Church

Imho more of a real difference would be A having hydraulic bumpstops, but Z - not. Price difference is rather small, i heard, valving is same too, thus making them overall almost same product in everything but HBS. BTW, i still am very fond of flex Z concept - producing unserviceable sealed units for less with simple cartridge change when it's due to replacement. I can imagine myself choosing more capable coilovers, but thought of paying to ship them out of country and then back for servicing with more then tripling price that most probably will result in me buying complete replacements anyway, so why pay for that extra? It might be different for you guys in UK, where probably there are local dealers/service shops for some of common shocks manufacturers, but not so for me in much smaller country with almost all the parts getting imported from elsewhere with near to no local support.

From similar type of springs+struts setups i've heard more positive comments about RCE yellows & koni-s.

Isn't it other way around? As in Flex Z are the ones NOT rebuildable (Flex A is rebuildable), but you just exchange sealed damper cartridge?

Except special topmounts that look like extruded bowls to place top of shock higher for lowering but keep full shock travel, i don't get much how camber plates in general can be used for lowering. Their most common use is to add camber adjustment capability. Pillowball bearings to lessen slack in suspension usually is secondary function. But also not related much to lowering. Every coilover may have different spring rates, different valving for dampening/high speed & low speed rebounds, may have different extent of quality control, different optional services or set (eg. some can be revalved, some not, some include own camplates, some do not). I'm not familiar with mentioned street advanced somethings, but flex Z seems in reviews very well spoken of for what it provides at lower budget range.

I'd prefer Raceseng/Velox camplates. Simply due their versatility to be used with wide range of coilovers, not just stock OEM or some specific aftermarket ones, leaving upgrade choices open in future. Of course that is if some coilovers don't come with own camplates in set.

Nicebiscuit: i would also argue on 'dull' bit. Imho it's by subjective/individual taste. For example to me it sounds high-rev-ish race engine like how it should, as it's not big displacement big american muscle car that burbles at low frequency, but japanese high power output per small displacement engine that loves revving high to get most out of it. Well, however it be, my primary manifold choice would be Ace's header for performance reasons, that happens to be EL one. So i just ignore sound bit, just wanting to get most power in NA form.

People might more like that burbling sound, but i would argue on 'like boxer should' bit. That sound is not characteristic to boxer engines. It's characteristic to UELs that subaru once traditionally used to simplify manufacturing and save on materials. These days even subaru on many cars uses EL. And none of such in boxers by Porsche.

I've seen engineers of somewhat similar field fail when applying their experience to supposedly distantly related field. For example someone designing at manufacturing plants high pressure hydraulic lines and then designing and assembling own PC liquid cooling loop of subpar configuration/performance, needlessly overcomplified due redundant parallelising of each and every component. There are also cases of doctors being among worst possible patients, as they "always know better" then doctors of some exact field that treats them. Since such cases i don't take always for granted everything told by engineers as absolute truth in last instance, unless they are engineers of that very field, for example car/suspension engineers in this. But yes, this goes too far offtopic, and no sense to fight over if we have different subjective experiences

Initially more energy to lift off, yes, if it's within range of what tire can flatten a bit. But if it's more >1cm and wheel itself starts moving? And it wont work other way around, with roadholes, as tire rubber can widen very little, max few mm, so with heavy and thus inert wheel it will just hop over hole in air. I recall how it was touted for hydraulic bumpstops for new Teins, that how good and well it is, with wheel more of a time in contact with ground and quicker setling after bumps/holes .. i believe it works same way (just no matter what suspension) with lighter wheels. And it's something i feel driving too and hence find very hard to believe mention that by those magazine tests it's other way around.

Heavier wheels - more compliant? How so? Rotational weight aside, which should impact accel/deccel, unsprung weight reduction means that same dampers/springs have less mass/inertia to overcome when moving wheel over road bumps, so wheel hops less, lowers sooner in roadholes, adding slightly grip and comfort. I fail to see how heavier weight can do the opposite of what logic tells it should, when even my butt dyno feels same as what should be by logic.

I disagree somewhat. While i didn't notice much of change by my 'butt dyno' in acceleration/brakeing, but i did notice more comfort/better suspension working (in daily street driving on less then ideal roads here), when i dropped one third of wheel weight. And luckily i love the looks of my current TechniCraft (Taneisya) T6 wheels in addition to weight savings. Win-win, i'd say.

But just manual adjustability from within car won't bring what wished imho - no dynamic readjusting on the fly for comfort in normal driving or stiffening what's needed on cornering/acceleration/braking/speeding to lessen that roll and so on .. just easier way to adjust vs turning knobs yourself. Hence imho not worth to spend anything on 'lesser set'.

Fitting "£700 set of electronics to a <£500 set of coilovers" may seem not that bad idea, if result performs like £1500 set of coilovers. Usually one can get both comfort & track capability only on very high end costing £5k and up, with having to choose his poison in way of comfort OR track capability in low end. Hence dynamic real time adjustment by EDFC seems very interesting at least on paper, but IIRC those that fitted also said mostly good words about it.

Thicker rollbars = less independent suspension / less grip / and yes, less roll. But first two, while may add a bit to handling confidence, actually can reduce cornering capabilities. Somehow almost forgot about EDFC possibility even though you mentioned Teins in OP. Imho yes, EDFC should give best of both worlds, both keep comfort on bad roads & reduce roll (dive & squat at accel/braking too). Not cheap option though.

That roll won't affect much actual cornering speeds/grip. Maybe what it does most, affects your confidence to push more If you track not just day or two per year .. i would deal in more neg camber and maybe stiffen a bit. Though still, while Tein A/Z are better then stock, and even on slight tracking more capable then them, even more so at their price range, they imho are not made for strictly track-purpose, rather some interim compromise solution (closer to street/comfort at that), and you may simply start to outgrow them/reach their limits, especially if on stickier tyres.

