Tein HE vs JIC FLT-A2

[Dousan_PG]

Welcome to this thread AGAIN

seriously i actually have decent info

story first kids.
It was a cool and mild day at 3com for drift day 6. the track was rough and bumpy and the layout was high speed. the car....92 240sx. the driver..me and driftheaven (he used it too). tires...ES100s front. Fm901s back. Coilovers for the event..Tein HE.

after a very abusive day on the car, i feel one of the coilovers is not performing as well as it should be. felt soft...possibly blown.

so i call up a friend (adey) and ask to borrow his JICs for a while while i get my Tein serviced. ok. only temporary...

so take off my teins w/ the help of driftingpanda and swap the Tein He for JIC FLT-A2.

now for the comparo
no pics yet haha..i have no digital camear. but ill get some when the teins go back on so i'll revive this thread (yaah)



ive owned my TEIN HE for over a year..maybe one and 1/2 years now? not sure..around that..bit less but not much.

TEIN HE
www.tein.com
http://www.tein.com/img/he.jpg
8/6kg
double height adjustable
16 way damper adjustable


JIC FLT-A2
www.jic-magic.com
http://www.jic-magic.com/susp/flta2/flta2-detail.gif
8/6kg
inverted front shock
double height adjustable
16 way damper adjustable



now for the comparision
by looks, the JIC is FAR beefier.
the springs are thicker
the tein materials do not SEEM as high quality as the JICs.

Fronts:

-Inverted shock on the JIC is very nice. I know the JIC piston is much larger then the TEIN

-Bracket: this is important!! The JIC bracket (top hole) is drilled straight. the Tein is slotted=more camber adjustment. So requirse the use of your eccentric bolt.
The TEIN bracket sticks out MORE. = more bumpsteer. BUT more wheel clearance. about 1cm more then the JIC.
example: Society_Mike (aka VRT_Mike) has Apex. he clears R33 GTR wheels with NO spacer. Dorifto180sx has FLT-A2 and requires a 5mm spacer to clear the GTR wheels. the rest of their cars is SAME except the coilover.
So that might mean the Tein clears the same wheels without spacer OR a smaller spacer (1 or 2mm spacer)

-The JIC bracket has a straight hole for top..BUT the camber plates on the JIC LOOOOOOK like more adjustment then the TEIN, but this will be verified next time they are off the car.

-Quality on the JIC FLT-A2 looks better then the Tein.

-Damper adjsutment: JIC is on bottom (requires turning wheels and adjust. easy to do. the TEIN is on top (open hood and adjust)



Rears:
-The rear shock piston on the JIC is LARGER (visually--though now much still a larger piston).

-The spring is larger on the JIC

-The pillowball, for the Tein the springs sit against the pillowball upper mount.

-For the JIC the springs sit against a upper spring perch/mount and the pillowball mount can rotate freely (i like this a lot-seems better design)

-Damper knobs are in same place, upper part, easy to reach/adjust

-Rear JIC has a HUGE bumpstop. the Tein is much smaller. Good or bad? I dont know.




PRICE: JIC is more expensive. TEIN is far cheaper


my opinion. The TEIN is VERY VERY worth for the money. its a low end coilover for drifting but it has the bare necessities that a good drift coilover should have. the adjustabilty is definately a plus. my complaint about the Tein is the: smaller shock piston, the lack of inverted shock and the weak valving. but if it had all taht, it would be same price as the JIC FLT-A2s!

for the money if i was on a serious budget, TEIN all the way.

for the more serious and hardcore as well as someone who needs those above things..go JIC.


as for the ride. the JIC seems very streetable. acutally smooth on the damper its on (i dont know what, find out later). the Tein is pretty smooth but not as much as the JIC. probably damper setting so dont take this part as BIBLE, its my personal expirience/damper setting


any questions or comments?

[AKADriver]

Interesting! Nice to get some of these details that you don't see in product shots, like the rear upper spring mounts in the JIC.

Deciding on suspension for my car is a beyotch... can't decide how aggressive I want it... sigh.

[DoriftoSlut]

IIRC, Adriel last had his JICs 2 or 3 clicks from soft. But I also remember that the JICs may be 8 way adjustable. I have been away for my car for quite some time, so I dont remember what they were when I was toying around with mine...

