I had a chance to autocross my new Cooper S with Golden Gate chapter this weekend.

Here are my impressions:

Good stuff
----------
1) Car has lots of power, as in lots and lots of torque and power.
2) Suspension is very good.
3) There is some body roll but better than any stock suspension including my E36 M3
4) Electro-hydraulic steering works well
5) traction control stays off when you turn it off (what a concept)
6) Still no torque steer unless you turn the wheel full lock and hammer the throttle

Bad stuff
---------
1) The run-flat tires (Pirelli 205/45/17) are horrible, no grip
until I lowered the pressures to low 30s.
2) Having an open diff is terrible in this car, the body leans, the inside tire unloads
and you have absolutely no power. I drove the entire course on at most 3/4 throttle. The course
was well designed but it had only one straight section and all high speed sweepers mixed
with nice tight stuff.
3) Could use bigger bars front and rear.
4) Stock exhaust drones somewhat

I think having stickier tires would have made a huge difference in terms of being able to get on the throttle
but the car really really needs a limited-slip diff.

I guess I am going to have to put in a quaife at some point.

Bora

 

Great post Bora

Having been autoxing my S for a year now I agree with you -- The MINI is incredible in stock form, my take on the top 3 things to do are:

Seat Time
Sticky tires and light weight wheels
Add a Quaife

Since adding a quaife reclasses the S to STX (per SCCA rules), you then get to add a stiffer rear bar, camber plates, and of course springs/shocks or coilovers.

I was hooked after my first autocross. A year later I'm heading to Topeka (in 3 days) for the SCCA ProSolo finale and the Solo II national championship. I have no illusions about winning -- all most all of drivers there are really FAST.

I'm going to get more seat time, hang out and talk about cars and racing for 10 days while quenching my thirst with cold crisp beverages.

 

I thought I would tack on to this post.

I've been autocrossing for about 5 years, but this is my first year (and this was my first event) driving a FWD car. I ran in STX at an event yesterday in Louisville. My car is stock except for my new 17x7 Prodrive P1's and Yoko AVS ES100's. (215/45-17's).

First, the yoko's are light years better than the stock run-flats. No comparison. The power was fine, but I had a terrible time getting it to the ground.

We got six runs, and I coned on four of them. I coned on my first three just because I just wasn't used to the way the car reacted to my steering/throttle/brake inputs, and also on the fifth run, because I had figured some things out and came in to a slalom a lot faster than the four runs before. The car has power-on understeer like I've never experienced, especially coming from a Miata and a Z3, both of which were very neutral. I have to try to trail brake a little more and delay throttle application a little longer in the sweepers.

I played with the tire pressures quite a bit, I finally settled for my last two runs on 40 psi front and 44 psi rear. (hot). This kept the fronts from rolling and seemed to get the rear to rotate a bit. I just read on a post below a recommendation to go 4-5 psi lower on the rear than the front, so I'll probably try that at my next event and see what happens.

My mod budget won't afford a limited slip (which the car needs really bad) but I probably will find a way to get springs on it, and I might add a rear bar this winter also.

I'm slightly encouraged, however. I finished fourth of 9 cars in STX, which I don't think is too bad for the first event in the car. I was beaten by 3 WRX's, and I beat a WRX and a few other cars.