Hi everyone! New to the community here. I was just wondering if anyone take their GP2 out to trackday at all? I live in the east coast and am hoping to get some reference laptime for comparison. I have been to Road Atlanta, Carolina Motorsport, Sebring and actually just came back from a day at VIR as well. Will upload some video once I get the editing through. Thanks everyone!

 

Here is the link to the video at VIR last week.


The phone was shaky because the mount was a cheap one from convenience store. Will try to pick up a better one next time. I have a TC Kline custom suspension installed with Toyo R888R tires. Those are the only two differences than a regular JCW GP. I remember I did a 2:18.8 with everything stock last year but did not have a video for that. The suspension alone shaved off almost 4 seconds to a unbelievable 2:15.0 time. Personally I think the stock Kumho is stickier so in theory it should go even faster! Will switch back to the V700 and test it next time

Come on guys! If any of you take your car out to a trackday at all please share!!! I want to know how I am doing. The GP is a fantastic car and everyone should enjoy it at least once or twice on the track!


Cheers!

David

Previous: Mini GP2 #172
Current: Mini GP2 #253

 

Thanks for posting your video, David. Looks fun.

In this video, I'm running a stock GP2 with an H-Comp rear swaybar set soft. Tires are the original sticky Kuhmos . Track is High Plains Raceway in Colorado. It's a fun track with a fair amount of elevation change at the west ent of the track.

 

At Homestead.
My mini has V3 coilovers, 25 mm rear sway bar Carbotech xp10 pads and Hoosier R7. all other stock.

 

I am in SoCal and go to auto club speedway. I posted a 159.5 on shot federal rs-rr. Just picked up a set of Hankook TD. Looking to hit a 158 flat in a few weeks. Ohlins coils, camber plates, sway bars, quake limited slip.

 

Update hit 157.3 at auto club speedway. Hakook td's are amazing! If you can find a set.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi! I just bought a used gp2 yesterday and the suspension is too harsh for our awful roads. I’ve been trying to find info on the ohlins for the gp2 specifically and can’t find anything ! Did you order the standard r56 ohlins for your car? Do you feel the super pointy slightly over steery balance is still there? Or is this suspension tuned more similar to the standard minis balance ?

thanks !

 

I will say, up front, no I don’t have a set of Ohlins on my MINI. They will be my next suspension purchase for my R56. I have several friends who have them and I have worked closely with one friend to setup his Ohlins for the street and the track use.

I would think the Ohlins for a R56 will cover all of the models, including the GP. These are adjustable shocks for both ride height and stiffness. With the stiffness adjustment you can set them for whatever comfort level you want. The stiffness adjustment is from the bottom, so you can set them for the street and then easily reset them for the track, You can also have different stiffness settings front to rear to make the car “more similar to the standard MINI balance” handling wise. To do this you would set the fronts to be stiffer than the rear.

Hope that helps.

 

I just found the cheapest price for the onlins road and track. They are wonderful. I little challenging to adjust. The balance of the car is maintained. I have front camber plates an control arms in the back. I would suggest something similar to be able to adjust camber.

 

Hey, just noticed - First post on NAM. Welcome to the community....

 

I would think that if Babayaga is going to keep the ride height similar to what the stock MINI GP shocks give, and this is just a road car, then he could forgo the camber plates and control arms. The the GP already has -1.5 deg up front, which is a good compromise for the street and the rear has some camber adjustment. Just sayin’ to keep things simple and not saying don’t do them.

 

Hi eddie, thanks for the quick response! Yes for sure I’m ok with the standard go alignment, I’m a rookie driver and I doubt I will need anything more aggressive than the standard go setup. I want the ohlins more for the fast road driving comfort , but without taking anything away from track performance.

Since I know nothing of suspensions, I wondered if the lighter weight of the gp would need lighter springs from the suspension so it’s not oversprung. However since you’ve been around others with this setup and it seems to work good as is I think I’ll just go for it and try not to overthink it too much.

thanks again !

 

The GP 2 is only small percentages lighter than the R56 JCW model, which won’t have a noticeable affect on the springs or vice versa. The fact that the Ohlins are adjustable and the are a high quality shock will make all of the difference in the world. If you know people with these, then you know how good they are. My suggestion would to start with the rear shocks on the softest setting, with the fronts maybe 5 -10 clicks stiffer (based on having 30 clicks) and see how you like the car and how it handles. If the ride is too soft, then stiffen each shock the same number of clicks. Once you get the ride you want, then, if it still has too much oversteer, then stiffen the fronts more. If it pushes (understeer) too much, then soften the fronts. For ride height, measure with your current shocks from the center of the wheel hub, straight up to the bottom edge of the wheel well arch. When you install the Ohlins, this will give a measurement for setting the height on those.