[Dousan_PG]

its 15 way per the JIC USA website..

yeah it is soft but comfy. im very pleased for daily driver.

[fooddude]

I wonder how these two coilover systems would compare to the Buddy Club coilovers on jspec.com's site. It is in the same price range too.

[doriftokouki]

Very Nice Thread!!!!!!!! The tein vs JIC debate has gone on forever, and finally we have some real info to compare on. Thank You!

[JasonNagra]

Very nice information Aaron. Finally a REAL comparison. :bigok:

[Tucker]

Thanks a lot. Your insight is very appreciated.

[Legacy]

I've had my HEs on since Thursday. So far I'm very happy with them, but that's only compared to my stock suspension that was pretty much blown anyway. I think it would have been a good idea to get some inverted shocks on there... too bad Tein didn't do that.

I definetly agree that the price is good on the HEs. I think that if you're not all serious about the track, the HEs are probably more than you'll ever need, or at least as much as you'd need. Haven't tried out the track yet... so I don't know about that.

Good job with the comparison, it'll definetly help people decide on what they want to get. I'm kinda interested in how Kei Office XR-4s are.

[Darth Turkey]

Did you compair the weights? I compaired Tein to JIC with Imprezas before, and the JICs were lighter.

[wanganwonder]

i'm probably getting sustec pro dd's in april. i'll post anything i can when i get them.

[TougeRacing]

nice write up dousan, like others said it was very insightful

[AceInHole]

excellent writeup!

although.... i'm not that surprised. Kookz was telling me a while ago how Tein HE's might as well be rated 6/5 instead of 8/6.

I'd like to see a comparison between the HE's and the A1's though. The A2's cost a lot more than the HE's from what I've seen, and even though the A1's are cheaper than the HE's, they seem fairly similar as far as features go.

[theronin]

that is if anyone has gotten a1's Ace. :( makes me sad in pants

[DoriftoSlut]

One thing should be added. My A2's, as well as a couple other friends who have them, adjustment knobs for the front shocks is NOT smooth. It is sticky, and does not click sometimes. So you kinda have to guess when to stop turning the knob, and when you let go, sometimes it will click. It WAS annoying, now im used to it, and i never change my settings from track to street anyway, so.... meh.

[adey]

talk about back from the dead. :)
I have to echo what doriftoslut said about front dampening adj. though -- mine are very hard to turn and the clicks are no longer clear/easily felt. It takes a certain amount of guesswork and very careful attention when adjusting the fronts now. :(

[AceInHole]

that is if anyone has gotten a1's Ace. :( makes me sad in pants

i'm waiting for mine.... stupid backorder. someone give me HE's so I compare them to the A1's when they get in :coolugh:

[sykikchimp]

I echo them with the adjustment issue.. although I've found that if I turn the knob just a little until it gets a little hard, then give it a little help clicking back, I can always tell where it's at.

[Flybert]

My N1 PRO knobs are the same. The clicks are hard to distinguish, some moreso than others.

[AutoRnD]

well the tein are also twin tubo as the jic's are monotube..
so that also makes a difference i supose

[Var]

Good thread but just one question..why is this in the chat section, and in the tech section there are threads like "where can i get a silvia bumper". i think that should be in chat. there's nothing technical about it. sorry for the useless post

[DoriftoSlut]

People go to Tech section? :rolleyes: No one ask correct questions in there, this forum gets much more traffic, etc... This isnt rocket science, its a helpful guide to people thinking about coilovers... Most of those people seem to not go into Tech section. Cause they are dumb? I suppose... Dunno.

[ozzyman]

I wasnt really clear on how youre supposed to adjust the dampening of the JIC's for the rear? Is it on the bottom or the top?

[Dousan_PG]

top of coilover same location of HEs for adj

[420sx]

^somebody is about to jump and rag you out for opening an old thread. *sigh*. which there isnt really anything wrong with, since u had a valid question

[420sx]

oh and another thing, JIC has customer support that sucks donkey balls. so... .if you ever need a rebuild. just something to marinate on

[Var]

Once i took a poo. The turd was big and smelly. I named it JIC.

[ghostuss]

holy fuck this is old. mod lock this.

[infinitexsound]

hey man !!! i wonder if heavans got a ghetto?