misdeismo

As some of you may know, I posted pics of my car lowered on tein coilvers. These were designed for the TSX but fit relatively nicely on the Legend with not too much fuss. I have to shout out 3glegend for his help by pioneering this with his RL. His advice gave me the confidence to attempt this.

What is needed to make this work:

For the rears you will need washers to fill in space on both sides of the lower shock mounting as the tein shocks are not as wide at that point as the oem shocks. I just bought an assortment pack at home depot, they should be thin; I believe I used 3 total for each shock.

For the front no modification is needed however, I noticed that the lower portion of the front tein shocks have a smaller circumference than the oem shocks. What this means is that the fork that supports the shocks is too big and the fork pinch bolt that secures the shock within the fork no longer serves to hold it in place. What holds the shock in place is the weight of the car pushing the portion of the shock body with a larger circumference onto the fork. I dont think that this will be a problem because the upper portion of the shock is larger than the fork and it is impossible for it to fall through. However, when you jack up the car you will see that the shock can move freely within the fork.
I'm not sure that 3glegend had this issue when he did his install maybe he can comment.

Also important to note is that you will have to reuse the upper shock mounts as the upper pillowball mounts for the tsx wont fit (different bolt pattern). I didnt use the dust cover (but I might put it on later) or the bumpstops, or dust cover plate (will post diagram from the manual later). I also had to turn the damper mounting washer upside down on all four corners.

From the tein package I did not use the spring seat adaptors.

The only issue I have right now is the front passengers side is making some noise under suspension travel. I have yet to isolate the problem but I'm pretty confident it has to do with my install.

Ride height/Ride Quality/Driving impressions:

I used the Tein Basic Dampers from a TSX. Spring rates are 560 front and 340 rear. The damper settings are set to a level which is equivalent to the middle setting on their adjustable dampers, mine are not adjustable. This is supposedly the best compromise between comfort and performance.

Obviously since they are coilovers they are adjustable and can be set to dump the car seriously or raised to near, if not stock height. You can see how I set mine in the picture thread.

Ride quality is subjective so instead of saying things like "it feels like stock", I will instead just comment on how it handles paved and unpaved roads. Let me preface by saying that my tires are at stock specification, that is 205/60/16 which is more comfort oriented than any plus sized fitment.
On well paved roads, the shocks do not introduce any additional harshness to the ride as you would expect.
On unpaved and badly paved roads, the suspension will compress and rebound with more force which you will notice. Let me say that I have not had any complaints from passengers about the ride. Lowered at my level, I do try to avoid potholes as a matter of preference but have driven normally (meaning no change in driving habits) on most of the roads I travel throughout the city (NYC).
I would be lying if I say I dont cringe when I see a fairly large bump or dip on the road/expressway that I know I cant avoid but the suspension handles it well and I have not bottomed out.

The car handles excellently with this suspension. I also have the mls strut bar, and the addco rear sway bar. I must say that my tires are the main limiting factor now. Body roll is greatly reduced although still present, I would say that after getting the rear tie bars and the front addco sway bar, body roll will be even further reduced. To be honest, I actually feel safer now because it does not wallow about. Everything feels so controlled, I love driving my car even more now. When the car hits a dip, it compresses and rebounds in one motion and does not oscillate up and down like a softer suspension. Put simply the teins dampers are perfectly set up for the spring rates they provided. Other than the noise on the front passengers side, I am really impressed at the car's new handling characteristics. If I had to quantify it I would say that stock, the legend is 80/20 comfort/performance, the tein set up is more like 55/45 (including all mods), mainly because the damper is not set to aggressively.

I cannot say this setup is for everyone but for me this gives me more sport without taking too much of the comfort away. All in all a successful mod!

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bl420

thanks for the write up... i truly appreciate you being the first to try it on the legend... not knowing if it would fit or not you took that risk... and now all of us can enjoy it. :-D

btw where did you get them... in nyc?

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**Anti Alpine Type-R Thread**

misdeismo

no prob, feels good to be able to give something back to the community.

I got them from a guy on the tsx forums, it was shipped from cali. I will see if I can find the exact details.

I also want to add that I have had the suspension on for about 3 months. I wanted to refrain from saying anything until a year passed but decided to say something now. I can't make any comment on longevity and how these will hold up over time but let me say that there will be some maintanence if you want to prevent rust. the basic teins are not rust proofed other than having paint and some oil on them. From what I gather, this is only surface rust and should not be any cause for concern other than aesthetics and general upkeep. I'm running these on the hard streets of NYC so if there is any issues I'll find 'em.

Also tein is pretty well known in the honda/acura tunning circle which means that it has a large user base. This coilover setup is not designed for track use which is a good thing because that means that they concentrated more on reliability and comfort which I prefer (as opposed to JIC's).

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Herb

Well, great job with the Teins, it would be nice to see some pics.

But 80/20 comfort/performance? I know you were just trying to quantify, but have you driven a Buick lately?


How much are the Teins? Im getting $800 or $1200 by a quick search.

misdeismo

Well I drove a buick le sabre as a rental out in California and I would give that a 95/5 . I got the teins for $650 shipped. Need to find the receipt with the seller info.

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swift

I think all you need now is some GS rims or something close....that would look killer.

i love the drop. And that is on the middle setting?

mrkeith

Thank you for the write-up!
I did not realize that Teins are damn cheap!

k.h.

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The performance handling machine...

If you've got coil-overs, corner-balance them!
Please protect our environment: use a high-flow.

Herb

It would be interesting to put them head to head with the JICs. $650 is the same price as the Koni Sport Kit!

misdeismo

Yeah, your right, would love to put a set of gs rims on her. I forgot my exact setting, I think it was 4-5 threads visible from the base to the lower tightening collar in the front and 8-9 threads visible in the back.

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misdeismo

I think the JICs are probably more harsh and better suited to track driving. If you factor in the availabilty of teins, plus easy rebuild accessiblity, plus price, plus reliability (I pretty sure they will last longer) I think we have a clear winner. Plus, if you really want a higher spring rate you can order it from tein although it may cost more.

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misdeismo

Remember guys, this is still a sort of trial and I dont know what, if any, ill effects this will have on the other suspension components over time. I would guess that there wouldn't be any problems other than what is typical when lowering any car though.

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frantinez63

Props for pioneering and completing the Tein suspension mod. I definetly don't have the balls to try it.

-Eric

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TL-S wheels, Specific Remus, Koni Reds on low, Two-Tone Leather, EDM corners, PIAA fogs, more to come.......

Gerald

Excellent modification man!

Teins are incredible!

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hnic

are you going to get the EDFC with it? then you can adjust the settings on the fly or have them stored to the EDFC's memory. you can have set to super soft, super hard, or anywhere in between...i think you get 16 settings and in a different mode you get 32 and each wheel is coilover is controlled independently of the others.

bl420

the tsx tein basics are not compatible with the edfc



only the tsx tein type flex are compatible with them but then the P/U mounts from the TSX will not fit the legend so...

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**Anti Alpine Type-R Thread**