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On the subject of brakes.... There are brake pads MORE aggressive than the OEM JCW/GP3 front pads? MINI Part # 31 10 6 889 266
I only get one or two track days to my front OEM pads on the GP3 and 4 track days out of the rears as it is now. My brake pad budget seems to be higher than my tire budget.
I have looked into other brake pads. They don't seem to be as aggressive as the OEM pads. The OEM pads never fade. Just wear out rather quickly. I am not sure I want even more aggressive pads. I don't want to have to change brakes at the track.
Although, the front brake pads are easy to swap out. The rear brake pads are a real pain to change.
Mark Chiles Hershey, PA 2021 MINI JCW GP #999 2019 MINI JCW Orange International Edition (manual) 2013 MINI Cooper (Manual - Winter Car) 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP (6.2L - Manual)
Mark,
Absolutely! There are much better track pads than the stock...
Carbotch makes pads for the F56 JCW; not sure about the GP (is it the same as the JCW as you indicate?), but they will custom make any pad shape if you have a backing plate. Their true race pads, XP10 and above, will be far better than the stock pads and I would expect 5 to 6 days at Watkins Glen, which I consider to be a “brake killer” track. Early on in my days of tracking my MINI I ran Carbotech XP10s. They had a feel similar to the stock pad in that they are very linear; not an on/off switch. Their heat range was from cold to whatever the track could give them. They are more “aggressive” in that their friction coefficient is higher, but that, combined with their linear nature, just makes them more predictable on the track.
The JCW race team uses XP24 race pads. I will be trying the XP12.
For reference, at my last track event at WGI there was a guy with a F56 JCW. That car went through a set of EBC Yellow Stuff (street/track pads) in less than a day. The owner said the stock pads also lasted less than a day. At the time I was running iSweep i4000 race pads. My spare set had 5 WGI days on them. These I gave to the guy to cover his remaining day+ of track driving. He saw no wear on them. The iSweep is a Japanese made race pad that ECS carries. They are a great pad, except I think I am running into over-heating issues with them, which is why I am switching to the Carbotech XP12s.
FWIW - I don’t see any wear on the rear race pads. I leave the rear pads in all the time, until the end of the season. They work fine on the street; no squealing. I do switch the fronts out as they squeal like crazy and I don’t want to wear out the front rotor.
njaremka - really good point about alignment. But not sure where to find this “know-all” person. But it might be worth looking for that person.
It might be worth it to learn how to do your own alignments, too. Would save money from having to pay a shop, and you could try out different settings more often to find out what they do to the handling. And really, Minis really only have a couple adjustments available anyway. Toe on the front axle, and toe and camber on the rear axle.
[QUOTE=mchiles;4600006]I wonder if the "squirrelyness" we are experiencing with the GP3 at sustained 100+ MPH speeds is "Lift" caused by that enormous rear wing.
The wing has quite a bit of surface area. Maybe we are approaching "take-off" speed.
I guess the only way to determine that would be to remove the rear wing.
The rear wing produce 4 kg lift in the Windtunnel at full speed ;-) but does not create drag, 300km/H is possible.
What is the purpose of the wing if it creates any lift? Looks? If anything it seems that a wing should be designed for a little downforce, if anything, and that lift at speed would be a wrong design. 9 lbs of downforce would be better than lift and the drag would be about the same as 9 lbs of lift, so this seems to be an oops on MINIs part.
But it also seems about 9 lbs of lift would be too little to create stability issues. I removed the rear seat from my R56, which is a lot more than 9 lbs, and that didn’t create stability issues. I would suspect side wind buffeting or rubber pickup on the rear tires, which I experience a lot of at WGI, as likely candidates for causing high speed stability. With such a short wheelbase, the MINI would be prone to issues from things like that.
As a test, I wonder if adding the JCW Pro winglet to the edge of the GP wing would be a better test than removing the wing in total to see if there was an improvement in stability. It seems those would cancel out any lift.
if you see the rubber gurney on the GP3, thats like a alignment weight The Normal JCW is even lighter at top speed. The boxed design of the GP3 might build up some longitudinal dynamic stream, but the TC Amerika GP shows how it works nowadays !
You stated that you prefer toe out (-1/32 per side) in the front and zero toe in the rear. This matches what I've read is ideal for a FWD car.
How does the car handle on the interstate? Is it pretty stable with your settings? My alignment is off after lowering it and it is closer to factory specs with toe in front and back. It is kind of twitchy on the interstate. In corners, it is also not as predictable as I would like. I would love to make it more stable on the interstate and more predictable in turns.
What are you planning on doing with the car; autocross, road or track? That will be good for autocross, but not for the track or the road. For autocross the setup is to basically make the car unstable in order to order to make the car respond really quickly to steering inputs. An unstable car is not so great on the road or track. The car will wander with toe out in the front and zero in the rear will tend to make it unstable. You also need to consider what toe out in combination with the Ackerman steering geometry in the front end will do to tire wear and consider the total loss of grip on the inside tire will have on the overall grip of the car. Toe out and the Ackerman steering geometry will likely put more steering angle on the inside wheel/tire than is useful in a turn and this will result in the tire sliding. Sliding mean little traction and a lot of tire wear.
Thanks @Eddie07S I was worried about the stability of toe out front/zero toe rear and you just confirmed that.
