Replacing Tein Street Flex rear flat top hats with extended ones?

[mx54life]

I just realize that my 94 Miata's Tein street flex rear top hat is flat not like the ones found in Stance or some other coilover kits. I have read that extended rear top hat design allows more travel.

Would it be advantageous to replace the rear top hat of my Tein Street Flex with say a set from Garagestar before I install them? Thanks.

[wannafbody]

Tein Flex rear shocks are short. The problem with extended top hats is that you lose droop travel. I think adding the extended top hats would create more problems than they'd solve.

[—Martin—]

I wonder if the 1" top had would be a decent compromise - gain a little compression travel, lose a little droop travel.

[HarryB]

True, if you have problems with your existing compression travel...i.e. do you bottom out?

[wannafbody]

Only way to know for sure is to try it. I had 1.5 inch rear top hats with my Bilsteins and that seemed to be too much. I tried the 1 inch and that seems to work better for me. But remember, Bilsteins are longer than Teins. I think the stroke is something like 125mm for Bilstein rears and maybe 95mm for Teins.

[— Dandy —]

I'll chime in with some thoughts but I don't claim to have any expertise with this set up. My first thought is that the Tein Street Flex is a coilover that specifically comes with the flat top hat as a package. I would imagine that all the parts are designed to work together and I would be hesitant to change any of those parts unless I had specific result I was trying to achieve or problem I was trying to solve. My second thought is, is there a specific problem you are trying to solve? If not, I'd say try them as they were designed to be used and make an informed judgement before spending money and changing things.

Extended top hats are good for those that are trying to get super low. You will get more shock travel but that may not be good with the Tein's short shock length. You will lose ride height and may end up comprimising other parts of your suspension to address this. The Flyin' Miata top hats are engineered to give you the additional shock travel without any loss of ride height but I don't know if they work with Teins and they are pricey.

I'd do some Google searches. A lot of suspension discussions can be found. I'd specifically look for reviews on Tein Street Flex.

[mx54life]

Thank you guys. I did a lot of reading on this but still get easily confused with suspension engineering. Now it makes a little more sense why Tein Street Flex uses a flat top. The extended top hats thus have its specific usage base on shocks. The FM top hats are engineered for the Tokico's as I was told. So base on these facts the different top hat heights are relative to the shocks you are using. Extended top hats does not necessarily translate to "upgrade".