A word of caution and, if you are using a shop, don’t expect them to know this and they need to be informed. The bolt for lower mount of the rear shock is a self-tapping bolt. On reassembly, take extreme care to only hand thread the bolt into the aluminum of the lower control arm. If it gets cross thread using any kind of tool, you can destroy the threads in the lower control arm. This can result in the bolt coming out and the car will drop on the ground. A thin coat of never-seize (Permatax is good, brushed on and wiped uniformly around the bolt) will facilitate the reassembly. Also, IMHO the MINI torque spec for these is way too high. This is likely the value for the initial installation of the bolt into the lower control arm, when it is cutting threads not when there are existing threads. The bolt is the same size as the wheel bolts which are torqued to 102 ft-lbs. In my opinion if that torque is good enough for holding the wheels on, then it should be good enough for the assembly of the shocks. Just my opinion and I am not a designer. But I have seen these stripped out (work done by the MINI dealer) and there is plenty on NAM here about problems people have had with these. The above is the process I have used on my own MINIs.

Hope this helps.

 

Hi Eddie,

Thanks ill try setting it up how you suggested. You think its ok then to keep stock RSB even though springrate will be softer on the new rear springs? Just go stiffer on the clickers to adjust for that ?

And thank you very much for that last bit of info on installation, from my understanding we have no specialized shops or anything of the sort, that are knowledgable on fancy suspension components, their tuning, and probably their specific installation either, so that will be very helpful!

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Babayaga

Hi Eddie,

Are you saying that you know the rear springs on your GP shocks are stiffer than those on the Ohlins rear shocks?

I know that the Ohlins list the spring rates for their shocks and their fronts . I don’t know what the spring rates are for your GP shocks. The spring rates on Ohlins springs are quite quite high and the rates on the front springs are higher than the rears. This is pretty typical for production car setups; aftermarket coilovers can be a different story with some that I have seen having stiffer rear springs than front.

That said, I would keep the stock RSB, at least for now. You can do a lot of tuning with just the shock adjustment. I have had setup discussion with other MINI owners and some tend to like the softer sway bars to keep the side to side independence of wheels. Stiffer bars increase the connection between the left and right wheels and some independence between them will be lost. The RSB is an easy change-out, and doing it later is not a big deal. Also, you may not need to do a 22mm RSB; the 19mm or 20mm bar options may be a better match with the shocks and springs on the Ohlins, depending on where you are at on the shock settings. That is, if you have gone full soft up front and full stiff in the rear on the shock settings and have no further adjustment, but are close to where you want to be then go to a 20mm RSB. That might put you in the middle of the shock settings, whereas a 22mm bar might put you at the other end of one or the shocks, with, again, no further room for adjustment. A 19mm RSB may be what you want if you can make the Ohlins work as-is, but you are close to running out of adjustment and you want a slight change just to move you into the middle of the adjustment range of the shocks.

If/when you change out the RSB, remember start over with the shock setup as I said previously, but maybe start with the fronts 15 to 20 clicks stiffer than the rears. This way, after the new RSB goes in, you won’t swap ends on the car the first time you push it hard in a turn (as a friend of mine did). Adjust for ride, then for under/over steer. Once done getting the rears shocks set and if the fronts are close to full stiff, consider softening both the fronts and rears a little, but the same amount. This will allow the fronts to take on more camber when trail braking into corners. Also, most aftermarket RSBs are adjustable. You can start with the softest or middle setting and see where the shocks wind up at. If that puts the shock setting at something other than the limits, then good. If they are at a limit, then go to a stiffer (or softer) setting on the RSB.

 

From what i have read online the GP2 springs are 400F /400R, where as the Ohlins are about 350R.

I have actually ordered the 19mm bar not the 22mm, it seems like a much more progressive change, im not looking to get the car too far out of factory settings fearing i have more chance of ruining it rather than improving on stock setup if i deviate too much. Anyways 19mm on softest setting is still stiffer than stock and if i had the need i can go 2 settings higher.