I don't have any plans for autocross or track days. The car is only for spirited driving around town with occasional highway use. I have ST coilovers on the car now and I bought SPC rear adjustable camber arms to make the alignment more precise with camber and rear toe. The car isn't slammed either. Most people wouldn't even realize that it has been lowered by looking at it. Oh, I have 15mm spacers on stock 17" wheels.
I daily my Clubman to the turn of 18-20k miles per year. My current alignment is:
Front:
-1.75° Camber each side
1/32” toe in on each side
Rear:
-2.0° camber on each side
1/32” toe in on each side
My tire wear is pretty decent, and the car tracks pretty good on the highway. I get a little bit of tramlining, but I think it’s more a function of my tires that the alignment. My snow tires don’t do it as much as my summer tires. I also have an effective 11mm spacer on each corner. (+45 wheels with 8mm actual spacer, compared to the OEM +48 offset)
Again, the car drives great as a daily, and also hugs the corners really well.
Thanks @Eddie07S I was worried about the stability of toe out front/zero toe rear and you just confirmed that.
I don't have any plans for autocross or track days. The car is only for spirited driving around town with occasional highway use. I have ST coilovers on the car now and I bought SPC rear adjustable camber arms to make the alignment more precise with camber and rear toe. The car isn't slammed either. Most people wouldn't even realize that it has been lowered by looking at it. Oh, I have 15mm spacers on stock 17" wheels.
So what alignment is ideal for daily driving?
What model/Gen MINI do you have? And what are your objectives or expectations from the alignment?
For the track with my F56 JCW I run the stock alignment and that is what I would suggest for you. Stock alignment front and rear, including all of the camber and toe-in MINI calls for in the rear. Boring I know, but MINI did pretty well at setting these cars up. The exception to that is the front camber. It is pathetic. If you are looking to get a noticeable improvement in the sharpness of the turn-in, you need to add camber. About -1.5 deg is great for the street. If you had a Gen 1 or Gen 2 MINI I would suggest the IE fixed camber plates. The Gen 3 MINI is more complex and I don’t know a good suggestion of camberplates for the car.
The other option is tires. A 200 TW tire like the Yokohama A052 or the Falken 660 are good options. But tread wear, ride and noise could be an issue. Or go to a Michelin PS 4S.
My stock Hankooks on my JCW GP3 started showing a crack in the side wall. These tires are pretty new, less than 3000 miles. When they were changing the tire; the side wall literally split open. Thank the Big Guy that didn’t happen on highway; wheel would have been toast. I know many people won’t agree with my choice, but I’m upsizing to an Ultra High Performance All Season tire for street use. Yes, it won’t be as sticky, but I have had great luck with Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Pluses. I had great luck with them on my Alfa Romeo and they were much better than the Michelin Pilot A/S 3+. The only other all season UHP that seemed to have better reviews was a Pirelli for twice the cost. Pictures will follow.
Maybe the Hankooks got too cold? Those tires, as well as other performance tires like those, may split in cold conditions.
I would consider those Hankooks to be overkill for the street. While I wouldn’t take the DWS tires to the track, they would be one of my choices for the street. My JCW runs either the Bridgestone RE71Rs or the Falken 660s on the track and the Conti DW for the street. The DWs improve the street ride and are more than capable for the way I drive.
I look forward to seeing pictures of the damaged OEM Hankook tires. I have seen tire sidewalls of low-profile tires split during mounting/dismounting when the tire changing machine operator doesn't use enough lubricant and forces the tire on/off the wheel and tears the sidewall.
The owners manual for GP3 warns against driving on the Hankook tires in temperatures below 14 ℉/-10 ℃. That can cause the sidewalls to split. Maybe the previous owner of your car did that.
I also heard rumors that the tires on several GP3s had to be replaced after they were driven off the boat in the New Jersey port in sub-zero weather and destroyed the tires. Maybe yours was one of those cars and they didn't replace the tires as they thought they were OK.
Mark Chiles Hershey, PA 2021 MINI JCW GP #999 2019 MINI JCW Orange International Edition (manual) 2013 MINI Cooper (Manual - Winter Car)
So I ended up installing the Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus in 245/35 ZR 18 and had an alignment at Mini of Montgomery by their resident Mini Race Expert. After a long ride home and few days on the back roads; I can say I love the choice! The ride is so much smoother. I probably will never track the car; I just want a car I can push on the streets. I used a tire size pressure calculator to adjust the pressure which recommended a few pounds less PSI for the larger size to match the original load capacity of the originals. The ride has improved significantly. I’m never going to take a corner at track speed and they can run all year round, plus they are wider. They have an AA traction rating and an A heat rating. And they are only 1.5 lbs heavier per tire. I think they are a fantastic choice for a road beast and they are only .7” taller; so only raise the car 1/3 of an inch. They also get the speedometer closer to being correct, only +1mph off at 65mph. I’m sure there are down sides; softer side walls, not as sticky, probably a bit slower, etc… But roads don’t have as good or consistent surfaces as a track anyway and maybe the extra width might add some back to traction and handling. And the extra wide rim protectors’ overhang is a nice safety and appearance bonus. I think these are a great choice for a street tire on the GP.
Last edited by JDTHESHERIFF; 06-04-2023 at 02:41 PM.
09-22-2021, 11:44 AM
