I just installed Tein Type RA in my evo, with 75% stiff setting front and 50% stiff setting on the rear. The car ride better than stock. It handles fine on the road and I am yet to see how these perform on road course. I will dyno the stock shock and see how the damping force curve compare to Tein since I work for a shock company as a suspension engineer. I will hit the track next month and see how much lap time I can improve. Also I save about 20lbs of unsprung mass, the Tein is 6.5lb lighter for the strut assembly and 3.5lb light for the rear shock assembly.

 

definatly post your results, I was lookin at getting this set up as well...

 

Hi all-
Something to share, FRONT stock shock damping force curve vs. Tein Type RA. On 24clicks and 27clicks on the Tein, the shock has been stroke many times on lower setting gets warmer so the damping force is lower compare to cold. That the reason why very little in damping between clicks. These are montube shock so the adjustability range is not huge.
I ran the shock to 0.9m/s which typically in a road course the shock velocity is 0.5m/s or less unless you hit a curb or somthing.
I will post the rear later.
By the way, I work for a shock company as suspension engineer. If you guys have any questions, I am more willing to assist.

I updated with rear shock damping force curve

 

Great information. Thank you very much. Looking forward to more data later!

 

The post has been updated with rear shock damping force curve

 

Thank you for this!


I want to upgrade to Tein coilovers, and was worried that the RA's would be to stiff for daily driving, and was more strongly considering the Flex system.

Please keep us updated with your real world driving experiences, like how it felt going around the corner to the store, and the road has some rough spots....

 

I used to have the RAs on my car. I found them harsh and unpleasant for daily driving. There was no way to make the car ride softer. If you lowered the dampening setting, the car would just get bouncy. They handled great but were not good for casual driving. I'm back on the stock struts and much happier on a daily basis. I would only recommend them for someone that cares more about autocross and track performance than street performance/ride quality.

 

Agreed. I use my evo as a daily driver and it tends to be very harsh with the RA's. On the other hand, I never have to drive my car if my friends and I are going on a long trip.

I autocross and as far improving time has to go it is really hard to say. I am still doing pretty well, but I don't know if I am doing $1800 well. Then again, I am still trying to figure them out as well.

 

I have a question about the graph. On the rear, the stock is appearing to have a lower (or higher depending on how you say it) negative damping force. What does the negative side of it represtent? I would assume it is when the shock is expanding back out.

Also, you have the front going to 27 click, I thought that there was only 16 usable steps. I could be way off because I didn't get a users manual with mine so I have no way of knowing for sure.

 

Right...my RAs had a range of 16 clicks too.

 

From looking at the dyno, the RA doesn't give you too wide of a range of adjustability, a common problem with a lot of JDM shocks thats available in US. The low speed dampening is almost unchange through out the adjustments. And there are really only 2 settings in high speed dampening regardless to its 16ways adjustable as advertised. I'm suprised that the rebound is not adjustable at all for the RAs.

 

fastevo03.....thanks for the great info. After reading the chart, I have one question.....what is the max spring rate the stock shock can handle?



thank you

 

Don't you mean bump(compression) instead of rebound?

 

yup, sorry, bump have almost no change at all.