Update:

I took a closer look a the right front tire (the one that gets beat up the most at Pacific Raceways) and I notice a few small parts that show signs of some chunking. I think that if the tires are allowed to cool off every half hour that this would not happen. I drove for 45+ minutes at a time twice on Monday and that may have been a bit more than the ES100's can handle.

Still a very impressive tire for the price!

 

Just curious, but in the video, what is that high whinning sound? I love it, but am just curious as to what the sound is as it is REALLY loud.

Also Sleepless, do you plan on running an aftermarket exhaust?

 

good driving sleepless!!!

 

>>Just curious, but in the video, what is that high whinning sound? I love it, but am just curious as to what the sound is as it is REALLY loud.
>>
>>Also Sleepless, do you plan on running an aftermarket exhaust?

The supercharger. Anyone who's done the air box mod (see Randy's how to's) will tell you that the supercharger whine becomes a little louder. In addition, if you read the top of the thread Sleepless has had the pully mod done - which reduces pully dia. by 15% & spins the supercharger more quickly @ all RPM. This again = more beautiful supercharger whine. :smile:

 

Sleeples, i notices you had the ssr comps, do you like them, what size did you get, how much of a noticeable difference did you see, are they strong enough, for everyday driving, aka the accidental pothole, i do some ralley racing but need light wheels, but need to be strong, occasional washout etc... do you think these will work?

 

Two track days with my Mini and the Yokos had
enough chunks missing to fill a quart of Skippy Crunchy.
Roebling Road...lots of left and right handers. I do tend
to track out to the rumble strips in most corners though.
I was disappointed with such a highly regarded tire.

 

>>Just curious, but in the video, what is that high whinning sound? I love it, but am just curious as to what the sound is as it is REALLY loud.
>>
>>Also Sleepless, do you plan on running an aftermarket exhaust?

The whine is the supercharger. With an aftermarket air intake and the pulley, it gets a bit louder at full throttle and high RPMs; sweet isn't it :smile:

No exhaust for me; I can't deal with the drone. I really like the sound of the stock system too.

 

>>Sleeples, i notices you had the ssr comps, do you like them, what size did you get, how much of a noticeable difference did you see, are they strong enough, for everyday driving, aka the accidental pothole, i do some ralley racing but need light wheels, but need to be strong, occasional washout etc... do you think these will work?

I love the SSR Comps. In general, I'm a huge fan of SSR; I have their GT1 wheels on an M3. Yes, you can notice the difference when you drop 13lbs on each wheel! They are strong but since we don't have potholes here I can't say how well they do with them. If I were looking for tough ralley racing wheels I'd go with 16" wheels, either SSR Comps or GT1s or some forged 3 piece wheels; probably the latter.

For about the same price as the SSR Comps you can have custom 3 piece forged wheels made from http://www.ccwheel.com (don't be put off by the site; they make superb racing wheels and you can have the centers anodized in any color). They are not pretty, but you can't beat the quality, strength, weight and price! If you want some pics of them on my Boxster I can send them to you.

 

>>Two track days with my Mini and the Yokos had
>>enough chunks missing to fill a quart of Skippy Crunchy.
>>Roebling Road...lots of left and right handers. I do tend
>>to track out to the rumble strips in most corners though.
>>I was disappointed with such a highly regarded tire.

Yes, my enthusiasm for them as trackable tires is waning. I think that if you keep track time to no more than 30 minutes at a time and have upgraded springs and a rear swaybar they will be fine. With this setup and usage pattern they are a great tire for the money. I also think that I may need to run with a bit more air in that tire to get the heat more to the center (time to invest in a pyrometer ).

However, I'll not be using them again after they wear out; I'm probably going to get some Toyo RA1's next time.

_________________
Sleepless

 

Update:

Well, Monday was another super sloppy wet day at the track. However, it was great fun. The fastest car on the track was a heavily modified Subaru 2.5. The MINI was slightly slower because there was simply not much more safe traction left.

The MINI did great but the brakes are definitely still the weak link. While at the track I ordered some Powerslot rotors and Ferodo 3000 compound pads for the front from Randy. We think this will be good enough! The stock rotors with Ferodo 2500 pads warped pretty easily

The other "failing" from the MINI is that it started to show a windshield stress crack; to be fixed under warranty, but still a pain.

Here is a movie of one of my faster laps. I was chasing a Porsche RS which was chasing a BMW E30 race car. Unfortunately, as you can see at the end of this movie, the RS lost the traction battle and left with what I'd estimate about $4000 in front and rear damage

BTW - That is not my commentary on my friend's spin in the RS; I had a passanger with me and that is his commentary ...
_________________
Sleepless

 

painful........I mean the engine cut sound of the mini...hehe......hurts just listening to it...... :???:

 

Hmm, not sure what you mean??

But, here is a short movie of the fastest car on the track on Monday, a Subaru 2.5, going sideways in Turn 2 at Pacific Raceways. He also finds an interesting new line through the in field! Notice that I start to lose it in almost the same spot as he did.

 

>>
>>No exhaust for me; I can't deal with the drone. I really like the sound of the stock system too. >>>>>>>>


I agree with you 100%, Sleepless! So far I only have the intake and pulley. SO far.....

