Has anyone felt the evidence of this legitimately working, and working well? I've only encountered evidence of it not working that will (spinning on corner exit) and that is with a base Cooper (120lbft). Can only imagine it's worse for the Cooper S's. Obviously I'll be smoother with the throttle moving forward, but was hoping for a little more help on that front.

 

The only evidence I had of it working on the base was when I went over a bump on one side. When the weight came back down on the wheel the brakes were still applied and the car tugged to that side the same as if I had hit a deep puddle on that side. I constantly wished I could turn it off to see if it had an actual effect on times.

The third gens (optional on base) and BMWs have the performance control anti-understeer softwear in addition to the EDLC. It may or may not help rotate the car on corner entry. There is a momentary increase in engine torque to keep the speed up.

 

i see.. im still spinning tires..

 

I never spun the tires with the Dunlop Star Spec I's, and I was mashing the throttle out of every corner. But, I had the factory sport suspension which was the most neutral handling setup I ever had. Mark Allen, who had finished fifth in DS at Nationals that year and Roadtire frontwheeldrive the following year, nearly spun my car at the exit of the first turn. He adopted quickly though and beat my time conclusively. He was running Conti DW in the dry and was considerably slower with the JCW suspension on his car. He felt my car would have been competitive at Nationals, but maybe he was just being nice.

Maybe your setup can be better balanced to rotate more before corner exit? Or you could try throwing it through the apex and then powering out. Mine scrubbed speed nicely. Another local quick driver, Alan Jung, thought my car was "awesome right out of the box."

Have you moved on to RE71r's?

 

yeah I'm on re71rs, and I did spin wheels in a specific scenario. I've done almost all I can aside from adding toe to get the car to rotate. it's pretty darn neutral as is.

 

Kyoo - what brake pads are you using?

I can't say that the eDLC is worth the hype that BMW gives it. It presents a problem with accelerated brake wear on the bigger rear wheel drive cars they put it in. With my stock brakes, it seemed to be "so-so" for autoX and track. But I ran really grippy race pads which I think helped. You might want to try something like the Carbotec AX6 which is specifically made for autocross use. Or even their race pads like the XP10, which I was using when I had the stock brakes on the car.

 

hsautocrosser - I am glad to hear your assessment of the optional sports. When I drove my MINI out of the dealer's lot when I bought it, I knew with the first turn this is a great setup.

However, this setup flies totally in the face of the conventional wisdom for making the MINI handle better. First off, it has a larger front as well as a larger rear sway bar. Who would put a larger front sway bar to make a MINI handle better? BMW and it works!

Kyoo - Sorry, I don't remember what you have done to your car's suspension, so this is a bit generalized. Part of the handling difference between the sports suspension and the stock suspension is that the front doesn't dive as much to the outside corner of the car when the car is turned into a corner. This gives the car great initial turn in and having the car flatter in front should result in better grip on that inside front tire. This is part of why the car with the sports suspension is "balanced" so nicely. This actually improved greatly when I went to an even stiffer front sway bar along with the bigger rear bar.

I have read about people who state that the MINI can't be spun and how, even with an experienced instructor at the wheel, it could not be made to spin on a skid pad. I have read these reports and wondered why I have had the car spin several times for me. I wondered if it may not be the car, but the driver. Randy Posbt wrote in interesting article in the SCCA magazine a month or 2 ago about why he likes a car that understeers a bit. If you turn-in and have the gas on before the apex of the turn, the car is going to understeer and not rotate. For a car that inherently understeers, trailbraking into a turn will give the front more grip and lighten up the back which will help it to rotate. If you are not braking into a corner, such as a long sweeper, be go a little faster at the turn-in point and then lift off the throttle. If you are going fast enough and do this, the car will spin. This is likely what Mark Allen did (I am guessing here, so hsautocrosser feel free to correct me if you know something different)

I offer this just as a thought to think about.

