- You guys ever heard of Slap Chop before?
All you gotta do is stop having boring salads, right?
All you gotta do is you put it in there,
you Slap Chop, boom, slap it one time,
you got yourself salad dressing.
You slap it twice, you got more salad dressing,
'cause I don't know what else you'd do with salad dressing.
You got potatoes?
You put it in the Slap Chop.
You just boom, one Slap Chop,
you got yourself your potato salad.
Do another chop,
you got a second chop, you got French fries.
There you go.
I am running out of ideas for interesting beginnings,
but Tein decided to send us some coilovers
and you guys have continuously
been just hounding us like dogs
about if Tein coilovers are good.
What's included?
What's in the box?
Just tell me what's in the box.
It's not what you think it is.
It's not The Lonely Island, I promise you.
So Tein was like, let's do it.
We'll send you something.
Term 14 hooked us up as well with some goodies
that we will be putting in another video.
Let's get started.
Tein, For Your Driving Pleasure.
First let's talk about the saying For Your Driving Pleasure.
Ahem.
So this is the Tein Flex Z Coilover Kit
that we'll be looking at today.
Now for the specific one that we're looking at,
it's right around, I would say, $900 for this specific kit.
So in terms of price, if that's kinda what you're looking at
this is definitely an affordable coilover.
So you guys are wanna come in.
We'll have the B-roll camera come in here
so you can actually see how it's packaged.
First off, don't mind the stab marks,
but for the most part, this is how it comes in the package.
Just come on in.
You can actually see that there is some cardboard covering.
But the parts are actually a little bit exposed here.
We're looking at those.
Those would be your bushing.
We have the actual part one of the actual coilover kit,
so you have your main assembly.
You actually have everything.
Looks like it's all preloaded
and ready to go, so I'm gonna set this over here.
Try not to stab myself.
Then, of course, we are also looking at the rear.
And so this is how this actually comes right out of the box.
We are missing something pretty vital,
but we don't wanna talk about it because it's right here.
So this goes on,
and then you're ready to roll.
Nothing too shabby there.
It's actually kinda weird how it's boxed, to be honest,
'cause they're not individually wrapped.
But then, at the same time, most coilovers aren't
individually packaged or anything like that.
And then, of course, you have your instruction manual.
Looks like they actually give you a little embossed sticker.
Your adjustability, which is pretty interesting.
This is for a Nissan 350Z, so this is for the '03 to '08s.
The knuckle destroyer 2.0 comes
with an embossed Tein logo on it,
so you got two of 'em when you lose the first one.
And then we have a couple other things in here.
I feel so bad for whoever has to clean this up,
'cause it's definitely not gonna be me.
So that comes individually packaged.
First off, initial perceptions,
this is actually really nice.
Nothing too major.
Not a huge fan of how it's packaged just because
it looks like it could move around a little bit.
But in terms of the actual threads and all that,
that all looks good; paint looks decent.
You won't actually see it,
but a lot people actually care about
what it looks like right out of the box.
Moving down a layer in terms of what's in here, part two.
Oh gosh.
Little bit heavy.
But here is the full component for the front, again,
you have obviously everything taped.
Obviously we know that Tein is one of
those companies that will make the parts
specific to the region in which they're purchased from.
So parts made in America will be different
than those made in, let's say, Japan.
Or purchased, I should say,
for either the Americas or for Japan.
And then we have part number two.
Oh boy.
It's just, ah,
alright, so now that we actually have everything unboxed,
and I stop making a fool out of myself
trying to get everything out of the box,
the first thing that you guys need to remember with Tein
and a lot of the coilover stuff that they make
is that they pretty much span from
really, really affordable to really, really expensive.
And depending on what type of kit
that you get is dependent on how much
customization you're gonna get from Tein.
So certain kits will actually have really,
relative to no customization at all
whether it comes down to damping,
compression, adjustment, all that sort of stuff.
And then as you go up to the upper echelons of
Tein coilovers, you're going to get more and more options.
You're gonna get the dust boots.
You're gonna get things like that.
You'll get the full kit versus just having
some things that may not come with the kit
because of the price point that you're at.
With the Flex Z, you're kind of in that middle ground,
so a lot of their kits are probably
right around $800 to $1,000 depending on
how much you're willing to spend,
what vehicle you're putting it on,
and everything in between.
So this is for a Nissan 350Z.
This is for the '03 to the '08.
So the first thing that you're gonna notice
is obviously your fronts are gonna come fully assembled.
Now something that's interesting is you're obviously
gonna have the damping adjustment right up there.
It's 16 levels of adjustment.
