I had tein ss coilovers installed on my car and after noticing some noise over the last few weeks decided to pop the hood and check everything out. The bolt sitting directly on top of the front right coilover had come completely loose!

I tried to tighten it myself but i have no way to tell if it's tight enough or to tight. Is there an easy way to know when you've tightened it enough or should i just take it back to the damn place that installed it?

 

i found out the torque setting for the bolt is 23.5nm. ill have to take it to a mechanic and get it tightened properly....

does anyone know if the bolts are prone to comming loose like this? or was it a fault of the installer?

 

100% installer error.

 

What kind of noise did it exhibit?
I'm trying to determine this noise I have right now, also.
Thought I took it back to my mechanic couple of times now it still persists.
He claimed it's because SS has no preload adjustment and SS uses the stock mount so there tends to be 'some' movement.
I have no idea if he's BSing or not at all.

 

That is total What does the preload adjustment have anything to do with using the stock top mount? Time to find another mechanic...

 

I think I know what he's saying. When you lower quite a bit w/ the SS, if you jack up the car, the spring just dangles there because its not preloaded. Therefore if you go over bumps and the shock fully extends, the spring can move. However on the Flex, no matter how much the shock extends, the spring will never be loose.

One way to limit how much the shock extends is to have a stiffer RSB.

 

So my mechanic isn't BSing right?
Cuz it took me a while to find this kind of mechanic at a decent price, actually one of his car was in the American Touge battle DVD, too!

 

How low is the car lowered? If the Tein SS was installed using the default height adjustment according to the manual, there should be plenty of preload tension on the spring.

 

The car is on the initial height it was came from TEIN.
However, this "noise" only occur on certain progressive bumps. For example when I go over drain cover that's not on the same level as the street.
Could be me hearing things more than I should?

 

What noise are you hearing? Metal to metal clunking? Does the noise come from the front or rear?

 

The noise comes from both front and rear AT low speeds.
It sounded no where like metal clunking. It's more like short burst of thumping noise.

 

thumping may be normal, but I've never gotten that from the fronts, only the rears. clunking is a sure sign something is wrong, thumping