Suspension Advice... Tein or SOS JIC?

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19 June 2006
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Hey Guys,

I have been having some trouble weighing out the Tein MonoFlex and the JIC SOS Suspension Systems. I was not able to find the information on Prime either. Has anyone used the JIC? My NSX is my daily driver. For everything...from work to gym to grocery shopping whatever. I also drive the car quite aggresively and like to track it. I want something that gives me both worlds. The MonoFlex can be adjusted with the EDFC so that seems interesting. However, the JIC has been specifically designed for the NSX so if its set up once it may be good enough for it all. Any thoughts?

Thanks a bunch,

Waqaas
 
I have the Tein's with monoflex. They are 'ok'. At the softest setting with 3-4" off the ground, corner & weight balanced, they are fairly bouncy which I don't like and was surprised.... drive around town is 'ok'. Wife is ok with it, but doesn't mind getting out after 1 hour of driving..

At the stifest setting they are stiff and actually a better ride in many, if not most situations, but it still doesn't feel like it's as stiff as it can be, for say a hard-core track guy (should I go that route...)

In other words, imho, not the best for the street, not the best for the track, so you kind of get something in the middle that is 'good' but not 'great'

I've heard people say that the Billsteins & springs(not sure which brand if it matters....) are a good comfortable set-up that provides a modest drop, and reasonably ok track setup. The JIC's & other expensive high-end systems offer a very good track setup.

I have heard that the NSX-R's are very good compromise, though others may be able to provide more specific first-hand experience.

Just my 2 cents.
 
I have the Tein's with monoflex. They are 'ok'. At the softest setting with 3-4" off the ground, corner & weight balanced, they are fairly bouncy which I don't like and was surprised.... drive around town is 'ok'. Wife is ok with it, but doesn't mind getting out after 1 hour of driving..

At the stifest setting they are stiff and actually a better ride in many, if not most situations, but it still doesn't feel like it's as stiff as it can be, for say a hard-core track guy (should I go that route...)

In other words, imho, not the best for the street, not the best for the track, so you kind of get something in the middle that is 'good' but not 'great'

I've heard people say that the Billsteins & springs(not sure which brand if it matters....) are a good comfortable set-up that provides a modest drop, and reasonably ok track setup. The JIC's & other expensive high-end systems offer a very good track setup.

I have heard that the NSX-R's are very good compromise, though others may be able to provide more specific first-hand experience.

Just my 2 cents.

Paul,

My 2 cents, you have the Tein Type Flex on your car, not the newly released mono flex. :wink:
 
I heard the MonoFlex fix the bouncy problem seen in the TeinFlex. Anyone got any experience in both Tein and JIC. What are your thoughts John?

Waqaas
 
I heard the MonoFlex fix the bouncy problem seen in the TeinFlex. Anyone got any experience in both Tein and JIC. What are your thoughts John?

Waqaas

I have healthy experience with Tein's products on Miata, 2K, NSX, etc... both street and track, and I know several shop owners that move 100 grand a year in Tein.

Now JIC... I have no experience with the JIC's past second hand info on boards. For the longest time JIC USA had a bad reputation for shoddy service, and a stagnant web site. Do a search on S2KI.com for 'JIC' and you'll find thread after thread about JIC USA being absolute junk. The S2000 guys don't like them putting them right up there with the D2's.

For the NSX application, over seas JIC Japan's offering was known as just another 9/10kg street coil over, and did not appear to be overly popular over there with Zeal having the edge at the price point to the best of my knowledge. Mr Kawai told me that the B6 is a favorite with his customers. You might ask GTROM now that he is on board.

Per SOS's site it appears they simply used the FLT-2A but with different valving and springs. You will need to inquire with Wilson as to the technical details behind his offering and how he set them up. My guess is that perhaps part of that equation is that he needs a proprietary product so he can better hold margin in a market where Tein's are on ebay everyday with guys at home working for free at 15% and under margins. That's best guess on my part- but dollar for dollar Tein is hard to beat IMO for 90% of street guys they are more than adequate when coupled with a pro alignment and corner balance. I also like you can pick up the phone and actually get someone there, or send them back and have them serviced with quick turn-around- good enough for Team Falken.

Personally, getting up to the 2 grand range I'd say go the extra mile and splurge on some Comptech Pro's / Koni double adjustables or the Type R depending on what you are up to. IMO... if you are mostly stock then much like the stock S2000 shocks, unless you find them too harsh for street driving you just can't go wrong with the Type R... lest you have the money for Penske, Moton, JRZ, EMI, etc... nothing says ass whooping and R&D like Team Honda Racing.
 
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Well, you use your car as a daily driver, but you also track it. You are going to have to make a compromise between comfort for daily driving or stiff for racing. You can't do both. Since you do track the car, I assume you can tolerate a stiffer suspension than most people. If that is the case I would suggest going with the JIC. The Tein is nice, but I think it's more suitable for daily or regular driving.

Also, I always thought of EDFC as more of a "gimmick". I mean it is nice to be able to adjust dampening in the cabin, but tell me this..... how often will you really be doing this? It's more like, if you have the EDFC, you will probably tend to use it. But if you never had that feature, you probably wouldn't even think of needing it. Tell me how many people with adjustable dampening actually adjust it all the time.

