That is sad to learn of the possibility, but i agree that they are trying to make a positive response.

Is anyone going to go to the October 29th event? Thinking of making one run of the year.

 

Yes, it was indeed very sad to hear that Ian took his own life, but on the other hand, I think it is brave of the Prout family to not hide what happened. I know Ian's sister Ashley is working very hard to help remove the stigma of suicide that our society has. I made a donation to her cause, and will try to be there November 12th if there isn't any snow on the track.

I'm booked for October 10th @ LRP in INT2. Hope to have some MINI company like the last time out, and hopefully just as nice a day weatherwise. Seriously considering October 29th as well, of course, depending on how soon the cold arrives this year.

S-Driver, sorry to hear that your build is stuck in neutral at this point. Hope things change soon on that front.

 

Just a quick note about last weekend...
Rain on Saturday, to the delight of any MINI driver. Fastest car on the track. But I found that you do not want to trail brake deep into T8 in the rain. When your foot comes off the brake as you approach the apex the back end wants to swap end and fast. Fast enough I could not catch it. Thankfully the traction control work.

Sunday cleared up despite the forecast of rain in the afternoon.

There were a lot of cars at this event and I got to play with a lot of "faster" cars and I even passed a few.

The brakes performed well on both days. Saturday broke into the low 70s, so I must decree that the old school air deflector I made was working. I only had one case where I felt the pedal get a little soft. I am also finding that i am probably over braking in a lot of places. Taking T11 is now almost to the point of no brakes as well as T10.

I am still running into major hot oil issues. I may have to consider a cooler that I don't want to do...arrrrrgha.

And I threw a check engine light...P0597...which is an issue with the electronic thermostat not getting a proper signal. Whether a connector got wet in the rain and shorted out, has a wire that has broken or the thermostat is just plain dying, I'm not sure. Something to sort out.

 

Hey, another thing about brakes.
I asked our head instructor about what brake pads he uses in the rear and he said the Hawk blue but he had switched to a more aggressive pad. When I asked why, he said this is the way to get rid of the the tail dance he had...

Sound familiar?
Just the opposite of what you might think. But he said adding bit to the rear helps to hold it down instead of pitching all of the weight forward as a result of the front taking too much of the load.

So, larger rear rotors (JCW brackets and rotors) would do the same thing.

This all came up because I wore out my Carbotech XP8s in the rears and only had Hawk blues to put in. They had noticeably more bite and I was worried about creating problems. Guess not. And, no tail wiggle.

 

I agree with the larger rear brakes, helped last time out at LRP. GKP should be able to comment on this since he has the TCE setup.

Put on JCW muffler, not to loud and seems to help at low end.

 

What kind of ride height center of wheel to fender trim are you guys running on r53?

 

Can not comment on a R53, but on my R56 I run from bottom of wheel rim (17") to center of fender trim 22" +/-. This makes it easier to measure since tape can grab at rim.

 

I dropped down to 15" wheels with 205 tires and dropped a half inch off my road height...otherwise stock height.

 

I'm on 15" wheels too, but I am setting up my coilover hight

 

Well, the season is officially done for me. The brakes are all fitted with street pads, the brake ducts have been removed. Time to be thinking of skiing. I had a good season with 6 days at WGI and 2 at LRP. New shocks went in and this was a fantastic move. If I had known how much of a difference new shocks would make, I would have done it the day I brought the car home, new, from the dealer. In comparison, the MINI shock are an embarrassment.

I downsized the brakes a bit to fit new 15" wheels. The wheels and tires were a great change. The lighter weight is quite noticeable and the handling and traction of the new Bridgestone RE71Rs is unbelievable. The wheels lowered the car by an inch which, of course, improves handling. It also helps with aerodynamics and I picked up a few mph at WGI. The downsizing of the brakes, while necessary to fit the wheels, came with its own headache; there is reduced heat capacity and reduced cooling (brakes and wheels are really tight together). This lead to me making an old school brake duct. This is nothing more than a deflector to capture some of that high velocity air coming out of the MINI brake ducts and funneling that air into the backside of the rotor. It seem to have worked as I noted above (a few posts ago). Even with that I can see a blue line on the rotor where it meets the rotor hat which represents the temperature change between the two pieces and shows how hot the brakes get, even in a MINI.

