Hi NAM,

I’ve read some folks remove their brake shield for more cooling on their tracked Minis and that there’s no real downsides aside from more dust and rocks getting in the brakes/suspension. Can the same be said about removing and not reinstalling the front fender liners?

 

Don't use fender liners on the R53 race car front or rear - plastic is flammable. Never had an issue, even in heavy rain much to my surprise.

 

Thanks for the response, Alan. Will be removing them now together with the brake dust shields when I install my new shocks. Thanks again.

 

I run my R53 on the street with no front fender liners. No issues so far but I also don't voluntarily drive it in the rain.

 

Just MHO, if you are truly configuring a race car to do nothing but race, I concur but, if you're going to do HPDE's and still drive on public roads, I think you'd be best served by leaving the liners in place. You're not going to save much weight but, over time, you're going to incur a lot of dirt and moisture in the engine compartment. Not a good thing for electronics.

 

Yes. Only for HPDE and almost will never be driven in the rain, it rarely rains here in California. No, I will not race, car is just a track car and I don’t even have racing license.

Do you still think I should keep them on? Will removing them help with cooling the brakes and tires? Or not really? If not, I’ll keep them on but good to know that they can be removed with not much downsides especially since I see a lot of Minis without them.

 

If you do remove the wheel liners, I'll be curious on your before and after impressions. I mostly daily my car, but occasionally take it to the track. I'm have small brake ducts, and I'm currently rebuilding a set of R56 front calipers in my quest to fight brake fade (in addition to fresh motul 600 fluid, and hawk DTC-60 pads). If I still have brake fade problems, removing the fender liners is on my list of possible things to try next.

 

For track use think about removing your fog lights and using the opening to route air to your brake rotors via flexible tubing -- should be an easy build.

 

Actually, I wanted to remove and not reinstall due to laziness. I was thinking it would make it easier to inspect tires and brakes. As for brake fade, i also have brake fade on my r56 with ebc yellows and fresh fluid. I’m hoping carbotech xp10 and rbf600 will fix that.

 

i was thinking of doing something like what i saw on the forum before where they routed the duct from the bottom and directed it to the caliper rotor area. I read that removing the fog lights for a brake duct does not provide enough air to make a difference due to the length air needs to travel.

i’m thinking of using pvc so inside is smooth and follow the crash tube line so it is as short as possible something like below. Picture is not from me. Picture is from this thread.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...rototypes.html
.

 

I have a somewhat similar setup.



My inlets attach to the lower control arm instead of the bumper though.

i was using ebc yellows as well. They’re the best pads I’ve used so far, but I think that speaks more to the limited number of track(ish) pads I’ve tried than their performance.

I was thinking you’d already done some time with the fender liners in, but I don’t blame you for not wanting to mess with installing and removing them. I have found that you can get 50 of the plastic rivers that are used to hold it in for about $10 on Amazon, which makes it much easier to deal with them when they strip or won’t come out.

I’d like to leave mine in since my car is mostly a daily and I do think that the help keep the engine bay cleaner, but I’m not opposed to pulling them for a track day if it helps with brake fade.