Yes

Here is a good thread about shocks for a MINI Cooper:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...fsd-vs-b4.html

Lot of good info in it.

Use Koni Yellows on my track, autoX and Dragon Slaying R50 Justa. They are awesome! Love the ability to dial in just the right amount of oversteer for any race condition......now, they are a little stiff for daily street use according to my wife, even with all Konis set to full soft and wheel/tires switched to all season ones. But she understands what this MINI is all about.

Heard great things about the other Koni lines for street and fast street use.

Which are harsher on a 2nd gen MINI,
with stock springs, Bilstein B6 (HD) or
Koni Yellows set 1/4 to 1/2 turn from full soft?

As long as you are doing shocks, these are far better than a rear sway bar:
https://www.waymotorworks.com/irelan...5-r56-r57.html

MINIs have 0 to -0.3 camber in the front. An RSB won’t help to improve that and in hard cornering you will still scrub the front tires. MINIs are in much greater need of front camber than they are a RSB. The camber plates in general require the shocks to be removed and given that you are already changing the shocks this is the prime time to add these. You may find with the camber plates that you forgo the RSB.

Oh, I had read on the forum about adjusting the camber on the front wheels but I didn’t know that it was a more important upgrade than a RSB. Even after getting the parts on the link should I still get a RSB down the line

The “free” camber change gives about -0.3 deg of camber for a total of -0.3 to -0.6, depending on how the factory built your car. Even with this small change you will notice an increase in sharpness of your turn-in into a corner. With the IE camber plates youwill end up with -1.2 to -1.5 deg camber, which is about the same as Gen II GP2 came with from the factory. As I said, the camber plates are something that is easy to do now, when you have the shocks out. Not so easy to do later.

Also, be very careful when removing and re-installing the bottom bolt for the rear shocks. MINI uses a self-tapping bolt for this and if it is cross-threaded upon re-installing it, you can strip out the threads in the aluminum trailing arm. You will need to have both sides of the car jacked up so both sides of the suspension hang free, align the bottom of the shock in recess in the trailing arm and hand thread the bolt into trailing arm. This is a 14mm bolt, same as the wheel bolts. The wheel bolts are torqued to ~100 ft-lbs, which is what I used for the bottom bolt of shock.

Thanks for all the information but I will be having a local shop do the installation for me since I lack the proper tools to do itit myself , I may just have to do the “free” camber adjustment since I may not be able to squeeze it into my budget (and what I mean by budget I mean my wife, lol).

It should be only the cost of the camber plates. There should be no additional labor cost as that all has to be disassembled and re-assembled to put the front struts in. It shouldn’t make any difference if they put the MINI strut support back in or the IE plate.

As for the local shop doing the work, if they are a shop familiar with late model BMWs they should be awar of the issue I posted about. However, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to them about my post.

Ordered the fixed camber plates last night, really looking forward to the new suspension, the car already handles great so I’m sure I will be extremely happy with the upgrade.

:thumbsup:

How much negative camber do the rear wheels have on the 2012 mcs

The rear camber is adjustable on the MINI. I believe the stock setting is -2.0 deg. I would leave it at the factory setting. I have those same camber plates up front which gives me a total of -1.5 deg (camberplates are -1.2 and the “freebie” is -0.3) and have my rear camber at -2.5 deg. This gives me good balance on the track without having to worry about the car wanting to swap ends at a bad time. Also, leave the rear toe at the factory setting. See what you think of the handling with the camberplates before changing the rear.