Dale says "Bumping this up with an update....

So I had some money come in from a few projects and decided it was time, bought a set of Flex Z's."

After reading this entire thread - This made me smile haha , good on ya Dale glad you're happy (and comfortable) !
Now time for that active EDFC. I cant wait for the real world results !

 

Can anyone tell me how many turns on the adjuster there is on the Flex Z?

I'm wondering if it's close enough to make an adaptor for the Ohlins DFVs... both single adjustable with similar goals in mind for the adjustment capabilities

Couldn't be too hard..

 

I think it has 16 clicks. This video shows the install -


It's pretty funky, you remove the top part of the shock and this interfaces in there. Most likely some sort of adapter could be made but it would be a decent amount of work.

Dale

 

16 clicks, but how many degrees of rotation? The motors will ignore the clicks, but I want to make sure they won't over-turn the adjusters

 

I was looking into this myself last year and I kinda stalled out. If I remember correctly, you can get motors that will turn 16 clicks or 32 clicks, so that shouldn't be a problem for our coilovers. The problem is getting them to mate up with the top of the strut. They're both hex shape, but the Tein side is very small, about half as big or less than the top of the Ohlins strut. However, I believe you can get different size ends, so that might still be worth looking into. If I had disposable income to throw at this, I certainly would. Maybe someday, unless you or someone else beats me to it.

 

The motors are available as single items, the investigation cost shouldn't be too high

 

Bought a set of Tein "Street Advance Z" coil-overs recently and had them installed by Yoshiya at Neptune Speed in Huntington Beach. These were replacements for original OEM components, except that the shocks were Mazda parts I replaced a few years ago due to an oil leak in the right front.

The Mazda parts were labeled as the "standard," not "racing" part numbers, but IMHO they must have been mis-labeled racing versions, since the car rode like the "little red wagon" ever since I changed them. Decided I wanted an "old man suspension" and chose these Tein manually-adjustable units (which are also supposedly EDFS-compatible). The coilers were set to as close to stock height as possible, and the shock adjusters were set to 10 "clicks" back from fully stiff, per Tein's recommendation.

Yoshiya also installed new upper mounts, since the originals had 116K miles on them. The ride is improved... of course not as comfortable as our 2008 Ford Fusion, but then we didn't expect that. It feels... competent. Sharp bumps are heard now more than felt. There is a kind of "busy" feel over slightly rough roads, but I really kinda like it. Much better than before.

Component Costs:
1 ea Street Advance Z (93+ RX-7) GSM32-9USS2 -- $665.00
Shipping UPS Ground -- $119.55
Total Tein parts: $784.55 from Banzai Racing
OEM Front upper mount FD15-34-110B, 2 ea --$179.14
OEM Rear upper mount FD15-28-110A, 2 ea -- $174.42
OEM Bush FD15-18-380A, 4 ea -- $122.36
Tax on OEM parts ==$36.88

Labor Cost:
4.5 hrs @ $144/hr = $648, less $48 "old man" discount = $600

Thought this might be of interest.

 

Very nice!

FYI those are different from the Flex Z's I am running. The Flex Z's don't use the OEM rubber top mounts, they have aluminum mounts up top, they are total bolt-in.

Thanks for the input!

Dale

 

So which of these options is best for normal street driving comfort, no track, no Fast and Furious, and how will they compare to stock as far as comfort?

 

The top one is the all in one package. The bottom requires you to reuse the OEM upper pillow mounts.

 

Get the Flex Z. Hands down.

The bottom one uses the stock rubber hats, which is fine, but they ALL disintegrate and sag over time, Mazda didn't do that great of a job designing them. Even new ones will be sagging in a few years. Been there done that.

The Flex Z has passed my tests and is a winning setup.