So it has been a get a little and give a little season, but looking forward to next season.

As for LRP at the end of the Month...that is up in the air right now for me. As it is, if I did go it would be to watch and pay respects. Something to think about.

 

Nice summary, Eddie07, but too soon for me to be thinking about skiing just yet, especially since it was 75 yesterday and I was kayaking and swimming at Stockbridge Bowl…

I hope you can make it to LRP later this month; I am set to run Monday, October 10th, and planning to sign up for the 29th as well if the weather cooperates.

I wholeheartedly agree that changing out the stock MINI shocks transforms the car. I remember when I installed the FSDs in my R53, I couldn't continue to drive my R50 until I had done the same thing to that car, too!

I can't relate to your brake problems because I don't use them very often; you are driving your car much closer to the limits than I am. As you might remember from following me for a lap or two @ LRP, I only use the brakes going into Big Bend.

Wishing for more snow for you this winter, but not until track season is officially over!

 

Veggi-you are right, 75 deg days make it tough to think about skiing

LRP is much easier on brakes than WGI. However, after going to LRP and seeing the Pirelli World Challenge cars take the downhill turn flat out I got to thinking I could do with even less braking on that track.

As for shocks, I have a set of the FSDs waiting to go into our R50. I just need to find some time to do it.

Hope you have a great time on Monday and the 29th is a possibility to just come and watch.

 

For sure, my brakes get a lot more use @ WGI!

 

Another observation with respect to the 15" wheels. Even at a 40mm ET, they come within a few fractions of an inch of contacting the aluminum control arm. This would not be the case with the stock wheels that are an inch narrower which provides a full half inch more clearance than I have. I never noticed this until my last outing.

Because of my liking of the RE71Rs, and needing to make room/get rid of clutter, my Toyo R888s are now up for grabs. They still have tread showing. 225-45x17". The wheels are likely to be heading out the door. Anyone interested PM me.

 

If I didn't have four Nitto RE01s waiting to be mounted for next season in the garage I'd be all over those Toyos. Good luck with the sale. May be worth listing on www.nemini.org; I think there are still a few trackheads there.

 

Will be on NJMP tomorrow. Wish me luck. It will be raining in the morning (Hate the rain).

 

HaveATank, HaveABlast! Radar looks favorable for a dry day as the rain moves out…

 

Oh, Tank, MINIs are the best in the rain!

At any rate have a great time.

 

A classic fall day at Lime Rock today. Track was a bit on the cold side first time out (around 9:30 AM), but the sun warmed things up by afternoon sessions. Lots of Corvettes there today, with several of them sporting the Calloway supercharger upgrade, which gives them something just under 750 hp! They were just blurs down the front straight. 0-60 in 2.8 seconds in first gear!

I had some MINI company in the form of GKP, and we had some nice lead/follows until he got bored behind me and finally took one of my point byes. Car felt very good, and I'm hoping to get at least one more track day in before calling it quits for the season on October 29th.

 

Veggi - Glad you had a what sounds to be a great day.

I was wondering if you were running snow tires. It never broke 60 here and Rcomps need a bit of warmth to get them warmed up. Having sun is always good.

I wonder how Tank made out at NJMP on Sunday. He was in the tail of Matthew and all its rain...

 

The track MINI has never seen snows and probably wouldn't know what to do with them if I ever tried them! Temps were in the mid 40's as I was heading down, so the tires had some time to warm up (they were put on yesterday). I took it pretty easy first time out, as there were a couple of cars off track in the advanced/instructor session before we went out. I was impressed with the amount of grip on the track once that session was done, and the grip just got better as the day went on. My fastest lap times (seat of the pants stopwatch) were definitely last session out.

I was hoping the rain on Saturday would drift out to the East, but the hurricane kept things spinning like a Nor'Easter, so I'm pretty sure he was in the wet all day.

 

 

Couple of shots from Lime Rock…first one in 'stalk mode'. Second is approaching the crest of the uphill.

 

Damn, MINIs do look good on the track.

And, you are definitely hard in a turn in the second one...I can see the head lean...Oooo.

Glad you had a good time.

 

Naaahhh, second pic is turn in for Big Ben.