 

Mark "bobbled" a bit because the turnin rate was different from his JCW with large aftermarket bar r-comp friendly setup and he had to correct the direction the car was exiting. He adapted immediately, so I'd chalk it up to surprise, and yeah, he may well have lifted to correct the line.

This reminds me of my very first autocross in a 525i. I was pushing badly around a 180 turn and was determined not to lift, but the push just got worse and worse until I finally lifted completely. You'd think the car thought I had asked it to dance on its head.

It was supposedly Emerson Fittipaldi who observed that rookies go too slow in the fast parts and too fast in the slow parts.

It's beginning to show that I am just a bench racer these days.

 

Someone also told me that making a car go fast is about managing the weight. Braking moves the weight forward, acceleration moves the weight back, etc. I started with the optional sport suspension and then added mild camber plates. From there added larger front and rear sway bars and a LSD. All of these have affected how I move the weight around. With the larger front and rear sway bars I have really noticed that I have much less ability to move that weight around than I did with the sports suspension parts. While the car is very stable, it takes a different technique to do things well. Part of making a car go fast is learning how to make best use of what you have.

I recently was chagrined to find out that a guy with a pure stock MINI Cooper was as quick as I was (before sway bars and lsd) around a track that we both frequent. He has a lot more experience than I do and has obviously figured out how to extract more out of his car than I can out of mine. The point being I still have a lot to learn as the S should be faster than a non-S, especially on a HP track.

 

sorry I dropped the ball on this thread -


I'm full HS prep - "JCW" suspension, Fatcat bilstein shocks, bumpstops, and hsport 25.5 RSB. I did notice again that I spin on corner exit when the car is leaning pretty bad, but I think that is driver error - I'm getting on the gas too early and expecting the low power + braking elsd to prevent the car from doing a one tire fire - guess not.


I spin once an event in the mini - usually on the first run when the tires are cold. I will be doing a little more suspension tuning at some point in the year, hopefully I can sort the car out a little better.

 

Hey Kyoo, it sounds like you can get the car to rotate nicely; just need cold tires...

What setting do you have the rear sway bar on? Are the shocks adjustable? And what brake pads are you using?

 

i'll direct you here

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ng-thread.html

 

Kyoo - to get back on topic, sorry for the tangent, but about the eLSD...
I did a investigation into how it works when I put the Wilwoods on and was wearing out brake pads in a day, cracking rotors and dragging tires around corners and wear those out too. I didn't find much on the design but I did find that there was a software upgrade for the JCW brakes (I know, where is he going with this? Hang with me...). From there - and cutting to the chase - I concluded that the system doesn't work the way you would think. You would think that it would look at the left to right tire rotation and steering angle and apply enough pressure on the brake on the inside wheel to keep it from spinning too much. I don't think it works that way. I believe it works on an algorithm that cause the ABS system to displace a prescribed amount of brake fluid to create an assumed amount of pressure. With this system you can affect how much "grip" it has on the rotor, including by changing pads.

This is a bit of a long winded way of saying, replace the stock brake pads with something with more bite. My top suggestion would be the Carbotech AX6s (I would autoX with the XP10 race pads and loved them). From there you could try the Hawk DTC30/STREET-RACE pad or drop down to the Hawk HP+ - both of these have great low temp grip with the DTC30 being better. See:
http://www.hawkperformance.com/compound-graph

 

interesting - I actually didn't follow 100% what you're saying about the elsd?


less so it's specifically detecting slippage and braking a wheel, vs a more passive light braking?

 

I think it is a combination of both. At first it detects slip and applies the brake. After that it seems that it no longer looks at slip. It just keeps the brake applied. I believe this, because of the way it burned out my brakes. If it continued to look at slip, it would have known to release the brake when my one wheel was being over braked. I think at that point the brake is applied the algorithm takes over not knowing that something had changed (in my case a different caliper but "it" thinks the stock caliper is there and applies too much brake). If you change pads to something with more grip, it doesn't know that and that should help with the wheel slip you are getting.

 

interesting. I may have to switch to aftermarket pads soon enough.

 

They are soooo much better for just plain braking, too