Yes I know this is the R53 section and that some moderator will come along and most likely move the thread, but, there are questions that only you that have not upgraded to open top driving can answer.

What is the coil wire thickness for your front and back coil and then how many coils do each have?

We R52 owners are the VIPs here, wow this might warrant a timeout for me but it is true, however the Vert is heavier in the back and that does cause issues with springs. Way Motors tipped me off to this issue back when I figured I could buy his TSW lowering springs as they drop the car 3/4" and for me that is what i was looking for. "Sorry Charlie Tuna" but those will not work he told me. So I have been doing allot of research. I pulled up some web pages that provide the engineering formula for calculating spring rates and what I got was approximately 360 lbs for the front and 383 lbs for back.

Now those numbers are much higher than anything I have found here and hence the thread. The front struts on the R52 has 3.5 coils and is approximately 14 MM thick. The back has 6 coils and is approximately 12 MM thick. The formula I used is in the link below. I suspect that the R53 rear coil is something like 10 MM thick.

The second question for this thread is whether the MINI coils are tangential, something that from what I have read is true. If this is correct, then the MINI springs can be cut, yes folks this can and is done in the world, which for R52 provides some different avenues for lowering. For cutting a spring, the rule of thumb is that if you want to lower 3/4" you remove 3/8". Cutting also increases the spring rate, which the formula below can be used to calculate. There is matter of coil bind and perhaps we have some racers here that will chime in.

http://www.bluecoilspring.com/rate.htm

If this has been addressed someplace here in the 85,000 some odd Gen1 threads here on NAM, please humor this old coot that have a flip phone and does not use an apple but only eats one.

 

If my thoughts are somewhat correct the heavier r52 springs may be an inexpensive lowering for a R53 with a stiffer spring rate as used springs are pretty cheap.