get black they would look well on yours

 

yeah I would.. but i would repaint them to make them glossy instead of matte..

 

Thanks, Greg. I jumped in with you and John. Part numbers worked out perfectly. I hope we get what we (thought) we ordered!

Now to resolve whether to do just mudflaps or mudflaps and the JCW kit.

 

John, can you tell us where you ordered the front JCW lip as well? I can't figure out which parts to order. Seems like each bolt and nut is required.

 

Finally got my wheels on:

NM RSe14's with Michelin Pilot Super Sport's - 225/40/19




This car needs adjustable lower control arms STAT.


Got these today:


Also bought the tool to adjust the rear toe, as my friend that's going to align it for me doesn't have it:


I hope to align it Sunday.

 

nice! are you lowered?? What size tires did you end up with?

 

Just LOVE those wheels, congrats!

How does the ride comfort with 19" non run flats compare to the OEM (did you have 17's or 18's?) run flats?

What's the advantage of the adjustable lower control arm? Is it something that's more important to have with 19" wheels?

 

Loving those NMs more and more.. did you also get NM exhaust?... btw, I got the spring from NMS but didnt adjust the camber.. should I?

 

Looks great Shoof. You def made up my mind.
those arms look like a piece of art.

Hows the ride so far?

 

Not Shoof, but he said in the post that his tires are 225/40/19.

From the looks of the wheel gap, I would say he IS lowered, as I would expect to see a lot more with 225/40/19, which is roughly the same overall diameter as my stock 225/45/18 setup and which produced an eye-melting amount of gap.

Adjustable lower control arms are necessary to resolve the significant amount of negative camber in the rear wheels that the lowered springs will put you in. Imagine the wheels perfectly upright with the stock springs. Now, when you lower the car, the OEM control arms (which have a fixed length and attach to above the rear wheels) have no choice but to push the top of the rear wheels outward, resulting in a significant amount of negative camber. Since the control arms are a constant, the car can only make the new geometry work by displacing the rear wheel.

The adjustable control arms allow you to decrease the length of the control arm, which allows the car to be lowered without forcing the top of the rear wheels outward. In other words, you make the control arm the variable and the camber a constant (as it should be).

Thus, the control arms are made necessary by the lowering springs, not the 19" wheels.

 

I have NM Springs, Intake, Exhaust, Turbo Discharge Pipe, Air Charge Pipe and Titanium Heat Shield.

When I lowered the car, it needs to be aligned. The rear suspension should have -1.75 degrees per factory specs (NM Eng says -1.70 for "prudent minded"), and I had -4 degrees of camber that couldn't adjust to anything less than that because of the fixed factory control arm that can't be adjusted in length to offset the difference. This will result in uneven tread wear.

 

Arms on, alignment done.




Can't really say anything about the ride, as I am home now, just got back from my friend's shop, so the 5 minute ride won't give me much feedback. I'll let you know in the next few days once I really get a feel for how the suspension/alignment/wheels/tires responds to my normal driving route compared to before.

 

I have two problems now....first, I can't use the OEM wheel locks, as the holes on the wheels are too small to fit the wheel lock adapter. I MUST get this resolved ASAP.

2nd problem, I bought Tire Pressure Sensors from Tire Rack. When I was installing them, I noted that the body of the Sensor was a light gray. Last month I changed sensors for another fellow Mini enthusiast, and the sensors I installed at that time had a dark gray body. I drove about 30 miles yesterday after putting the wheels on until the TPMS light came on saying there was a malfunction. I knew it!

I called up Tire Rack, they claim the sensors they sent me were identical to the ones I got last month, but I don't know about that. In any case, they are sending me another set of sensors again. Not such a big deal, but now i'm going to have to take the wheels off, break the tire bead to get to the sensors, change them, and possibly balance them again. So annoying!

 

Potentially stupid question, but did you reset the TPMS through the computer? Same thing happened to me, but went away after I reset the system through the console.

