Industry Insider: Tein’s Shock Service

The rest of the parts are assembled onto the shock body.

Here you go Pablo, all done with fresh internals and the latest valving specs.

As a note Tein wanted us to show you what happens when you try to install your shock and go to town with an impact gun on the top nut.  The piston nut can spin off the rod causing total destruction of the whole shock.  This also voids your warranty.  Impact guns are the top cause of warranty issues with Tein coilovers.  Our friends at KW tell a similar story as well.  Impact guns are a no no for precision rebuildable shocks!

Here is the dyno output of the old spec Tein Flex.  As you can see the force velocity curve shows that the shock is pretty digressive in rebound and mildly digressive in compression.  This means that there is a lot of shock control force in the area of 0-2 inches per second.  Damping force in this area is felt in big body motions like cornering roll. A lot of low speed damping can reduce high frequency low amplitude bump response which can be perceived as harshness.  The knee point where the curve flattens out is the high speed blow off.  Getting the knee point right is critical for a smooth ride with control.  The different curves are at different points of the shocks adjuster knob.  I know the ride might not be as good but I actually like these curves, especially in the front of most front engined cars and cars with high motion ratios of the suspension.

This is the dyno output of our revalved shocks with the new advanced needle valve.   As you can see the compression and rebound damping at full stiff is virtually unchanged.  At the softer settings, the high bypass rate of the new larger needle valve makes the curve linear and greatly reduces damping, mostly in the low speed circuit and mostly in rebound.  This gives a smooth ride at the expense of platform control.  In the back of a rear light car, this sort of curve can sometime find more grip by reducing tire shock though.  As the shock adjuster gets turned in, the curve will get quickly more digressive once the higher end of the adjustment range is reached, so low speed damping is available but its adjustment will be coarser.  This valving will give a smooth ride on the soft settings for sure though.