Just got SXEMINI-2 back from the shop with her new H&R lowering springs installed. I also added a chrome grille from the MC (modified for extra cooling) and I added custom grille work and the front splitter and rear spoiler with grille work.

 

very nice, i love the grill, whered you get it the scoop piece, grill, and back piece?

 

Dead sexy!!!

 

You get that much wheel gap with springs installed? Or are those the before pics? That looks to be like 4-5 fingers of gap. Are you running super small tires

 

where'd u get ur front n rear splitters? looks good.

 

pretty sure the springs are installed
pretty sure those are 17"

the r56 is VERY high up compared to the r53...itll take a lot of work to get the stance and high [or lowness] that the r53 had.

 

You can tell the R56 is lowered in the 3rd pic down, check out the camber


I must say that now that its lowered and you've added that mesh, the car looks alot better with the splitters, it ties in nicely, good job

 

Atleast it means you dont have to worry about losing the cool diffusers Looks as though coilovers are a must for the lowered look on the 56's...bummer

 

How much did the labor cost to have the H&Rs installed?

 

$225 for me which included a realignment.

 

Wow. I Love the way the custom grille looks against the silver of your MINI. It really looks all tied together.

 

I think you have small fingers

Looks great Per!

 

That looks great! In my opinion, that's what the R56 ride height should have been in the first place.

For the record, how much ground clearance do you have from the splitter? I'm on my second lower bumper trim piece on my lowered R53.

 

As you can see the gap is only 1 finger (at least it's not the middle one ). The H&R lowering springs drop the stock ride hight 1.4" front and back. BTW: My splitter clearance on the front is only 3 3/4" so I have to be very cautious over speed bumps and driveway inclines. I don't think anyone would want a front clearance of less than that

 

Sorry for the double post. BTW: I just added some small chromed driving lights. They do not block any of the lower grille in terms of cooling, which is a concern on the R56 Turbo

 

Looks PER~ fect... Lookinf forward to see it in person soooooon!

 

Looks excellent!! Any trouble with the spring / strut match? Is the rebound ok? Ride ok?

 

Thanks for the positive feedback. We are also looking forward to seeing your ride soon.

BTW: No problems with the H&R lowering springs to report I am contemplating painting the wheel arches in pure silver for my next mod. You know what they say, "you are only as good as your next mod "

 

Looks terrific!

What did you do with the Hellas you had on there? I liked those, too.

 

Very nice. Now is that a stock 2007MC(non-S) grille you installed? I like the look.

 

Yes it is a stock 07 MC chrome grille. It is not a direct swap as the MC grille has no cooling openings on the top two slats, so I had to open up the grille for better cooling on my MCS. You also have to trim a few tabs to get it to fit and you need to order the bottom chrome piece and slightly modify it to fit. I do think it looks good with the pure silver color

BTW: I still have the Hellas, but felt it would cover up too much of the new chrome grille so I installed two small driving lights in the lower grille.

 

That looks awesome Color, shape, lights everything.
I know I would lose the lower piece in about a week though.

 

You said the silver mesh lower pieces were custom. Do you mean you had someone cut them and intall them front and rear? They really look nice. Much better than the black plastic honeycomb OEM pieces. The splitters may be too low for me though. Nice mod you did there.

 

hi 1sxe-mini love the look of your mini. if you don't mind telling where did you get the custom grills from?

 

I got the raw material for the custom grilles from grilleguy.com (Also found on ebay) http://www.marketworks.com/StoreFron...=56674&c=40879

It is easily cut with a metal shears. One note is that if you want to go this route and do it right you will have to cut all of the plastic tabs that hold in the OEM grilles as you can not get a good flush fit without this modification. This means that you will not be able to go back to the OEM look without considering this. I used chrome door trim from my local auto parts store to go around the grille openings to give it a clean finished fit and look after trimming all of the OEM mounting tabs. If you have any questions fell free to contact or PM me.