As everyone knows....The Mini's have crappy motor mounts.....With that said, what is everybody doing to fix this problem for the 04 n newer models ( prior 04 has different mounts ) i have inserts in my lower tear drop mount which helped alil but the top one is the one given the car all the slop along with the trans mount. I couldnt find anything for a fix besides inserts which wont work on the upper mount being a solid casing mount.

 

I have 2003 MCS. Went to dealer and looked at 2005 S. The top mount, passenger side, has different style of motor mount. Can anyone comment on the difference in performance between the 05 and 03 mount, and advisability/ease of "upgrading"?

 

It does look like it "should" work. My friend is going to try this out on his mini ( once the engine comes back from the machine shop )

You have to change the upper mount on the engine and the mount itself on the rail. The engine bracket is $28.50 and the mount is $80.25

The point of this thread is to find a fix to the 05' mount being theres alot of engine travel during hard accelaration.

You might be better off with Urethane inserts being they make all of them for your style mounts.

 

Bump

 

i cant believe im the only one who feels these mounts are horrible.

 

I think the new style mounts (04 and newer) have some kind of fluid in them. I say this because my passenger side mount looks to be leaking what looks like an watery oily substance. I’m due for a dealer service in a 2K miles and will be asking about this.

It would be nice to have the option to swap out the newer style for the older (or some better) style should this be an ongoing problem once out of warranty.

 

Id like some feedback from people with the older style mount prior 05 and see how it feels to them. From looking at my friend 04 and mine , it seems that the mounting points for his is on my car as well but with different mounts of coarse. Im in the works of fitting a universal engine damper to my 05 to see how it does.

 

I have 03 with 48k. It started to feel bit loose now and I am thinking about replacing the bushings soon.

 

I have a 02 and just installed the inserts bushings in my upper engine mount.
Made engine idle sound slightly different from inside from the extra vibration, but it actually sounds kinda cool.
I'm not feeling the full benefits yet because I still have to do the trans. mount.

I'd think you could mount the older version on your 05, but I'm not sure.

James

 

I'm not sure if the newer style is better or not as I've not seen one in action at a dyno. When I first saw my 03 motor nearly jump out when the dyno operator was sloppily engaging it into gear, I said this has got to go I made my own inserts and then did it right when Powerflex became available.

 

MSFITOY, did you do the trans. mount also?

I can see the contact marks on the sides of the that mount too, might be moving back and forth a whole inch or so.

 

You cant show me your engine bay anymore.....Makes me sick how good it looks.

You gotta give me a list of all your engine mods....Thats to hot.

There are the same mounting points on the strut tower where the 02-04 mounts go so i think it will work. My friends in the process of building a nasty engine for his Mini so i might try fitting his to make sure this will work.

 

...I only did the right side of motor...top/bottom. The tranny side does not need it as much from what I understand. Wanna see it again?

 

I've had all the Powerflex mounts in my '02 rig forever. They do the job, although my Alpine head unit rattles around a bit when idling!

that fixes the engine torquing, but you stilll need to fix the control arm flex. I've seen a few minis on hard launch show front and back wheel hop as the CA bushes compress and release. Must be doing the same under hard braking and cornering, fiddling with the alignment. Adding the power flex bushes makes a huge difference and you get the cool experience of dropping the front subframe!

 

The first gen. have 3 nuts welded between the 2 layers of sheetmetal on the strut whereas the new style only has one.

JP

 

That can be easly fixed. But are the older mounts holding up?

 

bump

 

What days are you going to Sema?? We're going to the PSCA race at Las Vegas dragstrip as well

 

I have seen THREE different engine mounts on MCS.
The early ones are short, wide "cylinders" that I would guess have a diagphram in them. There are posts about them leaking oil and being replaced under warranty.

My 2004 has mounts with rubber bushings, like the photo in the post above.