And then what you also have is this little needle adjuster
because what they did is that they
they made a new version to give you
more accurate adjustability,
so it's actually a click by click
that's a little bit easier than just
having something that just is a knob turn.
Because you never really know what you're doing
unless it's a click by click,
and they did that.
But what you are gonna notice
is that they aren't really serviceable.
So you're not gonna be able to get in there
and change a whole lot of stuff,
and then there's no compression
adjustability on these specific ones.
But the full ones, they come together,
they have the nice little tape on there
so you know that you got it new.
They come right there,
so all you gotta do is mount 'em up to the top
and you're ready to go.
For this specific kit for the Flex Z,
since we're looking at a Nissan 350Z,
you have a little bit more happening in the back.
So the first thing that you're gonna notice
is obviously it comes with a spring insulator.
This is what you would put in your
spring boot in the back of the 350Z.
When it actually gets all put together and assembled
you have something kinda looking a little bit like this
actually when it's in your car.
So what happens is,
and we're not gonna get into it,
because unless you guys really do want to know
how to install this kit, which we can certainly answer
in the comments section below,
but this is actually is what's gonna
determine a lot of your ride height.
And what you do is you actually adjust that.
They're two parts to a whole.
You can't just adjust it with this
and then do nothing here.
This helps you adjust your strut travel to match
how much lower your car is.
So what a lot of people recommend,
every vehicle is different,
but when you have something set up like this
where it's a separate assembly
and you have something that's adjusting
your ride height in the rear versus something
that's adjusting your strut travel,
you're going to want to remember
that there's almost always gonna be a ratio.
The ratio differs depending on the vehicle that you own.
Sometimes it's two here for one here.
Sometimes it's three here for one here.
Sometimes it's one to one.
Every vehicle is different,
so I'm not gonna tell you what the number is,
but if you want to know,
a lot of times those forums out there
that are probably around 15 years old
will actually have that information out there for you.
A little bit of a pro tip for you guys to remember,
especially when you're going
and adjusting these things is that
this is meant to make sure that you don't have
your strut or shock in the rear fully extending out
or fully getting compressed.
Because at the end of the day,
that's actually not good for your suspension components.
You want this to essentially get 75% either way,
but you never want it to either fully bottom out
or fully expand, because ultimately,
what you're gonna do is you're gonna damage everything.
I don't know if I already talked about the dust boot,
but you actually have the dust boot here too,
which is super nice.
It's something that doesn't come
on a lot of more affordable coilover kits.
Butane is one of those companies
that's been doing it for such a long time,
and they actually changed their entire manufacturing process
especially for the Flex Z to make the parts more affordable,
and then to kinda make it cheaper for the people
that are looking to buy the kit as well.
They also kinda make it a little bit dummy proof,
but don't be fooled.
It still is something that you're gonna want
to research a little bit prior to installation
so that you know that these parts come together.
You know that this is fully assembled.
You know that you have to set it up like this.
And then, of course, you have the instructions,
and the instructions are in English.
So helpful.
Especially when you're trying to install something.
You have your good old knuckle breakers here.
When you lose one,
you can break your knuckles with the other one,
and you're pretty much set.
Something that's really cool is that they do include
a little bit of the extra stuff for you
so that you don't have to go out and buy it.
You don't have to wait for things to come in.
And it's overall just a wholesome kit.
If you're looking to get something into your car
that's not gonna cost you a ton of money
but is still gonna give you a little bit
of adjustability past just ride height.
Another thing to remember is that this is a twin tube system
so it's gonna actually allow you
to get just a little bit more in terms of
comfortable ride, like, on the streets.
Now whether that actually is a marketing ploy
or whether that works is entirely up to you.
In my eyes, as long as you don't go too aggressive
with the coilover kit, you're gonna be just fine.
Something that also is kinda cool
is that you have the full length system
for ride height adjustability.
You're gonna have a full length system
for ride height adjustability,
but you're gonna have a minimum change in ride quality.
So one of the biggest things is when Tein made this
is that they wanted it to be capable
for almost anybody to put in their car
and lower it without having it adversely
affect a lot of your ride quality.
So, in all, it's actually a pretty well put together kit.
So that is our unboxing on the Flex Z coilovers.
Let us know in the comments section below
if you guys run Tein.
If you're interested in Tein,
You can hit up FitmentIndustries.com.
We actually have all the Tein products.
If you have a vehicle,
Tein probably makes a coilover kit for it.
If you guys have questions on the installation
or more in depth on a lot of the sophisticated
stuff of coilovers, we've done videos in the past.
We're gonna continue to do videos
so that you guys can kinda learn a little bit more.
Let us know in the comments section below.
But I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
Don't forget to subscribe.
We will see you later.
Peace.