EU one sold here in Latvia also has no such mph/kmph button. When you'll finally move on metric?

I would do choice depending on if you intend to run with catless or catted header, as former will increase loudness noticeably and had warranted some to switch to quieter catbacks after install. As for Miltek .. somewhat too often i heard about quality issues for their exhaust on this platform. I'm not sure, if flexjoint really-really fixed all issues. Warranty is good thing, but i'd prefer to have it as vendor's confidence in it's product quality to not have problems during that time instead of just mechanism to fix problems as they arise. Having to dismount/ship for fix or replacement far away/wait for replacement/pay for reinstall/not having driveable car meanwhile .. no, warranty alone doesn't rise my confidence enough as bad user experiences sink it.

Whistle .. one stupid guess/suggestion. - Do you still have soundtube? Is whistling still there if you plug it for experiment sake?

Intake leaks checked aswell? Also regarding exhaust leak tests .. were they done also with heated up exhaust?

But i guess above tank's itself 50lr there might be also some capacity in fuel lines & tube from tank till fill cap, if one has habit to fill full till first auto-cutoff(?), and then more some. I sometimes think about borrowing small extra can of fuel and just for experiment sake run once till completely dry of fuel, just so to know how much there can be ..

Take pic of your car with wheels on and play in photoshop or anything alike. Or click mirriad of links/threads from wheel directory on ft86club.com to find pics with red car with different types of wheels/colors to get ideas (that's what i did myself, searching all the pics with orange toyobaru and sorting out ones which i liked and which i hated, to narrow choices to few). Our advises as to what looks/fits best for us may differ from Your taste , and main thing is for You to feel good about selection/result.

S18 RSG: i mean 'most common' grey color that unpainted alloys usually have :). Gunmetal .. i've seen too many too different looking colors/paints called gunmetal (sounds like popular marketing buzzword because of that) to really tell what really is gunmetal and if what i think it is is same as others do EDIT Oh, right. And what do you think of multiple colors? Like grey most of surface, and some areas of different one? Be it shiny black, red, white, whatever .. For example - on sides of spokes.

Red car .. i'd vote for grey aswell. Though not sure, if 'aluminium grey', or if polished shiny. I wouldn't want 'electric' colors like green/yellow/blue/pink/purple/etc to not look cheapish & ricy, black .. maybe only if in mix with shiny metal like in stock wheels, bronze better goes with black/white/blue cars. Mine is orange, not red, but imho colors that go well with it ar close to what go well with red, and i like result with aluminium gray wheels i have now. Imho white color goes very good with red too .. but it's a bit on unpractical side for all dirt/brake dust looking bad on white wheels and need to clean them often.

1) IIRC TRD's intake shouldn't affect MAF readings, so not much need to monitor AF ratios/how lean it runs; 2) ECU fuel trims are reset/need to be relearnt if you had disconnected battery, when installed. 3) there is not much to be had from intakes for these cars. At most +5whp above , that can be hardly felt with "butt dyno", so not much to expect. One may feel more due placebo expecting for gains to be had after installing something, but not much if you measure via eg. dyno. If some intakes claim more gains, then those usually are via messing MAF readings to force run leaner on unchanged stock ECU tune (running rather rich). If you do proper ECU tuning via taking into account needed MAF rescaling, no extra "gains" from that. 4) it was possible to get what you needed in cheaper way - plug with glovebox cig lighter plug sound tube in cabin to get rid of sound (even if just for testing purposes), or do complete sound tube delete (to also get slight weight savings & spacier/cleaner under bonnet space) with plugging it's hole on stock intake tube with some cap. +Installing drop in air filter (eg. TRD/H&K/Cossworth and so on ..), to get most of gains what complete aftermarket intakes provide but at fraction of cost ($40 vs $350). Stock air box really is rather good and many use it also for modest forced induction builds upto 300whp. It's a bit too resistive stock air filter, then keeps things back (~ +5whp from those filters). P.S. Imho despite all artificialness stock sound tube is not that bad in it's idea - increasing engine sound in cabin without any increase outside, for cops & neighbours to hear. And everyone should first test it by plugging it, if he really wants to get rid of it, at least if car still has stock catback exhaust, as without it subjectively car also may seem a bit lifeless. That ciglighter cap is 'free', and 'mod' for test is just 2-3min. Manufacturers had used even weirder means to do what this sound tube does, eg. playing back different engine sounds on car's stereo

Catless header no doubt will make exhaust louder. Seen cases of switching to stock or quieter catbacks when catless header was bought/installed after aftermarket catback due resulting loudness becoming unbearable. Among quietest alongside stock i often see mentioned Invidia Q300. But then again there are owners, to whom even straight mufflerless race pipe setup isn't too loud, so it might be subjective thing. Of course, one of louder times is during coldstarts, when ecu tries via valve/ignition timings to throw unburnt fuel in exhaust for cats to heat up sooner to get to working temperatures. Tuning out coldstarts by competent tuner will eliminate at least this, one of most annoying to neighbours, noise issue out. NA power gains are expensive. If it's for car, you intend to use for longer time, imho one just has to bite the bullet and accept spendings, instead of getting something subpar and regretting that later on. My own choice would be going for best possible catless header and leaving stock 2ndary cat in front pipe for easier passing smog checks. Currently i'm thinking of Ace type A/350 (and IIRC with clearance issues for RHD, so @UK CS400 might be better choice, especially if low/mid rpm performance matters a lot), but it costs way more then even catted header you mentioned, so very probably will not be among your choices. On overseas forum i heard Gruppe S header often brought up as budget choice. If you are willing to use OFT instead of Ecutek, then OFH+OFT is good price/performance package.