My car has about 80k on it, and I think it's overdue for a suspension swap. I've read a ton of threads on the forum, but I still have some unanswered questions. I have Mini Madness Strut Tower Reinforcement Plates, Front Control Arm Bushings, and Koni FSDs coming in the mail soon. Questions:

1. Should I install everything at once? Mini Madness claims that their strut plates will (eventually) correct mushrooming. Assuming this is true, would it be better to wait until the strut tower plate straightens back out?

2. Are the springs attached to the struts? I found these instructions for installing the Koni FSDs, but it never mentions separating the springs from the struts. Reading through some of the lowered spring threads on here, it looks like they're attached. Basically I want to know if I need a notched out socket I saw in one of the how-to threads (second tool from the right in this picture).

3. Is this feasible to do with one person? My wife can help in a pinch, but I was planning to do the work myself if possible. I'll obviously take it for an alignment afterwards.

I think those are all the questions I have for now, but I'm definitely open to other advice if you have any.

 

Install everything at one time, save yourself time and money.

If you have mushrooming just installed strut plates won't fix it. The problem is the upper strut mounts on the front are bent. You need to replace the upper strut mount. Then also beat the body back down before you reinstall the strut assembly. I personally install the Cravenspeed strut tower defenders when doing this and that will pull the sheet metal back into place.

As for can you do it by yourself, no one on the forum knows, that is up to your mechanical ability.

 

That's not entirely true. Some things require an extra set of hands.

The Koni FSDs came in today, and the rest should be here next week. I'll definitely think about replacing the strut mounts while I'm at it. I don't have a ton of mushrooming, but I'd rather be safe.

When you say to beat the body back down, what are you talking about exactly?

 

Beat the sheet metal under the hood that you see the mushrooming on.

 

When you try to install the strut defenders, you will see just how bad your towers are mushroomed... I used the Craven defenders and at first they would not sit flush on top to the strut tower... I took a 2X4, laid it on top of the tower and beat the crap out of it with a hammer, then re-checked with the strut defenders... Once I got them close enough to get the strut defender bolts started, I was able to pull the towers back into shape when tightening the bolts... Just doing this raised the front of my MINI by 1/2 inch...

 

As described elsewhere, basically take a 2x4 and put it on the strut tower and give it a couple of whacks with a hammer. I did this when installing STDs. At first just tried bolting them on, but it was obvious that the towers were shroomed and the STDs were not sitting flat. Thus out came hammer, and all was well.

 

Yep, same as above. When I got my R53, the passenger side was slightly mushroomed. I couldn't get my STDs on so I took a piece of wood, layed it across the tower and whacked it over and over with a hammer. Now the STD sits flush on.