My friends 2005 has entirely differrent mounts also with bushings. We were comparing them to see if the frame and engine attachment points were the same, and came to the concusion that the frame points were different, at least on the upper right mount we were looking at. We never did decide if they could be swapped out, as there were other under hood parts in the way. My recollection is that the most recent mount handled the torque link differently as well as the wieght mount.

John

 

Ill be there Nov 1st to the 4th in the AC Schnitzer booth and some others.

 

My `05 MCS had quite a bit of 'lunge' in it when going from power-on to lift-off and back again. Installing Powerflex urethane inserts and one spool-shaped bushing in the lower-rear motor mounts pretty much fixed the issue, at least as far as my twisty road and street use is concerned.

This does bring a bit of buzz to the car at idle, but heavy carpet floor-mats soaked up most of it. I don't mind it, and I'm pretty noise-sensitive.

 

If your talking about the lower one ( tear drop )....I changed that one also with Powerflex inserts and it felt alil better but i still get a big time hit when im off the throttle and then mash it. I leaning towards the one on the passenger side thats enclosed in a metal casing....I was thinking about goin with the 04' mount and using a insert on that one like others have done but wanted to know if that really feels any better.

Im probably just gonna go with a universale engine damper and welding it to the latch mount on the right side where you pull the SC pulley off and make a bracket to attach to the engine bracket for the right mount. we'll see how i do i guess.

 

All,

I had the same reaction when I saw my engine moving around the engine bay on dyno day. Also, went on a campaign to reduce any traces of torque steer from engine movement, at least. Ended up trying a number of methods to stabilize the engine. Here are my results:

1) Driver's side transmission mount: Tried the Powerflex inserts supplemented by aluminum shims to remove any lateral movement in that area. Ended up not noticing any impact on engine movement and picked up an annoying low frequency vibration in the cabin that everyone complained about. But still not satisfied. Still think that stabilizing the transmission mount is a good idea, especially for those lucky enough to have high HP engines.

2) Top and bottom engine stabilizers-the ones with the big ends and the little ends: Went thru the process of trying inserts thru replacing all the rubber with machined Delrin. The more I reduced compliance, the greater the cabin buzz. At one point, my radio head refused to play CD's due to the vibration ! Not good. The final combination that I came up with was to replace the large end rubber bushings with solid Delrin and replace the small end bushings with the hardest poly that I could find. The engine appears to be pretty solidly locked in place, and yet the cabin buzz is minimal and tolerable.

Replacing the rubber with Delrin in the large end of the engine control arms is not for the faint of heart. The aluminum housings for the bushings are "waisted", are narrower in the center than at the ends. Needs a lot of uumph to press out. The Delrin inserts have to be machined cone shaped to fit. One half of the cone shaped insert is pressed from the bottom and the other half pressed from the top. The entire assembly is clamped in place by the center mounting bolt.

3) Control arm compliance: To echo John (jlm) post #14, control arm compliance is a significant issue. The compliance problem is experienced as "hunting" and second order steering corrections on corner entry and corner exit. Not to be confused with bump steer. John and I have each approached the problem differently. I have replaced the rubber "compliance" bushings for the front control arm with Delrin bushings with bronze inserts and installed aluminum/steel mono-ball bushings in the rear. The front subframe removal is quite entertaining, and a pleasant way to spend time bonding with MINI. Pressing the rear control arm rubber compliance bushing out of it's housing is for the pro's.

If anyone has other ideas or other experiences, please don't hesitate to post. I'm still pondering about ways to stabilize the transmission mount. Probably don't "need" the reduced compliance there with my present low HP engine situation. But someday..............................

Regards,
John Petrich in Seattle

 

I'd like to try a limiting strap between the engine side of the motor mounts and the frame rails to reduce the movement when getting on and off the gas, yet I do not want anything that increases NVH at idle or cruise. I'm picturing a braided flat stainless strap attached in something like this orientation:

 

Thats exactly what i was looking to do Andy.....Is that a direct fit damper with the bracket to fit our car, or is it custom made and do you know if it really works.


Also....where can i get the bushing upgrades for the control arms and subframe???