Looking at some of the pictures of lowered cars how do you guys not rub? Do you guys just drive like a granny all the time and never hit bumps or what? Are you guys just running lots of camber and narrow tires? Just doesn't make sense to me.
Examples:

If you hit a bump in a corner at speed you are going to reck yourself. Hit a bump at speed and it will still be pretty bad.

 

Some people may not like this answer... but whatever the wheel is rubbing on will probably rub away after awhile. Self clearancing

The only place we rub is lightly on fender liners so I don't worry about it. After a few weeks of driving around the fender liners have clearanced and we don't have any issues.

But you definitely have to be careful driving a lowered car. Pothole dodging becomes second nature

 

I ran my CCW's with a 12mm spacer when the offset is +32, making it +20 only because I have the Stoptech BBK. If I hit a dip fast enough on the freeway it would rub the crap outta the plastic fenders and/or pop the fender off from the front bumper, which was the case on one of my trips back down to LA from SF. My front fenders are pretty beat up still because of those wheels and my front fenders need to be repainted because the paint is now chipping and I need entire new fender carpet lining, but everything is fine.

 

Just because you're low, doesnt mean you have to rub. If the spring/damper is set up right, you wont have mucho travel that causes you to rub.

I have my KWv2's set to about the same height of the GP2 that you posted and the only thing that rubs is the front chin spoiler on speed bumps and things.

 

But how do your tires not rub. When you are turning you have about a cm maybe of travel

 

Low is a lifestyle. you learn to live with it pothole avoidance becomes second nature, pissing of traffic as you crawl over railroad tracks becomes regular, you learn witch roads to avoid at all cost and become okay with the fact that the closest 7/11 has a inaccessible driveway.

 

It is all in the details. Wheel specs, tire size/brand, camber, fender trimming. Even with all that sometimes you still rub a little.

Heck for the setup I am currently trying to run I am about to install upper rear adjustable control arms in addition to the lowers I already have. This way by setting the toe adjustment at the front of the trailing arm all the way inboard I can bring toe and camber back in line using just the control arms and gain some fender clearance.

All this for a wheel/tire setup which is only 4mm in offset and a new tire brand (not size) different from what I had for the past two years with no rubbing.

 

Agreed that getting the right offset and having camber plates are key. We run a 7.5" wheel +25 offset, 225 tire, ksport coilovers and are lowered 1.5", and NEVER rub.

 

I think you have found the reason most MINI owners choose not to lower.

 

I have been lowered for about 3.5 years on coilovers. I never had rubbing issues. But I was only using 7.25" wide tread. I recently upgraded to 8" it was rub galore so I had to lift it up a little and now I don't like the ride height. Slammed cars and aggressive driving just don't mix I have found. Talked to some other members who have pretty low cars and run wide tires and track them. They have a lot of camber and trimmed the inner fenders.

 

Lol, just say 205 and 225.

225s and slamed are tough. 215s and slammed are doable.

 

They are actually both 215. But different brands. My winter tires are 215 and the tread with is only 7 inches.

 

Wow thats crazy, you were on winter tires for 3.5 years?

Haha, just kidding. Its crazy what different brands will label as the same size.

 

That's what I've been saying for years!!! Kinda bites when your trying to "tune" everything in, especially if you'd have a set-up working for a while, but then needed to get a new set of tires, and then they go and rub, even though their the same darn normal specs. Should be some kind "standard" they should all kinda have to go off of or something. Just IMO of course. Haven't been fortunate to tackle the MINI yet, but should all be taken care of it all by the end of summer. My experience with coils and wheel/tire setups have been in previous cars thus far.

 

Common misconception. 215 isn't actually the tread width. It is the measurement from sidewall to sidewall

 

Right, but different brands can still vary between that. For example I had toyo proxies 205/45/17 and got Bridgestone something's at 205/45/17 and they rubbed, I mean it was a slight rub, but noticeable. Both ran new at the time too, just wasn't just springs settling or anything like that. I know this is just mm differences, so no real big deal usually, but when your trying to pull off low offsets on minis and not hitting the struts in the rears, sometimes mm's is a big difference. Not that you can't adjust for it, but you get the point of what I was trying to say........

 

I quit rubbing once I got a girlfriend :P


Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

Haha.

 

Yeah I know what you are saying. I figured out the answer to how most people do it. Just more camber. It's what I figured just wanted to know for sure.