Wednesday or Thursday this week I shall make the swap.

It may be the first time in MoP history that a customer asks for a service appointment on the same day they receive a new Mini. I will however trouble them to re-align the car and put the new wheels and tires on, and also measure the compression to give me a baseline.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Awesome thread m8. I believe BMW's said their 3 cylinder motors are good for 100 horsepowers per cylinder!! oh Scheiße!

 

I am in, I have been waiting for someone to hot rod one of the new minis. You have a history of building great sports cars, this will be awesome.

chuck

 

I hate to disappoint, oh my wise brothers, but as I will be competing within G Street any tampering with the ECU is strictly verboten.

I'm still tinkering with the loose nut behind the wheel though...

And my friends at MoP informed me today that Gollum III is now in the hands of the driver and should be en route northwards to meet me.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Curiouser and curiouser.

Tomorrow is the day, so I dropped off the new wheels and tires so they could be fitted, and returned the OEM struts that once supported the previous Gollum.

In the course of all this I had a nice chat with my favorite tech about camber and the F56. He showed me the top of the strut mounts and pointed out that the old "pull the pins and pray" approach to maximizing front end grip is no more. There is no provision for any adjustment in the F56 mounting system.

Dead end you say? Not so!

With the F56 I am told, there are two alternate part numbers for the "knuckle" or bearing carrier which locates the axle. There is one which has a greater initial camber angle than the standard part, and another one which has less.

This is still emerging knowledge, and not readily available - as my friend in parts could not even confirm this from the engineering diagrams he uses, despite the shop manual for the car explaining this is some detail and even offering a mysterious specification for the camber variation (which was +/- 30). We could not confirm the meaning of this information however, and thus I just simplified the whole process by foregoing the intended competition alignment until a bit more research could occur.

That is a hopeful fragment of information however, and before long we'll figure it out completely, and the implication may well be that I can have G Street legal camber to assist the traction and agility at the front axle.

I hope so.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

 

Aw yes. Now the journey begins. The new shoes look great!

 

OMG ---- It looks, um, like, really really HUGE

Just kidding...Lookin' good

What happened to the springs, shocks, sway bar and wheels from Gollum II?

 

The springs were OEM, and they and the Konis stayed on the car. The wheels are looking for a new home, and the bar stayed.

Life is strange and thus I had an unexpected shakedown cruise this evening - round trip to Brattleboro. I've not had time to read the manual, so it was an amusing excursion with a light show from the dash that made me think I was driving a juke box.

I need to figure out how to turn off the start/stop, calm the light show, and generally tailor Gollum to my own peculiar tastes, but all in due time.

What a long legged car! I was cruising in the 2,200 to 2,300 rpm range at speeds that would have had Gollum II over 3,000. It's a whole new ballgame.

Of course at this stage I am in break-in mode, and being gentle and attentive, and making the small adjustments to my habits in the car required by all the newness.

Tomorrow I shall take the manual from cover to cover once or twice, and start to really "move in" to the car.

But our inaugural outing was great, and proves that long distances on dark and twisting roads illuminated by intermittent lightning from the storm I chased back east are a relaxing cake-walk for the car.

Particularly with a new set of the R1R which are the cat's *** on a wet road.

Now to sleep, and God willing another day.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

OK, manual read!

1. start/stop --> OFF (which is a persistent setting thankfully)
2. interior lighting and control brilliance --> reduced
3. "Center Ring" --> substantially reduced (this eliminates the "juke box" effect)
4. Bluetooth --> paired with the iPhone
5. assorted display tweaks --> done

Now I just need to see if the Schroth QuickFit system will install properly, and remove the spare tire for garage storage, and that will be all for now.

The Sport Suspension coupled with the new wheels and tires seem to deliver the cornering behavior I have come to expect based on the previous two cars. I had Gollum III loping around the test circle (which coincidentally is the correct radius to produce 1g lateral at 60 mph indicated). No detectable body roll, no fuss, no muss, and not the slightest hint of strain.

Once the car and I are better acquainted and broken in, I'll set proper tire pressures and explore the handling balance at the limit, but no rush.

I think I'm in love.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

And the initial prep is now complete.

Spare dismounted and removed, belts installed, and stripped to fighting weight.







Photo quality is dodgy I must admit.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Just read start to finish. Nice to see you tweeking the F56.. Looking forward to updates

 

Could we trouble you for an image of how the harness mounts in the rear?

 

Too lazy my brother, but it is so simple that a description should suffice.

If you are sitting behind the driver, there is a bolt beneath your left hip which anchors the stock seatbelt - the eye of the Schroth system shares that bolt, and provides a buckle for the main harness about 6" from the bolt itself. The bolt is a special female crown shape, which I was able to get from the local parts store in a 3/8" drive.

At the right side, the Schroth just clips into the center female receptacle provided by the OEM belts - nothing but a "click" is required.

The left and right ends pass forward creating a "Y" shape which is then joined to the two shoulder belts which pass forward between the headrest supports.

Easy, once you get that special little socket.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

How fortunate I am to have found Chip at Sutton Street Service in North Andover. I called at 8 am, and had completely transformed the car by 1 pm. The warm courtesy of that little gem of a business was exceeded only by the fast and professional job that Frank performed on the F56.

Gollum now has a voice! And WHAT a voice! A gentle but audible burble around town, just loud enough to allow me to shift smoothly by ear as I putt around. And a grumble that rises to a roar as an open throttle drives the revs above 4k and the car leaps forward.