I already ordered the bar but its delayed by a month so I will do the tuning like you mentioned on your previous post, might not even install the bar at all if not. If i do i will also follow this post as i hadnt thought about it , and youre right, that if i were to install the bar on a suspension already tuned with a stiffer rear it will probably be way out of balance and oversteer like crazy, good observation.

Thanks!

Thanks for the

 

That is interesting about the GP spring rates. I had heard that the GP could be a bit tail happy and that would explain it.

I think you are smart to take small steps in setting the car up. When I bought my 2012 S I wanted to buy it with the optional JCW sports suspension (red springs), but the dealer talked me out of it. Glad she did. I got the sports suspension, which is the base suspension for the JCW. I went quite a while running with that suspension on the track, before I did any major upgrades. I learned a lot about how to make the car do what I wanted it to do with that setup. It was pretty quick just the way it was. But, being one who can’t leave things alone, I looked into suspension upgrades and decided on the larger front and rear swaybars I now have. My target was to retain the front to rear balance it had as that provided a safe but still fun platform and increase its cornering ability, while retaining the suspension’s overall compliance. I am still running the stock MINI sports suspension springs. It has been a great setup for me and has saved my butt a few times as the car isn’t prone to swapping ends. I would say that my suspension setup is slightly on the understeer side of neutral. But this works well in a MINI as the car likes heavy trail braking into corners and a slight amount of understeer allows for this. If the car is setup for too much oversteer, then trail braking will likely result it it swapping ends as there will be too little traction in the rear.

I would think that the Ohlins will get you pretty close to where you want to be and the 19mm, with its adjustability, is a great option to augment the Ohlins.

Looking forward to hearing how you make out.

The

 

Honestly i have only done 1 track day on the car, 5 total ever, and im not looking for an improvement on track since the cars capabilities are still above my own, my reason for wanting the ohlins is more for the street comfort, without losing track performance and maintining its stock balance. Roads where i live are pretty awful and while its not a daily, i dont want it to be strictly a track only vehicle either, i wanna hit some backroads from time to time without wrecking the thing on a pothole, ohlins seem to be better at this than most stock suspensions. Like you mention with trail braking, i rarely do that or haven't gotten used to it, so thats why i try to keep the stock balance initially as close as possible, since they probably know whats best, and the car is already optimized for track duty.

The tail happiness of these cars, from what i read on this forum and my own experience seems to be a bit of a myth, at least on PS4s. I read one review that mentioned that being the case when the stock Kumhos are cold. This also makes me think that the stock setup might be a bit on the too neutral side of things, as they dont want to throw drivers on cold tires on the street into a hedge. So once warmed up on those tires (or straight out of the garage on PS4s), maybe theres room for a bit of a stiffer bar.

Again i don´t want to deviate too far from stock as there's so many variables, and this car is supposed to be already edgier than stock and more optimized for track duty. Additionally fromw what i've read along the years, it seems that on many cases, people ruin their cars rather than improve upon them when they go mod crazy.

 

I understand.
I too wanted a double duty car. A big reason for me staying with the MINI springs on my S; I didn’t want to kill the ride.

My friend with the Ohlins has a street setting and a track setting, and keeps meticulous notes as to which is which and changes he makes to the settings. These shocks are great for being adjustable on the fly with their bottom adjustment feature. And he is able to make adjustments without having to jack the car up. Interesting, he runs the PS4s too, and really likes them.

I think you will do well with the Ohlins for the street and your bumpy roads. But, remember, they will only be able to do just so much, given the limited wheel travel on the MINI. A thing they do that some other adjustable shocks don’t is change both the compression and rebound as you stiffen or soften the shock; others only stiffen the rebound. This should work to your favor. Likely, you could start with a pretty soft setting on all 4 and, if you find that the compression from bumps bottoms out the suspension, then stiffen it a bit. That should cut down on the compression but not so much that you ruin the ride. You should be able to get to a good compromise.

It sounds like you have studied up quite a bit on the GP. I appreciate the info you have provided and it gives me some perspective for my next upgrade and what I might expect. In particular, knowing the GP spring rates is helpful.

Again, looking forward to hearing how you make out with the Ohlins, canyon carving and maybe a track day or 2...

And as for trail braking, any time you “drag” the brakes into a corner or on-ramp or off-ramp, you are trail braking. It doesn’t have to be at 9 or 10-tenths on a track. Driving at 7-tenths or so is a great way to practice things like this as it allow for understanding what the car does when you do that without worrying about not doing it right. And, enough said...

Enjoy!