give a shitty ride quality.

1. try
When installing the coilovers I set the values a bit higher than recommended, since I wanted a higher ride height. I calculated that I would need to set the front value B from the default 52mm to 60mm. And the rear "HAS" from 43mm to 48mm.

This is the first time experiencing the binding noise. This gave me a ride height of:
FL: 63,5 mm
FR: 63,5 mm
RL: 64,5 mm
RR: 64,5 mm

2. try
I wanted to go higher in the front to match the rear so I increased the value B from 60mm to 67mm. I could feel the preload being extremely stiff at this point. This gave me an even ride height of 64,5mm but the ride quality sucked. Also, the spring binding was annoying.

3. try
I went back and released the preload to the point where the spring was loose to get rid of the noise. The car was now slammed really low to the ground in the front. I tried to increase the ride height to get the front back to the 64,5mm but I could see that the stroke length was now almost nonexistent. I would probably be riding bump stops at this point.

This is where I understood that I could not go higher than 63,5mm in ride height without suffering from bad ride quality.

4. try
Trying to revert everything back to default values in the front. Stroke length, preload, and the ride height adjustment value (b).
This was no easy task. Took multiple tries since the shocks now, even though everything measured the same, gave me a different ride height in the front - left to right.

5. try
Set front ride height value (b) to 60mm. Set the HAS to 43mm.

This gave me a ride height of:
FL: 63,6 mm
FR: 63,1 mm
RL: 63,7 mm
RR: 63,7 mm

The ride quality is now back to a little better than stock. It sits a little lower than I would have wanted, but I think it's alright. I don't seem to scrape on anything in my area. The binding noise is now gone - so that's also good!
But having a difference in the front, left to right, annoys me. I can always tighten the preload a bit more on FR, but I'm afraid that it will be too stiff on one side compared to the other.

If anyone has any ideas as to why I'm seeing a difference in left- to right front - I'm all ears.

Sorry, it became a little long.

 

[jtxxx]

I have another 7-10mm to go in the rear before I’m maxed out! I’m surprised that they don’t go down that much in the rear…have your springs settled much since install? Mine settled lower by like 10-15 mm front and rear after about 2,000 miles.

yup it settled about 10mm within the first 500miles which was expected from reading the comments.

Over the weekend I lowered the rear to max (about 20mm tire to fender gap) and the front to match. Have you measured your ground clearance? Mine is about 4.5 inch from floor to the jack points. Going to drive around for a few days and see how I like the overall ride height (looks great but don't want to be a victim of LA roads).

 

[bmwmkc323i]

Oversight on my end

i believe i am having this exact same issue now. Whenever i am at slower speed like turning into my complex or turning left over a speed bump, i am hearing some binding like sounds from front driver side. doesn’t happen on the right side. This started happening about 1.5 months after getting tein flex z installed.

Is tightening the preload easy enough to do or would it be best to have the shop do this for me instead?