The new voice completes my understanding of just how special this new engine is, and how different the approach BMW has taken is from the usual recipe for a small high performance engine.

And it is music to my ears and puts a massive smile on my face.

 

Pardon my ignorance - but is this an exhaust upgrade? Downpipe?? Being a lady I don't much look under cars so can someone enlighten me on how this varies from stock?? I would love my car to have a grumble then sometimes a roar - and to be able to do this so early in the life of the F56 - wunderbar Gollum

 

This is the act of a madman - it is radical surgery on an unsuspecting new F56.

More precisely, it is the excision of the muffler.

In this case, the muffler resides under the southwest corner (or driver's side rear) where it competes for space with the spare tire (also removed).

It is the last stage of a multi-part exhaust system, where super hot and nasty turbo-impelled and totally combusted hydro-carbon derivatives traveling at high pressure are producing what are essentially shock waves with a frequency equal to the rate of exhaust valve opening (3khz at 6k rpm),

This subsonic flow of toxic chemicals first rushes by the upstream O2 sensor, and then is transformed magically in the matrix of the catalytic converter, where precious metals perform chemical changes at temperatures that would melt an oven.

Changed into a more benign set of compounds, and traveling at essentially the same overall speed this incandescent torrent then passes through the resonator, which is between the driver and passenger, behind the catalytic converter, and at the beginning of a rather long pipe which passes beneath a continuous coating of insulation all the way behind the center-line of the rear wheels.

Here, originally, it meets the muffler - which in the case of my car made it rather difficult to even tell if the engine was running, let alone at what speed.

Perhaps I an deaf - if so I blame Curtis LeMay, as I once guarded FB111 swing wing low altitude attack bombers loaded with short range attack missiles (SRAM) with nuclear warheads, and consequently got well acquainted with the fifty-foot cone of flame that the afterburners created on the third mock alert after a three day readiness evaluation featuring 12 hour shifts for the "ramp rats".

They were loud, but that does not mean that the F56 is not quiet. It is.

But no more, as said muffler is now in my garage, leaning up against the wall.

The result does not cause old ladies to prune their august features in disapproval, but does allow me to drive the darned thing by ear, and once in a while makes me giggle.

A huge improvement, and the (almost) final touch on what promises to be an absolutely EPIC car.

Charlie

 

I should add dear readers, that I now have 800 miles on the car and have permitted myself to briefly explore the 2-5.5k rpm range at full throttle. I have also further explored the handling, although at no more than 8 tenths.

Gimme an autocross course (this is Gollum II)... . Please!

I am ready. By the way, although this was a class-winning run there are two serious mistakes where I was not looking ahead - can you spot them? In retrospect they are embarrassing!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

So I have asked a favor of my friends at Mini of Peabody, and offered a thank you gift if the mission is successful.

The challenge is, can these mysterious alternate part numbers for the "knuckles" (which I still call hub carriers) be tracked down, and the specifications determined clearly?

If as I hope these are the F56 solution to returning a slightly impaired front end to factory camber specifications - analogous to crash bolts - then I may have a SCCA legal means of increasing the negative camber on the front axle.

We shall see - and in any event the car will go in for service in the next week, despite being charming and healthy in all regards. I need the TPMS sensors replaced, as despite their expertise the units that arrived with the SParco wheels from Tire Rack are not speaking nicely to the car's system and a solution has been found. In addition, and just because I am an old school fool, I shall have fresh oil in the sump.

If the magical knuckles can be done at the same time, then so much the better.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

how much camber are you after? (F & R)

 

Rear doesn't matter (and is adjustable anyway) as that is just the tail of the kite.

Front, more than I'll be able to get I am sure. The R56 let me have about .6-.8 degrees. The full on STX built R53 ran 2.4 neg, which was quite good.

If I can get -1.0 on the front, I will be delighted.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

any sound clips?

 

Congratulations on the win! Man, I almost choked when I saw the size of the rear spoiler on that red Miata. Wow!

 

Before committing further acts of lunacy (like replacing the original "knuckles" with an alternate part number) I thought it prudent to assess the baseline handling of the new Gollum.

Previously I had only verified the normal crisp agility of the car, but withheld any hard turns while completing the break-in and introductory period.

This morning in the private test area I took Gollum to the 1g 60 mph constant radius element and explored gentle throttle on and off transitions, pushed the Toyos slightly (just talking a bit, but not howling) and verified my assumptions regarding the handling of the stock chassis with the Sport suspension.

As expected, the car has a slight under-steer at constant throttle, and wants to tighten slightly on deceleration. All very well mannered, nothing sudden, and all occurring at an impressive lateral load.

So this is lovely for the open road, and given the 34 f/r pressures just what I need for safe daily driving.

It also means that race pressures (40f/48r) and a bit more camber should re-balance the car so that I can put the back end where I want it on course with no more than a lift and a twitch of the wheel.

Very encouraging indeed! I hope to have the shop work done next week, but whether the magic knuckles can be deciphered and sourced that quickly remains to be seen,

Inaugural event is the Race Against Leukemia weekend on the 9th and 10th of August up at the , and I can hardly wait.

Incidentally, Tire Rack has sent another set of TPMS sensors, and agreed to remunerate my costs for both the original units and the labor involved in swapping them. Another reason why I enjoy doing business with them.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Charlie,


Not sure if you responded to R99 yet, any sound clips of Gollum III sans muffler?