Hoosier's 275/35/15
 

Thought I'd let you all know, a buddy of mine has fit a set of the 275s up on his '06 JCW. My wife and I co-drove with him and his wife this past weekend up at Packwood in a NWR event. First off he had a set of Bogart Wheels built that he mounted them on. More importantly these tires had an incredible amount of grip. The turn-in response was incredible and the car did not push anywhere. These tires were awesome. We ran in the morning in their open pax class and unfortunately did not have any other DSP car to compare times with. In the afternoon there were 2 BMW 325 CIs that ran, one with 2 drivers, and if I can compare times with them, we were about 1 to 1.5 seconds faster. The owner of the car ran a 66.9 to my 67.4, although I had one cone in one of the slaloms. The BMW's were between 67.5 to the low 68s. Even the girls were competive with my wife turning a 68.1 with me in the car with her. My first impression is that these are the tires to have to take the BMW's, were putting up 4 chances for a trophy at Nationals.

Dudley

What sort of crazy offset do those rims have?

I'm glad to hear that the bigger tires are helping catch those BMW's! How long before you go that route!? :-)
Tristan

Yeah, what he said.

And what was the wheel width?

Finally, was the car lowered?

As far as the wheel offset, I'll have to ask the owner what the final dimensions were that he sent to Bogart. All I know is that he made a bunch of different measurements on his hubs and brakes and sent them to Bogart. Wheel width is 10"(15x10) and I'd say they are somewhere around 13 pounds.

I will be going this route for next season, I currently have the Wilwood big brake kit on the car and that is keeping me from a full DSP set up, I'm in STX trim with R-comps. The owner did do some front fender cutting to allow room for full turn in.

The car has been lowered, he's running Leda single adjustables with the ride height about 1" lower than stock, give or take. He just put heavier springs on, so our next step is corner balancing so ride height will change a little after that.

Dudley

Now that Fritz let the cat out of the bag, I guess I can share these photos. I had to do a lot of fender trimming to make sure these wouldn't rub. The Bogart wheels are 15x10 with a 6" backspace. I also had get exact measurements of the hub and caliper so the wheels could be made to fit.

Rich at Bogart wheels did a great job. I'd highly recommend their work.

http://mysite.verizon.net/azacharda/front.jpg

http://mysite.verizon.net/azacharda/back.jpg

http://mysite.verizon.net/azacharda/side.jpg

http://mysite.verizon.net/azacharda/wheel.jpg

http://mysite.verizon.net/azacharda/corner.jpg

That car looks like alot of pickup I see down here.

holy sh*t! thats schweet!!

Looks amazing....great job :thumbsup:

Any scrub radius issues?

now its time for that widebody

That looks really nutty.

:)

--Dan
Mach V
FastMINI.net

how does that affect scrub radius? lots of extra grip, but did it improve turn-in or hurt it?

That is HOT if your an Auto-Xer!!! I like that little badge that is just under the Cooper S!
Thanks for the pics!

The change in scrub radius doesn't seem to be a problem. Turn-in is great. Most of the extra width is inboard of the hub so the centerline of the contact patch isn't much further out than before.

We'll see how my wheel bearings survive...

I wonder if that combo would work on an R56 S? That had JCW brakes on it, right?

Yes, I have the JCW brakes on it. Fits fine. Amazingly they clear over Fritz's Wilwoods! We swapped a wheel and there were no problems (other than the fender rubbing). You shouldn't have any trouble fitting these on an R56 if you're willing to modify the fenders. :)

First off, oh good lord that's a killer auto-x tire setup!! :thumbsup:

Second, and if you don't mind me asking, about how much did those Bogart wheels cost? I might be seriously considering this for next season.

I'll jump onboard, too. Are you willing to share your measurements for the wheels? You said there was " a lot" of fender cutting, yet the arches don't appear to be too radical. How are the cuts made?

Thanks,

Gene

look a bit closer....much of the arch isnt even there anymore :wink: On the stock arches, the plastic flares outwards and then has a vertical downward lip. That has been cutoff completely.

Great job.

On closer inspection the wheel arch plastic is heavily reworked- very nicely done and you have painted plastic arches as well.

Did you have to cut any metal or was it only plastic?
Do you have pictures of your MINI with street tires on?
Do you need spacers front or rear if so how much?
Do you get much wheel spin?
We know the cornering is great, what about straight line braking and acceleration?
Any more or less torque steer?

I'd think that a wider fender kit would look good for the 15x10 rims but not so good if you went back to stock rims. If you had street rims of 18x8 then it might be OK with a 235mm wide tire.

Do you think a 15x9.5 rim would work just as well. From the pictures it seems that your rim is wider than the tire- risks damage to the rim lip.

Such a cool looking ride....first I've seen that actually looks like some of the tee-shirt renderings and such that are drawn up all buff and such!

Wow that's awesome! Congrats on the MEGA-wide tire, and it's awesome it's only 22.6" diameter!!!

Hi guys,

Thanks for the comments. I definitely had to do some serious cutting on the fenders. The metal under the plastic flares was cut about 3/8", up to the point where the inner and outer fender walls were welded together. I didn't cut above the weld since that would expose the inside and I'd have to re-weld it, so I cut just up to the weld. Cutting the plastic flares was easy, and in fact I've had to cut it several times. It took a while to find out how much to cut, and was complicated by finding the right set of spring rates for the car (each spring rate changed how much "bounce" I'd get, sometimes cutting into the tire).

Anyway, It's all good now and we're off to the SCCA Nationals next week. Hopefully with these tires we can beat at least some of the BMWs :)

One other note... I've also run 245/35-18 tires on a 18x7.5" rim with not problems. The gear ratio was a bit tall, though.

Good luck and take lots of pictures for us.:thumbsup: