In the 1980s I auto crossed a 911 Carrera and the torsion bar suspension allowed for lowering and corner balancing while keeping the spring rates the same. The result of moderately lowering the car resulted in a very noticible improvement in handling without any loss in ride comfort.
I notice that many on this site lower their cars. Is it possible to buy lowering springs and have the benefits of a lower center of gravity without damaging the ride of my JCW? ( I have the standard sports suspension).

 

I can only speak for the JCW Pro kit which I installed and set to about 1cm below (my stock) ride height. The ride quality -to- improved handling ratio was worth it for me. I later upgraded to Eibach F/R sway bars as well. The sway bars flattened the car more with the only drawback being bump/skip steer (New England frost heaves/speed bumps in corners). Good luck and congrad's with your new ride!

 

Thanks for the reply. My car is and will be a daily driver and not a track car. It sounds to me that the lowering springs without the new sway bars would be the way to go. When I mentioned the old 911. I probably didn't
mention that the ride was not stiffened by the lowering. My first MINI (an '08 with sports suspension and 17" runflats) had handling similar to your car after adding the stiffer sway bars. That would be going too far for me.

 

I think anything lower is also going to be stiffer. There is so little travel on these cars, you'd be on the bump stops constantly if springs were no stiffer.

You could try just springs at relatively little expense. I had NM springs on my S w/ the factory Sport Suspension option (same as yours I believe). It got stiffer, but not drastically. I am currently on KW Street Comfort, which I believe are very similar to the JCW Pro kit, except these have adjustable dampening. They are firmer than the NM springs w/ SS dampers, but the ride seems... better. More controlled. I never hit the bump stops, which I did over big bumps with the NM- always a bit unnerving.

Last thing I'd say is indeed avoid going big with sway bars if you want to keep a mild ride. NM or VIP rear bar should be fine, but no Eibach of H&R if you want a mild ride.

HTH!

 

It's too bad. It seems thatt this goes back to bumper heights and pedestrian protection. I probably can't lower the car without going to stiffer springs, BY DESIGN. I am just going to enjoy my car and forget the suspension mod stuff.

 

dpcompt, if the Eibach Pro's for your Mini are progressive rate, the street ride quality shouldn't be sacrificed much, if at all. During the first 3/4" of suspension travel, the spring rate will be similar to stock rate, while it will then raise up to the max rate at full compression. I run Pro springs on my 'toy' and can say that the street ride quality is actually very good, while they also do nicely at the track when I start to 'push' things. I actually feel that the Pro's give a better highway ride quality than the stockers as well. Now, keep in mind this is my impression on a completely different vehicle, but I would have to think Eibach would be following a similar quality comparison across applications for their Pro line. I would suggest giving Eibach's tech line a call and have a chat with them, their folks seem to have some pretty good knowledge of the product and may even have someone on staff with the same/similar Mini.