Dale

 

Thanks, I was hoping you would reply! I will get the Flex Z’s

 

I just finished installing Koni Yellow 8041-1170 Sport shocks dialed to the softest setting on the rear. What was on there and were too harsh were FD01 28 900E on the LR and FD01 28 700E on the RR. These, from the FD parts list, are the OE "normal" suspension rears, not the R1 (hard) rears that I thought they were. I went with the Koni's because they were relatively inexpensive and from my experience are durable and well made, plus I didn't want to lower the car from the stock ride height. It took me about 4 hours to remove the old OE's and install the Koni's including putting the car on stands, etc.

I went for a test ride with all 4 tires at 28 psi cold (30-31 after the drive), and the rear harshness was reduced to a decent level along with more predictable handling compared to the OE shocks at the same tire pressures. So I consider this a success.

 

Another happy Tein Flex-Z customer here. I was sold on the setup after taking a quick drive in Dale's FD at Deals Gap this year, and put a set in my FD a few months back. The Flex-Z's plus a proper alignment (very close to OEM FD specs, but tweaked slightly to favor crisper handling at the expense of a little more tire wear) done at a motorsports shop made a night & day difference from what I had. Love the way my FD rides & handles now.

 

I would love to hear from old men with Öhlins to give a review of how they are for regular driving

 

If I were doing a street setup with solid coilover-style upper mounts, I'd get some high-density rubber/neoprene from McMaster, maybe 1/4" thick or slightly more, and cut an isolater to go between the hat at the shock tower for NVH, and make sure it's a bushing vs. heim joint lower mount. In a race coilover, with high end shocks, that first 1/8" of movement is what you're paying for, but on a road car you lose a lot for a minor increase you can't really use.

 

Putting the cushion between the "hat" and the tower will, IMO, do little good because you have to bolt that all up tight which makes the ***'y too rigid to move enough to absorb harshness impacts. You need something that can move a bit between the spring/damper shaft and the car structure similar to the OE setup to reduce harshness.

 

^Good point. I had to look at the OE shock mounts again. the thick rubber part is indeed between the spring and upper mount. Ground Control offered a 1/4" ish thick poly urethane part to help address this issue and better absorb some of the vibrations and harshness.

That said, the high end shocks do a really good job of absorbing those small movements as Peter mentioned. The downside is that more nvh will inevitably be transmitted. Might not be a huge deal on some road conditions but definitely more abrupt on potholes and expansion joints.

 

That may depend upon the design. I had GC's for a while, with the rubber spring seat, and the spring was right against the upper mount (the part with the three studs), as opposed to current setup where the spring sits in a hat, that's against the spherical bearing the shaft goes through on that upper mount (I mis-used "hat" before). Since the hip bones connected to the knee bone so to speak (hat to bearing, to upper mount), rubber between upper mount and shuck tower would help some, as would isolating either side of the sherical bearing with poly or stiff rubber I guess.

 

A little add'l info for reference:
I used the OE rubber parts and OE springs which are ~265 lb/in (4.7 kg/mm) front and ~190 lb/in (3.4 kg/mm) rear. Even with those low rates, the OE rear shocks were very harsh. So spring rate, at least in my case, was not responsible for the harshness I had been feeling. It was all due to the friction and high "damping-curve nose angle" of the OE shocks.
So as I said previously, the 1st item to modify to reduce harshness other than tires and tire pressures is the shocks.

 

I learned that same thing when I went from Stock Class with GAB Super Rs and stock springs to Street Prepared Class with Ohlins with their 11k spring rate.

Ohlins rode incredibly smoother on the street.

My friend commented it rode like his BMW 5 series now (it was on a bit lighter than stock 16s and stock size/weight tires.)

 

My new Ohlins definitely don't ride like a 5 series with the 11k rates

 

How does it ride then?

 

Well, he said like a bmw and I inferred 5 series because he had recently owned a 3rd? Gen 5 series.

 

Much stiffer. Compliant on larger bumps but you feel everything. Also feels short on overall suspension travel. Much better than the Cuscos they replaced, with similar rates.