CerberusKy

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Installed the Tein Street Advanced on my TL Yesterday. The night before, I sprayed all the bolts with PB, and removed the rear seat (Huge PIA to do alone). The next day, I swapped out the old suspension for the new. Took me almost exactly 5 hours, working alone, and making a couple of mistakes.... It was harder to remove the front struts then the rears, which I was surprised by. If I had to do it again, I think I could do it in about 3 hours.

The one thing that was a surprise for me was that the Tein Street Advance does not have a separate height adjustment... it is really just a pre-load adjustment that changes the height, so there is no way to adjust the height or the pre-load without changing the other. I'm a little disappointed with this, as I want both the adjustments to work separately, not in combination with each other.

After driving it around for a bit, I do like the ride/handling characteristics over stock, and I need to make a few more adjustments before I re-install the back seat.

Anyone who is thinking about doing the install themselves, it is not to hard... just have a general idea of your way around some basic tools, and some mechanical inclination, and it should be pretty easy.

General tools needed:
* open end/box wrenches (10, 12, 14, 17mm) off the top of my head
* good metric ratchet/sockets (10, 12, 14, 17mm) off the top of my head
* breaker bar (impact wrench is helpful, but not needed)
* 2 Jack stands, and a jack (hydrolic preferred)
* pry bars (one long [3 foot], one short [18 inch] ish)
* hex wrenches
* hammer
* rent spring compressor

Looking around at some of the other thread here helped me a lot. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the great info on the forum.

MikeTL92

Nicely done! In looking into getting the Tein SA soon also, just waiting for all this snow to go away...

Excelerate

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ucf_bronco

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You probably saw this (or knew to do it anyway) since you said you looked at some other threads, but did you preload the suspension before tightening the bolts?

Also, what do you currently have yours set at for F/R? Pretty sure I did 4F and 6R.

CerberusKy

iTrader: (1)

Yup, preloaded the suspension before tightening the bolts, but I did forget to tighten the lug nuts on one of the wheels... caught it in about 50' of driving though. After I drove the car for about 1/2 hour I went and double checked all of the bolts.

Right now I'm at 6F, 8R; but I'm not done with my testing yet. I like the current feel, but I'm going to go a little stiffer to see if I like it better or worse. Hopefully I'll have it dialed in by the end of the weekend.

I didn't want the car to low, so I have more preload than I want. Ended up lowering a little bit more to get rid of some of the preload, but I hate scraping the front of the car.

ucf_bronco

iTrader: (1)

Glad to hear you quickly realized you forgot to tighten those lugs! That's one of my biggest fears when working on my car...forgetting to do something routine like that which could become a HUGE problem down the road (literally, haha). I always go over a bunch of checks in my head afterward making sure I did everything I was supposed to.

I'm really not picky when it comes to my ride quality, and I've discovered the stiffer the better for me...so the excessive preload doesn't bother me. I'm right there with you on the scraping though. Fortunately I very rarely scrape, I just tend to rub the front fender with my tires when turning. It's becoming a more rare occurrence though because I baby it through those types of turns now. Of course that leads to the fear that I'm going to get rear ended because I don't get out of the road quick enough.

I reached out to KarKraze to get an idea on the settings and he mentioned he liked 4F/6R so I started with that and liked it. I tried 2F/4R for a day but wasn't a fan so I switched back.

IMO, getting the seat back in is even more of a pain in the ass than getting it out (assuming both are done alone)...so good luck with that! I scraped the area you can't see when the door is closed (doorwell?) and actually dinged the inside too this last go round. I guess the third time wasn't the charm! Somehow the previous two times I managed to get it back in without damaging anything.

CerberusKy

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^^^
Dam... I was thinking that it would be a breeze to get back in! As I tell my wife, every time she asks me to undertake a project for her, "Honey, NOTHING is ever easy".

I started out soft, and have been progressively increasing the dampening, but I just lowered the car a bit, so now need to run through a bunch more settings to see how it rides/handles. I'm looking for a comfortable ride, but when I throw it into a corner I want it to sit, and not have much roll.

I might go all the way up front and back, just for sh#ts and giggles.

CerberusKy

iTrader: (1)

After driving around at 3/5 (F/R) for 2 days, I ended up at 3/6 (F/R). The ride seems a little less comfortable than stock, but the handling is much better. Steering response is greatly improved too.

Back seat went in without issue, until I realize that I forgot to dial the dampening back one click before putting the back seat in.

Schu

Thread is useless without pictures...