I think that type of fender would be really tight, running those with slightly pulled fenders would allow for some crazy tucking clearance and the ability to pull off some 10" if not 11's in the rear....
I've never been a fan of the extreme wide body kits, the mini is already so round it would make it look way to swollen in my opinion. I'd really like to see a nice subtle yet wide kit made for our rides since everything available is totally butt ugly!!

 

Looking good BTT, can't wait to see it in person.

 

Not really a fan of that kit to be honest, the rear bumper is a bit to hectic for my taste..... What needs to be made for the Convert. Is a hard top cap roof similar to the miata or the S2000, that would be awesome! It would have to come with a different boot as well that would almost lock in place using the original latch points and have some brackets at the top to latch the roof. I don't know why I've just had that on the brain lately...

 

Now that is sick Rally...I just could not envision extending the arches themselves and having them look right...I know that these are normal G60s...I will check out your thread on MlU

 

Hey Rally, I checked out some of your threads, but I was not sure if I found the right ones...could you give me a link to exactly what you were talking about...Thanks

 

It'll be easier to just post pics and walk through it here and explain how it relates to custom arches.

First pic shows the raw ABS material in its original form. (Square on the left )

You can easily shape the piece to the curve desired with a heat gun and some bending. Comparison of bent piece versus the flat piece prior to heat.



I then used this great stuff called fusor. It's a plastic adhesive often used by body shops for bumper repairs etc. It's incredibly strong and once it has hardened, the two pieces of plastic have been melded together chemically. No chance of cracking along the seam or anything.



I know that's not an arch.....but It just shows what you can do with fusor and some raw ABS sheets. I think it would be pretty easy (I may try it soon and let you know.) to do it yourself. You just cut the arch in half so that you have the outer lip and the inner mounting lip separated (much like the metal arches on the jetta)....you spread them apart and place a long curved strip of ABS between them and meld them together. You'd be able to gauge the width etc and it'd be pretty strong as well.

the only issue I see is how to finish them. I don't really like the idea of bodycolor arches on my brown car.....and I'm not sure how you would achieve the OEM texture. They sell textured ABS sheets that you could use, but I'm not sure the texture would hold up to the shaping or sanding and the seams would still be untextured.

 

Here's what I mean. Blue represents the metal body of the car....the gray obviously being a cross section of the arch.

From left to right, top to bottom.

Image 1: Cut the arch on the Pink lines.
Image 2: Determine how much you want to widen the arch.
Image 3: Cut a strip of ABS plastic that width and bend it along the curve of the arch. This will take some time to get the curve right. May need to cut the ABS strip into a few smaller pieces so it's easier to handle. Pink arrows indicate where the Fusor would be needed.
Image 4: The proposed final result.

 

In the example above, would the metal body of the car and the arch attachment clip get in the way of running a wider tire?

 

paint the new flares with truck bed liner type material, textured matte finish, similar to oem, easy to apply with little prep work

 

To get around the texture problem what about going with a flat or satin paint. Sport Compact Car's recent WRX project car sported a satin black paint job that was outstanding. The MINI's OEM texture is really only visible at close inspection. The main contrast is the change from shiny paint to satin plastic. Seems to me that skipping the texture and just going with the satin would achieve the same effect and give it a subtle change on close inspection.

 

Depending on how low you are, yes. Even with stretched tires, I was clearing the arches just fine but because I was so low I started rubbing on that metal. I took a rubber mallet to it but some people running 9's have successfully taken fender pullers to that metal lip. I guess it could be cut up a decent amount as well.

Yah, definitely a possibility. MINIusa even offers a paint to match the other parts when they were painting the R53 aero skirts. No texture, but it was the same flat look. To get it to match everything else, you'd have to sand down all the arches, lips, and skirts and spray them all at once. A good solution....though I'd still love molded texture parts from a vendor. That'd be amazing

 

Thanks Rally I just found my winter break project

 

Since most of us are looking at this with lowering in mind, what about using a heat gun to push out the bend angles? The trade off is the loss in the arch height but at the same time your lowering the car via suspension. It would get tricky with the curves tho.

 

along these lines....a spacer would probably be the easiest to do



one issue is that for those with the aero kit, there's no way to blend the new shape in since the front fender is part of the bumper.

 

Yah, that spacer is another idea I've been tossing around. It seems like that would also be the easiest to produce for a vendor.....while being harder to produce for the DIYer.

And yah, the aero kit owners would be better off with the first technique I posted. The Aero kit is plastic so you could still use the plastic adhesive and cut method. Although, it would take a bit more guts because you're cutting apart a $500 bumper rather than a $15 plastic arch

 

hey chris,

found this on the web today...MHW KIT1 wide flares..set you back $1,200.00 but very nice and mean looking too.

http://www.carshine.com.au/index.htm...%20Styling.htm

 

I've wanted wide flares for quite some time: here's what I was hoping to find somewhere in the aftermarket.

Wide fender flares, similar to those of the VW's crowd pulled out one or two inches in the factory matte finish that seamlessly flows into the front bumper and rear bumper.

Anyone ever pulled one of these off? It looks like they're just on there with some kind of body screws (plastic, I suspect). Seems easy enough to make using the measurements and materials of the stock pieces!!

 

Note that it only fits on the Cooper bumpers. Some people have fit them to MCS bumpers but it takes some complicated modding. They used to sell them here in the states for a little over 1k but stopped for some reason.

 

I've thought about this too and will probably give it a try. I like my wheels to poke a little so I think making the arches too wide isn't the right path for me. Slightly pulling the outer lip would definitely help with my clearance though

I've got a spare arch because my clubman had some minor scratches on the plastic when it was delivered. They let me keep the damaged one so I'm gonna toy around with it.

 

that's a shame..they really look nice though. oh well..I tried to help out.

 

BTT thanks for the pic, but now after talking to Rally, I really want to take on this project myself

 

Moss used to sell those cooper only wide arches a couple of years ago. Here's a couple of pictures of someone taking those cooper only wide arches and modding them to fit the cooper S aero kit. The owner of this black convertible "Johnny" owns a mechanic shop in San Pedro http://www.westcoastmini.com so he's in the trade. I don't know him well but asked him about it and he said that it was too much fuss and probably not enough ROI to commercialize such a product. He runs 255 tires with those arches and it looks great. Anyway its the POC and an excellent example of whats being asked for here.

 

Hey could you find out how much wider those are compared to stock?
I think that I may go .5" wider than his

 

Those were always advertised as being a 1" increase.....but some people measured them to be slightly more.

 

That's exactly what I had in mind- like on the black cabrio above... wide like that, but still stock looking... I'd like mine unpainted.

What we need to do is start a thread asking for any interest in the matter by vendors and members- kind of like a petition!