BTW, how or why did you narrow it down to these two brands of suspension? Was it the price?
 
Yah basically the price. My budget ends at 2k. I dont want to spend more. I am used to a very stiff suspension so I can handle that. Afterall I my daily driver runs sparco bucket seats so thats not exactly comfortable! So basically for me I guess I can go with something more performance heavy, with more stiffness as long as it doesnt stretch me over 2k.

Thanks for all the input. I am still undecided!

Waqaas
 
I guess the Tein RA has been discontinued but some vendors still have them in stock for around $1500.00 or so. I've had them on my car for over 100,000 miles over the last 3 years and love the things. They're still a long way off from needing a rebuild.
 
I have thrown out the idea headers and am going to concentrate on suspension. This gives me a budget of 3600 which includes the nsx-r suspension and the comptech pro.....Were all of you as stressed out before making such decisions?

P.S. I have decided to focus on performance and handling given all of your comments. Especially since I already drive in non adjustable buckets everyday.

Let me know thoughts/suggestions with the nsx-r comptech or something else you gentleman suggest that is suppsoed to be perfect for the NSX. Eddy told me the nsx-r handling is superb but for real performance I would need to go to a coilover system. Is that correct Eddy?

Waqaas
 
Wow! You really upped the game huh? I guess you're kinda like me. You enjoy the daily driving, but you also like to incorporate alot of race stuff with it. Almost like driving a racecar on the street? I believe the NSX-R lowers the car like 1/2"? Vancehu can answer any questions you have about the NSX-R stuff. Since your budget just became alot larger, how about looking into something different, like Aragosta or Top Secret.
 
Ever thought of HKS Hipermax II as another option?


Oh yeah those are good too...i forgot about those......fastrax is running that one......but he does work for the company too.........:smile:
 
Hey Guys,

I have been having some trouble weighing out the Tein MonoFlex and the JIC SOS Suspension Systems. I was not able to find the information on Prime either. Has anyone used the JIC? My NSX is my daily driver. For everything...from work to gym to grocery shopping whatever. I also drive the car quite aggresively and like to track it. I want something that gives me both worlds. The MonoFlex can be adjusted with the EDFC so that seems interesting. However, the JIC has been specifically designed for the NSX so if its set up once it may be good enough for it all. Any thoughts?

Thanks a bunch,

Waqaas

Neither. Zanardi suspension is a good set up to experience with. It lowers the car a little, more street friendly than Type R suspension, and it is cheap enough and easy to get simply by walk into your local Acura dealer.

It is a very remarkable set up for OEM and no draw back in terms of complication or strange tire wear.
 
I'm still running stock suspension, so take this with a grain of salt, but I've thought about taking the Type-R specs for spring rate and shock bound and rebound. Get ebach to make you a set of springs with the same spring rate with ground control sleves for height adjustment. Then get koni to custom make some shocks to the Type-R specs. I would think it would be close to as good as Type-R suspension, but for probably about $1000.
 
I thought the nsx-r was the best suspension for the NSX. designed for it...lots of good reviews about that. Moton and JRZ are fairly more expensive right? As far as hypermax...I am assuming it doesnt have as good of a center balance as the r type. Of course my knowledge of suspensions is very limited
 
I thought the nsx-r was the best suspension for the NSX. designed for it...lots of good reviews about that. Moton and JRZ are fairly more expensive right? As far as hypermax...I am assuming it doesnt have as good of a center balance as the r type. Of course my knowledge of suspensions is very limited

The Type-R suspension is better than 99% of all aftermarket setups. It's harsh for the street but for a track setup it's probably the most balanced, effective suspension available. Honda spent a lot of time and money developing it and it's Honda quality.

The Moton is arguably "better" because it's such a high-tech setup but you've gotta pay to play. The entry level Moton setup is about $6,000 and goes up to ~$9,000 for the quad-adjustable setup.

Waqass said:
Does anyone know how much lower the nsx is with the nsx-r suspension?

About 0.75". A really nice drop if you're worried about scraping. I'm at 1.25" and I think that's fine but it might be a bit too low for some...0.75" should be acceptable for just about anyone. The Zanardi/Type-S drops about 0.5".
 
I've put Motons on my 993 and 944 turbo GT3S, both PCA Club Race cars, and they are a good choice. What you need to decide is if you will continue down the slope. If so then the Motons could be cheaper than buying a set today that you will get rid of in a year. It is possible to swap out springs on the Motons and go with something softer for the street and then go to a stiffer spring for the track. However it takes time and the ability to make the changes, gets pricey if you pay someone else each time.

Since I no longer plan to race I will most likely go with a set of Bilsteins and pocket the change. There was someone on the list that did get a set of Bilsteins revalved and liked them. I believe the gentlemen is from Switzerland. Maybe he will chime in on this topic.
 
I thought the nsx-r was the best suspension for the NSX. designed for it...lots of good reviews about that. Moton and JRZ are fairly more expensive right? As far as hypermax...I am assuming it doesnt have as good of a center balance as the r type.


