Say, you said you had your wheel alignment done. Did you get a copy of the results? If you did, could you post them? If not, do you remember what your front camber was?

 

No I threw it away. Maybe I will go over and have them check again and get the read out.

 

The MINI specs for front and rear camber are not as tight as they used to be. Charlie Thompson posted his, which includes the factor specs.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4451700

This lists the front camber as -1 deg to Zero and the rear as -2.2 to -1.3. On my R56, when I went from -0.3 to -0.6 deg, that was a noticeable change. I would think that almost a 2 deg swing from front to rear could play into you handling issues. I believe the rears are adjustable. I think my R56 the rear is maxed out at -2.5. A simple option you have would be to have them set the rears to the max negative camber the adjustment allows and see if that helps. More negative camber in the rear will lessen the transition to oversteer, which should help.

Front and rear toe-in will also play into this, but I am not sure how much. I know that toe-out in the front makes the car really darty when trying to go straight and the factory specs have toe-in specified for the rear (more rear toe-in should be more stable car handling)

 

interesting phenomenon today. I reset my ECU last night after some coding. (nothing to do with suspension). After the reset I got a warning about a suspension error. I ignored since I was doing a reset and pressed on. Today the car seems much more agile and nimble than before. It could be my imagination, so I will do some driving tonight to see if things are different

 

Did the suspension error go away on its own? Or did you clear it out with the reset?

 

Yes cleared after power cycle

 

I am going to add some Craven speed springs in next couple of weeks so I will keep everyone posted. The car still get a little squirmy in braking, but I have learned to anticipate it. I have noticed that it seems worse if I don't put immediate pressure (slam on the brakes). If I drag the brakes with increasing pressure, things seem to be worse.

I am going with Craven springs due to the fact that they are progressive in the back and linear in the front. I have noticed they seem to be the only ones doing this, most others are progressive all the way around. I am hoping this will stop the nose from diving so much during braking.

 

When you do this, my guess is you are likely dragging the brakes into a corner. However, my guess is that you are also finding that you are going too fast once you turn the steering wheel and hitting the brakes harder. This will cause the car to dramatically transition to oversteer. This is in essence what trailbraking is, but done the wrong way around.

This is actually the correct way to do braking. Watch this video. This is a real lesson in driving. Watch the brake pressure data reading on the lower right of the video. You will see that he straight-line brakes and the data shows that his brake pressure immediately goes to 100%. Then brake pressure drops off as he turns into the corner and brake pressure tapers off from there. This is the truest form of trailbraking:


To put it into perspective as to how fast this guy is going, I turn 2:25ish around this track in my R56 MCS. A fast street car (like my cousin’s M2) will do 2:15ish. A good race car will do a 1:55ish. This guy did a 1:29... Wow!

 

Fairly easy to brake hard like that when you know that the corner is coming. Little harder to do when you are in traffic and come around a a corner to a dead stop. We have a blind corner here that regularly gets backed up with traffic, so you learn to prepare to brake when you come around the corner at highway speed. Sometime there is nothing, sometimes there is. So I usually start slowing down at beginning or corner, then release if clear. Sometimes though you come around the corner and traffic it is a dead stop so you have to go from highway speed to stopped in a fairly short distance.

So normally this is not a problem in my truck or other two cars, nor in my Justa, but in the JCW, if you hit that corner then have to start braking fast, sometimes things get crazy. The JCW will stop very fast when you press hard, but sometimes too fast. If you stop fast like you should you better hope the guy behind you has good brakes as well, Sometimes the JCW brakes to well.

 

Yes, you are correct. Ideal car, driver and conditions.

And you would not want to take that car out into the situation you described as it would want to do the same thing your JCW did to you; likely worse. This is the side affect of reducing a car’s tendency to understeer, as MINI has done with the JCW as compared to the base Cooper and Cooper S. The JCW is not alone in this. There are a number of cars out there (Lotus Elise, BRZs, Vipers, Corvettes for example) that can be made to oversteer (that is, want to swap ends) without much provocation when pushed near to the limits in a corner and then there is an abrupt change made to the car (such as lifting off the gas and/or hitting the brakes). I have seen this out on the track and I know about it because it didn’t end well for them. This is also why your Justa can handle the situation you described better than your JCW; the Justa has a greater tendency to understeer, so it is a lot harder to force it into an oversteer condition. As you say - The Justa doesn’t get crazy. But, on a race track, the JCW will do much better than the Justa, because that is what its suspension setup is more aimed towards. Also, because of this difference in suspension setup, a car like the JCW (or any of those other cars I mentioned) when driven close to the limits has to be driven differently than a Justa or the like.