 

Sweet movies.
Born and raised in the NW, have to say I don't miss that rain, looks like it makes for some interesting driving


His, Chile Red all over / Hers, EB UJ on top

 

hmmm must be the loud noise that your supercharger was making ......kinda sound like the engine was cutting off......anyways......
question: do u know how much psi are u running with your mod assuming that you must have had some upgrade with your supercharger cause it sound way louder than mine.....

 

The "cutting off" sound is the effect of going through puddles and the wheels slipping momentarily. My car does not have traction control currently (broken!) so there no actually "cutting off".

My boost guage maxes out at 15PSI but I believe the pulley takes it upto 16PSI.

Follow the link in my sig for info on my car's mods.

 

I made it to the track once again yesterday, June 23rd. This time I switched to the Ferodo DS3000 pads in the front and to Powerslot front rotors per Randy's recommendation. I also had the Schroth harnesses installed because last time at the track I was flying all around in the seat which was very tiring.

Unfortunately, due to what appears to be a faulty wiring harness, I only got about 10 hot laps before the car went into 10MPH limp mode (kind of a cool, but unpleasant experience :smile:

The brake upgrades performed admirably but I still need to see how they do on a longer track session; but it looks like I'll be very happy with this setup and I believe the MINI does not need a big brake kit; although it would look cool and allow for greater flexibility in pad compound choices for the fronts at least. Note that Pacific Raceways is VERY hard on brakes so I think this a very good test track for brakes.

One interesting thing is that the cadmium coating that Powerslot uses melts right off the rotors and splatters on the wheels; kinda cool too. I had these 5mm stalagmites made of the coating on the edge of the rotors after a few laps; I wish I had taken a picture. It made the rotors look kind of fuzzy!

One thing that I had hoped to test were the MINI Motorsports camber/caster plates but they are made to order and have yet to arrive so I'll hopefully test those reasonably soon.

In leu of the plates I did try higher front tire pressures to see if could get the tire to crown a bit so that some of the cornering stress would be transferred to the center of the tire, away from the outer edge; thereby avoiding the chunking that I had experienced earlier. It seems to have worked but 10 laps is not enough to prove it one way or another. Anyway, I ran 44PSI hot on the fronts and 40 in the rears.

 

I emailed John a couple of months ago looking for AutoX wheels...

I've dealt with John before with my 300ZXTT and he can be kind of grumpy depending on the weather....

Last time I checked he said he didn't have anything for my MCS....
I need to check back... unless someone else wants to give it a try...

Paul

 

Who is John?

 

Sleepless,

Just looked at your site, are you still using the stock exhaust? Also, I don't think I've ever been to a web site with performance mod specs and dyno charts where the car being spec'd had what appears to be two childrens car seats in the back! Most practical "Sports Car" ever built!

 

Yep, stock exhaust.

Yep, got a 2 year old and a 4 year old which love to ride in the MINI :smile:

It is a family car, daily commuter, fun car, and track car :smile:

 

Sleepless, I found this thread after Punisher mentioned the videos. Very nice. I also have the 2 booster seats in the back for the 2 and 4 year olds. It makes for a funny scene pulling up at the track and unloading them before heading out.

I have the Ferodo 2500s on order for the front but after reading your thread I'm concerned they might be short lived. Any further reports on the Ferodo 3000s paired with the Powerslots? Do you change pads for daily driving or do you leave the 3000s on, and if you leave them on, how do they perform for daily driving? did you change front and back brakes?

Thanks,
Jim

 

I'll be at the track tomorrow to test the Ferodo 3000 pads in the front and the new front Powerslot rotors. My last track session lasted about 10 laps before the MINI went into limp mode and got a nice ride on a flatbed to the dealer. It seems to be feeling better now :smile:

I found the 3000's too noisy for the street; especially for the occasional nighttime drive to get the 2 year-old to sleep So, yes, I put them in just for the track. Brake feel when cold (around town) seemed about the same as the 2500's.

 

The MINI and I made it to the track again on July 15 and it did very well again.

This was the first time with the brake upgrades: Ferodo 3000 pads up front and new front Powerslot rotors. Both performed admirably and provided superb braking for about 150 track miles; I'm very impressed and for me the MINI will not need any further brake upgrades..

The ES100 tires did very well with only a small amount of chunking, and mainly in the right rear. This tells me that at its stiffest setting, the Madness bar (the older 2 position version) is setup for neutral handling; the MINI started to 4 wheel drift around turn 2 and Pacific Raceways; this is a big sweeping corner taken at about 60MPH... very fun...

Unfortunately, my car once again refused to start once hot so I had to wait 20 minutes at one point for it to cool off enough to restart; I drove it straight to the dealer after the track day finished (I didn't turn it off even when in the pits!) and it is now getting a new ECU. Man, I hope this fixes the problem!!!

I also had some fairly intense shudder throughout the car under very hard braking on a downhill slope; it seems that car gets a bit unstable if the rears get very unloaded :smile:. Here is the low res (5MB) and hi res (17MB) versions of the Microsoft Move Player V9 files.

Enjoy!

 

well i have a brand new computer and i cant get your video to work right. downloaded it and tried using real player and that didnt work right either. it is a still picture with sound and then it jumps and stays still again. any suggestions? your previous videos worked.

BTW are you still running with stock exhaust and if so dont you feel like you are restricting the rest of the mods a little?