I tend to equate it more to driving ability, car setup, and actual use.

On one end of the spectrum- for mild street/track applications whereas your mostly running on street tires or r-compounds with relatively mild alignments, no transponder, and no real arguable *need* past perhaps just wanting the best brand shocks... quite likely for the majority of novice and intermediate drivers the Bilsteins, Toda, KW, Tein RA/RE/SR, HKS HII, Showa Type R, Koni's, Moton Club Sport, JRZ RS, Zeals, etc... is a good chunk of change... and more than adequate for everything except perhaps egos. Usually other factors come into play anyway than just performance- street-ability, cost, availability, etc... in this range.

IMO, to many enthusiasts on boards dwell on the brands- associating brand X or the most $$$ with being 'the best'. The only person that wins that game are the vendors. Every car, driver, and track is completely different... and if you really want faster lap times doing suspension tuning- there are no shortcuts in this game... buying shocks, springs, tid bits, etc... is just the tip of the iceberg.... and it is going to take testing, changing, testing, changing, and more testing. Thus, if you haven't yet invested even minimal track testing time already on a baseline... forget it... investing loads more money will simply yield back minimal results, if any at all. Mind you, there are a lot of BMW guys that win races on shocks that cost half as much as what many on here pay for their fancy JDM exhausts.

In short, my best advice I can give is to let need and necessity drive your purchase decisions in this space. Perhaps, the only mitigation being to shy away from the real low end crap in the $165 per corner and under range... (not naming any brands) but... there does come a point where you get what you pay for obviously. Otherwise, results are often subjective and incomparable- it is just like asking a room of audiophiles which speaker sounds best, or asking a high school class if abercrombie has the edge over lucky brand jeans.

Not convinced? If you think about it- everything out of a box is going to be a compromise in one form or another. It takes a lot more driving experience, tech skills, knowledge, and work to dial in multi-way adjust-ables shock and achieve faster lap times than most club racers give due credit- especially without the tools and resources the pros have. How many enthusiasts do you really believe that even know what four settings get adjusted on a fifteen hundred dollar per corner quadruple adjustable shock? No offense, but you know how many street guys I've talked to here on prime over the years that have told me Moton this or that is the best while they still refer to rebound adjustment as "the stiffness adjuster knob on the top of the shock". If that sounds familiar to you, than 9 times out of 10 spending 6 grand for motons pros or 20 grand for Eric's custom EMI suspension tuning is going to be a genuine waste of money lest some other factors quickly change in the equation.


Of course my knowledge of suspensions is very limited

Understandable. Relative to Eric Messley so is mine. It takes seat-time on-track to learn the dynamics, and R&D time to learn the technical skills... and it doesn't happen instantly. There is a time for everything.

If on the other end of the spectrum you ever begin to find yourself at the point whereas you are now calling them "timing devices" instead of "dampeners", have some pretty specific car setup requirements like slicks or complex surfaces and aerodynamics... are racing in a fully prepped car and want to win, have data logging capabilities, or are really willing to divert seat time to work on suspension tech and have that elusive sugar daddy... then by all means... it is possible to go faster in this space... it's all just time and money... so perhaps to a rare few 3-4-5-6-10 grand or more for multi-way JRZ or Moton Pro's, Penske, Koni's 80 series, Ohlins, Tein N1 duals, Zeal Super Functions, etc... may be neccessary to satisfy those goals with the added adjustment range and other features.

For example, on a club level this season I am working on some pretty specific driving and vehicle setup goals... and thus have moved to JRZ double adjust-ables with external canisters to meet my technical requirements- now re-built and re-valved with several sets of springs in the 14/16/18kg range... shock dyno testing, etc... however once again, it's just a small piece of a much larger puzzle, and I feel I have solid goals and perfectly reasonable expectations having experience on other platforms- again likely the exception.

Hope that helps.
 
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I got JIC also.

Very nice coil overs.... i have it set on the middle and its not too bumpy... im young tho and never really driven any comfy cars. all 2 seats bumpy speedsters so the JIC's to me feel pretty good. Im sure you can soften things up more to get a more comfy ride.

lol when you start revalving, you mean business

i love my "STIFFNESS ADJUSTER KNOB" :biggrin:
 
For example, on a club level this season I am working on some pretty specific driving and vehicle setup goals... and thus have moved to JRZ double adjust-ables with external canisters to meet my technical requirements- now re-built and re-valved with several sets of springs in the 14/16/18kg range... shock dyno testing, etc... however once again, it's just a small piece of a much larger puzzle, and I feel I have solid goals and perfectly reasonable expectations having experience on other platforms- again likely the exception.

Good point. When I quit club racing I had 8 sets of springs, nitrogen bottle for the Motons, nitrogen regulator, electronic shock pressure gauge, tire temp gauge which stored multiple temps, tire pressure gauge which stored hot/cold temps, camber plates and a smart camber gauge. Which was all and well for for what I wanted to accomplish. The only problem is that all of this takes a lot of time and a lot of extra investment above the shocks.

John makes a good point. If you don't think you will ever take full advantage of multi adjustable shocks save your cash.
 
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