 

Yes, I tried to reset it 3x yesterday. It couldn't find the sensors, system says the sensors malfunctioned.

These were alignment specs...as per NM Eng's "prudent" setting:

 

Shoof, on your printout it shows the parameters for the rear camber being -1.6 to -1.8. I'm curious, did the person doing the alignment manually enter those specs, or is that what was already programmed into the alignment machine's computer? The reason I ask is because others have been reporting that -2.1 is official spec from MINI.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning your decision to go with -1.7, because that sounds fine. I'm just trying to determine what exactly the "official" spec from MINI is because there seems to be so much confusion.

I know that when I used a Hunter alignment machine that they would only send out a software update disc every few years. So whenever I had a car that was only a year or two old it wouldn't show up in the system. I'm wondering if the machine you got yours done on had the R60 in the system yet, and if so, did the specs state -2.1 (or something else) or was it not in the system yet and you input your own specs?

Also, I found out the other day that there is, in fact, a rear camber adjustment on the R60. The lower control arm to trailing arm attachment point is slotted to adjust camber. However, it probably doesn't allow enough adjustment to correct for a lowered car. Here is a photo I took of it...

 

He scanned the bar code on the door and the system picked up what kind of car it was. It's a Hawk Eye Alignment system. Once the system picked up the scan, it gave you like 12 different settings for an R60, presumably from a base model car with the smallest wheels to a loaded ALL4 with the biggest possible wheels and with or without a sport suspension. He chose the specs of the car to be "MINI 2011-12 R60 Countryman 4x4 18" Adjust (Modified Specification)". There was no option for 19" so he went with the settings for 18". He used a setting to manually enter NM's recommendation for the less aggressive setup that I wanted. I don't know for sure what factory spec is, but before the override, the system had -1.75 and he changed it to -1.70, for what it's worth.

As far as camber adjustment goes, the front camber can't be adjusted at all. The rear camber can be adjusted with the stock control arms in place. Once the lowering springs came into play, you can still adjust the control arms, but nowhere nearly close enough to spec. Before changing the arms, he tried aligning it to spec, the closest he got was -3.9 degrees. Now that the car is aligned to a balanced spec, the car rides/handles/feels firmly planted. I can't say that it crashes over the bumps much better than the stock 17" run-flats, then again there's a lot less sidewall to absorb the bumps, run-flat or not. I didn't really drive the crap out of the car, but it definitely feels better today than it did 24 hours ago. Almost gives me the same confidence I had when taking a hard turn in my modified Clubman I had before this car. Almost.

 

Thanks Hujan, makes perfect sense.

 

here are the specs from a brand new Hunter machine.
its 2 weeks old. I can believe the factory camber is -2. Just look at it from behind.

 

-2 camber is so yesterday. Now a days you need at least -8 to fit in with the cool kids... clicky here

 

You think that the Sport Suspension could be a variable to having a little more negative camber in back compared to my non SS setting in the HawkEye?

 

D'OH!

Just realized that the HawkEye I speak of is a Hunter Machine...

 

Shoof, It may. The factory Sport Susp. is supposed to be a few mm lower than the standard. the factory may pre-set the camber a tad more negative as well just to add to the 'sport' aspect.
I'll personally be happy w/ -1.75 thru -2.2 for the rear. this should be obtainable w/ the SPC arms. I opted for the factory SS for the larger bars & upgraded shocks as I knew I was going to do springs.
the other SPC come in yet?

 

NM's more aggressive setup is to do -2.00 degrees in back, but "it may cause increased tire wear", per their notes. Even at my 1.7 setting, there still is visible negative camber in back. Just looks more "normal" compared to how it was before I installed the LCA's. Looked like the suspension collapsed the way it was before.

The other SPC was coming from NV, so I think I'll have it Monday or Tuesday this week.

 

the other thing is how much you rub with a full load. I opted to go -.9 due to carrying a load.. -1.7 is too much for daily driving..