You are absolutely right about braking and having better braking than the cars around you. The rear view mirrors are a must in that situation. Also, hopefully the cars behind have good brake fluid in their systems that hasn’t absorbed too much water and they don’t loose their brakes when that water boils.

 

So I got the lower springs put on my car this week. The braking issue did get better, but was not eliminated. The back is actually 3/4 higher in back than front now. ( I am being told it will settle). Handling did improve significantly though. Car feels much better at high speeds and around corners. When it gets squirmy now (during braking), does not feel so out of control like before.

 

Great to hear. I just had another alarming heavy braking while cornering issue. I'm convinced it's the ABS kicking in and causing the lateral and braking weight transfers to be inconsistent as can be. Part of me still wants to find an ABS bypass method, but a bigger part of me just wants to get some dinner and watch TV. Also because I enjoy the car and don't really need to be threshold corner-braking all the time. Oh well.

 

Glad they worked for you....

I found a Car and Driver review of the 2019 JCW and this is what they reported:

Here is the article:
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...y-the-numbers/

 

This article speaks by itself...... the 3rd generation got overweight and for the hefty price compared to the competition and weak overall performance, this is very questionable if it's worth to buy one of these if you are in vulnerable situation even on public road because of stability issues.

This is very hard to justify an additional investment of $5K over $42K as tested for better wheels, tires and suspension upgrades without knowing if the car will perform in a satisfactory manner. This become in the territory of negative value for a Mini.

With all these comments and owner's experiences, I don't think there will be a new Mini in my future.

 

Your points are well taken. And, as a person who owns a MINI from each generation, I can understand your reluctance to jump into a later model. It is different. My guess is that your Coupe is a hoot to drive.

But also remember, that is only one side of people’s experiences. There are also several people, including myself, who posted positive experiences with the car. Also, the C and D article is about a car being pushed to its limits on a race track. Not many of us do that on the road. And then there are people like Charlie (posted above); he is one who loves his JCW and does push it hard enough to peel rubber off its tires. No problems. It would only be a wild guess as to why the difference in experiences.

 

So the springs only came at 600 bucks so not a big investment. I am not convinced this is an issue with ALL JCW cars, this may actually be a set of cars with a problem that has not been identified yet. We see bulletins come out all of the time for cars with faulty components. I was hoping that this thread would get the attention of someone at Mini, but based on the new North American Mini staff upset, I think they might have bigger problems. 2020 will be the last iteration of the F series, I hoping the next design will be much more competitive with Honda, VW and other brands. Mini is still an Iconic car, people have never asked me "what kind of car is that".

on another note can someone with a stock JCW measure the height from ground to bottom of the fender, I need this to figure out a spring drop question.

 

I can do that, but a better measurement is the center of the wheel cap to the bottom of the fender. That will eliminate any difference in ride height because of tires, tire size and/or tire pressure.

 

Ok, that works, so far it has only settled 1/2 inch, hoping it will settle the other 3/4 over time, only been on about a week.

 

Ok, that works, so far it has only settled 1/2 inch, hoping it will settle the other 3/4 over time, only been on about a week. Mine currently is 13 in front and 13 3/4 in back from center hub

 

Ugggh
front 14 1/2

Rear 14 1/8

But an inch different?

I actually measured to the bottom of the wheel cap and subtracted 1 1/8”, which is half the diameter of the cap (2 1/4”).

 

thank, you. So like I thought the Craven Speed springs have not settled in the rear like they advertise yet. I think it is sitting too high in the back. Yesterday I put about 100 lbs of lead shot in the trunk. Today I had to break hard and the car was rock solid, I am going to leave it to see if this weight helps the back end from getting squirmy.

 

the Stock S actually sits a little lower, 13 3/4" front and 14" rear

 

Im concerned when someone says springs settle. Properly shot peened, and cycled springs "settle" in 20 miles.
I installed H&Rs a year ago, they were 13 1/2 when installed and today 13 1/4" front and rear , I attribute the 1/4" settling to the
spring seats and assemble setting in.

You might want to check the rear spring seats, that the springs are in the seat's groove, and the nipple is sticking out from the control arm
at the bottom.

 

My S was 14 1/4 front 14 1/2 stock

 

I had a shop install them, but they look correct.One of the Tech at craven says his JCW is almost exactly the same in the back, only 1/2 in drop. I am concerned because I think they got that number from one car (the shop car). I really doubt the will drop another 1/2 to 3/4 inch.